Our shared bedroom was covered literally from floor to ceiling with the posters and centres of the comics, and where the space wasn’t big enough for a full-sized poster there would be cut outs from adverts on the latest of the toyline. It was the sort of thing usually reserved for serial killers and stalkers.

We didn’t have that many of the vehicle sets, but we had enough of the smaller sets to outmatch the majority of our friends, but that didn’t really matter to us, because MASK was the perfect mid-ground between our other two childhood major fads – GI Joe and Transformers.

MASK had things that transformed, but unlike Transformers kept the same scale and didn’t require a degree in engineering to get it between modes. MASK had characters that seemed like typical soldier-ish and terrorist characters, but were simply defined and limited in number. It also had secret weapons and powers in the form of masks that the characters wore.

One of the best parts to MASK that kept my brother and I discussing it until…well, not until, because we still talk about it, was the levels to which you could make the masks and vehicles of MASK a reality. It was always one of those discussions that led to compromises between what was ‘ideal’ and what was ‘practicable’.

It wasn’t until a few years though that we started to take it seriously again. Bringing us back to realm of “fictional weapons vs. real destruction” was the TV show Monster Garage, the shows premise was to take a vehicle, turn it in to something else while still making it look like its original self.

The only way it could have been better would have been if the stock vehicle was also supposed to be a giant robot, but then I’d likely be writing about a different show. Oh, who am I kidding? If they’d made giant robots that transform on that show I’d be down the junkyard scouring for an axle that would work as an extra limb.

Monster Garage instead made things like a Volkswagen Beetle that could travel over a swamp and a hearse with a pneumatic digger in the back, which are perfect when you compare MASK vehicles had things like a motorbike that could launch it’s sidecar in to water (Pirana) or a van that had a pop-up turret at the back (Jackhammer).

It was just the boost I needed to start considering weapon systems that would actually be achievable using modern technology, which leads me to todays piece (you knew I’d get there eventually). To be deemed achievable, the goal needs to be that that the main part of the weapon can fit in a helmet, but will still be counted if it requires the user to carry a bit of extra kit – for example, ammo, fuel.

#8 – Dolphin

Barely even worth a mention, worn by leader of the good guys Matt Trakker, it’s a helmet that allows you to breathe underwater. You know, like a miniature scuba tank?

In fairness to Dolphin, it may be a rather sucky and simple mask but in the toyline it was part of the ‘adventure packs’ which were carded character, mask and miscellaneous pieces that were pretty cheap to buy.

#7 – Ultraflash

Ultraflash was one of the very early masks and was one of those used by Matt Trakker. It didn’t get used that much as it was only really seen when Matt was co-driving the Rhino truck, and as leader he was much more frequently seen in his flying car.

Ultraflash “disorientates with a blinding flash of light”. Basically, this one is that guy at the party who wont put his camera away and suddenly springs up right in front of you to take a snap.

#6 – Shroud

Another one of the Matt Trakker masks, this one enables the user to unleash a cloud of fog or smoke. If you’ve ever been paint balling, you’d know how easy it is to get hold of smoke grenades. This is basically the same thing but released through nozzles in the mask.

#5 – Venom/Mudslinger/Streamer

Three weapon masks that shoot liquid or semi-liquids. The problem isn’t the firing, as it would just be a matter of syringe-like ejection, but more what is being used as a weapon:

• Venom is the mask of VENOM leader Miles Mayhem and it spits corrosive acid (or in some cases poison). Which isn’t so bad, as long as it doesn’t dribble down him one ejected from the mask.

• Mudslinger is the mask of VENOM agent Lester Sludge and fires globs of mud. Not so bad a weapon if used for distraction, but overall useless.
• Streamer is the mask of MASK agent Julio Lopez and it fires thin strands of glue or tar, which wouldn’t really be that effective unless aimed for the eyes or mouth. Tar would have to be heated though, and that would just be crazy. There’s another weapon, Lava-shot, which Matt Trakker uses to fire molten lava but that’s just too stupid.

#4 – Whip/Arrow

This one may require a little compromise between the spirit of the mask and the easiest to achieve. There are two masks that I think this could apply to, the first is Whip worn by VENOM agent Vanessa Warfied and the second Arrow worn by MASK leader Matt Trakker. Whip would lash out with an electric whip, whereas Arrow shoots ‘thunderbolts’.

I think what the end result of this is couldn’t be more obvious; Air Taser. With a battery pack to send the charge and fireable darts to deliver it, you are able to give a nasty shock to anyone in range. The air tasers are already pretty compact too.

#3 – Buckshot/Stilleto/Sawblades/Totem

This one actually has two different firing mechanisms, and is purely down to choice. The three masks that I think this applies to are Buckshot worn by VENOM agent Floyd Malloy, Stilleto and Sawblade worn by VENOM agent Sly Rax and Totem worn by Nevada Rushmore.

Buckshot was used to fire high speed ball bearings. Stilleto fired flechette darts or harpoons, whilst Sawblade fired, well, saw blades. Totem, in a manner that not at all was intended to stereotype the Native American user, fired miniature explosive totem poles.

The main problem with these masks isn’t the firing mechanism but the ammunition storage. Buckshot is the easiest of them all to store, with Stilleto’s flechettes taking a second, but as they get bigger it gets harder.

There are two primary firing mechanisms I’d suggest, the first is the compressed air canister method used for paint ball guns and the other is the typical high-speed card launcher (which uses two spinning wheels and pushing an item between to launch it).

#2 – Torch

Torch was the mask of VENOM agent and all-round dunce, Cliff Dagger. Torch was simply a hefty helmet that ‘breathed fire’. This is perhaps the easiest to do in reality, all you need is something flammable and something aflame. A simple propane tank will give a nice spew of fire that will make Ricky Steamboat and Dhalsim quake.

For a more artsy look, and in a form of tribute to our friend DJ D, have a look at Rammstein live and their dragon masks (around about the 3 minutes mark).

#1 – Spectrum

Spectrum was the most often seen early mask worn by Matt Trakker in the first season of the toyline and cartoon. Spectrum was an uber-mask in that it did more than just one thing. Spectrum’s powers consisted of radio interference, shrill noise, free-fall and the ability to see in different visual spectrums.

• Radio interference devices are quite common these days through bootleggers, and many can be purchased as pocket-sized devices.

• Shrill noises can easily be transmitted through speakers mounted in the helmet.
• Free-fall could be achieved by utilising the jumpsuit that Matt uses, for example by fitting it with underarm restrained flaps of a wingsuit that can be released by verbal command.
• Infra-red and other imaging technologies are already fitted to cameras and goggles for military use, as well as in the public domain.

So, that is my take on some of the masks of MASK and barely scratches the surface of how truly awesome those masks really were, let alone how brilliant the vehicles and characters were. I might have to cover MASK and VENOM again at some time.

The cartoon and toy line Centurions is the current wistful remembrance of mine, to the best of my memory it probably only survived in the UK for one summer as I only remember a few episodes being screened on morning tv during the school holidays and barely any of my – or my brothers’ – friends having the toys that went along with the series. In part the toys were the problem, which is unusual in most cases, as usually the toys are readily available but the cartoons are never or rarely shown leading to no-one knowing what or why they are buying.

In the case of Centurions, the toys were not just bulky and bigger than most toys, but also easily the toy with the most losable parts. I know from the few friends who had Centurions that the cost and value were hard sells to parents, as Centurions were basically macho Barbie dolls. You bought a figure, then bought his matching accessories, then bought his friends and their accessories (or their rivals, of course).

It does pain me to make the Barbie comparison, but it’s true, buying the ‘Depth Charger’ Sea Assault Weapons System for Max Ray was just a matching way of buying Skipper her Jet Ski with dolphin friend.

Those accessories weren’t cheap, but they were used a lot in the cartoon series where the default kit was brushed aside, and so kids expected to have a piece of the right kit.

For one of the few times in my childhood, the Centurions actually had me preferring the good guy toys to the bad guys – not overly difficult because the bad guys in the series looked like they were constantly trapped in ironlungs. Most of my friends liked the character that was being marketed as being most likable member, Ace McCloud – not surprisingly a pilot and womaniser – though a few liked the Burt Reynolds moustache-wearing sea guy, Max Ray. Very few would go nuts for ‘the yellow guy’ or ‘land guy’, Jake Rockwell. Unsurprisingly, I really liked Jake, not because of the character, but because he had the equipment I liked best.

Ace’s weapon systems were all about strapping rockets and wings to his body and firing himself at the enemy in a way that really no-one can emulate without leading to questions in ER about how a drunk guy got that entangled in a shopping cart and why there were so many charred firework remains around him. Max’s weapon systems were all based on being under or atop water, which was ok in most cases where the attack wasn’t in the desert, the city, the mountains, the prairie, indoors…

Jake’s weapon systems mostly involved him being surrounded by the type of guns that have to be riveted to the floor, though he also had some pretty mobile accessories – his Hornet system, for example, featured a miniature helicopter and Swingshot had tank-treads. My favourite unit was Wild Weasel though.

Wild Weasel was a motorbike that surrounded Jake, but that when he reached his destination could flip up and become a stationary ‘big gun’ system.

To me, Wild Weasel had everything, it was fast and cool as a bike, but was powerful as a ‘shooty-thing’, whereas all the other characters just had things that would propel them in to the enemy like a bullet shot at a cake. Albeit, a bullet of heroism at a cake of evil. Evil and marzipan, because marzipan is vile.

How does this tie in to my misty-eyed feelings about concept vehicles that glimmer and die?

