I'm Down with O.P.T.

(Other People's Toys) My list of toy hook-ups from the 80â€™s-90â€™s

No matter how many toys we have, someone else, somewhere always has more.

You might have the whole 1st series of Super Powers figures, but do you have the Hall of Justice playset?

You've been the talk of the schoolyard since you got the Go-Bot's Leader-1 for your birthday, but that kid over there just got Optimus Prime, so you're old news, jack!

Sometimes it's just a numbers game. Sure, you're a fancy pants because you've got 1 M.A.S.K vehicle

(You know, that dumb ol' orange Jeep called Gator), But don't go calling yourself King of Toys just yet...

'Cause Richie Rich over there has ALL the M.A.S.K. AND Venom vehicles. Later, Skater!

We can respond to these situations in one of two ways:

Bitter Rivalry & Scorn
or

Form a Toy Alliance in order to ERASE THE HATE and INCREASE THE PEACE, playa!

I always went with option two, mostly because my toys were okay-but that kid's toys were RAD!

And frankly, "I'm down with O-P-T, yeah you know me!"

So here's the run-down of my 80's/90's toy network and contacts.

NAME: Ben D. aka King of the Ring aka Kara's Older Brother aka Generous G.
CLAIM TO FAME: If you wanted to act out the latest bout from last week's Wrestlemania with Hulk Hogan or Roddy Piper, Ben was the guy to see.

He had almost all of those 8" LJN WWF figures (the one's with zero points of articulation) and the RING! There was nothing better than making Big John Stud (who I've never actually seen wrestle) bounce off the ropes and deliver a solid clothesline to old Hillbilly Jim, Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat or King Kong Bundy.

Oh, the glory days of the WWF merchandising.

THE ANGLE: Mighty Ben was actually my classmate (and secret crush) Kara's older brother.

So I had to fake a play-date with Kara and watch an episode of Care Bears before I could talk Ben into bringing down the goods.

OTHER: As a side note, when Ben got into Junior High, he actually gave me all the figures and the ring! What kindness, what benevolence, let us sing a song of praise to Holy Ben!

NAME: Brent W. aka Mr. Stay-Puft aka The 5th Ninja Turtle aka That Lucky Duck
CLAIM TO FAME: Who you gonna call? BRENT-W! For any and all Ghostbusters Toys, Brent was Da Man.

He not only had all the individual Ghostbusters and spooky Ghosts he also had The Firehouse playset, ecto-1, ecto-2 and tons of slime!

When Turtle Power came into vogue Brent became the man to see for the TMNT! He had all the regular series and the variants like: Samurai Leo, Undercover Don, Space Cadet Raph, Sewer Surfer Mike and even the pizza thrower!

THE ANGLE: Brent lived across the street from my elementary school, so it was easy to get him caught up in a conversation about how awesome TMNT 3 was going to be (had we only known) and before you know it we had arrived at his house. How about that.

OTHER: Brent was also the kid that went to all the tie-in events like seeing the MOTU Power Tour stage show, TMNT: Comin' Out of Their Shells tour and was even in the audience for the local SoCal Super Mario Bros. Super Show rip-off, King Koopa's Kool Kartoon's show. Of course, Yours Truly was never invited-I think he knew I was a USER.

NAME: ERIK F. aka G.I. Jacuzzi aka Snake Eyes aka Abuser of the User
CLAIM TO FAME: Though I'll only focus on his largest collections, this kid had EVERYTHING!

Literally a double-sided closet full of action figures from almost every series of the 80's/90's, neatly organized into separate pull out baskets.

I mostly remember his literal army of G.I. Joes. He was always Snake Eyes and I was always some version of Storm Shadow.

House rules dictated that Snake Eyes always beat Storm Shadow, but at least I always knew what the outcome would be and you guessed it: Knowing is half the battle!

Big E also had a Jacuzzi with this cool waterfall built-in that we would use to pretend the Joes were on missions in the jungle, no specific location, just "The Jungle".

