In the 1980s, everything existed for one purpose: To sell toys. Comics, cartoons, the 1984 Olympics…all of it. One purpose, to push out as many pieces of plastic with 5 or 6 points of articulation. But for some reason, sometimes those tie-ins would feature characters that never showed up on the local K-Mart shelves, and frankly, this drove kids like me crazy. Why are they showing us these cool characters I can’t put in compromising positions with my sister’s Barbie dolls? WHY?
I even wrote a previous article on just this thing, and it seems to have gotten a good response, so what hell: Here’s Part 2 of the ’80s kids franchise characters that never made it to the action figure aisle, but should have (maybe). I should note that some of these have made it to figure form in recent years as part of classic line revivals, but that’s not the point; they weren’t there when I was a kid, dammit!
8. BIG LOB (G.I.Joe)
Big Lob here is a classic “what were they thinking?” case. Debuting in the animated G.I.Joe movie from the 80s (aka the REAL movie, not that piece of goat manure that came out a year or so back), Lob is a Joe member whose specialty is…making it from the 3-point line? Seriously? This would be akin to Obama sitting at his desk right now going “Hey, you know who we need to send over to the Middle East to help get things under control? Kobe Bryant, that’s who!” BL seemed an odd choice of a character for a military-themed group, and I’m guessing that’s why he was the only knew recruit not given articulated-plastic form. Also? His name is Big Lob. I hear that and all I picture is something trying to form a ginormous loogie.
7. STRAXUS (Transformers)
For years, Marvel produced the licensed Transformers comic, and while they introduced all sorts of human characters into the mix, they rarely debuted all-new Autobots and Decepticons that weren’t part of the toy line. Then there’s Straxus, the evil sumbitch who ruled Cybertron for a bit after the rest of the boys took off to Earth. 25 years later, he’s finally getting something resembling recognition and had a barely recognizable figure released in 2010, but it was called Darkmount, so that begs the question “If you make a toy of a character that doesn’t look like the character and isn’t called the character’s name, is it actually the character?” No. The answer is ‘no.’
6. KARG (Masters of the Universe)
I’ll be honest: I hate this runt and I’m glad he bit the dust in the Lundgren film. Still, when the movie came out, I had EVERY MotU toy that existed (at least those that existed in the U.S., save the Eternia playset) and was severely upset that they would make toys of the other two new characters (Blade and Saurod) but not Karg.
5. SHADOW WEAVER (MotU/She-Ra)
Okay, yeah, I fully understand that prepubescent boys weren’t keen on buying action figures with breasts, and that’s why few action figure lines had more than a small handful of female characters, but come on! There were two separate toy lines that could have carried this one and she would have done fine either place. A sleek, cool design, Shadow Weaver was begging for a place standing around my Fright Zone playset. Even if she did have big knockers.
4. PYTHONA (G.I.Joe)
More breasts, what did you expect? Like Big Lob, Pythona turned up first in the G.I.Joe cartoon movie, as a member of Cobra-La. They released the rest of Cobra-Lalalalalalalalalala (oops, sorry, still have a habit of that from time to time), and of all the 80s action figure lines, the Joes seemed most accepting of having a couple of vaginas in the mix. I’m assuming Pythona has a vagina; I honestly have no idea, what with her not being entirely human. But that’s not the point. Once again, there was a character on my screen and I didn’t have a version of it to run over with my HISS Tank.
3. NIGHTBIRD (Transformers)
Okay, forget the boobs on this one, they aren’t the point(s). Nightbird – first appearing in an episode of the original G1 Transformers cartoon was a ninja. A robot ninja. Possibly the world’s first example of such. How cool is that? Sure, she couldn’t actually transform or any of that shit, but she had fucking nunchucks! Who WOULDN’T want this figure, just so they could have it go eight kinds of kung fu apeshit on Bumblebee?
2. GOAT-MAN (MotU)
Don’t recognize this member of Skeletor’s evil legions? Don’t feel bad, he’s pretty damn obscure. Only appearing in a Golden Books, uhm, book, Goat-Man had a pretty neat look to him, with some slight resemblances to Claw-Ful. Why they didn’t release a figure of him and pit him against his natural mortal enemy Ram Man is beyond me.
1. JAXXON (Star Wars)
There are two things in this world George Lucas pretends don’t exist: The Star Wars Holiday Special and this character, a human-sized green rabbit who doubled as a smuggler. Combine Han Solo and the Trix Rabbit and you have Jaxxon, who debuted very early in Marvel’s Star Wars comic run. Popular urban legend has it that Lucas hated the character so much he demanded Jaxxon be removed from the storyline. Thus, no Jaxxon action figure back then. Surprisingly, there isn’t even one now, when Lucas has finally given in to his urge to be a complete whore and has released toys of HIMSELF before giving into the small but vocal Jaxxon fan community. You created Jar Jar, a two-headed racing announcer and whatever the fuck that was singing vocals for Max Rebo’s band in the Return of the Jedi reissue, so what exactly is your scale for embarassment, George?