Well, imagine if you didn’t have to suddenly flip between the horizontal nature of the bike to the vertical position of the ‘shooty-thing’ in some clunky fashion, but could just seamlessly go from pursuit to assault. I know I’ve mentioned before about Toyota and the iUnit that can take you from a speedy recliner to a slow office chair, but I missed a trick on Yamaha’s contribution to awesome mobile units.

Never actually realised in the physical form, most of the Yamaha Deus Ex Machina was kept to CG representations of how it might work, but just the merest glimpses of it’s shape and structure makes me giddy.

You harness yourself in a semi-standing posture, supported by a sturdy frame, and using joysticks you drive yourself around on three wheels. As you increase speed the frame lowers you in to a sleek profile that seems to just skim fluidly and as you slow it raises you back up.

Where do I stand on this? Armour it up a little and you’ve got a movable battle platform for carrying personal weapons around without needing a jeep. It would be like a mall cop on a Segway with a gatling gun, but sleeker and sexier, zooming through the urban sprawl to the target zone and then slowing down to pacify the unruly.

I’ve had a few people tell me that I’m not alone in this desire, and I know that it’s a very common theme in tv and movies to feature just this type of thing, so I plan to pay a small homage to my personal top five flying/floating surveillance devices. This list is only my top four, and is in part based on my views on aesthetics – I like compact, shiny and efficient things.

Number 4
Random Marvel Flying Cameras (Marvel Comics)

What can I say, in comics and in cartoons Marvel sooner or later has someone hunt people down with flying cameras. In the ’90s cartoon series of Spiderman, Norman Osborn and Alistair Smythe hunt down Spidey with some robotic Spider-Slayers, leading the troops are small rocket-propelled cameras that follow Spidey as he swings through the city.

Reed Richards also had his own camera robots, which looked like mini-versions of HERBIE, and Dr Doom was reknowned for having robot everythings.

Number 3
Droids (Star Wars)

There are so many awesome droids to pick from in the Star Wars universe that I adore, and so many that I despise with a burning comparable only to the itchy kind you get after illicit night with a local in Indianapolis. But you can’t go far wrong with droids dedicated to surveillance and recording – unless you count the Hovercam from the racing scenes in Phantom Menace. You know, the one with lazy eye? Yeah.

But while Phantom Menace had a sucky hovercam mixed amongst a lot of other suckage, there is no denying the amount of win that surrounded Darth Maul, and the guy sure knew how to bring along the aces. Darth Maul’s Sith Probe Droids were small, sleek black floating balls. Silent and swift, these balls can track people unseen through busy residential areas. Just seeing Darth Maul sending the little fellas out on their mission showed that this was no amateur operation.

Also floating around during Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones was another efficient little camera droid, which looked like a cross between a bumblebee and an owl. The senate cam droid was pretty much the camera used by the domestic media, as opposed to military applications, and probably wouldn’t even be able to perform quality paparrazi work.

No mention of camera droids from Star Wars would be complete without a mention to those wonderful probe droids. Most notable is of course the mechanical jellyfish Viper probe droid from the Battle of Hoth (a droid I love so much because it used to scare me in that good Star Wars way) to the clam-shell look-a-like Prowler 1000 used by the Republic soldiers during the Clone Wars. Military spy-bots are sexah.



Number 2
Laserbeak (Transformers)

More than just a floating camera, Laserbeak was a full espionage and sabotage robot in the shape of a vulture. Even if his involvement was later cut down in favour of the much cooler designed Ratbat and he was nowhere as sleek and menacing as little kitty Ravage, Laserbeak was perhaps one of the most efficient spys in Soundwaves collective of intelligence operatives.

Laserbeak was most commonly noted for replaying audio tracks, because he was linked to a handler who transformed in to a tape player, but he did make use of a hidden video camera to record Autobot plans from time to time. Just why a robot with powerful optics required a secondary camera system to record footage and didn’t just store what it ‘saw’ is one of those “don’t ask” questions.

The other question is how Laserbeak managed to get all those camera angles, without being spotted right in front of the Autobot leadership. Either no-one thought about fixed camera positions and viewpoints or, more likely, the Autobots are just lame.

Of course, the Laserbeak from Transformers Energon took the flying camera idea a little bit further when it made the little golden bug-eyed budgie version of the classic Decepticon. They made him an Autobot that transforms between birdy, camcorder and laser gun mode.



Word has it that Laserbeak secretly films all the Transformer voyeur films that continuously fill ub the hard drive on Teletraan and was responsible for the now infamous leaked Blur Is Always Premature viral video.

Number 1
Cambot (Mystery Science Theatre 3000)

Let’s face it, Cambot had to come in here. Though I have to say that for the look, I only really like his final design of the floating eyeball – although his earlier designs did show that he was assembled from scap and so fitted a lot better.

Cambot acted as cameraman for the Satellite of Love crew, following their skits and then zooming down the access tunnel to film from the back of the theatre. Cambot never really expressed much personality beyond the Robot Roll Call where he kind of sounded like a cheesy photographer for a fashion magazine or ‘art pamphlet’, but he was a crucial part of the show.

Just to show I’m not alone in my love for these wonderful and inspiring stalkers, there are people who are trying to bring them to life. Granted they are mostly trying to create them to help blow other people up, but that’s life.

A Soldier’s Eye in the Sky

FORT BLISS, Tex. — The soldiers crouched beneath the blazing desert sun, waiting to burst into the villages in conditions similar to those they have encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But this time, they got some high-tech help in an exercise intended to prove that new devices operated by the soldiers themselves can make those harrowing missions less dangerous in the future.

As the mock attack began on the sprawling military base here, tiny drones hovered overhead, peering through the windows to see insurgents gathered inside the houses. Small robots — like R2-D2 in “Star Wars” — crawled through some of the doors, flashing back live video of the startled enemy’s positions. Electronic sensors placed nearby watched escape routes. And a battery of six-foot-high missiles stood at the ready farther out in the desert to destroy vehicles that tried to rush in to help the insurgents.

“When I was in Iraq, we couldn’t see what we were busting into,” said Specialist Randall Thompson, who operates the robots. “But with this equipment, we can at least get a peek.”

….

The drones resemble flying lawnmower engines about the size of a beer keg that land on four curved wire feet. With the cameras on the drones acting like spotters, the ground-launched six-foot missiles, called “rockets in a box,” will eventually enable soldiers to destroy hostile forces more than 20 miles away without having to call in help from artillery units or other aircraft, Army officials say.

The robots could also search caves and cars at hazardous checkpoints. And the sensors could guard outposts and monitor areas cleared of insurgents, freeing more soldiers to fight.
[See full article here]
(Source: The New York Times, 11 August 2009)

Of course, we can’t forget the piece of tech that is not only high on my want list but no doubt being added to yours as soon as you hear about it: The Aeryon Scout. This is nearly everything I could hope for in a Cambot, though it lacks a ‘follow me’ feature and can only operate for twenty minutes, in that it is a quadrotor self-stabilising flying camera rig that can operate outside or indoors (even in confined spaces)

So for Friday night I decided that I was going to have a night of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and wanted to write about something that always stuck with me about the movie.

No, it isn’t a review of the movie, as that is so overdone.

It isn’t about the childhood memory of the first time I saw it, which was actually a pirated copy from Cyprus that my friend got before the movie came out in the UK and was about 30-45 minutes longer because it had all the fight footage with nunchuks kept in.

It’s not even about how the movie stays cool even to this date.

No, you likely came here to see a self-depreciating, embarrassing memory tied to a strange segue that leads to a non-rewarding payoff that will be forgotten more than that guy with the green eyes who smiled at you today as he let you pass. Remember him? Nope.

When I was a kid I was in to all sorts of clubs and organisations. Usually one at a time, and very rarely for any real length. I was a Beaver, a Cub, and for about a week a full Scout. I was in Boy’s Brigade. I was in Swim Club. Then my friend, the same friend who had the pirate video of Turtles started to attend a youth club in the town. Now we’d both been members of village youth clubs in the past, supported by funding from the local parish councils, and really those were a disappointment – you got school disco music and a ‘tuck shop’ selling not-even-discounted sweets.

The promise came of a youth club with a Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) to play Mortal Kombat on, a pool table, crafts and a sports hall. My friend’s mother was a volunteer for the club. The only drawback was that it was a YMCA youth club. Now, we’re not going to go down any cheap jokes on the YMCA or anything, because this is all about me, dammit.

You see, the youth club ran every Friday and one night they had karaoke night at the Y. I was only about nine and I could pretty much be talked in to anything. ‘Anything’ in this instance being participating in karaoke.

‘Anything’ in this instance being videotaped participating in karaoke.

‘Anything’ in this instance being videotaped participating in karaoke singing “YMCA”.

Anything’ in this instance being videotaped participating in karaoke singing “YMCA” and doing the movements.

…Anything’ in this instance being videotaped participating in karaoke singing “YMCA” and doing the movements for a promotional video that would resurface two years later when I moved to Secondary School, and shown to every House Group during assemblies. Eventually I had to move school.*

Guess what? It turns out the video was shown to all Secondary Schools in the area.

This of course is far away from the club I had hoped for (prepare for segue), what I’d hoped for was the club displayed in a simple throwaway scene in the first Turtles movie, a scene that barely managed a paragraph in the novelisation.

The establishing shot of what was known as ‘Pleasure Island’. Set to MC Hammer rap and mixing Pinnochio’s Pleasure Island with a bootleg Kool-Aid Warehouse.

A place where kids smoked fat cubans over a pool table, drank Miller while playing poker and flooded arcade consoles like NARC with quarters that didn’t even come from their allowance. Skateboards were ridden and in the back room, instead of one basketball hoop with a half-detached net, kids trained to be ninjas. Screw the cartoon robot warriors, angsty teenagers are best for fighting.

