Transformers : Age of Extinction review

Michael Bay, you have brought this upon yourself.



Transformers : AOE (Age of Extinction and get used to the abbreviation because I will be using it a lot) was a CGI dripping mess of a movie with stale actors and a few decent actors that they must have tricked into doing the movie to give it more credibility.  I'm not sure why I went into this movie expecting more than it's predecessors, Dark of the Moon was by far the best of all 3 films at the time. That movie still had it's problems like being stuffed full of so many new characters without so much as a background story (unless you read the back of the toy package or flipped through a comic book) and giving the viewers more of what we still didn't give any fucks about; Sam, his love life and more importantly his awful.....camera mugging parents. Transformers: AOE was a long, painful theater experience that I won't soon forget.

(I will add that I saw this movie for free and I'm very happy that I did. Paying money to see AOE would have meant theater hopping till I felt like I had been reimbursed my ticket price.)

(Yabba Dabba Doo!)

First, this is a near three hour movie and it feels like every minute of three hours. The movie just seems to go on for eternity and for no good reason than to justify the effects team's passion for exploding shit. They also dragged Kelsey Grammer and Stanley Tucci into this movie and their parts are just as memorable as John Malkovich's role in the previous movie. I mean I know they got paid for what they did but you can't tell me that their parts seemed forced, like when you have to do something you don't want to do (for example the Ghostbusters II/ Bill Murray debate). And I finally figured out why the movie is two hours and forty-six minutes, they forgot to put the Dinobots in and slapped another forty-six minutes on the film. The Dinobots barley even feel like they are in the movie and the designs alone make me say, "Those aren't Dinobots, it's Truck-a-saurus from the monster truck rally." I know it's the Michael Bay Universe / "Bay-formers" but it doesn't make it any better, it's deplorable no matter how you explain it.

 

(these are Dino-Bots)

 

(these are not)

I don't want to drone on and on, or at least any further so I'll end it with; Transformers: AOE earned 0 out of 5 stars, two thumbs down, it stinks, Redbox it if you must watch it, wait for the cable tv debut, borrow a friend's copy of the movie, catch it on Video On Demand......I think you get the picture.

The Complicated life of Tom Khayos

The complicated life of Tom Khayos is a collection of writings I'll be releasing in no particular order. It mainly is to explain how I became me and it will always involve toys, comics, video games and other nonsense.

The Complicated life of Tom Khayos

                                         The Ballad of Frankenstein Snake Eyes

To tell you the story of Frankenstein Snake Eyes, I have to give you some background on my life. My knowledge of the toy world wasn't divine intuition, it was cultivated by some key people in my life. My mother and grandmother were very integral in my background as a toy collector and dealer. I would be brought to doll shows as a young child and roam around with them and scout out good finds and when they were set up selling dolls, I could be found under the table taking a nap in between my scouting trips. Both my mother and grandmother taught me how to identify dolls, clothing, accessories and other collectibles as well as know the difference between reproductions and originals. 

But there was three other people who taught me just as much as my immediate family members did, those three I considered close enough that I would call them family. One of those three is my friend Doug, a man who has been buying and selling toys longer than I've been alive. I met Doug formally in my late teens and he helped me refine my skills as a negotiator and helped me become more savvy when tracking down collections to buy and sell. With his help, I learned just about every trick in the book in the toy world and the convention circuit. With the knowledge I gained from him I consider myself one of the most knowledgeable individuals in the collectible toy industry.  

The other two on my short list of honing my skills and cultivating my knowledge of toys and collectibles was my mom’s friends Dena and Helen. Both of them collectors in their own right, I got to know them through their collectibles shop Re-Play Toys. Being young, I looked up to both of them. “This is what I want to do when I grow up!” I thought.Over the years, I grew up hanging around the store pretty much every free moment I had. After school, on the weekends and during the summer I could be found helping out, cleaning, assembling, pricing and selling toys that were brought in and bought by the store. Both ladies were very sweet and treated me very well and I still consider them family to this day and have spent lots of time with them and their families over the years. I learned a lot at the store and still look back fondly at that time in my life. While I may not be doing what I said I wanted to do all those years ago, I’m still involved in the toy world and it probably wouldn't be that way if they hadn't helped fuel my passion for this field.

