Written by Jonathan Wojcik

Monster Poppers!

   It seems like a great deal of cool, original monster toys are debuting this Halloween season, whether or not they're actually being marketed as seasonal items, and the Monster Poppers can currently be found at CVS pharmacies in either the Halloween section or generalized toy aisle, from what I gather. The main gimmick of these toys is that they launch a soft, foam rubber ball at startling velocity when squeezed forcefully enough. Play with them outside, and you'll probably send their body parts soaring clear out of the neighborhood.





   I picked up my two favorites of the line; the orange thing with the clustered eyes, and that adorable creepy fucker with the launching face. The hairy yeti head with the brain was cool, I guess, but when it comes down to a mammal with an exposed brain or something with eyes that fly out, I just kind of have to flip a coin. At 7.99 each, I wasn't about to get any more than two, but I couldn't very well get only one. That's ridiculous.





   Can you believe I even almost passed on the robed guy at first glance? As I was browsing through them, I just completely failed to register that this shadow-faced, cloaked figure had tentacles and wasn't just a generic grim reaper or something, which would have still been high on the list of priorities for the launching face alone, but once I realized this was some sort of otherworldly cultist, I almost wanted two of him instead of two different poppers. If these were cheap enough I'd have probably bought five more of him. Exactly five more, for an extra special reason:





   Every other popper comes with a bunch of extra, totally identical balls, but our Crawling Chaos here has a total of six different facial expressions, all of them precious. They didn't have to do that at all, but they went the extra mile and gave him a customizable selection of shadowy orb-heads, a feature almost more fun than their ability to rocket from his cloak like cannonballs.





   I feel like the tentawizard can't possibly be anything other than the "boss" of the Monster Poppers, possibly the entity who summoned them forth from the nether realms to bring about the end of all mankind with their high-powered projectile eyes, but they probably turned out to be a bunch of incompetent goof-offs whose nefarious plans fall apart in endlessly comedic ways while he just gets more and more exasperated.

This is kind of a short post. I wish I had more to say, but I guess a big rubber Nyarlathotep that vomits interchangeable Gastlys kind of speaks for itself. If you've got a CVS, you better pick one up before they're gone. If you don't have a CVS, look them up on Amazon!

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