Monthly Archives: July 2021

M.U.S.C.L.E. Toys

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I certainly dabbled in more than my fair share of toy lines as a kid, but one of the lesser ones turned out to be one of my favorites. Let’s remember M.U.S.C.L.E. in this edition of Retro Ramblings.

M.U.S.C.L.E. Men started out as a manga comic in the late seventies in Japan called Kinnikuman. It proved to be so popular, that an anime series of it was adapted and ran from 1983 – 1986, and focused on an intergalactic form of professional wrestling. Toy company Bandai quickly started producing the little two-inch figures as the show’s popularity soared. And like so many other things, when it became popular there, toy companies in the United States took notice, and Mattel launched its own line of the little pink warriors. Since the name Kinnikuman translates to “Muscle Man”, Mattel named the line M.U.S.C.L.E., an acronym that stood for “Millions of Unusual Creatures Lurking Everywhere”. M.U.S.C.L.E. Men were produced from late 1985 – 1988 before finally fading from store shelves. Although their popularity was short-lived, it was impressive, as M.U.S.C.L.E. was listed as one of the 10 Best-Selling Toys of 1986. 

The little pink M.U.S.C.L.E. warriors were not really posable in any way and were so small that you couldn’t really do much with them. But the fact that they came in multi-packs, and that they were marketed as “wrestlers” was enough to hook me initially. It was intriguing to see who would win in a fight between someone with a motorcycle for a body or a human with a ripped body and the head of a wild boar. Of course, who won that battle was up to the kid in control of the action. That is until the Hard Knockin’ Rockin’ Ring Wrestling Arena came on the market. 

It was a small yellowish-orange contraption with glorified rubber bands for ring ropes, and a plastic arm that held the two combatants. You and a friend would do battle by moving your wrestler side to side, Rock ’em Sock’em Robot style, in an attempt to knock your opponent off of his plastic control arm. If you did, you were the winner. The key was to find one whose body was slightly too big to fit in the controller, and then force him into it anyway. He would then be almost impossible to beat. My best friend and I would play this for a while, and for each match, we would select a combatant. The winner would win the losing figure from its owner. Both his and my collection of these increased and decreased, depending on who had the better day of competition. 

The big drawing point for me was two-fold. First, their small size made them easily transportable. It was quite easy to stuff several in each pocket and head off somewhere and take the action with me. The second part was the cheapness of the toys. For a kid with a light allowance, being able to pick up multiple little M.U.S.C.L.E. warriors in one package was quite the draw. They were typically available in a blister card pack of four figures for around $1. Then there was the clear trash can pack that was stuffed with 10 mighty M.U.S.C.L.E. Men for the low price of $3. So as you can see, a kid could grow their collection quickly with minimum allowance spent.

M.U.S.C.L.E. figures were one of my favorite toy lines as a kid. Heck, I still enjoy the newer versions they put out today based on other popular properties like Masters of the Universe and Street Fighter. If you remember them, hit me up in the comments with your thoughts on them.

Weekend Reading 07/25/21

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It’s time for The Weekend Edition! It’s where I share all the fun retro and nostalgia-themed stuff I’ve stumbled across on the web over the last week with you, the faithful reader. It’s a great chance to catch up on any news you may have missed, and read really fun content from folks you may not be familiar with. So grab yourself a snack and a drink, kick your feet up, and enjoy what I’m sharing with you today.

In the News

Stories, Articles, & Blog Posts

Earlier This Week on Retro Ramblings

Video of the Week

Being kind of smack dab in the middle of summer, I thought it would be appropriate to share one of my favorite things to watch every year when it gets this hot. This animated feature was usually shown in prime time around this time of year, much to the delight of kids everywhere. So this week, may I present to you, Garfield in Paradise! Enjoy.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7x4j3d

KFC’s Chicken Littles Sandwiches of the ’80s

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Here I am featuring some old junk food in another edition of Retro Ramblings. I just can’t help it. Old junk food really tickles my nostalgia bone. And today’s topic is one of my all-time favorites from the past.