And the moment this has all been leading to: The story behind Frankenstein Snake Eyes

Recently, Dena had passed away. It was rough on my mother and I, we hadn't had a family member or someone we considered a family member die since my grandmother’s passing in 2003 and Helen and Dena’s father passing in 2005. Dena had a big impact on my life, she encouraged me to learn more about what was sold in the store and always rewarded my hard work both on store projects and school work. I’d sit around the store with my nose in a collectibles book or Toy Shop magazine and use my recently gained knowledge to piece together dozens of GI Joes, Star Wars figures and vehicles and boxes of loose Transformers. I feel it’s important not to mourn someone’s passing but celebrate their life the way they would have wanted to have been remembered so I dedicated a weekend worth of toy hunting at the flea market to her and went for lunch with my mom to Dena’s favorite restaurant, a little Italian restaurant known as Gino’s. The funeral and wake came and went, the family had their moment of grieving behind them and so came the task of cleaning out Dena’s house. 

Re-Play Toys had been closed for nearly 12 years and Dena had decided to take her business online through eBay. I had no idea how business went or even if the title of Re-Play Toys was still being used in any capacity. Dena’s sister Helen still bought and sold toys, collectibles and other nicknacks online but had branched out under her own name online and as I mentioned before I still do conventions and occasionally sell online under my own name but had kind of lost track of what Dena was doing or if she was still involved in the business. I feel kind of bad in a way, like many of you I have grown apart from some of my friends and family.

What was left at her house was distributed among family and friends that it would mean the most to. What I received was something I hadn't seen in nearly over a decade, Frankenstein Snake Eyes. What I received brought back so many good memories, to the average person it just looks like a cobbled together figure just kind of slapped together but to me it’s a prized possession. The kind of thing I’d run into a burning building to save. I felt it needed to be shared in the only way I felt it could be described, a lengthy blog posting involving a bit of my personal history and a kind of a last tribute to a friend/ family member now gone.

No one knows the story behind Frankenstein Snake Eyes. I was under the impression that I had created it out of a pile of leftovers from a GI Joe collection but I found out that I was mistaken. Then I thought possibly Dena had made it during a slow day at the store out of the store’s random pieces box but no one could verify that either. For all I know, Frankie could have showed up this way in a collection but his origin remains a mystery. I had memories of Frankie hanging out at the register at Re-Play Toys and remembering Dena was quite attached to it. People offered money on numerous occasions and even I asked if my day’s work could be paid for with Frankenstein Snake Eyes, but all offers were turned down. No matter wherever it came from, it was very special to her and I felt very honored to inherit this legendary figure. 

The only thing I’d like to do with the figure is make a vehicle and do a throwback package to put it all in. Let’s face it, most of the cool GI Joe figures came as a pack in with the vehicles in the line. The feel I get from the toy is Frankenstein would command a fairly impressive vehicle that looks  like something out of Mad Max, not so much the missiles and machine guns but something with some muscle and armor. Something along the lines of a modified dump truck with a shovel or cow catcher on the front with armored or spiked hub caps. And then package it up in a classic style box, I feel it would be a fitting tribute to the toy.

And here I sit with this epic figure, still admiring it like I did all those years ago. An heirloom piece of local toy history from what I gather. I wouldn't change anything about it’s scratched paint job, loose joints or anything else about it; it’s this way for a reason and I’d only fix it if it became broken for some reason. I happen to be significantly younger than a good portion of the local toy collectors in the Tampa area but they all remember the rag tag unofficial mascot of Re-Play Toys hanging out by the register, holding on to the business cards or hanging off of the cup full of pens. Just commenting on it to my small group of friends who are toy collectors brought up a lot of nostalgic moments with them as well. They all remembered how cool the store was and how nice Dena and her sister Helen were to anyone who came in the shop. It had traveled from their original shop at the Floriland Mall Flea Market to their shop off of Busch boulevard to Dena’s house and finally into my possession. I’ll really cherish it for the rest of my life and it will always remind me of one of the key people in my life who helped me develop the deep appreciation I have for toys and their history.


