11/04/05
01. Teddy Ruxpin and a Quadraphonic 8-track cartridge
I've been keeping an eye out for a Teddy Ruxpin in my thriftcrawling travels, and Red White & Blue provided today. If you didn't grow up in the Ruxpin Era like I did, Teddy comes with a cassette player painfully imbedded in his back which is made to play specially designed tapes with stories, games and songs on them. These special tapes magically control Teddy's eyes and mouth so that he badly lip-synchs and blinks too much to them! You can play regular music or speech cassettes in him as well, but his mouth and eyes don't work right and he ends up looking like a stroke victim.
An unhealthy obsession with Furbies and rudimentary AI/mechanical toys + a fad toy I played with as a child (never owned one, though) = a sure bet at $1.95. An even surer bet since it fell under the RW&B half-off tag color sale rules.
The 8-track cartridge, 4 Channel Dynamite, was 50 cents at the Jefferson Flea Market - not to be confused with the Jefferson Highway Flea Market. This one's on Airline Highway. While there, I checked out a sit-down tabletop Ms. Pac-Man arcade game for a friend and rifled through various records and 8-tracks. This is all I could come up with. Although 4CD is a bunch of wankery produced by Enoch Light, it is quadraphonic (read: quirky, defunct, collectible audio format) - which is why I bought it.
02. Supernaturals VAMP-PA action figure (packaged)
Alright, I actually bought this guy the next day at America's Thrift Store in Baton Rouge, but I was too lazy to make another page for it. If you'll remember, holograms were another big fad of the 80s. Hologram stickers, hologram art, hologram... oven mitts... um, and hologram TOYS! Toys such as the better-known Visionaries action figures and these - their inferior little brothers, the Supernaturals! I wish I could've photographed VAMP-PA's vampire and swooping bat holograms, but they're not that interesting anyway. Special features include: removable cloak, glow-in-the-dark sword, and a mini-comic. Release their hologram powers for 59 cents at ATS!!
© 2005 seawall