A couple of years ago, in the background, the TV was on and my daughters were watching some show that I usually care nothing about. The show went to commercial and I carried on with what I was doing. All of a sudden I was hit by a bolt of delicious lightning! For on the tv behind me, I was hearing a commercial for KFC’s return of the Chicken Little sandwiches!!! I bolted to the tv just to see and hear the end of that commercial that advertised the return of the greatest hand-held chicken sandwich in history. I immediately started making plans to visit my local KFC to once again dine on this fine treat. 

I was horribly disappointed when I unwrapped the precious sandwich that I had longed for many years. What is this? This isn’t a Chicken Little. What kind of sick joke are these people trying to pull here? 

You see, in the ’80s, when they were known as Kentucky Fried Chicken and not the metro-sounding KFC, they had the perfect sandwich. The original Chicken Little was the size of a common White Castle Slider or Krystal Burger. In fact, it featured the same kind of bun. It had a simple, thin chicken patty on it along with a pickle and a thin spread of mayo. It was simple. It was perfect. 

As I’ve stated before, my mother and I ate out a lot when my dad traveled. At the time these were in stores, I want to say you could pick up Chicken Littles for 3 / $1.00 or something like that, which made it a simple choice to say yes to for my mother. 

I had these little squares from heaven every couple of weeks. If she mentioned in the morning that we would be stopping by there in the evening, I would count down the minutes until I held them in my hand. But much like my disappointment with McDonald’s McPasta, I was saddened one day when I ordered my Chicken Littles and was told they were no longer available. I didn’t dwell on it though and figured they would be back one day. 

That day came several years ago, and led to the story I started this tale off with. Today’s chicken little is on a different bun, features a different cut of chicken, and is nowhere near the super cheap price you could once obtain them at. Actually, the thick piece of chicken tender on the modern version throws the taste completely off. And throw in the fact that the lettuce is usually wilted due to the heat of the chicken, it’s really not a good sandwich at all anymore. 

Just add it to the long list of junk foods we lost well before their time.

Weekend Reading 07/18/21

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It’s another Sunday morning and time for another Weekend Edition. Before I get into the links for this week I just wanted to say that from looking at the stats here on the blog, it appears that quite many of you click on a lot of the links I feature each week. That’s very cool, as it shows that a lot of us like a whole lot of the same stuff. So since that’s the case, let’s go ahead and get to this week’s batch of cool stuff I’ve found recently.

One of my favorite wrestlers of the ’80s, “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff passed away much too soon this week. A couple of months ago I wrote a feature for The Retro Network detailing one of my favorite memories of him called Saturday Night Suspense: The Night Hulk Hogan Fought Paul Orndorff in the Cage! Go check it out and relive some of what made Mr. Wonderful so damn great.

In more sad news, legendary rapper Biz Markie also passed away this week. Probably his most iconic work was his music video for the song ‘Just a Friend’. Take a second and watch the video in memory of a great.

The new Black Widow movie has been all the rage around the theaters in the last week, but here’s 10 Made-for-TV Superhero Movies Everyone Wants to Forget.

For more comic book nostalgia, check out 10 Facts About DC Comic’s Swamp Thing.

You’ve probably heard that there’s a Wonder Years reboot in the works, but fans of the original version may sometimes ask themselves, Whatever Happened to Jason Hervey?

McFarlane Toys has consistently made some of my favorite action figures over the last 20 years, and now they may have topped themselves with the news they will be releasing 1966 Batman figures!

And as usual, here is the weekly link to Plaid Stallion’s 5 Awesome Things on eBay This Week.

I had a very busy week and didn’t have very much time to surf the web this week and as a result, I didn’t get to dig up as much cool stuff for you as usual. But what I did have time to do this week was post every day here on Retro Ramblings. So in case you didn’t get a chance to come around much, here’s what you’ve missed…

Video of the Week

For this week’s video, I’m giving you a fun movie to watch that most of you have probably never heard of called Comrades of Summer. It came out in 1992 as an HBO film, that features Joe Mantegna as disgraced manager of the Seattle Mariners baseball team, who finds work in Russia running their Olympic team after the fall of the Soviet Union. While dealing with culture shock and the harsh reality that the team is far from being a great one, he somehow manages to get the players into fighting shape — while also settling into his new life abroad. It’s a good summer flick that I saw when it first hit the air back in the day. I think you’ll find it entertaining.