**written June 2012

Hidden Gem known as "Dan Vs." Animated TV Show

By Ana Bruja-Khayos

If you are like me you probably no longer have cable service and have switch to mainly online streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon.  So unless it gets a lot of internet over hype you have no idea what is going on in the world of Cable TV.  This is what happened to me when it came to show “Dan Vs.” .  Normally I have a very good idea of past cartoon shows and upcoming cartoons shows since I’ve had to work in the world of animation and graphics for almost a decade now. However “Dan Vs”. must have fallen between the cracks because I never heard anybody talk about the show nor did I know that many people that watch the HUB except for people that loved “My Little Pony” or “Transformers Prime”.

I stumbled upon the show as I was wondering the isle of Movie Stop box set sections. Shove between top well know show was “Dan Vs.”  The case was a nice silvery color with a picture of a very angry looking character I could assume was Dan.  I asked the store employee if he knew anything about the show and sadly he did not.  It was a big risk to take by buying a box set nobody knew anything about but for $4 for the entire season 1 I had nothing to lose.

About the show.

The show follows a short guy called Dan. Dan suffers from severe anger issues to say the least. He’s very intelligent but his intelligence is shadowed by his paranoia and obsession with basic and mundane things that don’t make any sense to most ordinary people.  His anger is mainly triggered by some mesele personal experiences, or if something was done to his pinto car.

Dan is accompanied by his childhood friend Chris who is not stupid but he simply a laid back guy who likes to eat.  At this point in Chris life he is married to woman name Elise that is the total opposite of Chris. She’s very very smart but comes with a secret live as an undercover government field agent.  There’s always this strange dynamic and multiple relationships layers that comes with this trio.  Dan just want to have Chris do everything he says regardless of how absurd it is and to leave Elise; Elise loves Chris regardless of how simple he is and really wishes he get’s a new best friends; and Chris just wants everybody to get along, on top of enjoying time with Elise and food.

The Flash or Toon Boom base show will have you at times scratching your head but it does come with many witty moments that will make you grin eye to eye.  So far my favorite episode is Dan Vs. Stupidity.  If you love Idiocracy you will love this episode as well. Through the show, Dan has crazy rivals like Dan Vs.: New Mexico, The Wolf-Man, The Dentist, The Ninja, Animal Shelter, Canada, Traffic, Dinner Theater, Baseball, Salvation Armed Forces, Beach, George Washington, Technology, Barber, Art, Elise’s Parents, Fancy Restaurant, Dan, Family Camping Trip, Brugerphile, Magicians, Lemonade Stand Gang, Thanksgiving, Mall Santa, Neighbors, Dancing, Bank, Monster Under the Bed, Golf, … the list goes on for another season and half.

The show also comes with a great secondary cast that makes the show even funnier and even more relatable at times.  Characters like Mr. Mubels, Elise’s Parents, Crunchy, and Ninja Dave that remind you of people  in your life or people you have meet in your life.

The Production, Cast and Crew.

The show was created by Dan Mandel and Chris Pearson. At the moment they are not very well known for their work but in time I’m sure they will do fine.  The show was produce by Film Roman Productions - “a starz company” (that worked on 2D and 3D shows like the Simpsons, King of the Hill, Avengers, Beavis and Butthead, Kugn Fu Panda), The Hatchery (that worked on Young Blades, Care Bares, and R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour), and was distributed by the Anchor Bay Entertainment and The HUB.

Their main cast include voice actors like Curtis Armstrong who worked on projects such as Locker 13, Supernatural, American Dad, New Girl, Bones, Reaper, Smokin’ Aces, and Ray to name a few.  Dave Foley as Chris who worked on projects such as Monster University, Robot Chicken, Eureka, Monster Brawl, The Batman, Cars, Employee of the Month, Monkeybone, Toy Story 2, Bug’s Life.. the list goes on. Finally Elise is played by Paget Brewster who worked on projects such as Criminal Minds, Venture Brothers, Modern Family, American Dad, King of the Hill, Harvey Birdman, and yes even 1998 Ghost Cop.


