#greasycreeps

[karltface]

And here's the reason I finally remembered to post that last haul.

This one's got a mystery in it, too. We'll get there.

Critters! The old Bug-a-Boos are testing my ability to keep these descriptions interesting, but the stag beetle is at least closer to a natural color this time. The rat is a a reissued Gigantor jiggler, while the Styracosaurus appears to be a late-model of the same 70s molds that keep plugging away to this day. Perhaps a few years behind the current crop. Frog is frog. Weirdly human skin tone this time around.

Peeps! Munch Bunch is represented by a cantaloupe in heels. The 70s, ladies and gentlemen! Green Gouf has been seen before, but I did score another Machine Robo candy toy bootleg.

Some of you may know him as Loco from Gobots, but in half scale and solid red. The engineering is identical to the normal toy, though. If anyone else pulls these and plans to assemble them, I must advise you to have nippers and a knife handy; a lot of the parts have minimal but obstructive flash on them.

The soldier is a bit of a mystery. No identifying marks apart from "made in China", but the plastic feels quite old. He's roughly in 4" scale. Lens is no help, and he wasn't mentioned at all in the preview video.

Miscellany is fairly button-heavy again, with an upcycled bit of poster, an indie artist I'm not familiar with, Angry Beavis, two California Raisins (if you're not old enough to know them, I promise you they're groovy as hell), and two more Monster Faces.

Tiki Heads illustrate my previous observation on colors, and the tool charms continue to surprise: a classic charm and a magnet are variations I don't think I have yet.

Arts is good. An improbable second Glow Werewolf in a row, a fully painted Kong and a Saucerman rep the usual Minis, and another Freakie has popped up as well: possibly the best pull of Cowmumble I've seen yet. Had to shave off a bit of flash on the base, but so it goes.

Another month, another hour or two of fun writing reviews and distributing this stuff around the house/ into the Trinket Drawers. Oh, and if you want more, Zac's on IG with video of all the Monster's Booty pulls.

[karltface]

Oops, I hit something solid. Hope that wasn't important.

Nah, it was a vending machine egg. Anyway, Varmints! A pair of tooly birds (always a hit with woodworkers) are silly fun, the (90s?) bat had a good thing going with the colors but stumbled on the dismount, and the Bug-a-Boos are festive as always.

Of course, I have several pounds of rubber bugs, so these will eternally be extra, but I just finished the Trinket Sacks for Halloween, and a small start on next year is appreciated.

The Wee Folk are a good twist: among the randomly colored (but not out of place in the series overall) Gundam also-rans are a Kitaro keshi and some sort of bootleg wrestler with glasses.

The skeleton was a sealed 90s number, now free to stink the place up for a day or so. The head, interestingly, is separate, strung on the string to create a bobblehead effect. Simply charming. This is a bag charm waiting to happen.

Miscellania are a Sweden-flavored pair of tiki heads, two more tool charms, and a pair of buttons: GeneriCo beastie Sad Lad, and a bit of Chinese menu. I've been setting aside vintage Chinese zodiac animals for the old restaurant in town here; they'll love this.

Arts the First! The stickers are new, smaller than the previous but thankfully still good solid vinyl. This gives me two fresh ones, just enough to finally fill out the ol' beverage bottle.

Repop Palmer Frankenstein has graduated to fully painted rubber, and once again, a few oddballs have been popping up. This one's missing some fingers, but was granted paint at least. Zac, if you're reading this, it straightened up somewhat, but has a ways to go. I may experiment with warm water.

MMM Wolfman is the dead-flesh rubber kind. This one stands better than my current specimen. Trinket!

Arts the Second! Another delightful rubber skull (molded from a vintage specimen) is big fun, but terribly overshadowed by a couple of early-draft Gillmen. Part of Zac's recent efforts to master digital sculpting (an approach I'm generally leery of, but this is definitely going well), these are the 2nd and 3rd passes of Series D, and I for one am thrilled. I have nothing against Wolfman, Kong or Frank, but fresh blood is exciting, and Gillman is my homie. There are subtle differences, mostly in the.... nodules? Do fish have warts? Anyway, I may actually buy one when they come out instead of just trolling the Monster's Booty.

