I guess my love for the Ninja Turtles will never truly fade. I’ve loved the Turtles since the second or third grade and while I didn’t really follow the comics, newer animated series, and the terrible live action series, I’ll always have a special spot for them.

As a grown adult, I still enjoy my fair share of TMNT merchandise. A buddy of mine handed me this super sweet “Artobiography” about the original TMNT comics that is full of all sorts of great content. The book is packed with tons of drawings, story boards, character designs, and behind the scenes insight all compiled by Kevin Eastman himself. It’s a great book, even if looking at it now shows me that Eastman and Laird weren’t exactly the greatest artists. That doesn’t matter because their idea was so solid, and their work ethic so dedicated that they were able to take TMNT from their small apartment and turn it into a world wide phenomenon that has become ingrained in culture as much as anything from Marvel or DC.

Second, I ordered a beat up copy of TMNT: Fall of the Footclan for the original Gameboy for a whole six cents off eBay. The thing looks like it’s been through a bomb blast, but I cleaned it up, threw some double A’s into the old green beast and played through the first stage of the game. I loved this game back when it came out, but it’s a rather average action game these days. Since I didn’t want to deal with the ancient Gameboy screen, I ended up playing through the whole game using Super Gameboy. There was some great TMNT fan service in here including lots of great stills right out of the pilot episode of the cartoon. Sure, it’s really dated now, but back then Gameboy games just didn’t have graphics that looked like the real deal.

So during the Superbowl tonight, we’re supposed to be treated to new official trailers for both Transformers 2 and G.I. Joe. It’s kind of fitting that the both of these are shown in this manner as I remember the two franchises coming on almost simultaneously back in the 80’s. Myself, I fell in love with robots that turn into cars, planes, and guns as opposed to a bunch of misfits dressed in silly fatigues ejecting out of helicopters.

Think about that on there for a second, and you’ll realize that these franchises are simply steeped in the ridiculous. It doesn’t cease to amaze me that people from my generation don’t seem to grasp this concept. For example, I just read a comment from someone on Comingsoon.net that went something along the lines of “I hope they don’t ruin my childhood”.

Now think about THAT one for a second as well. How can any of these big budgeted Hollywood films even come close to doing any of the original material for these properties any justice when they are already based on ludicrous ideas. The fact that there are giant sentient robots from another planet that can somehow turn into a firetrucks, and no one even notices until it starts shooting lasers from its headlights is insane. No one in G.I. Joe ever dies…well, Duke came close to death in the animated feature from the 80’s, but he came through. The premise of these shows is paper thin in the first place.

I was over at the local mall today buying myself a new pair of glasses. I decided to take a trip to Samgoody, aka the most over priced store on the planet, and see if they had anything cool. Samgoody is an awful store by the way. I was trying to browse through their Playstation collection and it was a nightmare. Nothing is in order, it’s this mix of old and new product, and everything is ridiculously expensive. There was a used copy of Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter which looked like it was wrapped up in a shit, and was going for 20 dollars, where as I bought a copy for myself at Gamestop a few months ago for 6.99.

Unfortunately, there are no more specialty shops in this mall, so this store is the only place where you’ll find cool American and Japanese toys that you likely won’t find at Toys R Us. Case in point, the new Jack Bauer figure from McFarlene. I wrote about this figure before, but it looks like it finally came out. At 20 bucks, it’s a little steep. Problem is, even if I found this thing on the net for cheaper, I’d probably still end up paying around 20 dollars with shipping. Since I’ve been looking so flipping forward to this figure, I didn’t mind the price so much. Heck, I’m on vacation too, I’m allowed to toss away some money if I want (glasses not included).

Of course he doesn’t look as good as the prototype, but it’s damn close. The problem is I don’t really have room for this figure anywhere. I’m debating taking it out of the box, not that I’m anal about that stuff, but sometimes certain figures look better packaged. This one might be one of them. For the Bauer fan, it doesn’t get much cooler than this.

We Jack Bauer fans have a lot of waiting to do over the next few months. Okay, so this past season of 24 certainly wasn’t the finest in the series, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss spending Monday nights with my favorite CTU agents.

That said there is a whole world of 24 out there, including plenty of ways to spend time with Jack while we wait for Day 7 to arrive in January. You might be surprised by the amount of options, ranging from books to video games. Take a look.

24: Declassified Books

I certainly was a child of the 80’s. I remember when the very first episode of Transformers was aired, and then witnessed the glut of cartoons based off of toy lines sprawl across television. It was quite a spectacle. In an earlier post, nerdlogger “tdb” suggested we do a post on one of the other cartoons with transforming vehicles: M.A.S.K. I thought it was a damned good idea.

M.A.S.K. stands for “Mobile Armored Strike Kommand”. Dig that “K” in there. Now, if you ask me, Ed Boon and John Tobais must’ve been a huge fans of this show when they came up with Mortal Kombat’s title. That “k” just gives it that 80’s edge it so rightly deserves. It already has an insane cast of wacky characters none of whom wear the same uniform yet all belong to the same klub (hah I’m so clever), so all it needs now is a jamming 80’s theme song sung by some hair band wanna-be. Lucky for us it does:

One of the great things about the animation from this time period was that all the opening segments are really well done. Clearly, the budget for an entire half season was spent on polishing up the intros. The rest of the actual show doesn’t quite live up to the standards set by the first sixty seconds. However, we get treated by a menagerie of goofy good-guys and bad-guys that more than makes up for the gaps in the animation.

Remember when you used to go to the grocery store with your parents, and after checkout you would beg them to let you buy a little toy from those 25 cent machines? Yeah, those capsule machines were really cool when you didn’t know any better. However, once you hit a certain age, you realized that the toy inside sucked. It sucked big time.

When I went to Japan a few weeks ago, I discovered that feeling as a kid all over again. Capsule toys are huge in Japan, and some of those capsule toys are really cool. There are literally thousands of different machines to choose from, so the chances are you’ll find a machine you like and pump a couple hundred yen into one.

Honestly, before I went to Japan, I think I finally managed to squash my need for wanting toys. I had told myself that they are a waste of money, and that I simply don’t have the room for them anymore. The truth is, they are a waste of money and garbage, but when garbage is as cool as this stuff, it’s hard to resist.

In Japan, capsule toys can range in quality and price. The machine range is usually between 100 – 300 yen per toy. The 100 yen machines will net you something smaller, while the 400 yen machines spit out miniature action figures that actually require some assembly.