For one brief and shining nugget of time in the golden age of brand new properties called the ’80s, I was obsessed with Madballs. Ob-frickin-sessed. I wanted all of them. I thought they were the coolest thing ever. I think a part of me still thinks that toy creation peaked when Madballs were created, which should probably give you an idea of just how close to the microwave I am when I warm food up.
Madballs latched on to the part of my brain that collected Garbage Pail Kids and would not let go. Mainly because they were very similar to Garbage Pail Kids except for the fact that they were round, made of foam and were completely different. But they were perverse. Weird. Odd. Strange. Those of us who were into Madballs know exactly what it was about them that ignited our fervor. We could probably recognize each other on the street with a head nod.
I learned recently that a few of my Madballs are rapidly decomposing. While that may seem appropriate, it’s not at all fun to pick up a cherished childhood toy and find that it’s slowly disintegrating for no reason at all. I quickly learned that Madballs were switched mid-production to a softer foam. Because why, you ask?
Because kids were being harmed. Harmed by foam balls. Because parents.
Yeah… those parents. The ones that ruin things. The ones that write letters. Those bastards!
A few years ago, Madballs enjoyed a resurgence as those old balls were given a few slight design tweaks and were released once again. But the greatest thing to come out of the Madball revolution, sadly, did not spawn a second life. Of course I am talking about the idea that turned an awesome thing into an even more awesome thing: why not take Madballs and make them actual action figures?
Genius, right? I know!
Head-popping Madballs took the core concept of Madballs and added an action figure layer to the premise, turning ordinary balls into fully realized toys. Head-popping Madballs carried the theme of those simple heads down onto the rest of the body. If you ever wondered what an eyeball’s body would look like, or a baseball with an oversized mouth, the Head-Popping Madballs finally let you know.
Head-Popping Madballs chose randomly from the first and second series, so some of the Madballs didn’t get a chance to have a body of their own, and the oversized Super Madballs didn’t get a shot at all. But the ones that did had some great, faithful design work that, if updated, would make extremely cool 6-inch-scaled figures. Between the gross-out gorgeousness of Slobulus, the mummified mayhem of Dust Brain, or the padlocked pulchritude of Lock Lips, we haven’t seen toys quite like these.
But if this toy line were updated, they could now go ahead and turn the entire two waves of regular Madballs and Super Madballs into fully bodied and fully articulated figures. These would make fantastic, fun toys. And if they wanted to make an updated version of the Mad Rollercycle, that would be gravy.
Head-popping Madballs took a great concept and added what was clearly a gimmick to extend the brand beyond just balls on cards… but in doing so it created a concept that would be as visually interesting and toyetically appealing now as it was over 25 years ago. While I wouldn’t mind if they traded their spring-loaded head-popping for the modern standards of full articulation, keeping the heads easily removable would let people swap the heads for a variety of different body-head combinations, just like the originals. The more I think about it, the more I want something like this to exist. Not just for me, but for the world.
Credit to weirdotoys.com for most of the pictures