“Got any cigarettes?”
“Regular…or Menthol?”

“Go. Play!” ~ Tetsu

No matter how old I get or how often I see it, I can’t view the scene with the Foot’s hideout without a sense of awe and longing. The thought of just how amazing that place would be and how few places have even come close. Really the only rivals for teenagers to look up to were Ernie’s Juice Bar in Power Rangers and the Dojo from VR Troopers, and neither manages to scratch the surface.

With the choice between being video taped singing and dancing to Kung-Fu Fighting or YMCA, I’m going for the chopping and kicking. Besides, there is something to say for the genius in setting up your own private army of street thugs and youthful ninjas, based on the illusion of freedom.

To see it in action, through the glory of YouTube before it gets pulled:

* Before you call Bullshit, I did move school shortly afterwards, but for completely different reasons.

I’ve mentioned before my love of the Dreadnoks from the GI Joe toy range, so thought I’d just provide a simple overview of the guys and girls that make up one of the best gangs in anytown.

Zartan
The leader of the Dreadnoks and fairly out of place in that role in some regards, he always seemed more of a strategic mercenary than a gang leader, something that was pushed forward through the comic book incarnations and softly alluded to in the cartoon series. Zartan was a master of disguise and had a vast array of weapons and gadegts that would be more fitting of a top assassin or spy than a biker gang rebel. As a toy, the Zartan figure was first sold in 1984 and came with the Chameleon Swamp Skier. In fact, his original file card from the toy range covers his many abilities from martial arts to ventriloquism, and suggests training in European military acadamies – by his third incarnation his file card actually places him as French-born and names the academy he attended and corrupted. His ninja history was enlarged during his second incarnation in the toy range, during the Ninja Force promotion, where he took a more punk look.

To Zartan, it seems, the Dreadnoks are more of an asset or tool, than something he belongs to.

Buzzer, Ripper and Torch
The three original Dreadnoks and the three who will always embody what a Dreadnok is. In the cartoon they were bumbling fools in the same vein as punks have always been viewed, you could pretty much compare them to Rumble and Frenzy from Transformers or Bebop and Rocksteady from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and see few differences. In the comic and toy universe though, each was an individual with their own personality and backgrounds that set them apart.

Buzzer whose real name was Richard Blinken-Smythe (Dick Blinken) was an English sociology professor from Cambridge who went to Australia to study gangs and wound up riding with Ripper and Torch to become the founding members of the Dreadnoks. His original file card suggests that “years of intellectual displeasure caused repressed psychotic anger”, which in that fun way decided to manifest itself with loud motorbikes and even louder chainsaws. Sadly, the cartoon version of Buzzer decided to make him an illiterate idiot. Great hair though, blonde and ponytailed, he looked a little like Axel Rose if Axel Rose was intimidating.

Ripper, or Harry Nod, was according to the toyline and comics a professional criminal from an early age (expelled from nursery school for extorting candy) and potentially one of the most vicious of the early Dreadnoks. The one thing that always confused me as a child was his weapon of choice, which looks like a jaws of life, but which is often shown to be a cutting device or a pneumatic hammer – I could, of course, quite see it able to be a hybrid of all three though, for ripping in to objects and then forcing them apart. I tended to always think the name Ripper had more to do with the fact his assault rifle came with a very deadly bayonet affixed.

Torch, or Tom Winken, is the Dreadnok most reknowned as an actual, all-out traditional thug, with violent outbursts and utter stupidity. He is the simplest form of bully, but one who is quite adept at the use of an acetylene torch. There is actually very little to say about the pyromaniac biker, other than Torch bares an uncanny resemblance to Paul Teutal Snr from Dicovery channels’ American Chopper series.

If there was any doubt that these guys belonged together, the word plays on their names should remove that. Their first names are Tom, Dick, and Harry, and their last names are Winken, Blinken and Nod (from the Dutch Lullaby by Eugene Field).

Monkeywrench
Part of the second generation (1986 releases) of Dreadnoks, along with Thrasher and Zartan’s siblings, Zandar and Zarana. Monkeywrench, Bill Winkie (in keeping with the nursery rhyme theme, Wee Willie Winkie), was to explosives what Torch was to fire. The guy kept a grenade belt strapped across his torso and was an expert in demolitions. Monkeywrench grew up in Wales in the UK and honed his skills in London’s East End during the high time of crime, given the time frame most likely during the gangland days of the Krays and their peers. Surprisingly, given the name Monkeywrench, I might have imagined him to have been equipped with the tool and used it to shatter jaws or kneecaps, however the weapon he came equipped with in the toyline was what was described as a ‘harpoon’ with a trident tip, but which I never actually worked out as a kid. I always just gave him the random weapons scattered from other figures.

Thrasher
Thrasher was a character I really wanted, in part because he came with his own vehicle in the toyline, the Thunder Machine – I’ve mentioned the Thunder Machine, and my own equivalent, in a previous blog entry (We Still Want To Ride With The Dreadnoks). Thrasher was a spoilt rich kid and probably intended as a moral lesson, he was never shown to possess any level of smarts, even though he somehow managed to procure jet engines and fit them to his car to produce a roaring vehicle. His spoilt rich kid motif carried over to his supplied weapon of a lacrosse stick, though considering his Thunder Machine came with chainguns, the need for a stick is redundant. His later filecards placed him as from Belgium and his real name as Bruno La Crosse (La Crosse, lacrosse, get it…yeeeah). He sported what may have been both the worst and yet most awesome, with a thick, cowlicked head of hair that looked ridiculous on the toy, but with green streaks in it that would probably come across in modern interpretations like Heath Ledger’s Joker from The Dark Knight.

Zandar
For reasons I’m not quite sure of, I remember Zandar as one of my favourite characters for a while. Potentially it could have been for the fact that in the early cartoon appearances he actually seemed a stoic, intelligent and yet violent type, which set him apart from the Dreadnoks, but still made him a more involved part than his brother, Zartan. I was never really a fan of his body or face paint either, and by this stage the colour changing, chameleon blending in was rather passe. Zandar also had a cool weapon, it looked like an assault rifle, but it was actually a projectile weapon for arrows, a sort of crossbow rifle or bolt thrower. I remember in the comic book he had pink hair, like Zarana, but his figure was ginger.

Zarana
Lets face it, Zarana in the cartoon and comic book was hot. The Baroness was ok, and Lady Jay wasn’t too bad, but Zarana was pretty much the hot one (until Jinx came along, at least). Despite her punk appearance in the toyline and most of her comic and cartoon appearances, her actual background puts her as a world class assassin and that her disguise go beyond Zartans in that she will add method acting skills to portray her persona. Zarana’s outfit was pure punk though, ripped jeans and a revealing shirt. Her pink hair (though again, sometimes suffering from ginger-vitis), pulled back and pony-tailed screamed lust, even to a young boy. The toy never really held up that high though, suffering similar problems as the Baroness in that Hasbro was unable to make remotely attractive females figures until 1987 with Scarlett (v5) and Sonya Blade. Zarana had an interesting weapon, which looked like a daisywheel cutting device on the end of a semi-automatic weapon stock – a weedwhacker to Buzzer’s chainsaw.

Zanzibar
Bought out in 1987, Zanzibar was a pirate who, in the comic book storyline, tried to steal gas from the Dreadnoks, though the filecard puts him as supplying the gasoline to the Dreanoks. He is actually a distrusted member of the Dreadnoks, because of his pickpocket nature. His real name is Morgan Teach, which if you know your captains is both a type of rum and Blackbeard. Zanzibar originally came out with an Air Skiff that changed frequently between being just a swamp boat to being able to fly, and he was often a loner character. I can’t recall any of my friends having Zanzibar, and I was never really in to the character myself, although I loved the skiff a lot – it seemed right for the Everglades dwelling ‘noks. The toy came with very fitting weapons for a river pirate, giving him a harpoon, hammer and pistol – he also had nylon threaded in to his head as a tuft of hair. He shares a moustache with Dr Mindbender and the eye Mindbender has a monocle over, Zanzibar has an eyepatch. Hm, I wonder.

Roadpig
A 1988 addition, and another one of my favourite Dreadnoks, Road Pig was the biggest brute of the lot. His weapon of choice was a hammer made from a cinderblock and a hefty pipe, and I can still picture the image of him heading forward on a motorbike swinging it like a polo mallet. His real name was apparently Don DeLuca, named after a Hasbro design director. The guy was just the enforcer of the ‘noks and could snap anyone like a twig.

Gnawgahyde
I hated the character, I don’t know why, but even now I’m not too keen on him. He was a poacher in the swamps with poor personal hygiene, and he never really screamed biker gang member to me like the other Dreadnoks did. His main redeeming factor was that his figure came with a machete and a brown boar, and that boar was known to do things of a similar style to those seen and written about in Hannibal.

With the exception of special releases of Dreadnok recruits – the hillbilly Dreadheads – the toyline basically came to an end of new ‘noks with 1989′s Gnawgahyde figure, although several future releases were variations of existing characters in new outfits, colours and molds. The comic books continued to create new Dreadnoks, with a lot more focusing on the criminal gangs and bikers motifs, including car thiefs, criminal mechanics and random thugs who join the sprawling network of Dreadnok local chapters over time.

The only further character I wish to mention in the recent Devil’s Due run comic, Zanya, daughter of Zartan. She’s a spunky young punk kid with dreadlocked hair and a mean streak, she’s a capable fighter despite her dimunitive size and she is a damn hottie. I mean, come on…

As a bit of a filler for the day, I thought I’d share some British comedy with you.

Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller carry on the tradition of british comedy duos – something that has become almost institutional in the county and a source of much success for entertainers – and the pair have become known through their recent series for their characters and continued jokes which often take bizarre twists or juxtapose two very disparate elements – World War II RAF pilots talking like street kids, racist SatNav systems. In some ways they are a merging of the style and wit of Fry and Laurie with the manner and methods of Little Britain’s Walliams and Lucas.

I’ll have to obviously start with one of my favourite set of characters from Armstrong and Miller, the RAF pilots from World War II. The sketches are wonderful, especially from the interaction of others around them in classic war movie acting to their out-of-place attitude and language. If you were unsure about what ‘kids today’ are like in the UK, then this is for you. If you ever read Biggles and thought he’d have been better off poppin’ a cap in the Krauts ass, then this is for you.

Other recurring characters and scenarios that form the back bone of the Armstrong and Miller Show include a divorced father talking to his son about the worries of his son’s young life since the parents seperation, the ending result not necessarily the one most parents would hope for; the dentist you don’t really want to be listening to as he probes your mouth; the cheating wife, the best friend and the clueless husband; the cavemen;

Compare the UK “Become a Teacher” adverts with the Armstrong and Miller take on the subject.

Compare as well, this classic from Flanders and Swann (filmed in the US) to the pastiche characters of the two that Armstrong and Miller perform.

And to finish up, just a few random pieces, including a few ongoing jokes and smaller clips.

I’ve mentioned before about how my brothers and I grew up on Action Force, the UK re-brand of GI Joe, and about my support for COBRA and the Dreadnoks over the good guys of the series – for one thing, Cobra actually had a uniformed military organisation and supporting named specialists, and not just random specialists with very little back-up who went into missions solo (I don’t care how Hollywood it is, but there are very few occassions in history where one guy with a rifle has overwhelmed an entire army).

The problem with Cobra however is their inability to make the best use of their arsenal or formulate plans to the best strategic outline. In fairness, the plans in the comic books tended to be a lotter better formulated and a lot more successful, with even a few Cobra victories, but the cartoons obviously couldn’t go that way. Because GI Joe cartoons were re-dubbed in sections to make Action Force, releases were limited and we never really got regular showings, most of what we got was from VHS releases of cropped together mini-series or random compilation episodes, they still gave a good overview though.

Cobra Commander’s briefings, in my imagination, must have played out like getting a sugared-up kid with ADHD to come up with a story, you start off with a nice simple plan for world domination and the next moment you suddenly have hundreds of variables thrown in. In one of my favourite, and one of our first, videos this plays out to it’s fullest. Some of you might remember the story arc, Pyramids of Darkness. I’d worry about spoiling it, but to be honest it came out in 1985 and if you haven’t seen it by now, then you would have seen any other cartoon about heroes from a toyline and they all end the same way.

The crucial point of the plan is that Cobra will hijack a weapons satellite and, using several giant black cubes, align it to a certain orbit that will allow the weapon to disrupt all electrical operations in the Northern Hemisphere.

How the cubes actually work or what they actually do is never really touched upon, other than they somehow complete the shadowy “pyramid” over the Earth. They may just have been landmarks to ensure placement was correct by always being at certain positions relative to the satellites orientation, all that is really touched on is that they needed a super-secret facility to build them and they had to be shipped around the globe without anyone noticing them. No-one it seems thought to build them closer to the location or to use options such as a gyroscope and existing landmarks on the satellite.

It’s a simple plan, and one that the James Bond movie Goldeneye proves can border on successful when pulled by a villain who doesn’t need ritalin. Cobra Commander though decides to throw in the variables, the first is to sneak aboard a GI Joe space shuttle – despite the fact that the Crimson Twins appear to have their own personal space shuttle. Fair enough though, because the Joe shuttle probably has preset codes and flight plans that will enable it to dock with the space station.
So, Cobra uses a feint to sneak aboard, finding the secret location of the shuttle bases and hiding their troops all around waiting for the launch, so that they can sneak an extra cargo box in unnoticed. Now, I’m no leader of a terrorist army, but if I wanted to sneak something in and knew the location of a top secret base crucial to my plans, I’d probably try using my stealthiest guys to get the cargo in before launch day, rather than risking the scrapping of the mission. Luckily, Joes aren’t the kind of people to allow an attempt to disrupt a space mission to actually stop them launching, even if several weapons fired upon the shuttle.

The Cobra forces back away, and are given protection by several giant robots that emerge from a lake. Now I’m no owner of giant war robots, but if I wanted to destroy my enemies, I’d pretty much see how far I could get letting my robots squish and burn through their forces – who knows, I might not even have needed the space station. But no, for Cobra Commanders briefing it was more like “and then…and then, after we’ve used like our stealthy ways to get cargo on to the totally cool spaceship…um, GIANT ROBOTS WILL SAVE US…yeah!”

So, while the Cobra troops escape to begin moving around cubes, the Joes rocket continues into space. The cargo that Cobra left emerges, small cute creatures called Fatal Fluffies, and small cute creatures called Dreadnoks too. Zartan, stealthily hidden on the space shuttle in a manner that meant he could have actually assassinated all crew while they slept and seized control, is joined by untrained motorcycle enthusists who think firing weapons in a shuttle is a good idea – once again, this isn’t great planning, Zartan on his own, or Storm Shadow for that matter, would have taken the ship over, docked and taken the satellite before Cobra Commander could have decided finished trying to lisp his way through the lunch menu.

The Fatal Fluffies, another deviation from the best laid plans, had the ability to turn from Furby to Minotaur by the blowing of a whistle. Now I’m no genetic scientist with a penchant for creating bio-weapons, but if I created a creature that was instantly cooed over by everyone but could recieve a signal to turn into a bloodlusting brute that obeyed my commands, I’d make sure to market it at Christmas and rule to world by Boxing Day.

We then find out that the satellite has a huge ass mega-laser that can easily target and destroy single buildings. Why they are bothering with blocking out electricals when they can blow up Pentagon with the US’s own weapon, I’m not sure – especially seeing as anyone can pretty much target the thing. If Zartan had just killed everyone else on board, he could have taken over with no risk of rebellion and taken out any opposition with his death ray.

Back on terra firma, Cobra begins moving cubes around the world, because it’s only after getting their crew to space that they decide to put the actual infrastructure in place, giving more time for the good guys to regain control and spreading the terrorist forces even thinner on the ground. Had the cubes been built over time and in places closer to their final destination, there would be less delay and a lower risk threshold for Joes stopping their placement.

Despite all these flaws and these wasted plans, Cobra actually succeeds in activating the pyramid. The Northern Hemisphere gets shadowed by electricity disruption, which theoretically will have crashed planes, stopped life support systems and led to nuclear meltdowns from power plant safeties turning off, the world would never be the same and millions or billions would die in the merest blink of an eye. Cobraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Or not.

All that is really shown is some lights flickering off and cars stop, but it’s implied that some other stuff doesn’t work too as the Joes have to use sailing ships to get around the globe. The good guys make an assault on Cobra HQ and another wasted weapon is shown, an amazing heatray that melts things and causes heatsroke, but is mounted on Cobra HQ amid mountains with precarious boulders. No-one thought to mount it on tanks apparently.

Obviously, the Joes take control of the satellite in space and on the ground they find the conveniently labelled ‘self destruct’ button.

In that moment I knew I must collect Cobra toys and not Joes, Cobra had resources and good specialists, what it lacked was a leader. My friends and my brothers all collected the ‘good guys’, but when faced with the choices of characters, I always went for the Cobra (though, vehicle wise I was mostly Joe, because I prefer vehicles made for tactics and not based on pogo sticks).

edit: For your entertainment, I tracked down the episode summaries and Joost has the episodes up (starting with Part One).

TL;DR: Heat Weapons, Electromagnetic Pulses, Giant Robots, Space Lasers. Imagine what I could do with them…

Though the cartoon version of the ‘noks portrayed them as brainless, incompetent goons who were more like childish bullies than a deadly gang, the comic portrayed them in a different light. All of the comic book ‘noks had individual personalities and roles that suited their nicknames and they were established as being a mostly roving gang with growing chapters in different cities. Though the comic ‘noks were still violent and mostly lowly educated (excepting the likes of Buzzer who was actually a professor), they were competent and indeed successful from time to time.

Obviously when it came time to play with my own ‘noks, they would always be based on the comic book version and not the cartoon, and quite often they were the key to Cobra’s constant victories.

But it wasn’t just the characters that had me enthralled in the comic book ‘noks, but also their vehicles. On the whole, the range of GI Joes vehicles were amazing, highly desirable and for the most part realisticly plausible and practical. The Dreadnoks had some of the greatest I had seen, and one that almost made me start to dislike the ‘noks for its level of suckitude.

Ferret ATV

In the cartoons the ‘noks were most frequently seen on the Ferret ATV, the dark blue four-wheelers, as this was pretty much one of the few vehicles that suited bikers in the toy range at the time. The Ferret actually suited the ‘noks fine in the cartoon, as they were mostly playing interference and just rallying around troops. The heavy vehicles still had the handling and speed to make them deadly bikers, though I’d imagine Buzzer’s chainsaw would have been a bit of a stretch to use effectively. As a toy, it was never really attached to the Dreadnoks, more an all party item, which was fine for me as I always wondered why Cobra would lend the freelance ‘noks their vital equipment.

