Too Much Awesome

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe might be historically significant in the world of toys but it just couldn’t compete against its contemporaries.

Back in 1983, Hallmark Cards busted out Rainbow Brite to counter Muriel Fahrion’s older Strawberry Shortcake line from American Greetings. The character had been in development at Hallmark for about two years prior, starting in 1981. Beginning as a greeting card line, the Rainbow quickly stretched into various forms of character merchandise, licensed products, dolls, [...]

After traumatizing you all with freaky celluloid toys last week, I figured I owed it to everyone to counter this week with some good vintage toys – and because I really like robots, I figured I’d see what kind of vintage toy robots would be out there. It turns out there are a lot of [...]

Funny how toys come about, isn’t it? As we all learned last week, Mr. Potato Head started as cereal prizes attached to real vegetables. A similar history surrounds the foam-based line of projectile (toy) weapons and soft sports balls: Nerf.

We’ve hit our Friday of the week, and at the moment, Kyle and I are rather busy with some big things (we’re recording a separate, legit podcast with a very special guest). That means I’m going to keep today light and nostalgic, which lends itself to a Forget-Me-Nots, the segment Kyle came up with but [...]

He’s a staple of many childhoods. He’s a supporting character in a successful blockbuster series. He’s a family man. And he’s a snappy dresser, too. Mr. Potato Head has had a long history, and is one of the most famous and instantly recognizable toys in the world. How did this mustachioed vegetable rise to super [...]

Kyle and I touched on the Super Soaker during Episode 5 of the Too Much Awesome podcast, as well as during Kyle’s list of his Unattainable Toys from youth, but it’s summer now and along with that has unfortunately come heat. Fortunately for us kids and adults pretending to be kids, the Super Soaker still [...]

Kids love candy and kids love toys. What better product to hit that core demographic than a candy dispenser that looks like a toy? Enter PEZ. Or rather, enter PEZ decades ago. After a bit of research, I have determined that PEZ is, and always was, awesome. What better place to talk about the toy [...]

“What do you mean you gave it away!?” I screeched at my mother, the full complement of my nine-year-old lungs bursting forth in disbelief. She wouldn’t have. She couldn’t have.

I wrote an article last week about Hot Wheels cars, but upon posting it something started gnawing at me. While talking about Hot Wheels, I had completely neglected to mention Matchbox, the opposing brand. What makes this worse is that as a kid, I couldn’t distinguish between the two as both brands made little toy [...]