Really though, it was all about his vast selection: Thundercats, T2, Aliens, the kid was loaded .

Erik always told me that the reason he had the best figures was because he visited Colorado a lot and they had better toy stores there, I have yet to test that story.

THE ANGLE: Erik lived on the opposite side of the street (from Brent) across from the school, so again it was easy to find myself over at his house.

Hey, I was the fat kid, I couldn't be walking and running all over the place, I had to be efficient!

OTHER: Erik had some "Rage" issues and would really beat the crap out of me when his parents weren't looking. But to get the chance to play with every Silverhawks figure ever made I was willing to go home with a little black and blue.

NAME: Kelley & Sean aka M.U.S.C.L.E. Men aka Boglin Bros. aka Princes of Thieves
CLAIM TO FAME: Kelley was my age and Sean was the older brother. These guys had all the fringe fads of the day: Mad Balls, Boglins and M.U.S.C.L.E. figurines.

Plus they had a rather large collection of Star Wars figures that always seemed to be getting larger. Hey, wait a minute! Those are my Star Wars Figures!

Seriously, these kids broke into my house, stole all of my Star Wars toys including the Ewok Village and when I confronted their parents about it they said, "Oh, no, they have a friend who is sick and he gave them those toys". Yeah, because you know the moment I get a sore throat I'm giving away all of my earthly possessions. Nice story-NOT!

I even showed them MY Mom's gold bracelet I got caught in the back of the Rancor's throat but their Mom lied and said,"There's my bracelet, I was wondering where that went". Gypsies, tramps and THIEVES!

This was worse than "The Great Popple Conspiracy" (see my other article "That's Girl's Stuff" for more details) and went unresolved because their Mom could beat up my Mom.
THE ANGLE: They lived next door to me, which gave them great access to STEAL MY TOYS! ARGH! SERIOUSLY THAT'S MESSED UP-GOSH!

So yes, the Toy Alliance eventually backfired and I had to go back to my garage sale gold of somebody's old broken Transformers and G.I. Joes.

You may be asking, what was your contribution? Was this not an alliance? A network of sharing? Well, here's what I brought to the table: IMAGINATION! These kids were so spoiled by having every toy they ever wanted, they didn't know what to do with them. I was the storyteller, the director, if you will.

Was G.I. Joe fighting Cobra...again? NO! The former rivals were now in cahoots, getting ready to storm the gates of Castle Grayskull so they could rule Eternia!
Does Batman:TAS (the animated series) have what it takes to defeat Swamp Thing:TAS-let's find out!

Without a visionary, playtime can only go so far.
That's a wrap, cut and print.

Comments

Excellent and quite a funny article.

In my town I was known as the kid who had the most toys. I was the one who everyone wanted to have a toy alliance with. Nice article, brought back some memories. Thumbs up!

hey by some slim chance does any one remember
these hand puppets called bogglins

The story about the kid stealing your toys completely reminds me of my childhood. One of my toy alliances stole my basketball one day, we all knew it was him because that was our only one and the exact day it was missing was the day i saw his ass outside tossing it around. His excuse was that "He found it rolling down the street, so it's his" And his mom even agreed! I remember me and my bros stole it back once ( it was such an epic ninja mission i remember squealing as we ran away with it in triumph)and the bitch had written their last name on it, so my mom crossed it out and put our name. This was the first in a series of arguments and scuffles we had with other kids and families in the neighborhood, i often wonder if we where looked at as the crazy ones some times lol.

If you and I had met back in the day, we would have had a lot of fun playing toys together.

I know the feeling all too well. I would be lucky if my parents could afford to give me one Transformer a year while all the others kids had parents who would spoil them rotten, then they would steal and destroy the one Transformer I had!
With the Transformers collection I've got now, my younger self would probably be staring at it in wonder, I would probably let him play with them as well and get him a few for himself.

