#greasycreeps

[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...

[karltface]

Bango!

Y'know what, this has never been addressed. It's a very old letter opener, found at a garage sale in a plain white box labeled "Japan". It's the old paper knife style, and I'm pretty sure it's polished bone. The serrated sections power through tape, and it just feels interesting in the hand.

Edit: it's actually ivory. Presumably not very high quality, but apparently this stuff is really durable no matter what, because I've put this thing through hell the last few years, and it's still holding up fine. We're coming up on 3 years exactly, in fact; think I'm gonna replace the tassel, zazz it up a bit.

Anyway, we got critters. The 90s varmints are as fun as ever (the rat is still The Best), but the dinos are new. I have that Styracosaurus in black and white, but these are rubber, like the one from the last box, and with interesting pink airbrushing.

Jigglers are coming on strong: a second black ant (there's never just one), and a fun tan one. They've got loops on their heads, and were likely sold as necklaces or keychains at some point.

The scorpion is the typical vending-machine mold that lasted well into the 90s, but this one's not only the older jiggler version, it's cast in black rather than the usual yellow. Well, that's fun. I should start buying cheap shadowbox frames, do some Riker mounts to show off the various subspecies.

A terrified Bizarro Pokey sneaks away from Kong Charm's monkey rage. King Devil of the Lucky Yuckies surveys his territory from atop the GITD slime that's now included with the vintage slime heads. Rubber rings are still lots of fun to hand off to people, and the Madballs beads are of course always welcome.

Oddly, the Dust Brain knockoff (a cloudy green suction cup version) is about half the size of the usual. I can't explain that.

It's funny, I don't always watch the videos beforehand, but this time I did, and we both said "... warthog?..." simultaneously. Lot of sports this time, but at least two of them have sharks.

The Arts are the meat of this one, really. A swank black Worm takes top prize here (their googly eyes are actually vintage!), but that multicolored repop of a Madballs knockoff is pretty killer too. Is... is that an Ugly Ball!?

Yeah buddy! Bonkers were amazing. Anyhoo, those Forbidden Freakies Toys are still cropping up, this time including a really soft Moss Boss that was used for paint tests. He'll be replacing my plain release on the shelf.

I also found out the hairy thingies are not, in fact, Cousin Itt. They're hippies. Well, that's even more fun.

[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]

Oh, it's a beast.

Twice the usual, since convention season has been busy and we missed a month again. Not to mention a surprise.

Beginning!

Critters appear to be the usual fare, but there's fresh deadstock in the machine now, so we get new frogs. Unlike the usual lounging-sideways ones, we get two standing and one reclining. There's even a black one in there, which is unusual. Gator Jiggler and Old Poodle are standard fare, but always a hit.

The invertebrates, likewise, are peppered with a lot more realistic colors this time around. Apart from the usual 90s vinyl ones, I landed a jiggler scorpion, rubber Jibbers, two more modular caterpillars, and a sweet matte black wiggle bug.

I have an army!

I'm fairly lost on the Kinnikuman keshi, as well as the Kitaro weirdos. That slithery creeper is still a favorite, though. A few Munch Bunch peeps illustrate the range of variation between batches, and Pocket Clip Skeleton is always fun. Oh, and a bootleg Bowser.

Randos, part 1! The bootleg Madballs are sporting new colors, the pins are always welcome, more Madballs pop beads will go toward my next string, and the Dynamite Pen is quite fun, if you don't mind some setup.

Part 2 is oddly homogenous, with all three ships in yellow, four stacking totems in red, and the milk caps almost entirely 8-ball themed. Good stuff anyway.

Arts are.... Interesting. Wankenstein here is sporting your choice of animal-print or plain black vests, which do nothing to hide his enormous dingleheimer; I just propped a sticker on there. Smiley Troll is, again, bald, but I do intend to fix that. The tongue is a spare from the recent return of King Fingor, a giant finger puppet I will never afford.

Fortunately, I don't need to.

Yep, there were two all-foam Fingors in the mix this month. And I got really damn lucky. I'm tremendously proud to have this freak on the shelf.

You can sort of see the construction here, with separate arms and tongue. It's just so much more ridiculous at this scale. The eyes and teeth are GITD resin, too. Production model has rubber skin over the foam, but that hardly makes this any less amazing. Oversized stuff has long been a staple of cheap comedy, and finger monsters are a great example.

Well, that was a rush. And a hell of a haul. Gonna have to restructure the Arts Shelves to cram that thing in. You all saw the logo, you know where to go. 'til next time!

[karltface]

Guess what time it is.

Extra fortified! And rather hefty at that; this should be interesting.

Natural Wonders comes first, and needs multiple groupings. The growing rat is grey, so that'll sit well with the white one. Old Diplodocus is always fun, as are the cheesy 90s black critters. Frogs are charmingly vintage, but I must call attention to that lovely blue lizard. It's an incredibly floppy jiggler of some sort, but damned if I can place it.

And then there's bug friends. More 90s critters, a couple colorful beetles, and a gat-dang copepod! I'm leaving the flash on that one, though. Too fragile.

Here's a fun mix. Couple spaceships, a handful of milk caps with slammer, and far too many Madballs pop beads. I'm running out of ways to drape these on stuff. Nah, they're fun. My Krusher looks like a rainbow Hollywood Hogan.

Peeps! Speaking of Hogan, that's clearly him on the left there. I think it's Neptuneman, actually. But still. He and Asuraman are helping drunk Gumby stay up, while some manner of ogre walks his Bizarro Pokeys. A very impressive astronaut is done with their crap.

You bet we're still going! There's always a healthy dose of spookitude in these, and this is quite a pile of buttons. They're the GeneriCo sort I've reviewed before, and always a fun giveaway if you know a lot of Halloween people. The keychain skeleton is younger than the pocket clip duder by about 10 years, but they have equal charm.

Munch Bunch strikes again! I'm starting to think this was a double box, due to issues on one end or the other. I always forget these things. Anyway, I like to sneak these onto pens wherever I go. That one still looks sinister in yellow.

Another oddball mix: the eye, which I took to be a standalone item, is in fact Oculus Orbus, or rather the knockoff counterpart thereof, like the green suction-cup faces here. So that's fun. Stacking totems are cool, the rings are always a hit, and the slime heads prove kids have always dug that stuff. A sticker and classic gag round out the good times.

It's been Greasy, folks.