Final Thoughts.

Dan Vs. is one of those show that should be experience at least once.  I personally love watching the show several times over because they touch on subject matters that I at times encounter and Dan simply yells out loud what I wish I could say my self. Believe it or now the show has ran for 3 seasons now, so someone out there is watching it but for whatever reason is not picking up enough buzz behind it.  The show was rated PG and was aimed at kids to tween demographic by airing on the HUB when it should be aimed at the teen to young adult demographic like Adult Swim. I personally think that the fall of the show is simply that they miss their demographic and they are not streaming the show on Netflix which is still very popular with younger and more modern adults looking to trend away from high cost of cable. But you can catch season 01 and 02 on Hulu Plus if you can withstand the all the adds they shove in your paid subscription.  But that is just my opinion take it as you will.

But all in all I give they show 4 out of 5 stars. I love it but it will have make a banging 4th season to beat Gargoyles, Exo Squad, and Batman the Animated series out of my top 3 animated series.

The wonderful world of Celestra: Queen of the Transforming Dolls

The toy world has seen a lot of strange things. It's a vast, expansive world full of legendary licenses, the mediocre, the uninspired and plenty of pretenders clawing for whatever glory they can attain. I consider myself a perpetual student of my craft, there is no one person that knows everything about toys made in modern history. Anyone who claims to be all knowing is a damn liar, I've gone toe-to-toe with the best and left them defeated and yet I've been bested in a game of wits based on toy knowledge. But enough comparing peckers, we are here to talk about the toys.

I'm a sucker for obscure toys, the only down side of obscure toys is the price tags they carry. Most of the time they are artificially inflated but there are few times where I can say the price reflects it's actual value. Now some people get terms confused when I say obscure and bootleg. A bootleg can be obscure but a bootleg is usually an unlicensed reproduction or facsimile of a popular line or character made out of usually substandard materials. An obscure figure can be anything from a licensed toy from a well done line (IE- Scratch from TMNT) or a non-licensed figure from a line made to capitalize on the success of another line (or simply put, a knock off). Knock off figures are most of the time made to play with the figures from whatever line they are trying to mimic but what happens when a figure transcends the borders a couple of genres? Well, you are left with the brilliantly half baked toy I've painstakingly built up so much in the last two paragraphs. I have a flair for dramatics and wordy expositions, those of you who have trudged through it are rewarded.

Celestra was reportedly Queen of the Kingdom of Transforming Dolls. It's a tiny soveriegn nation with a known registry of 4 known citizens; Queen Celestra, Vulcania Thrusterbottom, Saturnia Rings and Zarla Mercedes-Benz. I'm assuming Zarla is a widow as I have never met anyone else claiming citizenship of Transforming Doll Kingdom. As far as I know the nation doesn't have a spot on the UN security council which I feel is in poor taste because who else can properly save the world from the threat of WMDs if it isn't a team of women from a land where everyone transforms into some kind of mechanical conveyance? I don't see France stepping forward with a transforming Eiffel tower or croissant or anything like that.

Placo Toys made the transforming dolls. Now Placo hasn't really made much of a dent in the toy world and as far as I can tell they still exist. They found a convenient nitch by making a lot of generic toys that can be easily turned into licensed products with a well placed graphic slapped on it like ping-pong ball guns, flashlights, garbage cans and keychains. Other than Celestra their only other action figure forays seem to be 8 inch tall boxed Universal Monsters (similar to the carded or tagged Imperial ones) and some incredibly dull Youngblood figures (before McFarlane toys did them quasi-justice). One thing I can say they did well other than these Celestra figures were the die-cast and articulated Star Wars key chains and figural Mortal Kombat key chains that trumped everything Jazwares ever did with the Mortal Kombat license.