Swamp Skier

Zartan, leader of the ‘noks, had his Chamelion Swamp Skier. This seemed so rarely to be used that I often wondered what the point of bothering to package him with it was. They may as well have used it as a partner or opponent to the Cobra Water Moccasin for all the use that it really saw. As a roving gang, Zartan was more often seen on a Ferret or motorbike, it was only when based in the Florida Everglades that it ever saw much use, and even then it was only a brief cameo. The Swamp Skier that we had eventually crumbled to little pieces, as the thing was too delicate for regular play – which I’m guessing is why Zartan used it sparingly.

Thunder Machine

To me, the Thunder Machine sums up what it is to be a Dreadnok. It’s an offensive, violent and unstable creation that tears up anything in it’s path or wake. The Thunder Machine is what happens when a crazed mechanic decides that you can never make a vehicle more liable to explode. Thraser, the driver and owner, had jet engines fitted to the back of his vehicle and chain guns to the front. It must definately have taken its inspiration from Mad Max or some dystopian Australian future.

I never owned a Thunder Machine, however I did own a second-hand, slightly beat-up Stinger Jeep which I used mostly as a Dreadnok vehicle. Granted, it didn’t have a chain gun or jets, but the passenger door was missing allowing Buzzer to lean out and Monkeywrench could drive while tossing out grenades.

I’m not alone in using the Stinger in such a way, as it appears Sears had an exclusive repaint of the Stinger just for the ‘noks as part of its Dreadnok Ground Assault set. The bike included in the set, I’ll get on to later.

Swampfire

I never really liked the Swampfire, it isn’t the object of my dislike though. I always thought that the Dreadnoks belonged on the ground or in the swamp and putting them in the air just didn’t seem fitting, especially in the cartoons where they were meant to be blithering idiots most of the time. I can understand to need for travelling across the Everglades, but I would have rather seen them use a boat, maybe retro-fitting an old Moccasin or captured Devilfish.

The Swampfire itself is likely modelled after a Gyro-Boat, which are small boats with a helicopter rotor above. They have a nice example at the local Helicopter Museum, and it’s shiny.

The airborne ‘nok idea wasn’t limited to the Swampfire though, as Sears had another set of repaints for the ‘noks in the form of the old single-seater F.A.N.G light helicopter and VTOL aircraft. If I accepted the Swampfire, I could understand the use of the F.A.N.G, and in fact it would make more sense to use the F.A.N.G as it could be considered a trashed Cobra vehicle that the ‘noks got running again. The VTOL just seemed slightly too out of place for the ‘noks, even with helicopter training. Had I been asked, and I wasn’t, I would have had this second Sears set be the Swamp Assault set and have the F.A.N.G repaint and small boat repaint.

Air Skiff

The Air Skiff was the much needed ‘nok swamp vehicle that the Swampfire should have been. It suffered slightly in that it’s use in the comic seemed to change whether it was a modified airboat that was just highly armed, or whether it was actually capable of limited flight. I still stick with the earlier boat concept.

Another problem was that at its release, Hasbro had started to go down the ‘brightly coloured paint and moulded to shape’ route for figures and vehicles, leaving it with highly threatening, under-detailed canary yellow weapons and a simplistic bodywork. If the skiff had come out a few years earlier, it could have been one of the best figure-supplied ‘nok vehicles going, but sadly the cheapening of the model crushed it in my mind.

The Dreadnok Cycle

The ‘noks had been around for years by the time they decided to give them their first full release bike; with Buzzer, Ripper and Torch coming in 1985 with the bike not being released until 1987 – a damn long time with toys.

With the previous releases of the Rapid Assault Motorbike (used in the Sears repaint) and the Silver Mirage motorbike (which I used as a Dreadnok bike), where both bikes focused on a simple design of motorcycle that wouldn’t be too out of place for a biker gang – though choppers or Harleys would have been more appropriate – it seemed to be obvious that the Dreadnoks bike would be a kick ass street bike that would roar down the streets allowing the mounted ‘nok to use their custom weapon to harass motorist, pedestrians and the authorities.

What we ended up with was the worst I could possible imagine, and the only Dreadnok item to never get anywhere near any of my wish lists. The Dreadnok cycle was a chopper-fronted trike with a raised seating area for a passenger. It was a gaudy colour combination that looked wrong even on the box art and it featured the most ridiculous purple ‘generic big gun’ they could shodely mold. What made me things suck even more was that in the advert, the colours actually looked reasonable!

Of course, in hindsight, I can compare this to the other vehicles of that production era and see that they were all this gaudy and undetailed, making a mockery of the forebearers, but back then my thoughts were more along the lines of how stupid it looked and it was the worst toy in the entire shop, if not the world.

Even with that hindsight, I wouldn’t buy this now, and I do want to rebuild my Dreadnok collection. I’d prefer to get a few Silver Mirages and take off the sidecar or see if I can get some cheap Taiwan generic bikes that would fit the figures. That’s all they needed to do, reuse most of the Silver Mirages mold and add transfer decals, and they could have done that from much earlier on. The Mirages were cheap to buy, and they could even have sold each ‘nok with a special one.

They never asked me, that was their problem. See, I knew…and knowing is half the battle.

Granted, there was a lot of choice in what to follow at the time and I bounced around happily in periods of collecting Star Wars, He-Man, Transformers, MASK and Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, and following but never able to fully embrace Visionaries, Centurions, Galaxy Rangers and the like.

You see, saturation on the TV in the UK was never that grand, certain American shows would get played during the holidays or weekends and then never seen again (Transformers, Visionaries, Centurions), some would be rarely if ever shown (Galaxy Rangers), some would get re-shown (TMHT, He-Man) and some would almost never be shown (MASK). For the most part, we’d rely on VHS videos of two episodes or a story arc to see us through and stimulate us, with no chance to buy a whole set or season.

Comic books were fairly common, with the large format weekly comics for nearly every trend. In fact, it was probably the comics that influenced most children in how they thought characters were portrayed. The thing about UK comics is that they were huge, with lots of pages of comic strips and plenty of filler material, from character bios to maps to letter pages run by characters.

Toys were also hard to come by in most ranges, with most stores only carrying a few of the key ranges and not all that willing to hedge bets on what might prove popular. When something made it big, there would be a whole aisle dedicated to it, but the actual range of characters would always by limited. This was also compounded due to the locations and distribution of Toys R’ Us. As a child I grew up seeing these adverts for Geoffrey and this ‘magical place’ on TV, and we’d get catalogues through the door, but the stores were always far away for our family, and so we’d never go out to one or even really believe they’d exist except for when friends would go there. The thing was, Toys R Us had the huge ranges of toys, they had all the characters and they were considerably cheaper at the time, according to their adverts. While we were stuck with the few figures that we could afford in our home town, people willing to travel could get more.

This seems a long way, and a rather venting way, to get to the point: GI Joe happened.

Well, actually, Action Force happened.

It’s one of those deviations that we British deviants do, we already had a comic and toy line running from 1983 with an army of heroes (Action Force) up against a terrorist threat (Red Shadows). The original Action Force figures by Palitoy were stiff, barely posable characters that had a rough basis on realistic units (SAS, Nazi Stormtroopers) and the stories were very much told in the old fashioned war stories way.

When Hasbro started to really kick ass with their range in 1985, the two did a kind of merge. The new Hasbro articulated figures were put under the established Action Force name, and the comic saw the dissolution of Red Shadows and the start of Cobra. Things began to creep in to place.

Now, before this time there was much flapping about as to what was the big thing, with some staunchly holding on to Transformers and others looking in to all the other ranges. Action Force bought a new concept. The toys themselves were different and unique, more posable and with lots of different characters, and they were relatively cheap compared with other toys. As most of the range was the cheaper individual figures, there was more to collect in the less expensive price bracket than the larger toys, and for big presents there were vehicles with a larger price tag.

Comics wise, the old Battle Action Force comics disappeared and a new series of imported American stories started to appear in the comic that pretty much was the must-have, the Marvel UK publication of Transformers in 1987 and then get its own comic. To make things fit with what had been established, they took a few edits to the story, changing text and logos to say “Action Force” instead of “GI Joe” or to refer to British authorities or locations. The stories were otherwise the same, unlike the Transformers comic itself which frequently made-up new storylines to fill it’s bigger-than-the-US weekly comic.

The Action Force comics were out of sync slightly with the toyline, which got slightly confusing as we had no idea who the new blood was or why they were there. More importantly, sometimes we didn’t know how they would act when playing with or as them. The comics were great though, as they actually had a villain in Cobra Commander who, despite having a few strange plans, was a master tactician and devised a fully working covert military operation.

Eventually, they tied Action Force into the GI Joe global storyline. Well, they shoe-horned it rather uncomfortably in and then left it alone. Action Force became known as GI Joe and the world didn’t suddenly end.

Cartoon wise, to the best of my knowledge, we never got to see the cartoons on UK television and had to rely on videos. Part of this, I believe, was down to the rather obvious voice editing to remove any GI Joe reference and replace it with Action Force references (“Yo Joe” became “Full Force”). We managed to get quite a few story arcs from the Sunbow cartoons and the odd double/triple episode tape, though I never even saw a single tape for the DiC series.

They even redubbed part of the movie, as well as cropping from the opening. A while back, I actually specifically went out to get a copy of the VHS of the UK version and the DVD of the US version of the movie. The differences are quite small, but some of the biggies are noticeable.

It wasn’t until I was about 7 or 8 years old that I really got in to Action Force/GI Joe, but when I did I got in to it hard, and so did a few of my classmates. It was perhaps the first time we fell that hard in to collecting outside of Garbage Pail Kids and was likely the reason so many got hooked on Turtles.

