Pop Culture League Challenge: Here Comes Halloween! - 2016 Halloween Toys in Review

Pop Culture League Challenge: Here comes Halloween!

Last week, the League was all about fears and frights, and we’re going to wrap up the Halloween theme this week with one last topic. This week’s challenge to the Pop Culture League is…

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Here comes Halloween!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

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The League is always open to new members! Got a blog? Write a post in response to the weekly challenge, and you’ll be included. It’s that easy!

Once you put up a post on your site add a comment below with the URL. Try to incorporate at least three of your fellow League members’ links (but more would be great!) into the article you wrote, or you can also link to them on social media.

By cross-posting like this, we will help each other out by sending new readers to each other’s sites. Have fun!

(Wondering what the heck this is all about? We’re recruiting for this loose-knit, rag tag crew! Here are the details for contributing to The League.)

This will likely be my last post for a while.  I wanted to post every day in October, but alas, I'm too dag gum busy!  To wrap up the final Pop Cultue League challenge for Halloween I thought I would share my thought on 2016's Halloween toy must haves.

LEGO Series 16

There were 3 must have's from LEGO Series 16, and I finally found the ones I was looking for:

Cyborg Woman, Devil Boy, and Vamp Boy

Imaginext Series 7

Fisher Price Imaginext really knocked it out of the park again! I really want almost all of these, but two of them are way too good to pass up for sure, Pumpkin Ghost, and A FREAKING GHOSTBUSTER!!!!

Check out that PKE Reader!

Awesome Proton Pack!

Playmobil Mystery Fi?ures series 10

THE STILT GHOST!!!  Halloween 2016's unofficial mascot!  Just look at him!

Stilt Ghost

Isn't he glorious!?  The only really Halloweeny figures, unless you count the cool wizard and the new robot, which was included in my submission for Day 24 of the #Miniween2016 challenge on Instagram.

Mechanical Monstrosity

When I first tried to put this guy together his arm shot off and I couldn't find it for weeks!

Hot Wheels 2016 Halloween Cars

Normally Mattel's Hot Wheels releases 5 special Kroger/Fred Meyer exclusive Halloween versions of their vehicles, and sometimes Target also has their own exclusives.  This year we saw 8 new Halloween cars!  Check them out!

Bone Shaker, this one has seen may Halloween versions.  I like the spectral wheels

Audacious

Deora II, my favorite this year!

16 Angels

Ryura LX

Dieselboy

Blvd. Bruiser & Vandetta

McDonald's The Great Pumpkin

             

             

That pretty much covers the 2016 Halloween toy high lights.  Did I miss something good? What toys did you pick up?

Halloween cometh for these Pop Culture League members as well:

Retro Ramblings 2016 Halloween Special

Alexis' Universe is Halloween

What Halloween means to Mr. Smith

Cassie Winters says Christmas is better

2 Minute Toy Break for Halloween Memories

The Toy Box, This Is Halloween!

20 Years Before 2000, Halloween 1988

Jamie is focused on Halloween

AFB rocks out to Halloween

Green Plastic Squirt Gun: Simple Things

AEIOUWhy: 2016 in Halloween country, Salem!

Cool and Collected: Making contact at Cox Farms Fall Festival

Creepmas Day 11: Creepy Cruisers- Chillin' With Mac Tonight!

I found this little gem for 50 cents at none other than Capital City Antique Mall. It's Bill Elliot's Ford Taurus Mac Tonight stock car. I realize it's a bit of a stretch considering the Mac Tonight stock car a member of the Creepy Cruiser family, but hey Mac's head is a cresent moon and Strongbad was Mac Tonight for Halloween, so there! Also, I once owned a Ford Taurus. I never thought it would make a good racing car, but what do I know?

Anyways, Mac Tonight was one of the 4 boys Happy Meal toys, circa 1998, back when fast food toys were still pretty neat. There are stickers or "decals", it has a cheaper plastic body, and the windows are tinted to the extreme, but it still makes for a very nice cheap toy (oxymoron?). We are bombarded by some lovely ads including McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Super Motel 8, 76 Gasoline, NASCAR, Plasti-Kote spray paint, Ford, and 2 more logos I will need a magnifying glass to read.

That's all for tonight, this daddy's beat! Dang cold bug.

Creepmas Day 6: Creepy Cruiser-Halloween Bone Shaker, Rigor Motor, & '57 Plymouth Fury

These beauties were left out in the cold, sort of speak, as I ran out of Halloween in which to post about them. I'd like to make up for that this Creepmas.

Creepmas Day 2: Creepy Cruisers-Festive Fangulas

The blind bag craze has finally come to 1/64 scale die cast vehicle toys! Exclusive to Hot Wheels Series 2 blind bags is this new sparkly blue Fangula. I also picked up a totally not blind bagged, regular Fangula with the same golden body with a bloody red paint job. These aren't exactly all terrain vehicles, but they are a festive addition to any Creepmas collection.

 The blue blind bag Fangula has a lovely subtle sparkle

I believe the clear winner, by a nose, is the sparkle-blue blind bag Fangula. What do you think?

Creepy Cruisers X & XI: The Thunderbat and Monsters, Inc. Funny Cars

My Dad found some sweet die cast funny cars for cheap at the DI and kindly donated them to DI Treasures! Thanks Dad!

Now obviously these don't all qualify as Creepy Cruisers, but I just wanted to show them all off.

First off we have Billy Elliot's NASCAR Thunderbat produced by Racing Champions, Inc. Maybe I'm a brain-dead victim of advertising, but one thing I love about funny cars are all the brand names crammed into one location! Coca-Cola, Amoco, McDonald's, Reese's, Snap-On, Batman Forever, True Value, NASCAR, 76 gasoline, Goodyear, Ford, and a few more that are so small I can't quite make them out. 

THUNDERBAT

Next we have Terry Labonte's Monte Carlo, a 2001 Kellog's cereal box prize.

There aren't nearly as many subliminal ads on this car, but we do get Kellog's, Pixar's Monsters, Inc., NASCAR, Good Year, Quaker State, GMAC, & Hendrick.

As you can probably tell most diecast cereal box toys do usually come with a few stickers, but the opening hood almost makes up for that! The quality is even lower than The Thunderbat. I don't know who Kellog's hired to produce this car, but I belive it is Action brand. It's definitely not a Hot Wheel car, but still rather cool anyways!

And lastly we have a true Hot Wheels Albertson's big rig!

The Albertson's truck holds a special place in my heart since my first real job was being a bag boy for Albertson's, "it's your store!". I still remember wearing those lame uniforms with images of bagged groceries tipping over. Oh how far I have come! I didn't even know Mattel produced an Albertson's Hot Wheel truck. It's a pretty cool little momento!

We can all pretend that this truck has a load of Halloween tricks and treats, so it totally qualifies as a Creepy Cruiser. All the Albertson's stores in Utah were bought out by Associated Food Stores a few years back and rebranded as Associated Fresh Market, so I don't really remember the extent of Albertson's Halloween selection, but I think it was fairly decent. 

Did you buy any Halloween essentials from Albertson's lately? Does anyone else have one of the semi-rare brand name big rigs produced by Mattel? What's so funny about funny cars?

Let me know in the comments below!

Creepy Cruisers V: Gangster Grin comes out at night

Introducing Gangster Grin! This ethereal vehicle looks fantastic. I was able to capture some blurry, black & white photographic evidence of its existence!

By reversing the polarity I was able to retrieve these fantastic pictures:

Spooky, huh?