The Celestra dolls are 4 1/2 inch articulated female figures with rooted hair and a comb accessory. Not enough figures today come with combs, I literally have jars of swords and guns but very few combs. Each of the dolls are removable from their transforming cocoons but I can't verify if the cocoons are interchangeable. The idea of a transforming dolls is madness, but I guess gender ambiguous kids had a big share of the market back in the 80s. I'm not sure if a young me would have been drawn to these or not, I can't begin to think I'd choose it over a Go-Bot or a clearance Super Natural figure. It's not a Reese's Cup, these are two tastes that don't taste great together and it looks like the toy you'd see if you were stuck at a CVS or Walgreen's picking up medicine. But my appreciation of older and obscure toys makes this toys all that much cooler in my adult life.

A Raging Nerdgasm/Real Toy Hunting moment - my greatest wants acquired

Wants are one of the many plagues of being a toy hunter or toy collector. They keep you up late at night, searching eBay and online forums for the trinkets you desire. They get you up early in the morning, sitting in the parking lot of your favorite local store waiting for them to open or driving to whatever flea market or yard sale on the weekends hoping that one man's trash is your desired treasure. Every collector has them, a list of wants.  Sometimes they're short and expensive, sometimes they're long and equally expensive but one fact remains the same; whether the piece is taller than a small child (or Korean prostitute) or smaller than a quarter, it must be acquired and acquired at a good price. My list of wants is always evolving and changing. Some items are found and marked off the list, some still haven't been found after many years of intensely hunting and they get cycled off the list (or at least pushed further to the end) and some pieces lose their luster after finally being found (and not bought).

Over the years I've become a more casual collector, I still actively hunt and it's mighty apparent in our regular videos and other social media broadcasts but the hunts are anything but list centric. I buy what comes my way, whether it's filling a hole in my collection or picking up something for a friend or to add to my growing list of trade/sale bait,  I'll pick it up. I've been fortunate enough in my hunts to cross quite a few of my wants off the list. Some I paid fair value for, some I got for a steal and some I paid market value for. When I buy it at market value it's mostly because I know the value of what I'm picking up and I'm not afraid to spend a few dollars to get what I want when I see it. It's helped me form friendships with vendors who remember I didn't dick around over the price of a certain item and it's helped me get better deals in the future. Forming friendships with people you see and buy stuff from regularly does come in handy when they have something you really want and may not have all the money they are asking for it.

This is a list of my greatest wants that I've found over the years.


Radioactive Duke Nukum from Captain Planet and the Planeteers

He's our hero, going to .....blah blah blah. Anyways, Captain Planet was cool but I always rooted for the bad guys in every show and movie. I hoped and dreamed that they'd beat the protagonist in one episode, but I was wishing against all odds and hundreds of years worth of writing cliches. I digress, Captain Planet had some of the best early 90's bad guys since TMNT started going off into tangents I won't even touch on in this blog. Hoggish Greedly, Mal, Commander Clash, Looten Plunder (one of my gaming handles), Verminous Skumm, Sly Sludge, Argos Bleak, Dr. Blight (OK, her name kind of sucks but hang with me), Stalker Slaughter and (of course) Duke Nukum.

Duke Nukum, not to be confused with the very misogynistic "hero" of the video game franchise Duke Nukem (I like the game, don't get me wrong.), was by far the best villain of the show. A bad guy composed of radioactive material, voiced by Dean Stockwell and was often seen wearing a Hawaiian shirt and swim trunks; what's not to love. The first released figure sucked bad, it's only saving grace was that it glowed in the dark and I'm a sucker for that shit. The line tanked pretty hard, the cartoon lasted 5 years but all we got over the last few years was the United Colors of Bennington/Captain Planet. For a while I was sure the ol' Captain was trying to do the Batman thing and make as many damned variants of the main character as feasibly possible! Luckily the line finally died and we were saved but not before the world got All American Captain Planet.