Well, since I have room for a few more images, I may as well show off the Sacks. Each contains something of play value (a simple action figure, bubbles, a windup toy, Halloween fast food toys) and four bits of filler (spider rings, rubber critters, small sticker sheets, etc). Got 94 made this year, which means my average 75-80 kids will leave leftovers for next year.

Tell me this wouldn't make your night as a kid. This is why I keep doing this. I've got one eye open all year for thematic odds and ends at rummage sales, secondhand stores, and flea markets. Used to have a solid line on cheap vintage trading card packs. @bogleech, @greasycreeps, y'all are part of a 7-year Halloween tradition out here. And you've helped me make so many friends, family, merchants, crafters, and cashiers smile. Be proud.

[karltface]

Last one of the year!

A decent spread of bugs and frogs this time around, with a vinyl beetle I don't have, a lovely chafer-colored wiggle bug, and that wonderful jiggler ladybug with the plastic body again. The black frog is actually far softer than usual, and weirdly glossy. A nice oddity.

Little dudes are more interesting than they appear: Lovestruck Gumby is paired with a Pokey sporting a Superman spit-curl. The Munch Bunch folks have their usual crude charm.

The horror! The Bash Brain (nee Crack Head) knockoffs are in colors I rarely see, while Bloody 'Orrible Finger and the pocket skeletons are fun standbys.

Randos go for quality over quantity, with the stacking totems and mini game overshadowed by a sweet Ghoulsville patch and rubber suction-cup "Help!". I actually have a single enamel pin from Ghoulsville (Gillman), so I won't feel weird wearing it.

Arts are sparse as well, but these rubber skulls are always amazing. Cast from vintage rubber skeletons, they're squishy, crazy-eyed fun that looks equally good on a backpack or a Christmas tree. Smiley Troll actually glows in the dark, and will sit with the rest until I get around to giving them hair.

Merry Something to all!

[karltface]

It is time.

Critters! The carpet spider is an iconic mold, and one I didn't have a good specimen of. The Bug-a-Boos (Imperial did rubber bugs too, ya know) are as fun and colorful as ever. I'm still loving the more muted colors on the frog charm/pencil toppers these days.

I need a little help with this Hong Kong dino, though. It's like a Frankensaur. Any ideas?

A nice spread of weirdos here. The Kinnknockoff finger puppet is a new sculpt for me, part of a whole tool-based team if I recall. Ringmaster looks rather nice in Army Man green. Basic Munch Bunch duder, a couple keshi, Gumby and Pokey: they may be filler, but they still make people smile.

Conjoined Twin Boxer is a rather perplexing jiggler from Gigantor, part of the Spooky Kookies or some such. Most of them were just silly looking people, and then there was this thing. And a runner with three legs. It's almost endearing enough to make me want a set of these.

Monstrous Miscellany! I can't get enough of these rubber rings. They really do make good belts for toys. The tiki pin is, well, a tiki pin. Technically an Art, since Zac made it from a damaged spookshow poster, but what the heck. Two of these Tooly Birds are new sculpts for me, which means I gotta dig out the wire.

That lizard is still hilarious. Also, how about those GI Joe party hats?

Anyway, there's a big fat pile of Arts in this one. A trio of Forbidden Freakies in a sort of uncomfortable off-white. They smell faintly of fabric softener. Purple Rubber Skull is exactly what it says on the tin, with googly eyes to boot. The Rubber Rusty (and I love me some rust monsters) is a paint test, and one that may get a tiny elf hat around the holidays.

Arts, part deux! A whole-ass Franken-Skelly, presumably spare parts from bad pulls. Kind of looks like a wrestling singlet. The stickers are a fresh set of tattoo flash fun from our gracious curator.

Well, that was a real humdinger. One of these days, I should document the Art Shelves.

Blacklight check!

Nice. The button doesn't really go off, but it's definitely something.

Peace!

[karltface]

A glorious return!

Zac's been busy lately- hence the lack of posts- but one finally snuck through! A bit small, but as we'll see, this one has some great stuff.

Critters actually bring a solid 5 newbies alongside the usual Tooly Birds and Gokey (Kong Charm is at least uncommon, and in local sports colors to boot). The orange monkey and red fish are "vintage German", which is a bit of a wide umbrella. Hard plastic and downright charming. The crab and lobster are Hong Kong vinyls, and the lobster at least is still out there in an enlarged form.