This wasn’t just collecting, this was war. The emergence of playground fanboys, green-eyed monsters and storymakers. This was the time of arguments about best characters. It was an age of showing off the new figure and getting to see reactions if it was a ‘rare’, by which I mean one that you had to travel more than a 15 minute bus ride to get (Sam S. had a Lifeline, which wasn’t sold locally for an extra four months) or a vehicle (Paul J. used to get vehicles instead of figures, he even had the Killer WHALE!!). I had two – TWO – mail-away Super Troopers, the kind with the file card you designed based on tick boxes on the application, and the seething at that level of cheating to tip the scales was phenomenal.

The toys had some disadvantages, for example, the figure of the Baroness. She was meant to be a beautiful seductress, and in the comic and cartoon this was rather feasible. In the toy range, instead of using a typical slender, alluring body like Lady Jaye they decided to make her look like a Council Estate mother who’d spent the Child Support for little Chardonnay on a bucket of chocolate covered chicken drumsticks with smudged National Health Service glasses. Later versions paint job made her look slightly more along the NerdSex route, but still I could only think of her seducing if she went undercover as a government ministers Personal Assistant, the magic of the comic was lost. Also, things got stupid with the toyline, starting with the garish Python Patrol toyline, and by the time the War on Drugs, War on Pollution and War on Aliens started, I’d realised that GI Joe had lost the plot and moved on to the much more realistic WWF and Turtles toylines.

I always loved the cartoon, though even as a child I wondered why Cobra Commander was so much weaker than in the comic. The cartoon was, of course, intended to show the bad guys as squabbling, incompetent or imbecilic characters who were doomed to fail, and their plans always involved huge levels of suspension of disbelief, which as a kid I was happy to do because I knew when I replayed the events with the toys I’d make the plan much better and more realistic.

Cobra would win.

And, finally we reach the point: I loved Cobra.

I still do in the current comic book reincarnation, actually. Cobra in the toys and comic always seemed the better organised and regimented army. While GI Joe were just a bunch of specialists, Cobra had divisions of troops with specialist knowledge who could perform multiple functions, they had clandestine operatives in communities and legitimate business fronts through Extensive Enterprises.

From the rank-and-file Vipers to the named characters, from biker Dreadnoks to professional mercenaries, from outsourced weapon specialists to ninjas, there was so much going for Cobra. The toy line offered the most potential, as it was one of the few where you actually wanted multiple of the same figure to build up the army – unfortunately, parents were for once on the ball and were trying to avoid buying duplicates in an effort to ‘get you what you wanted’ or ‘wanted to get you something you didn’t already have’. My dream of owning a garrison of Vipers was scuppered early on.

Now, there was another thing I had over some of the kids in my class, which proved to be a surprising advantage and later a tragic disadvantage, I had two older brothers and both of them for a time had an interest in Action Force/GI Joe as the last of the childhood years fluttered away. Because of my brothers, our family had up to triple the turnover of figures than most of the kids had, this wasn’t a huge margin but it was enough to keep me entertained with an army to play with when I was alone, and a considerable number of figures and small number of vehicles to show off to visitors. One of the crowning achievements happened, my collection – my own personal part of our triple strong army – finally got Serpentor and his Air Chariot.

Serpentor. Air Chariot.

The two coolest toys merged in to one product and bought for me from Martin McColls, next to Sainsburys, in Worle, outside of Weston super Mare on a Saturday afternoon. I got it home, it was assembled, and together Serpentor and I watched the video of “Arise Serpentor, Arise”. I guess it was sort of like sitting with your child watching the video of its birth, only without the uncomfortableness and general illness.

Then peace was shattered. Well, technically it melted. One of my brothers had gone to secondary school and learnt more about woodwork, metalwork and electronics, and somehow he’d convinced our parental units that really giving this teenager a soldering iron was a ‘quite good idea’. Now, with a soldering iron my brother could have really done some great things. He could have built many wonderful devices to help out around the home or learnt how to weld a bike together.

For reasons known only to himself, my brother decided to become an artist. An artist in the same way that Leatherface could be considered a Fashion Designer. See, what my loving brother did was apply his soldering iron to different parts of different figures and watch as they melted. After a while, it got to the point of treason and regicide as the Cobra emperor, my Serpentor, had the soldering iron applied to his chest.

Not since the great MASK figure exodus from t’ other brother, or the female parentals handing over to a young child of the Transformer toys, had so many figures been sacrificed in so short a time. The troops dwindled before this breach of the Geneva Convention was uncovered, and by then the older toylines were gone, even Serpentor was irreplaceable.

Despite my efforts of trying to cling on, GI Joe and Cobra had met an end in our house. By the end of the next school term, World Wrestling Federation toys and the entire schoolyard politics of that would take over and then Turtlemania would swoop in. But, I’ll always love Cobra, in the same way I’ll always love some of the Decepticons, they made me what I am today.

COBRA!

]]> http://www.rogues.1me.net/blog/2008/we-still-love-cobra/feed/ 0 http://www.rogues.1me.net/blog/2008/were-scared-of-creepy-little-children/ http://www.rogues.1me.net/blog/2008/were-scared-of-creepy-little-children/#comments Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:46:40 +0000 Guise Dugal http://www.rogues.1me.net/blog/?p=403 One of my favourite tropes in horror and thriller productions – be it in a film, television show or even video game – is the use of Creepy Little Children. Granted, this has at times been overdone, especially where companies try to reproduce the success of a story in either a shoddily made sequel or rival product, however amongst the tide of mediocrity there is often a prime example of the trope.

The trope itself tends to play on the feeling of uncomfortableness when something is not as we would assume. The natural assumption towards children, especially girls, is usually towards an acceptance of implied innocence, tending to see them as things which are delicate and must therefore be protected. Children tend to be perceived within set patterns of behaviour and are expected to react to situations in ways we understand. 

Taking a child and placing them in control, especially taking control from an adult and removing any form of authority, is therefore unnerving. 

There is, as it happens, a lot of variety in the world of Creepy Little Children and categorising them can be quite difficult. 

For one thing, age tends to be subjective on gender: Creepy Little Girls tend to be creepier the younger they appear and stay solidly creepy until their mid-teens, whereas the typical Creepy Little Boy tends to have only be creepy in pre-teen years and then resumes semi-creepy behaviour in their late teens, whereupon they are less creepily and more brutally sadistic. 

My theory on this is that it either leans towards the voice breaking of boys not seeming creepy when compared to the continued song of a girl, or the tendency for boys to spotty, hairy little Herbert’s during the teen years. 

The main aspect of age seems to be that as long as they are portrayed and seem reasonably to be young, then they are children. In truth, the ‘child’ may actually be several thousand years old in a child’s body, but because of its outward appearance, it would still seem to be a child. Where childhood ends is 

Another aspect is what defines "creepy", as this is inherently a loaded term. In my view, creepy does not always require the child in question to be evil, villainous or even slighty naughty, although this does help their case. "Creepiness" should be at times subtle, whereupon before learning why some child is a major force of evil power, the audience should feel unsettled by their actions. For example, the children in Village of the Damned are more unsettling because they can be compared against other children in their surroundings, and their appearance, mannerisms and speech identify them as being ‘different’.

There are several common traits for Creepy Little Children that are used in their character, usually consisting of a selection from:

• Speech Anomalies. Character may speak in a manner different to their surroundings and family, may never speak or may use a sing-song voice from time to time.
• Dialogue Delivery. Character may deliver lines in a manner that would not be expected for the context, for example a joyful death-threat or emotionless delivery.
• Creepy Lines. Character may have a few lines that combine with Delivery or Anomalies to increase creepiness rating, for example: "They’re here", "Leave. Us. Alone", "Are you my mummy?"
• Sings Nursery Rhymes. Primarily used in movies and television where a young girl or group of girls will sing a nursery rhyme slowly and in a minor key. The usual song is "One, Two, Buckle my shoe", however any song can have the same effect. The cartoon "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy" played a humorous take on this, with the chanting of "Daydream Believer" by The Monkees by a group of boys as the means to summon a snake-demon.
• Enjoys Skipping. Characters that partake in activities that would be perceived as childhood innocence tend  to be using it to cover for something, usually as a play on confirming innocence.
• Appears Helpless. Characters may appear helpless or as surviving victims in a deadly environment, making people sympathise and want to ‘protect’ them without first asking how they survived so long.
• Inappropriate Reactions. Similar to Dialogue Delivery, when confronted with a situation there reaction may appear out of character for what might normally be expected. Reacts to the suffering of others with indifference or glee, or takes a fascination-based interest when bad things happen.
• Styled Hair. Typically, and for some reason likely linked to youth, Western movies tend to give the creepy child fair or blonde hair, with either a page boy/bowl cut or short hair cut (though rarely a crew cut), whereas creepy little girls will normally have shoulder length hair, usually held neatly behind the head or framing the head (only to become wavy and oily during freaky scenes). Whereas Eastern films usually see the girls sporting long dark hair that appears straggly and obscures the face.
• Dress sense. Mostly neat and conservative, and for greater effect school uniform. Sometimes period clothes are worn.
• Psychic or supernatural powers. Sometimes the revelations of these powers are left until mid-way or late in to the story and may take several forms, including telepathy, mind control, telekinesis and additional senses. These powers usually manifest with some physical reaction on the child’s part, from glowing eyes to expressionless features. The source of the power can also range greatly, including demonic possession, alien origin, a twist of biology or random freakiness.
• Murder or Torture. Whether directly or indirectly, the character will lead to the death of someone else, usually to the child’s delight. Some characters may use mental powers, while others are simply sadistic knife-wielding psychopaths. Sometimes their actions are implied, rather than shown. 
• Religious. Lets just face it, if they’ve been bought up to mention anything religious or with ‘strong religious morals’ there is a very good chance that they are going to turn psychotic at some point in their life. If they actually start being zealous themselves, then there is usually something much worse out there and that’s what they love.
• Highly Logical. Character knows much more than expected for a child that age, and will often display that knowledge in ways that may seem unempathic.