Time Capsule: Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s Coverage of Super Cards ’87

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Growing up in the mid-late ’80s, one of my greatest joys would come when I would go to the grocery store with my Mom and be able to pick up a new wrestling magazine.  It never mattered to me which one I got as long as I got one.  If you know anything at all about the glory days of the Apter magazines, you know that the Cadillac of wrestling magazines was Pro Wrestling Illustrated.  One reason it was considered the best was because of its full-color coverage of various events.  One of the things I really looked forward to each year was their coverage of the spring super cards like Wrestlemania. 

Well, I recently picked up some old wrestling magazines from eBay, and one of them was the Pro Wrestling Illustrated with coverage of the super cards of 1987!  After salivating over the 19 pages of greatness multiple times, I thought I would share them with the world so others who used to enjoy this stuff could relive how great it was.  So what follows is all 19 pages of PWI’s coverage of Wrestlemania 3, Crockett Cup ’87, Parade of Champions ’87, and UWF Super Blast.  Enjoy! 

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Masters of the Universe Model Kits (1984)

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I was flipping through some old comics books the other day, and came across some random title from 1984.  As I was flipping through it, I came across a bevy of kick-ass old advertisements.  These are too cool not to share, so here is the first one. 

We’re starting things off with my favorite one of the batch.  Up until I saw this, I never had any idea that Monogram made model kits of the MOTU vehicles.  I was big into model kits back in the day, and He-Man was my hero, so how this escaped me for all this time is mind-boggling.  This Talon FIghter and Attak Trak just look bad-ass, and I wonder if any of these kits could still be found on eBay? 

Yep.  A quick search pulled up an Attack Trak kit still sealed in its box for $225. 

Digging a little deeper, I also find a Roton still in its box for $92!  That seems like a steal.  The box looks a little beat up, but I’d personally be looking to pick one up to put together, not leave in the box. 

And with even more digging, I just found the Talon Fighter!  It says it’s complete and the only thing I see missing is the plastic wrap from around the box is missing.  It’s currently listed for $95.  You can click on any of the links I added to go right to the auction listings for each. 

So what say you?  Do you even remember these things?  The prices sound reasonable in today’s market?  I’m going to have to think on this for a bit. 

Excitebike for Nintendo

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ExciteBike was one of the Nintendo console’s most beloved games, and a favorite of mine too. I killed many hours with this bad boy, and for good reason….it was full of great features!  Racing on a motorcycle! Design your own tracks! Put 100 jumps in a row! This was one awesome game for those three reasons, and why it’s so fondly remembered. That and the fact that you could wreck others by coming down the track with your rear wheel in their front wheel and watch them tumble over and over down the track. With the possibility of using any combination of 19 different obstacles to design your track with, it had great replay value just in designing new courses to race. 

I was introduced to this game at my cousin’s house shortly after I got my Nintendo. I was instantly hooked and we spent several hours that night playing it.  I never actually owned the game, but several of my friends did, and a copy of it was at my house more often than not through the magic of swapping games with a friend for a period of time. This game still holds its own in the “fun factor” today against such newer and more complicated games. 

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A Line in the Sand Board Game

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A Line in the Sand is a game I drooled over every time I saw it in old comic book ads in the early ’90s. My problem was, that living in a rural area I had no stores around that carried niche items like this, so I’ve never actually played the game. But I’ve studied it quite a bit since the internet became a thing, and here’s what I’ve learned about it.

A Line in the Sand is a game detailing the Persian Gulf War fought in the early 1990s. Many of the mechanics are similar to that of other TSR wargames like Red Storm Rising, so players of their games should easily be able to jump in and play this one.