One kid I remember back in school when I was a kid had Tracks, an Autobot, and all I had was a worse for wear Jazz. I asked if I could play with Tracks and I was attacked for even speaking, now I've got Tracks in the collection over twenty years later, and his Alternator version, and the kid probably lost his Tracks years ago.
How time flies.

Thanks for the compliment. I also had a friend named Jim, but I didn't mention him beacouse I rarely played at his house. He and his parents were really cool, but they had a "don't touch anything" rule in thier house and Jim brought that philosophy to his toys. I saw his collection a few times and it blew me away. Unfortunitly I never got to play with them.

Hey arachknight, sweet avatar, bro. Power to the Symbiote! Man I loved Captain Power, too. I had another friend who was not included in the article because he only had most of the Captain Power figures and I didn't go over to his house very much becasue it smelled funny. But his Dad was my Karate instructor who had been trained personally by Chuck Norris! Seriously, he used to give out autographed Chuck Norris pics to the top students, guess who never qualified as a top student.

Very interesting idea for an article. Thumbs up!!!

I had a couple of friends like that. The first; Brian M, a.k.a. Primus, a.k.a. the Robot Master, a.k.a. Overmind. This kid had it all. His dad was like a home electronics repair man or something, and they lived in the trailer park. That ment low living cost and ALOT of spending money. This kid got almost EVER Transformer for christmas evry year. When I pissed myself with delight after geting my Captain Power action figure and Powerjet XT-7, HE got ALL the figures and playsets. He had two (count them TWO) personal computers, IN 1987!!!!!!!!!! He was also the only kid in town that had Fortress Frikkin' Maximus! I'd go to his house just to play with Fort Max. He also had that huge programmable robot that could bring you drinks and stuff on his tray. The one that looked like acrossbetween R2D2 and Johnny 5. No not the one created by Nolan Bushnell, the other one.

Friend two; Travis H, a.k.a. Zoul, a.k.a General Joe. Not only did he have every Ghostbusters figure, he was the go to guy for G.I. Joe. Big paper bags full of figures (and bags full of weapons), and just about every huge vehicle outside of the U.S.S. Flag (we knew of a kid who had "The Flag". We hated him but was always jealous of him. I think Travis more than me.). As a pre teen, he defined the term "army building" with multiples apon multiples of the differend Vipers. Fighting Cobra wasn't a battle at Travis' house, it was a frikkkin WAR!

You should watch "The Totally Rad Show" at Revision3.com, I think they responded to an email That asked: what toy or action figure they would put in the cupboard from "Indian and The Cupboard"

I was that kid who had every toy and comic book in my neighborhood. Mom like to show her affection through buying action figures and would actually play with us. My parents were divorced so they constantly tried to out-do each other in Christmas wars and birthday blowouts. I gave tours of all the cool stuff to the neighborhood kids but only a well trusted chosen few of the inner circle ever got to play with my stuff.

Awesome GI Joe & Boglin pictures. Boglins....

I wrote an article very similar to this last week. It has not been approved yet. I think we used some of the very same pictures. Thumbs up!

I was that kid too... that had my own collection but always seemed outdated haha! Grea article.. it made me think about what friends i had & what thier collections were... GROOVY!

Man those pit spawn brats that stole your Star Wars toys should of been thrown in jail for breaking and entering your house.

Anyway great article.

That was an excellent article your getting a big thumbs up from me. I know how your feeling too, I like you was the kid who had less toys and had more imagination.

Aw man, I can't believe how that Mom screwed you over. No wonder some parents buy a ton of toys for their children. They need something to keep their kids busy because they suck as parents! Imagination, yeah. I played with such a mish-mash of toys, it's probably why I'm such a big fan of crossover stories in comics now. Thanks for the read, while not a very long piece, it does touch the heart of the sight. Oh, and yes, B:TAS can so take down the Swamp Thing, ans still have time to take over and rule Eternia!

That was the best! I had those same type of friends, but mostly with GI Joe and Transformers.

Had to read it twice. So good. I think your covered everything.

This was a helluva lotta fun to read! Good work. Some classic toys in there. I'm mistin' up.