Quite often, to instill suspense, there is usually a risk to another innocent from the Creepy Little Child, which itself amplifies the creepiness factor. For example, in The Exorcist, Regan MacNiel is a Creepy Little Girl possessed by the Devil, however there is also the risk to the innocent Regan who is a victim of the possession; in Silent Hill, a missing young girl is at risk in the town controlled by a Creepy Little Girl; in Elfen Lied, a split personality separates the psychic killer from the pure and innocent. 

A few examples of Creepy Little Children:

Regan MacNiel from The Exorcist

12 year old Regan has all the problems of what could by considered a typical young girl. Her mother is famous and a work-a-holic, her parents are getting divorced, she has poor bladder control and a case of Tourettes, and she very much enjoys crucifixes. See parents, this is why letting kids play with toys from the basement is a bad idea. 

Compelling viewing: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ewu1laA2nmI 

The Children from The Children

Never seen it, but I really want to based entirely on how awful it looks. The kids are creepy even before they become zombies. It’s being distributed by Troma, that should give you an idea of the kwality of the product.

The movie is about five children in a small town who, thanks to a yellow toxic cloud, end up being turned into bloodless zombies with black fingernails who microwave every living thing they put their hands on. The surviving adults of the town have to try to put a stop to them. The film is rated R for language, nudity, drug use, and gory violence.

Trailer: http://youtube.com/watch?v=UFhzyxs66vo  

Charlie from Firestarter

Charlene “Charlie” McGee is a young girl who possesses many potential psychic abilities, most notably pyrokinesis; the ability to create fire with her mind. She was born with her abilities due to her parents participating in a mysterious government-funded experiment during college. Both parents had been injected amounts of a drug known as Lot Six, which, among other things, had been proven to alter the subject’s chromosomes and pituitary gland. As a major effect of the Lot Six, her father developed telepathic hypnosis and her mother developed extremely minor telekinesis.

TV Spot: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9CuvL64JT_8  

Carrie White from, well, Carrie

We all knew someone like Carrie at school. Socially inept, fashion sense not extending past burlap sacks, hair looking like it never saw conditioner in its life and a family life that you always suspected was filled with either freaky-Jeebus or the bottle. Of course, when you give her a pigs blood shampoo, she’s ungrateful and will try to massacre the whole bloody lot of you.

2002: http://youtube.com/watch?v=O60xLw64ufU  
1976: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y_K_qCIJeoQ 

The Singing Kids in Nightmare on Elm Street 

There is something about sing-song voices in horror and the perversion of innocence that makes things that much more scary. When I first saw Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors when I was little, before they even got to Freddy, I can remember being freaked out by this singing of “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe”.

Now, I can’t guarantee a good video, because even after all these years Freddy freaks me the fuck out and the thought that some bastard might pop a ‘screamer’ at the end of the video fills me with a child-like dread.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOf1AsaJWXY 

The Twins AND Daniel Torrance from The Shining

Ok, the twins were freaky, there is no doubt about that, and they should get a bonus point for being two creepy girls, but let’s be honest and admit that when little Danny started talking out of his finger with that affected voice, he was unnerving too.

The Hallway Scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmn6FRgYwBQ 

Carol Anne from Poltergeist

Ok, this one had to be here. It’s unnerving because she actually is innocent, there is very little to be disturbed by her and much more by what affects her, however her awareness and acceptance of the supernatural is worrisome and very few things are as memorable as the line “They’re here”.

Where are they: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jsjf1AsxgDA 

The Midwich Cuckoos in Village of the Damned

The 1960s movie version of the book by John Wyndham deserves to be recognised as a classic and as the inspiration for many later stories and pop culture references. Aryan telepathic children who speak in clear cut English. Children who stare with glowing white eyes that can penetrate the strongest of minds and drive people to take their life.

1960s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MBresWP9MY 

Unfortunately, the John Carpenter remake seemed a lot less sinister. Partially I blame the Americanisation, in that without the ability to show a contrast between regular children and the Cuckoos, you don’t get the unnerving factor throughout the movie. Also, without the accent it just doesn’t seem threatening.

Remake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WzcW9haPto 

Angela Baker from Sleepaway Camp

Ok, this is one of those really messed up ones that, quite frankly, I don’t blame the child for being totally psychotic and freaky. 

Angela and her cousin, Ricky, are sent to summer camp one summer. She was living with Ricky and her Aunt Martha, after her father and brother, Peter, were killed in a boating accident. Angela gets bullied at the camp by campers and counselors (because, if there is anything to be established from horror movies it’s that at least one child will be bullied by absolutely everyone) and begins to go a little bit (more) fruitloop. Oh, yeah, spoiler time, Angela is actually Peter. The real Angela died in the accident. Aunt Martha wanted a girl and chose to raise Peter as his dead sister. Because that won’t affect your mental state.

Trailer: http://youtube.com/watch?v=zM5CjOy2sJk  
Robot Chicken version of the end: http://youtube.com/watch?v=igEGxsiPWTo  

Sadako/Samara in The Ring

Ok, really we have to hold the Americanisation of the Ring series responsible for most of the more recent saturation of creepy children in movies. That isn’t to say it is solely at fault for the influx, as has been shown already there have always been plenty of creepy children, but The Ring was a success and many other people have tried to take a piece of the action. 

As for the girl herself, well we’ll use Samara. Psychic girl, thrown down a well and curses video tapes to let her kill people. See, this is what would have happened to little Timmy if Lassie hadn’t got help all those times he fell down the well.

I’ve fallen and I can’t get up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw70E71G8Z8 

Toshio Saeki from Ju-on/The Grudge

Another part of very good Japanese movies being passed in to Western audiences with a, some may argue ‘questionable’, remake by Hollywood. In the Ju-on films, Toshio is six years old at the time of his death, in The Grudge, he was either seven or eight years old. He and his mother were murdered and so a curse rests on their household, which they remain as ghosts to fulfill.

Japanese vs American: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ5cdyWHjwU  

Damien in The Omen

Oh, come on. He’s the fecking anti-Christ. It’s in Revealations, people!

The kids in Children of the Corn

Horror-story religious folk are always scary, because they tend to have some twisted view on the religion that they worship. Children, as I hope we have established here, have an ability to be creepy. Now, if you combine creepy children with zealous religious belief – including the need for sacrificing people – and the knowledge that something unseen exists in a cornfield. 


Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzU0eya6vyk 

The ghouls of The Brood

Ok, not so much children as child-size, they are still freaky little ankle-biters.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCOCcwnZocM 

Young Michael Myers from Halloween

Perhaps one of the more unnerving traits of Michael Myers is that, even as a child, he has an emotional detachment and eerie silence during and after his hunts. The very fact that not only does he show no remorse, but he shows no reaction at all. The 2007 portrayal, though ‘interesting’ did show a rather freaky side with the leg stroking.

1978: http://youtube.com/watch?v=EHz7vlk9zYs 
2007: http://youtube.com/watch?v=7FG2DVgL7cA 

GoGo Yubari from Kill Bill Vol.1

This one I deeply pondered about the inclusion of, as GoGo isn’t that creepy as much as a psychotic dervish, and she isn’t exactly that young to fit in to the ‘child’ category. However, I decided that I like her too much to care on creepiness and that as she is noted as 17, that works just dandy. 

Basically, she’s psychotic, she’s wearing a schoolgirl outfit, she’s on any damn list she wants to be.

Fight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2azHdicqEiI 

The Winner from Battle Royale‘s opening

Battle Royale features entire classes being taken to kill one another. They are slightly more child-like, and for the most part slightly less psychotic (more desperate to survive). For the most part they aren’t really that creepy, with one exception. 

In the opening minutes we see a young girl, the winner of the last Battle Royale, as she is driven in a jeep by the army, covered in blood, smiling and clutching a ragdoll. Sure, she has no psychic head-exploding powers, no demonic possession, but she’s just become the sole survivor of a massacre she participated in, and is smiling with a freaking ragdoll in her hands, you just know some serious shit has gone down.

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNLH-QXggX0 

River Tam in Firefly/Serenity

River was born highly intelligent and throughout her childhood only seemed to increase her genius, to the point of feeling slowed down by the education system, and her love of ballet dancing. Her parents enrolled her in to a facility called The Academy, expecting it to meet her educational needs. While at The Academy, she was subjected to tests and operations which would leave her a graceful killer. River has also displayed psychic abilities, akin to mind reading and knowledge assimilation, being able to instinctively know details about a person.

The River Tam Sessions: http://youtube.com/watch?v=g6n1PMZ-TBs
River and the Bible: http://youtube.com/watch?v=xNhzjzH5XBE
River in a Fight: http://youtube.com/watch?v=R4UG4VJhiqU 

Claudia in Interview with the Vampire

When Louis, a vampire, feeds off a plague-ridden young girl one night – whom he finds next to the corpse of her mother – his companion and sire, Lestat, then turns her into a vampire “daughter” for them, naming her Claudia. 

She takes to killing easily, but once she begins to realise that as a vampire she can never grow up to become a woman, she begins to hate Lestat. Throughout her time with Louis, her mind and personality matures, but to her displeasure her body remains that of a five-year-old girl. 