I was a grown man before I found out that some foreign market Captain Planet figures even existed. One of these was the Duke Nukum figure I wanted as a child. The European market apparently loved the crap out of the ol' Captain and a few other figures got released over there that never saw time in American stores. Not even KB Toys/KB Outlet/KB Liquidators got these gems and once I found out they existed, I had to have one. Here's the bad news, not every European seller likes doing business with American sellers. I came across 3 in a five year span where the seller was fairly adamant about not doing business with "overseas" buyers. In 2010 I finally got one from an eBay seller in England, loose and incomplete but all the electronics worked. I paid $23 for it shipped and got it 3 weeks later. Luckily with my short term memory, getting it was an awesome surprise.

Mint in box G1 Megatron

This was one of those things that was on my list but I never really pursued due to the fact the price was way out of my reach. For the money I could spend on this one piece, I could purchase and cross off 4 or more items from my wants list. I had a loose on in poor condition from my childhood, it was in much better condition when I got it. Come to think of it, this was my first toy trade I did. I traded a Masters of the Universe Talon Fighter for him and I couldn't have been happier. Not sure where all the pieces went over the years and I know he ended up in the pool a few times so that explains the faded/washed out stickers.

This was a hell of a find. My wife and I were flea market hunting one morning and came across "one of those" collectibles stores. You know the ones I'm talking about, take the average eBay prices and add 20% sort of places. When someone has to look up eBay prices before they tell me the price of their stuff, I walk away. This is a flea market, and I know it's not a free market, but if I wanted to pay eBay prices I wouldn't have gotten my ass up this morning and gotten sweaty to pay you a small fortune for your stuff (I could have gotten PayPal points staying home too.). We were playing a game I like to play where I see if I can get a deal by stacking up a bunch of stuff to buy and I won pretty hard. It was actually a really good score; 3 carded Super Powers figures, 2 carded Thundercats figures, 2 carded TMNT figures, 2 boxed Ren & Stimpy dolls from Japan and 1 mint boxed Megatron. In the end I paid $250 for everything, roughly $25 a piece across the board which I was more than comfortable with. Since then the owner of that shop and me have become great friends and I'm on his short list of people he calls when good stuff comes in because I'm not shy about throwing money when I want something.



mint in package AHI bendy Dracula

This was another case of my wife and I being good people worked out for us. My wife and I had befriended a local vendor at the local flea market after making a few purchases. My wife being the organization queen that she is, asked if she could restructure and reorganize his shop due to the fact he said he was having a bad slump in sales and noticeable theft. Over the course of a month she helped transform the store from a dark and uninviting booth to a more open and friendlier looking place with the ability to track sales and bring theft to absolute zero. I helped him price his stock and gave advice I had learned over the years selling toys and collectibles.

Around the same time I had really enjoyed going through the pages and pages over at plaidstallions.com . So many awesome memories of crazy old rack toys and other awesome licensed and unlicensed paraphernalia; everything from Star Trek to movie monsters I had grown up with watching Dr. Paul Bearer's Saturday afternoon monster movie mash. While cleaning and organizing his shop we uncovered some real jewels; Godzilla and other Japanese model kits, carded Mego figures and the real find, a mint in package AHI bendy Dracula. The card was bright and brilliant and the bubble was solid, attached and crystal clear unlike others I had seen. The AHI monsters, both the Mego style and bendies, had become a new favorite thing for me to research. I admit my personal collection is evolving to more higher end pieces like Hot Toys and import toys from overseas and really obscure toys from the 70s to late 80s. This sort of showed up at the right time but it wasn't the right price.

Building friendships has really helped me out. Most vendors get familiar with what I buy for myself and what I might buy to resell/trade. I end up getting really great deals on the stuff that's staying in my personal collection and I ended up getting the AHI Dracula for like 75% off of what it was marked. It was a huge success for myself and my collection, I wasn't looking to get it for free by any means and the significant price break that was made in my favor turned the piece from highly desireable to absolutely irresistible. There's something really cool about holding a toy in a perfect package that's older than yourself.

Giant Inflatable Darth Vader /BK only store display

I know I blogged about this before so I won't go into agonizing details about wanting and acquiring it but I will say it's an awesome feeling when you have a giant inflatable Darth Vader rooftop display sitting in your living room for about a week.


