Madballs
Ep. 208 is live!
Hey, Hey! It's week three of The Odd & The Obscure Month, and I'm not going to lie...I feel like we are having a hell of a good time. This week once again sees me and the boys reviewing a Patron Pick, though the parameters of this one are slightly different. This week's pick is thanks to our dear friend Maddie, but the property chosen comes from someone else! Maddie has been enjoying our terrific trio since our Ernest days, and was a patron for our SECOND show dedicated to Ernest P. Worrell (you read that correctly) which was of course The Ernest P. Worrell Preservation Society. Maddie followed us over to the new show, became a patron, but wasn't quite sure what to pick. Working together, we chose a property that was definitely on the wishlist for one of our friends/listeners/champions, Mr. Eric Hyde. Eric has been a big fan of ours since the ORIGINAL Ernest Podcast, The Importance Seeing Ernest (if you didn't know this already, I don't know what to tell you...), and he also followed us to the new show. Eric has become much more than a fan though, I am lucky enough to call him friend. A creator in his own right, Eric has his own channel, Hey Internet, Eric Here. His main focuses are horror, a favorite genre of his, but he truly has a love of all things great and small as it relates to Gen X/Millennial Nostalgia. One such property, that may have been small in size but great in terms of fun, was Madballs. Needless to say, Eric was incredibly pumped that we would be covering it, and very grateful to Maddie for her thoughtfulness. That said, a great deal of thanks to Maddie for being a supportive fan, I hope we help your shifts go by a little easier, and thank you to Eric for being so incredibly supportive. Now, let's talk some Madballs! For the uninitiated, Madballs were this bizzare crossroads between Nerf balls and Garbage Pail Kids. The sickening spheres boasted some very creative designs that definitely tapped into that "gross-out appeal" that many 80's and 90's toy lines tried to capitalize on, to varying degrees of success. In this case, someone hit the nail on the head, as these ugly little suckers struck a chord with kids. Just look at them!
What's interesting to me is WHO brought them to market: Am Toys, the toy division of American Greetings. You may have heard us talk about their creative department, and their creations? Those Characters From Cleveland, creators of Popples, Strawberry Shortcake, and Care Bears! Now we did see a rather long lull in Madballs being present on toy shelves or in the zeitgeist for a number of years. In time, though, we would get some pretty nice revists. In 2006, Art Asylum partnered with American Greetings to give Madballs an update, providing facelifts to some of the classic Madballs, while introducing some new characters to the line up. Premium DNA took a crack at the license in 2020 that gave the Madballs more of an action figure look.
It is hard to believe that such an odd line, from the most unlikely of places, managed to worm its way into our hearts and minds in such a fashion. Then again, the tag line for this show is how nostalgia is one hell of a drug. And it certainly seems as though nearly anything and everything has or will get some sort of revist. Who knows, maybe another MadBalls revisit is just on the horizon. That is going to wrap things up for Yesterdaze this week, but you just KNOW we have more instore for next week! won't you please join us next Monday for a suggested entry to cap The Odd & The Obscure Month. Friend of the show, and happy helper behind the scenes on a couple matters, Matt, aka Quip, threw out the oft forgotten cartoon entry of King Arthur & The Knights of Justice. There's some pretty cool things about this property, and I can't wait to get into them. In the meantime, why not cruise over to Eric's channel. He loves talking horror mostly, but he has a passion for wrestling, as well as conducting interviews with creators and talent he finds interesting. As always, thank you so very much, and have a great week! -Derek