If you came here from IG (apparently Zac added a link- thanks, dude!), you may remember him puzzling over this one. With the aid of a magnifying glass, I managed to make out the tiny tiny cursive Bahlsen on the belly, which pegs this as a '99 release from the Arctic Animals collection. Apparently they were packed with cookies or somesuch.

Wow, that's a lot of keshi. Five Kin-knockoff-men, including the title character, are joined by another Lucky Yucky. This one is called Fire Dragon, and will grant any wishes that don't involve fire, since fire safety is his primary concern. No idea which Kitaro character he was originally, though.

Gumby has been a mainstay, but that ancient Dracula finger puppet definitely isn't. Delightfully cheap looking and just plain silly, it's a great accent anywhere you have a 2-inch bare spot. The baby is another German oldie, with an oddly short right leg.

Miscellany are a pair of 90s monster pins, featuring the horrifying Mad Marvin, a pair of totems (that sky blue is pretty rare, actually), and a bootleg Spiny figurine. That last one is a rare treat; my last one was a Bowser a couple years back.

Finally, Arts. The stickers are nothing new (although they do kick ass), but I got two new sculptures! On the left is Muck Monster, a digitally downsized version of a glorious beastie I would not have been able to justify normally. Dripping with slime and bearing at least four friends, he's looking great at MMM scale.

Alien Dog appears to be a tattoo flash in three dimensions, which is fun. It's begging for paint, but I'd have to learn airbrushing to really make it pop, so grey it remains.

The pin is fun. I know nothing of Bite Society, but I do love unusual fish, even if this one looks more like part of a freshwater angelic choir than the real thing. Perhaps that was the intent.

Anyhoo, Greasy Creeps, baby. Good stuff every time; I personally landed 8 or 9 keepers here. If monthly boxes aren't your thing, man's got a store. Get on it! https://greasycreeps.storenvy.com/

[karltface]

Another mystery box! The question this time is: Will It Spook?

Why, yes it will. Two more of those fun "bobblehead" skeletons are quite welcome, one significantly darker than the other. Variety is key with old cheapos like these.

Critters! Spiders and rats have long been Halloween staples, as were frogs and lizards in days of yore. King Kong, unlicensed though he may be, is quite monstrous indeed. The rubber frogs rarely come in green, so that's pretty cool.

Peeps! Kitaro himself (and his dad!) leads the pack, an undead human/demon child who defends his homeland from rampaging yokai and incursions by Western monsters. This bootleg was marketed as Shorty, and he scares away devils. Good enough.

Apart from that, there's a particularly old Munch Bunch dude, looking for all the world like a Deiner eraser. The scrawny Rick Dom and Bizarro Gyan are alright. Those new/old wrasslers are showing some variety this time, with a surprise martial artist. Okay, I'm anxious to see where this goes in the future.

Machine Robo / Gobots bootleg number three! Good old Dive-Dive, in an appropriate blue. This one was kind of a pain to assemble, with a lot of stubborn slider joints, but keep an X-acto handy and you'll be fine. Robot mode (above) is passable, allowing for the huge shoulders and birthing hips, but the altmode really shines. Even without paint, it just works.

I guess the tiki heads are kind of creepy looking. Particularly since most of them have spikes coming out of their eyes. Tool charms are splitting the difference between calmer, more realistic colors and screaming chartreuse. Horseshoe Game is news to me, at least.

Now, the pins are definitely nice. Two California Raisins are huge with your dads, the bootleg monsters continue to impress (although Bot Eye still feels obscene), and two remnants of damaged ads, posters, or some such may or may not get this flagged.

The dragon is pretty cool. Apparently it's from Bone Brigade. Tony Hawk's old team? Alright, I'm down with that.

Arts! Almost entirely monsters, so we're ending with a bang. Saucerman is sporting some interesting discoloration. All that is certain is that it is not mold. Blank Bug is beyond my paint skills, but may become a magnet.

Apropos of nothing, happy (late) Halloween from my latest, Big Bertha! She's not fat, she's big boned. And those decade-old restraints fit perfectly. 7 years of accumulation, and I finally have a centerpiece. Huzzah!

