Journeymen Deadshirters Mike Pfeiffer and Max Robinson are the Trash Boys. In TrashMall, they bring you the hottest products and apparel from thrift stores, vintage shops and other retail hotspots around New York’s five boroughs. This month they pressed their noses against the glass at the famous import and vintage toy shop Toy Tokyo in the East Village.
Michaels for sale, get your imported Michaels.
Smurfs Figurines
Quantity: 8
$24.99
Description
Based off of the original Dutch comic and television franchise, these inexplicably popular cartoon representations of the infinite facets of human potential are ⅓ scale to life size at One Apple Tall. Comes in a set of eight and guaranteed to be official canon.
Reviews
Mike: “I would like a smurf”
Mike: “You will have eight smurves.”
Mike: “…Okay”
Max: Smurfs, or as they’re exotically known in Dutch, De Smurfen, have existed as these weird little figurines for as long as I can remember. The Smurfs represent the core values of their Belgian homeland: community, kindness, and lusting over the same single virginal blonde.
Mike: Smurfs is one of the worst victims of that thing where a completely sexless universe is created for children, but once you learn about the goopy magic of reproduction you wonder where the fuck all the Smurves come from. I could say the same for Snorks but their protuberant trademark organ is… too obviously alluring.
Max: We’re missing the Smurforest for the Smurftrees here. Let’s talk about the figures. I like how that one Smurf looks like he wants to fuck that big bottle of champagne.
Mike: Looking at the available smurves paints a picture of important personality traits in Belgian culture, including champagne appreciation, smoking, and rubbing your ass on a box of chocolates.
Cowboy Skull Brother
Quantity: 1
$109.99
Description
From Chinese 12 inch scale manufacturer COO Models comes Cowboy Skull Brother, a fully articulated Old West skeleton loaded with accessories and packaged in a collector-friendly window box.
Reviews
Max: “WELCOME TO HELL. I’M SLIM PICKENS.”
Mike: The Surgeon General went fucking nuts on the Marlboro Man ads and as a result they look cooler than ever.
Max: In life, Cowboy Skull Brother was a very lewd gunfighter who taunted his enemies with his exposed genitals. He was shot by Sheriff Horace Tupalo and was buried in Boot Hill, no wife.
Mike: I was going to say he’s dressed pretty slutty, yeah. Just wearing a vest in the Old West sun is a recipe for a chapped wang. He’s got nipple tassels.
Max: Cowboy Skull Brother’s sexuality is debated by scholars to this day, such is its width and breadth.
Mike: Ooh yeah brother… I know two things about the cowboy life. The nights are lonely, and spittoons are fuckable.
Max: Personally, I’m saving my money for the deluxe Skeleton Caligula (Toy Fair International “O-face” variant).
Transformers Be@rbricks (Bumblebee and Megatron)
Quantity: 8
$74.99
Description
Medicom celebrates the release of Transformers: Age of Extinction with a line of transforming Autobots and Decepticons who can change into 145mm-tall Be@rbrick form.
Reviews
Mike: This is… a modern day Smurf to me. I can’t understand the appeal or the collector level price for this, or those “Mighty Muggs” vinyl figures or those little Funko guys. Vinyl Toys belong only in Etsy stores with handpainted pottery of Doctor Who using the sonic screwdriver to open up the door to KITT from Knight Rider or whatever. Max, you’re a collector, be my Will Graham and help me understand the mind of someone who wants this.
Max: *pushes up spectacles* Well Michael what you fail to appreciate here is how the Be@rbrick Transformers are indicative of how insanely detailed transforming toy technology has become over the last decade. Normally I’d agree that vinyl toys are the sort of stuff you frequently find on the desk of VICE magazine rudeboys but I have nothing but admiration for a toy robot that turns into a slightly larger toy in a few simple steps.
Mike: You’re too close to this one, Max. We’re… taking you off the case. We think it’s better for your health.
Max: It’s Transformers though, I bet Medicom even came up with a story for why they pose as Be@rbricks. I BET IT HAS IT’S OWN CONTINUITY. This is a Kiss Players level development.
Mike: If the appeal of a Be@rbrick was as explicitly sexual as the Transformers: Kiss Players stories then I’d get it more, for sure. I’m no longer as amazed that every single seemingly shallow franchise is just a glassy surface hiding depths of obsession and hierarchical categorization (Smurfs and Old West human skeleton aficionados come to mind), but I don’t understand snapping up a super generic painted toy like this just because it looks like your fake robot dad.
Max: “I can’t stick it up my ass, no stars. –Mike”
George Lucas Super Live Adventure Alarm Clock
Quantity: 1
$125.00
Description
This alarm clock featuring the famous automata from Star Wars was sold during the tour of the George Lucas Super Live Adventure, an incredible arena experience that celebrates the work of George Lucas and the hero in us all. When young audience member Hiromi is given a magic wand, the fate of the George Lucas Multiverse is in her hands as she jumps between the worlds of LucasFilms’ movies including Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Willow, Tucker: The Man And His Dream, and American Graffiti.
Reviews
Max: AMERICAN GRAFFITI.
Mike: Does Hiromi defeat the Vietnam war??
Max: “You’re REAL Wolfman Jack, Hiromi ” -Richard Dreyfuss
Mike: I want the Super Live David Cronenberg Adventure. Please let me watch a gymnast in a “Brundlefly” costume get doused in egg whites and try to lip sync a Japanese vocal track about how teleporters will help with cram school.
Max: In the David Lynch Super Live Adventure, Bob from Twin Peaks and Frank Booth are run over by the farmer from The Straight Story before they can kill the Eraserhead baby.
Mike: A massive inflatable severed ear descends in the Osaka sportsdome as ear-splitting cricket noises fill the arena.
Max: When I found this at Toy Tokyo, I was completely baffled. Learning its origins as a souvenir from an ill-fated Japanese Stunt Spectacular has only left me more confused. Props to the kid with the divorced dad who brought this back from a work trip in 1993 to score brownie points.
Mike: This show sounds Fucking Incredible. For some reason arena shows have been back in a big way lately, as Marvel and DC both mounted live action spectaculars last year, but those characters already hang out together so who gives a shit. This show is like spending two million dollars a night on making all your action figures kiss.
Max: I like that 60% of this thing is fake chrome. If that evil little kid crime boss from Robocop 2 had an alarm clock, it was the George Lucas Super Live Adventure Alarm Clock.
Mike: The tiny face of this thing is useless. Made during an age where LCD displays were both cost prohibitive and impossible to light, I’m sure that this alarm clock relied on eardrum-burstingly loud Japanese translations of classic Star Wars quotes at fifteen minute intervals to actually tell time.
Max: I basically live for shit like this because it’s a relic from a pop culture “thing” barely anyone seems to remember. The world at large may have forgotten about the power and majesty of Indiana Jones kissing a tiger or a life size inflatable Millenium Falcon, but its legacy lives on in this very expensive, very crappy clock.
Got a cool product you think TrashMall should feature? Email Robinson@deadshirt.net.
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I’m not aware of any Transformers collector who would buy these for 14.99, let alone 74.99. Most people are in it for “real” Transformers.
…that said there totally are separate continuities for Kre-O, Angry Birds, and other promotional sub-lines.