Two versions of this game are played. With less than 5 players, the game is pretty basic, where military might is what wins the game. Players take sides, usually a combination of Middle Eastern nations plus the US. In the two-player version, for instance, it’s the US & Allies vs. Iraq; in the three-player game “Holy War”, it’s Israel vs. Iraq (and Yemen and Jordan) vs. Saudi Arabia (and Syria, Libya, and Lebanon), and so on.

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The 1990 TV Pilot ‘Tag Team’

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We all have some TV shows that we were very fond of that didn’t last more than a season. Well, in this edition of Retro Ramblings, I want to talk about a show that never made it past the pilot that I was a huge fan of. Tag Team.

In the mid-late ’80s, professional wrestling, and the WWF in particular, was big business. A lot of the WWF superstars were becoming household names thanks to Vince McMahon and his traveling circus. Two of the better-known superstars were “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and Jesse “The Body” Ventura. Piper had spent years as the biggest bad guy wrestler on the roster, while Ventura was well known as one of the voices of the shows as color commentator. Each broke out of the WWF world to become moderate successes in Hollywood. Piper had starring roles in B – Movies like Body Slam, Hell Comes to Frogtown, and They Live. Meanwhile, Jesse was becoming a solid backup man in action flicks with Running Man and Predator. 

In 1991, they teamed up on the small screen in the pilot episode of Tag Team. The show’s premise was simple. These two wrestlers couldn’t wrestle for a living anymore, so they decide to become cops. That decision was made after they used their wrestling moves to stop a robbery at a grocery store. It was a simple idea, but one that a television series could conceivably be based around.

As the air date for the pilot episode drew closer, Vince McMahon was hyping the debut of the show on his wrestling shows, and as a 13-year-old wrestling fan, I was salivating. I marked the date and time on my calendar so I wouldn’t miss it. Here was another chance to inject more wrestling into my world, and I wasn’t going to miss it. Although I can’t recall what night of the week that this premiered, I DO remember getting everything set up in my room for it. My chair was at the right angle, I had a frosty beverage at my side and some sort of snack at the ready. I was pumped. 

As I remember it, the episode was pretty good, and I thought it was really cool that these two wrestlers were going to be in a television show every week. Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware of just how exactly television worked at that time, and was quite disappointed when the show never aired again. The series wasn’t picked up, and the show was thrown into the huge pile of “could’ve been” with hundreds of other series that were never picked up. 

I listened to a podcast featuring Ventura and Piper that was recorded a long time ago before Piper passed away, and Ventura explained why the series wasn’t picked up. The two companies who were producing the show together, Disney and Corelco, got into a lawsuit with each other over something not even remotely related to the Tag Team series, and while in litigation, the show was left in limbo since neither side was doing business with each other at the time. When the lawsuit dust settled, too much time had passed and the Tag Team series was abandoned. 

It’s a real shame because the two had great chemistry together in the pilot, the premise was solid for an action/comedy show, and would have probably drawn decent enough ratings to keep the 13–episode first season on the air. Whether it would have been picked up beyond that is anyone’s guess, but I know one 13-year-old who would have watched religiously.

Watch the pilot below and decide for yourself if it had a shelf life or not.

Weekend Reading 07/11/21

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Welcome back to The Weekend Edition! It’s been a long week for me, but one of my favorite things to do is put this together every Sunday morning while having my coffee. I bookmark fun things I find throughout the week and then unload them all on you in hopes that it all helps bring you some relaxation and enjoyment. Let’s get to it!

And finally, since I’ve professed my love for Tubi many times, let me give you my “Tubi Pick’s of the Week“…

  • County Line … a movie starring Tom Wopat as a sheriff in one county that avenges the murder of his best friend who is the sherriff of the neighboring county. It’s a newer movie, but Tom Wopat is still one of my favorite actors from way back in his Dukes of Hazzard days. Click here to watch for free.
  • Mister T Cartoon … if you don’t remember this from back in the mid-’80s, youre in for a treat! It’s a great way to be taken back to your childhood on a Saturday morning. Click here to go the episodes list.
  • Wargames … the classic ’80s movie that probably started my fascination with computers and the like. Click here to watch for free.

Video of the Week

To celebrate 7/11 on its adopted birthday of 7/11 here is their first commercial to appear on television!