The 5 Most Ill-Conceived Action Figures

There is something inherently wrong when you see a man piloting a jet that has replaced a conventional cockpit glass dome with a plastic welding visor, and the typical flight suit with a more breathable shirtless look. When you see a man flying at you in a vehicle that offers about as much protection as a Harley-Davidson, you know the bare-chested psycho steering the thing doesn't care about his own life but, rather, the amount of people-chunks that will inevitably obstruct his view of the slaughter.

Also, the jet, like most of these Rambo toys, is loaded to the sweaty mullet with unnecessary missiles, grenade launchers and guns, all of which goes against the underdog spirit of the whole franchise. All Rambo really needs is an ejector seat and a survival knife with which to rain steel justice upon those of the evil persuasion. In the first movie, the only weapon he's given at the outset of the movie is the fucking forest. This is why a Rambo toy line is so ill-conceived. To make money, every action figure needs tie-in toys, bad ass, death-weilding versions of the Barbie Dream House. But the only Rambo toy you should really need is John Rambo. To put it another way, it's tough to justify tie-in toys when your protagonist only needs his bare hands to punch someone's head off.

"Combat at its kookiest!" was Mattel's tag line for the toys, but the figures actually came with little plastic guns to shoot each other with. So it wasn't a situation where Major Munch (the donut) was squirting wacky cream filling at Private Pizza. No, the implied combat was done with real bullets. The victims merely looked kooky, which does not make the combat itself "kooky" under modern rules of warfare.

Mean Weener (a sad little fellow with a dripping frankfurter hanging loose from his lips) seems to realize the tragedy of their situation.

"Taco Terror" has seized on his role as warrior and meets the enemy with a scowl, unaware that his tiny helmet is protecting nothing, and only a layer of shredded cheese is protecting his guts from Weener's .45 caliber hollow points.

The rest of the figures sport Taco's crazed, wide-eyed expression of war-time rage, with the exception of Sergeant Scoop. A half-melted chocolate and vanilla ice cream cone that, judging by his googly eyes and retard smile, was drafted into this war of dinnertime dominance straight out of his "special care" institution.

One can venture to guess that if there were to be a big budget Hollywood adaptation of "Food Fighters" Sergeant Scoop would be the dim-witted, yet lovable solider that we grow attached to only to watch him melt away in a hot fryer grease explosion. The Bugerdier General (a hamburger with arms and legs... duh) would assume a grim voice and say--in voice-over: "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you slurp you cone!" Actual words from Scoop's packaging.

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The original Stretch Armstrong toy line was released in 1976, but it was pretty boring when compared to the 1992 line which featured a slew of terrible design features, all of which added to the growing childhood bloodlust to find out just what the fuck that toothy, pompadoured bastard was filled with.

The biggest flaw in the revitalized Stretch Armstrong toy line was revitalizing the Stretch Armstrong toy line. CAP toys (who purchased the property for some reason) grossly overestimated the world's need for a latex sock filled with sex jelly and the line only had a moderate level of success among their target audience: curious children with easy access to scissors.

Once word spread that Stretch was filled with a corn syrup-like substance and not the other-worldly, extra-terrestrial, super-power-giving goop that all children believed was underneath his morose penis-looking limbs, kids just stopped caring about the closeted crime-fighter in the ball shorts and tube top.

There is no way to sugar coat this: Stretch looks like a dick. Not only do his limbs resemble flaccid penises, his face makes him look like the metaphorical kind of dick who will "accidentally" teabag you as you bench press. He has an air of gym-rat douchebag wafting around him that is only emphasized by the fact that he bares a striking resemblance to silver screen icon of dickdom, William Zabka, better known as "That Cobra Kai dick from The Karate Kid.'"

Above: Stretch Armstrong.

Stretch Armstrong was no fun by any "stretch" of the imagination (get it?!?!). You grab one end and your buddy grabs the other. You run backwards and marvel at this wondrous "draw and quarter" kit for kids, then let go and watch him shrink like a cold penis.

Sure, a more inventive kid could open and drain the doll, then fill it with strawberry jam and watch the "guts" spurt out as they crush him with a rock. But at that point you're making your own fun and the toy has failed you.

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Kids love dogs and cats. Kids love cars. Kids love toys. Therefore, kids should love running over dogs and cats with toy cars.

That was the rationale behind "Hubcat and Bumper." How deranged must one be to design a toy that allows children to simulate vehicular animal homicide?

Abandoning the "push a button and watch him pop" design, Tyco instead opted to install a joint down the middle of the fluffy critters that would allow children to split them in half as if they were road kill. The only thing these shining beacons of animal cruelty were missing was "uber cool soul-crushing guilt action!" which would allow kids to split the toys then be overcome with a brooding sense of looming death and despair. Damn, that would have been fun, huh?

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