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0ygvYjLwio 

Chloe Webber in the Doctor Who episode “Fear Her”

A girl, befriended by a lonely alien, who can trap people in her crayon drawn pictures. She hides out in her darkened bedroom all day, occasionally casting a shadow in the window and singing the Kookaburra nursery rhyme. Ok, so the episode itself isn’t actually scary, but isolating the singing and strange events can be quite disturbing. 

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4SDk3PyXJ0 

Blonde Haired Girl in the Doctor Who serial "Remembrance of the Daleks"

The young girl is allied, via brainwashing, to a faction of Daleks searching for the Hand of Omega on Earth in the 1960s. The girl has a very striking presence throughout, even intimidatory in some scenes, but again it is the singing and skipping that is perhaps the most unnerving, especially as it is a corruption of a nursery rhyme, once again it is “One, Two, Buckle my Shoe”.


Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxya3KShvhY

Jamie in the Doctor Who episodes “The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances”

A boy in a gas mask, wandering the streets looking for his mummy, calling out for her. A sad sight perhaps, unless you are in a Doctor Who episode and the boy in question possesses the power to communicate through unplugged phones and vinyl records, who can mutate a person in to an empty version like him and who will speak ever so gently while only asking “Are you my mummy?”

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC-9N3InL2U 

Anthony Freemont in The Twilight Zone‘s episode “It’s A Good Life”

Think happy thoughts, smile and never, ever sing or else find yourself sent to the cornfield. Anthony has amazing psychic power, in that he’s trapped the entire rural town he lives in into a seemingly idyllic community of his design, anyone who doesn’t fit into this perfect design is punished with his reality warping power and, if they’ve been very bad, sent to the cornfield where they will never return. 

Twilight Zone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfGWvexg90w 

Eve(s) from X-Files episode “Eve”

Super-intelligent, murderous clone children who are able to plot a murder conspiracy without even meeting one another. They are expects on playing with emotions and deception. 

Kenny is around 830 years old, but is trapped as an immortal in a 10 year old body after dying in England in 1182. He was found by the female immortal, Amanda, who took him as her pupil. Since then he survived by using his childish look to con other Immortals, who would try to protect him, and then he would take their heads to perform the Quickening.

Children in Silent Hill (movie and games)

Seriously, children in Silent Hill should just be counted as scary by default whether you are talking about groups of children – Mumblers/Grey Children – or individual demon children like Alessa. There is very rarely a child in the town of Silent Hill who isn’t a little bit screwed up.

Silent Hill (movie): http://youtube.com/watch?v=waRFhPSFvfQ 
Silent Hill (movie): http://youtube.com/watch?v=W1s40H9Qn3U 
Silent Hill (game): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGIqi8MA-H0 

Little Sisters from Bioshock (game)

Someone get me an Xbox 360, k?

Little Sisters are young human girls with the appearance of a disheveled girl with glowing eyes. They are actually normal human girls but with a species of sea slug implanted in their stomachs. They have the special ability to be immortal due to the sea slug in their stomachs regenerating any dead cells in their bodies combined with children’s cells dividing faster, and girls developing faster than boys. They are also protected by Big Daddies, mutated human behemoths wearing diving suits. 

Introduction: http://youtube.com/watch?v=fTK9PjaHLT4  

Alma Wade in F.E.A.R (game)

An 8 year old girl vs. a super-soldier special ops team. Oh, you know some serious shit is going to go down. She appears as a little girl in a red dress with a blank face almost completely obscured by long black hair. She’s also very psychic.

Sightings of Alma: http://youtube.com/watch?v=I4NmNwKaHj8  

The Red Queen was the artificial intelligence system that governed the Umbrella laboratories inside The Hive. When the T-Virus outbreak occured she kicked in her containment protocols and became a homicidal bitch. She was modeled after the programmers daughter, has a holographic representation and affects the voice of a little girl as well as lapsing in to some, seemingly mocking, phrases (“I’ve been a bad, bad girl.”)

Red Queen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXG-MS-L3a0 
Red Queen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dvh9YReYpE

The schoolchildren in Resident Evil: Apocalypse are encountered while the survivors are trying to find a young girl, Angela, in a school in Raccoon City. Unfortunately, someone didn’t tell Terri that the lunchtime bell had rung.

Schoolgirls and boys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKD8cVljdkw

Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Though originally rather a fanciful, light-hearted story with a young girl in an exciting twisted world, there have been many re-interpretations of the story of Alice in Wonderland that has taken the events and the characters, including Alice herself, in to the darker realms of imagination. 

Probably the most unhinged version of Alice comes from the game American McGee’s Alice, where she is condemned to an insane asylum for treatment, until she is summoned back to a very macabre version of Wonderland.

Trailer: http://youtube.com/watch?v=lG_-3T1Tljw  

The Diclonius from Elfen Lied

Diclonius are very similar to humans, however they posess two cat-ear like “horns” on the side of their head, which are said to relate to their telekinetic powers. Their powers involve the usage of invisible arms, known as “vectors”, which the dicolnius can use with great skill and manipulation, such as to dodge bullets and manipulate the movement of objects. 

In Action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edjq8op7kmw 

The Boys from Bonnie Tyler‘s music video of “Total Eclipse of the Heart”

Ok, the song is a classic rock ballad and it’s a karaoke night must hear, and I absolutely love the video. It’s very easy to mock, but it’s also very easy for some people to be disturbed by it. 

You’ve got school uniformed boys with mopped hair and white glowing eyes, a young boy with a dove and lots of eye-shadow, tuxedo boys, angels…the school is freaky, but in a cool way.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55nTwg5NIPM 

The Boys from Lord of the Flies

Well, boys will be boys. When you put them on an island without grown up supervision what do you think will happen? Of course, the whole putting on warpaint and psyching themselves up to go on a massive hunt was probably asking for trouble.

1963: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ET1oZD1oD2w 
1990: http://youtube.com/watch?v=vTWHLVBievg 

Ralphie and Danny Glick from Salem’s Lot (TV mini-series)

A very iconic character that has been seen in quite a few references in TV shows over the years. Ralphie Glick was a young boy turned in to a vampire during the early stages of an infestation in the town of Jerusalem’s Lot. The scene that has captured the most attention has been the scene where Ralphie visits his brothers window, floating and scratching at the panes. Later Danny goes on a late night visit to see young Mark Petrie, who fares better than Danny did.

Ralphie and Danny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK6yjAAFkp4 
Danny and Mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXL19IPjwR0

Reiko Mouryou, her family and her friends  from Contemplating Reiko (webcomic)

I couldn’t leave Reiko out, as she is such a delightfully creepy young demon-girl. As the creator, Vincent Grisanti, describes her: Reiko is a perfectly normal red-eyed, pointy-eared, sadistic little demon girl. She spends most of her time in the first grade and hanging out with her enormous pet crocodile Lucy (short for Lucifer). Reiko is friends with a headless boy and conjoined twins, and her sisters have a wide range of interests (though mostly involving the delivery of gruesome death to other people). 

The comic strips are single panel and manage to show a very twisted and deep story about a very creepy little girl that makes it addictive reading. Furthermore, and with great effect, the webcomic also comes with flash cartoons from time to time, which give a voice to Reiko that fits the character perfectly.

I have to confess, Reiko is one of the webcomics I would most like to buy merchandise about. 

Hopscotch cartoon: http://www.taintedink.com/reikoflash7.htm 
"Heads or Tails" comic: http://www.taintedink.com/reikogallery171.htm 
"Fingerpainting" comic: http://www.taintedink.com/reikogallery102.htm

Test Card Girl from the BBC Test Card F and Life On Mars

Test Card F was created by the BBC as one of its line up of test cards for calibrating television distribution and receiving television signals and to troubleshoot any problems with alignment and colours. Test Card F was the first to be transmitted in colour in the UK and the first to feature a person. The central image on the test card was a young girl playing noughts and crosses on a chalk blackboard with a clown doll (Bubbles the Clown).

Part of the cult status of the test card was down to its affect on people, with some viewers feeling disturbed by the picture and the players. This has been used to great extent in the BBC series Life On Mars where the Test Card Girl appears as a rather creepy spiritual guide. 

One of the best parts of the portrayal is that the Test Card Girl speaks with the Received Pronunciation, which as well as being sinister is also extremely fitting as the Beeb at the time would have all been expected to use it.

Original Test Card: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3-euNTw0RM 
Life on Mars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS6UI3HG3zo

Of course, the list could go on for ages. I actually left out a few on purpose because they were fairly close to other subjects and I’m not sure on creepiness factor, but I’m open to thoughts on the subject.

Things I know I’ve left out and may come back to at some point:

• Haley Joel Osment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o7K2f3-5b4 (Sixth Sense), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqS83f-NUww (AI)
• Dakota Fanning, generally can do creepy without trying but moreso in Taken and Hide and Seek: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ8K4_RrbJo (Hide and Seek)
• Lenore (comic)
• Emily Strange (stuff)
• Dorothy Gale from Wizard of Oz
• Wednesday and Pugsley Addams: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyyiQujh1yk (TV series), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsX72BqBjlg (Addams Family Values)
• Multiple children from X-Files (Calusari, Revelations), Buffy (Hansel and Gretel in Gingerbread, The Annointed One in many) and Angel
• Emily Dinsmore (Accelerate, Forsaken) from Smallville
• Ace of the Royal Flush Gang in Justice League. She can create illusions and cause insanity in others, either directly or across electronic media : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y5LFijHd6A
• Jinpei/Keyop/Peewee from the Gatchaman and derivatives, and more so from the more recent Top Cow Battle of the Planets where they show Keyop going completely savage and covered in blood.
• The child who does the voice-over of the Hatchet trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlgsiix43KU (Thank you, Frakkyfire)