Dune Sandworm by LJN


This piece may not be considered too rare but it was a really cool  find that the least likely of people found for me one day. I grew up toy hunting in flea markets, antique stores and yard sales with my mom and grandma most of my juvenile life. My dad was never really into collecting much of anything; he enjoyed things like yard work, fishing and being outdoors but for the most part being around a bunch of old junk was not what he wanted to do on his weekends. He dabbled in a few collectibles (Hot Wheels and Disney's Goofy) but never really bought much of anything. I always figured he was trying to find a way to connect with me by taking part in what I enjoyed and I applauded the effort made nonetheless, he's a good guy and did more for me than most father's I knew did for their kids.

One day he joined my mom and I at the flea market, which was kind of surreal because it wasn't his thing. The means to the end was he was looking for a specific tool and wanted to sift through the 3 used tool shops for the specific piece he needed. Needless to say it was a very boring trip, my dad was a little more tight with money than my mom was so I saw things but wasn't allowed to buy any of it. I was never the kind of kid to throw a fit or have a tantrum but it's like going to the park and being told you can't get on the swing set, it sucked bad. I also was a strange kid, my parents would ask me what I wanted for birthdays or Christmas and I wanted things that couldn't be readily found. This was 10 or more years before eBay was someone's pipe dream, mostly I was given a cash allowance and told when going to collectible shows this was "insert holiday here" gift money so spend it wisely. Anyways, this trip to the flea market I wasn't a happy camper. I even remember telling mom that next time dad wants to come with us I'll stay home because it was boring and painful. Maybe I was being a brat but I was 8 years old.

We walked the entire flea market, my mom and I got tired of waiting for my dad to find what he was looking for so we took a seat in the food court area. To be honest we weren't even sure what it was he was looking for but we both figured he needed to stop being cheap and just go to Home Depot and buy it new. I've gone to the flea market and not found jack and been happier. My mom bought me an ice cream and we continued to wait. My dad finally appeared with a really happy look on his face, said he has found the tool he was looking for and wanted to go home and finish a project. On the ride home I was promising myself an evening of sitting in front of the TV and playing Nintendo games to make up for such a craptastic time at one of my favorite places. When we got home and I got out of the backseat my dad handed me the bag with the tools in it and said, "I got something for you.". I openned the bag and staring back at me was the Dune Sandworm. Even at 8 years old I had missed the Dune figures in the stores, they had hit and went to clearance really quick in my area. I didn't care much about the figures but the Sandworm was cool and I was a big fan of the movie Beetlejuice but they didn't make a movie accurate version from that film so this would have to do for now. I thought it was really cool  of my dad to make a really bad day awesome again, best of all he bragged how it was just sitting in a box of tools and cost him a buck. So he was able to be a hero and thrifty at the same time, two of his favorite things.




mint in package Benny the Cab from Who Framed Roger Rabbit by LJN


Who Framed Roger Rabbit toys were another thing that kind of past me by even though I was a huge fan of the movie. I had a movie poster, a t-shirt and a giant puffy sticker on my backpack but no figures surprisingly. Hell, even to this day I have a full set of carded WFRR Flexies (bendies) but only Roger and Eddie figures because they came in a collection of Super Powers figures I bought. I had always admired the Benny the Cab toy for many reasons. Firstly, it was cool that for such a small line they made a car for the figures to fit in. Second, Benny was my favorite supporting character from the movie. Third (and most painful), Benny the cab wasn't available in the United States. This was a regular thing in the 90s, lines would die here in United States and what was left and made it to production would be dumped in Canada, Europe and elsewhere. Rambo, Dick Tracy, Re-Boot, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and many other lines dumped their tail enders in foriegn markets.

