Brain Rot: The Venom Action Figure

• [strangefriend]

  . . .And tragically, the action toy died in 1993 from kuru the prion brain disease.

• [Chang Terhune]

  YES!@!!!

• [Destin]

  I have a bunch of Simpsons action figures that “talk” when you plug them into little playsets–the playsets themselves contain a bunch of audio clips from various episodes. There was some kind of short-circuit in my Church of Springfield playset that caused it to occasionally go off by itself, even if no figures were plugged in. This led to one very creepy midnight awakening triggered by old man Jasper’s gruff voice warning, over and over, “TROUBLE A-BREWIN’. TROUBLE A-BREWIN’. TROUBLE A-BREWIN’.”

  I took out the batteries.

  • [noah django]

     I heard that happened at Gloria Steinem’s house, too, except the dolls kept saying “math is hard.”
    http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmuhzuYP9l1qkq2ybo1_500.jpg

• [Nadreck]

  This sort of thing happened even in the Mechanical Toy Era.  I had a windup robot pal who had sort of clutch that would release the power of his mainspring and turn it into much trundling and sparking action.  It slipped in the middle of the night once and woke up the whole house.

• [Jesse K.]

  i remember that the venom figure was semi-rare after toy stores pulled it because of parent complaints about the I wanna eat your brain line, though this could just be urban legend so the comic shops could mark the figure up.

  • [Mark N.]

    You may be thinking of the “Living Skin Slime Pores”. I remember that being a rare find. Not sure if because of the slime or ToyBiz just shorted production.

• [Andy Simmons]

  As a child in the early 80′s, I had a remote-controlled R2-D2 toy that could walk, turn its head, make the character’s trademark noises, etc.  I often made the mistake of leaving it switched on when I placed it back up on my dresser, where I kept it.  It would sit there, on but silent, until it picked up a stray RF signal that registered as a command, and would start making noises and drive off of the dresser onto the floor, waking the whole family.

• [Dave McCaig]

  Ha! A similar thing happened to a friend of mine, when at 3 am the 12″ Galactus he had in his closet randomly rumbled: “I… HUNGER!”  Marvel toys… always trying to scare insomniacs.

  • [Halloween_Jack]

     Sounds like Galactus should have done lunch with Sinistar.

• [Ernest Valdemar]

  Consumer Safety Commission Fondly Recalls Stretch Armstrong Doll

• [satansatansatan]

  I hate to be that guy, BUT that particular Venom action figure did not talk.  Rather it came with a voice box that had buttons on the top.  There were also pegs that allowed you to push the box into Venom’s back so he wore the voice box as some sort of backpack.

• [Van Diemen]

  This reminds me of Talking Boony > http://www.mrspeaker.net/2006/01/14/talking-boony/
  Australian cricket figurine sold with cartons of beer. He would talk when the cricket was on TV and would respond to high pitch frequencies from the broadcast at special moments.
  He was famous because he would come back to life months later, woke me up one night, I thought there was a burglar.
  Talking Boony was supposed to de-activate after the cricket but didn’t. When the batteries started to die his speech would slow down, making him sound drunk.
  Not brilliant advertising for a beer promotion.

  • [Marcus Good]

    “When the batteries started to die his speech would slow down, making him sound drunk.” – c’mon, fellow Taswegian, Boonie cannot EVER get drunk. Even if he consumed all the beer on the planet, in a single planetrip, he’d still walk off the plane sober..

    Let us face Launceston and pray.

• [Ed Piskor]

   The hip hop comic isn’t finished by any stretch. Just had some traveling. More tedium for you soon.

• [Andy Simmons]

  I don’t dislike the Hip Hop Family Tree comic, but aside from the interest I take in it as a lesson in the evolution of music, I can’t really connect with it.  This comic, however, I can absolutely relate to.  So no disrespect to the hip hop comic, but I’m certainly looking forward to seeing more of your non-HHFT work on BB.