Battle Beasts

I can’t help but feel incredibly depressed nowadays, and I don’t know why. Well, other than the usual: hate my job, hate the colder temperatures, got no heat in my apartment, girl issues that I haven’t ignored long enough for them to go away… bah! Seriously, it’s enough to make one want to go punch several small puppies right in their cutesy little sad-eyed faces!

And speaking of violence and animals, anyone remember Battle Beasts?


Sweet Christopher Walken, I LOVED these things. Back in the day when boys were boys and toys were toys, my brothers and I would play with these little beauties for hours on end.

By today’s toy standards, Battle Beasts are probably nothing special. Each little figure was completely immobile except for the arms and came with only a dinky plastic weapon and a heat sensitive sticker that indicated whether the beast belonged to the Fire Tribe, Water Tribe, or Wood Tribe.

And if I hear so much as a SNICKER from ANYONE after the “Wood Tribe” comment, I swear I will turn this blog around and we’ll head right the heck back to MySpace.

Sickos.

Well, for the most part, the toys themselves weren’t really that fantastic. The stickers usually fell off, the arms got pulled out, and the weapons found their way under the sofa or into the vacuum cleaner. Even so, Battle Beasts were the BOMB.*

My brothers and I had a huge ice cream bucket full of the little beasties. Not a birthday went by that my grandmother didn’t decorate her grandkids’ cakes with at least two or three Battle Beasts. We never got any of the “official Battle Beast playsets,” but we made do with a giant, unfolding Transformer called Scorponok and a Cinderella’s castle from Disneyland… and it never struck me as weird that a family of four boys and no girls should have a Cinderella’s castle playset until just now.

When we’d settle down to play Battle Beasts, my brothers and I would pass the bucket around, and each person would pick out a figure one at a time until they were all gone. Of course, being brothers, we fought over the best of the figures. As I recall, the ones most fought over were:

Ferocious Tiger…

War Weasel…

Sabresword Tiger…

Black Panther (who, to this day, looks hardcore)…

Pixelated Pointer (I swear I’m not making this name up)…

…and the mother-effin’ Crooked Crow.

I heard a rumor recently that some company had acquired the rights to distribute Battle Beasts again. If I find out that rumor is true, I’ma have to buy me a few, mostly for nostalgia’s sake. If nothing else, I’d like to remember the time when fun could be had with just a few pieces of plastic and a lot of fighting. Most of the time nowadays, fun requires several hours of preparation, a lengthy drive, and food from a country smaller than Rhode Island and with a name harder to pronounce than “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”

Hmm… well, I’m glad for that trip down memory lane. I feel much better. Go ahead and let all your puppies out of their kennels now. They’re safe from me. I promise.

*Do people still say “the bomb”? I don’t know anymore. I feel like I should sag my pants and turn my hat backwards or something to stay “hip.” Dangit, I’m too young to feel old!