[karltface]

A late one, since I took the photos last month and then got terribly distracted. Also, I seem to have deleted the box photo. Well, let's get greasy.

Natural Wonders are nice. The grasshoppers are different releases of the same mold, probably mid-90s, that don't quite match my existing specimen, so that's a couple winners right there. The spider is new to me, and has an amusingly crude face. Pokey and Gokey have officially outcompeted Gumby and Pumby, driving them nearly to extinction over the last few months. There's a whole herd in my Trinket Fund lately, since I prefer to hand them out in sets. Perhaps I'll simply donate them to a thrift store or somesuch, get 'em away from here so nature can heal.

This is a weirdly robot-heavy batch. Two Goufs and an RX-78, similar to current knockoffs, but in a softer material. Could be original releases for all I know. Either way, they're joining the skinny unknowns on the shelf.

Oddities are coming on strong with a delightful Kaiju button (with a yonic mouth, no less) and some adorable old tool charms. They're clearly from one of those mixed vending machine lots, a mix of keychains, pins, bracelets and charms. I know enough crafters to brighten at least 3 people's day with relevant trinkets here. Also, the Kewpie doll kind of blindsided me, but it has some charm.

The spooky GeneriCo buttons are good fodder as well, and the tiki heads are perennial favorites. Oddly, nearly half my (massive) stash is some shade of red. Clearly, at least one factory had a surplus.

Arts is entirely little duders this time: two Kongs and a Saucerman in various rubbers, a glow Wolfman (apparently produced in lower quantities), and another dirty hippie. I'm gonna have to start doubling up the Mini Monster Men in the display if I can't decide on which versions I like best, and new variations just keep coming. First World problems?

Blacklight check! Man, I gotta get a proper fixture instead of the mini flashlight I keep using. Also, I made the mistake of taking this photo in daylight hours.

Anyway, Greasy Creeps is the place. Monster's Booty is the treasure. And one of these days, I ought to spotlight the actual full-size art toys this guy makes. They aren't exactly cheap, but they're worth every penny, and no mistake.

[karltface]

Hot damn, it's a big 'un!

Okay, it isn't, but it is loaded. So loaded, this'll be a 2-parter.

For starters, we're back in black for critters, mostly those plastic 90s oddballs. The ones with the ridiculous rats? Yeah. The bee is a fair bit older, and actually has painted eyes. Pretty fancy compared to my current specimen. Special mention goes to the far left spider, apparently from a different line altogether.

But wait, there's more! Neither dino is one I have, but both are pretty charming. Not Quite a Ladybird is looking better than ever in two-tone red, while the other beetle is almost patriotic. Frog looks worried, while the Tooly Birds wander about, as is their wont.

Duders! A few Lucky Yuckies showed up with a stray Kin-Knockoff-Man (King Neptune, looking more than usual like Hulk Hogan), Pumby and Gokey are fun as always, and the Munch Bunch and Pocket Skeleton are.... well, odd. Even amongst this lot.

You may feel a sense of familiarity with the green robot. This is because it's friggin' Fitor.

Yep, it's a generic Gobot. Or, given the quality level, more likely Machine Robo candy toy molds, leased out to DVS.

It really is a wonder to behold. Every mechanism, every sculpted detail is replicated here. The exhausts even poke out as you collapse the legs! If you ever wondered what a disassembled Gobot looks like, certain vending machines had you covered back then. I ended up with two (which is why I risked building one), and now I kinda want the other three. I recognize Loco and Dive-Dive (hey, at least they had a damn submarine, Hasbro...), but I'm drawing a blank on the truck. Love that classic DVS diamond, too.

Odd that they chose to brave the wrath of Hasbro's lawyers rather than Tonka's with that name.

I'll leave off Part One with assorted oddness: just, all the rubber skull rings. Happily, this includes one new-to-me sculpt in three colors. Springy Old Spaceship looks nice in red, but the real surprise here is the Theodore Roosevelt celluloid penny whistle. Notoriously fragile (and this one freely falls apart, the glue long since having given up the ghost), these things are just weird enough to please me. Naturally there were others, but very few wear a mustache quite as well.

To be continued...