I had seen them in collectibles shops, toy shows, flea markets and eBay several times but never bought it. The price was always far more expensive than I was willing to pay and I just passed on them. The first time my wife and I went to the Sanford Flea World just north of Orlando we found a booth full of video games that had a small section for toys in the rear. These are my favorite types of stores to see, two of my favorite things in one place. Like going to the Classic Gaming Expo's sales floor, so much fun all in one place! This booth was full of lots of carded 90s toys and nestled on a top shelf was a case fresh Benny the Cab for $20. I automatically went from being a browser to a buyer, piling handfuls of toys on the front cabinet next to the owner. Three bags of toys and a handful of cash later we both parted ways and I became a regular customer when I'm in the area.

boxed Snake Mountain playset from Mattel

I will start out by saying thrift stores aren't what they use to be. In the late 80s and most of the 90s, some of my greatest finds were located at the University Thrift store here in Tampa. Vintage Star Wars figures and vehicles, carded TMNT toys and tons of He-Man stuff over the course of a decade. Then, the internet created an overnight bum rush on thrift stores nationwide taking the best of what was donated and putting it on eBay or other in-house auction sites. While I don't mind the organization making as much money as they can for the chairties they support but it put a real downer on the stuff I was finding. Shortly after this, I pretty much exclusively switch to just flea market hunting to get my fix of vintage toys.

Like I said before, my mom was the real driving force behind me being a toy collector. She encouraged me to join her going to flea markets and thrift stores to find cool, older toys. One summer, the thrift store I mentioned above went through a major remodel. A major remodel meant the store was closed for 2 months and they had a stockpile of donations in reserve just waiting for openning day. The grand reopenning was the kind of thing you expect for something major. Free hot dogs and soda, clowns, balloon animals, door prizes and a crowd that would rival the openning of a new Ikea. Anyways the doors openned and I, all of about 9, made a mad dash for the toy department. Diving through clothing racks in the womens department to circumvent the stampede heading to the rear of the store where they had relocated the toy department.

When I got there, on the floor was a boxed Snake Mountain playset with a $7 price tag on it. I didn't even dig further, I grabbed the box and ran to find my mom. Being 1992, Masters of the Universe was kind of a thing of the past; the New Adventures of He-Man was playing on TV but all MOTU toys had long since been clearanced in my area for the better part of 2 years. This was an awesome find and even cooler was getting it home to realise that it was still factory sealed on the inside. Fresh white instruction pamplhets, sticker sheets unused and still sealed bags full of parts. I was a very happy camper and this will always be one of my favorite toy hunting finds from my childhood.

Galoob / Glassite Dinosaucers

Dinosaucers, to me at least, was always one of those great toy mysteries until about 10 years ago. I had seen a handful of resin prototypes of both a 9 inch and 3 inch line, complete with vehicles and playsets and lenticular stickers, but had always figured they never made it past prototype stages. These resin hard copies ran roughly $300 a piece for the 9 inch series but who wants a resin? I want the real deal, a legit retail version. Many called me mad, saying no such thing existed in the known universe. All I had was rumors of a south american company known as Glassite had gotten the molds from Galoob and produced 5 of the 8 production prototypes for the Brazilian market. That day 10 years ago, Tom Khayos became an international toy hunter.

Brazil, land of Thundercats fans, sun, sand, pretty ladies and obscure toys that never saw a general release. I first purchased Ghengis Rex off of eBay in a heated battle which would probably be known as one of the first Dinosaucers to be auctioned on the site. I paid hansomely for the piece, over $150 plus $30 shipping. International shipping is something I try to avoid at all costs, sometimes it's so steep that it could be as much as half again the cost of whatever you just bought. Such is the life of toy hunting though, spending money for bragging rights and whatnot.

Dinosaucer toys are like Pringles, once you pop you can't stop. My second Dinosaucer I actually travelled to Brazil on a vacation to do some toy hunting and found in a collector's personal collection. This time I threw money around like toy game Ted DiBase, getting a Bonehead from Dinosaucers for $200 and a handful of other bootleg toys for another $100. I bought the bootleg toys on speculation / resale purposes to recoup my plane ticket and cost for my Dinosaucer. In the end after I tabulated the sales, I went to Brazil for a week (including rooming and food / entertainment ) and came back with a Dinosaucer for $200, total cost out of pocket.