And now, Scary-Crayon presents…
by: Wes
We all have regrets in life. Sometimes those regrets are significant — for example, we might regret not telling a departed loved one how much he/she meant to us when he/she was still alive. Sometimes our regrets are more trivial — after a disappointing grilled chicken sandwich, we might regret not having ordered a large platter of onion rings and disco fries. Sometimes those regrets are quickly forgotten; sometimes they stay with us for a lifetime.
Sometimes those regrets are kinda silly.
So here’s a regret I think about a lot — promise you won’t laugh. You’ve heard of Kmart? If you haven’t, it’s a one-stop discount shopping spot, a la Walmart or Target or a bunch of other places you’re probably familiar with: think of a place where you can pick up clothing, furniture, hardware, groceries, toys, office supplies, electronics, and a bunch of other items all in one go. These places don’t typically have the extensive selections you’d find at stores dedicated to a particular type of item, mind you — consider that Kmart’s entire toy section is about as large as the area Toys “R” Us has set aside for action figures alone — but what they offer is good enough for most shoppers and the prices are hard to beat. The more specialized stores are having so much trouble remaining competitive in today’s market for these very reasons.
But at least in our area — perhaps due to the presence of more successful stores like Walmart and Target — Kmart is sort of an endangered species. Oh, sure, you can still find the occasional Kmart in some forgotten corner of some crumbling town, but they’re nowhere near as ubiquitous as they used to be. We used to have a Kmart here in Laurel, but (and thanks to this article for supplying a year; my memory’s hardly this precise) it closed in 2002. Before it departed, as is common for stores going out of business, it had a massive sale: when you’re vacating the premises and shipping is as expensive as it is, you want to have as little merchandise as possible to have to move. I haven’t forgotten about the subject of the piece; here’s where the regret part comes in.
Among the various toys being clearanced were My Pet Monster plush dolls.
Now, if you’re a child of the 80s, you probably remember My Pet Monster. But you probably don’t remember much about My Pet Monster, because there really wasn’t a lot to remember. There was a 1987 cartoon that ran for a single 13-episode season, and there was a direct-to-video live action movie that no kid I knew ever saw. There was a toyline consisting of several plush dolls, but I knew maybe one kid who had one (and it wasn’t the kind of thing that could compete with He-Man during play sessions). There were a handful of printed storybooks — I know this because I had one; it was the sole piece of My Pet Monster merchandise that I owned. Really, the only reason I remember My Pet Monster so well is that the live-action movie trailer was included on the VHS tape of Madballs: Gross Jokes. As a child, I probably watched that cartoon four times a week for an entire year, which means I sat through the trailer for the My Pet Monster movie at least 208 times. (I’m not even counting the dozens of times I’ve watched the cartoon since buying the tape off Amazon in 2001. That trailer is seriously seared into my memory cells.) It honestly sounded kinda stupid to me then and now — whereas the monster just kinda shows up in some kid’s basement in the storybook, the stupid kid actually becomes the monster in the film… which is why I was never really interested in seeing it. A gruesome monster refugee from Monsterland is awesome; a nerdy kid who visits a museum and is perpetually hungry is a whole lot less so.
But despite my lack of familiarity with the property because of the lacking presence and popularity of the property, My Pet Monster remains a pretty strong reminder of my childhood — and so I retain a pretty strong and favorable impression of the character. So, when ol’ Monzie reappeared on store shelves in 2001, I was delighted to see the guy. And when I saw a shelf full of My Pet Monster dolls marked down to $10 each at that closing Kmart (see, that part was relevant), I was even more delighted.
And yet — here’s where the regret part comes in — I didn’t buy My Pet Monster. I left the thing sitting on the shelf, even during multiple visits to the closing store, and remained stubbornly resolute in my decision not to cradle Monzie in my arms until that Kmart finally shuttered its doors and mutated into Lowe’s.
Why didn’t I buy My Pet Monster? Good reasons, probably. It was $10, which might seem like a bargain for a 22″ talking monster — but this was back when Marvel Legends and the like retailed for $7-8 at normal price, and I was used to paying under $3 for clearance items. (That was also the summer that I flew to California for Anime Expo, so I was saving for that trip.) Moreover, I wasn’t earnestly collecting toys at the time, so a toy had to be especially appealing for me to buy it — and, as glad as I was to see it on shelves, an oversized plush doll wasn’t something I really wanted to take home. As said, as much as I enjoy My Pet Monster for nostalgia’s sake, I don’t have any particular attachment to the property or deep knowledge of the character.
Even so, I’ve thought about my failure to purchase that blasted doll way too much over the past decade. I know well that, had I bought My Pet Monster, I’d have played with him for about a week. Sure, I’d have had great fun snapping his chains and cycling through his sayings dozens of times… but then, when our honeymoon was over, I’d have tossed him into my closet or onto the upper bunk of my bed and not have messed with him much thereafter. I know this because that’s what I’ve done with nearly every other plush I’ve bought in recent years. Yet I continue to buy plush dolls on occasion, because I know that — if I don’t buy them — I might find myself pining for them for years to come.
Clearly — certainly — not buying My Pet Monster is far from the worst thing that I’ve ever done. If you gave me time to take a long, hard look at my life and then gave me the opportunity to go back in time to make a different decision, I doubt that I’d land my TARDIS in the Laurel Lakes parking lot in the summer of 2002 and dash madly into the still-open Kmart in search of a stuffed monster toy wearing orange plastic handcuffs. But when I think of regrets, My Pet Monster is the first thing that pops into my ridiculous head.
Another thing? My lack of My Pet Monster is something I totally could have rectified in the intervening years. Okay, the eBay auctions for Monzie are kinda pricey at this moment — but the thing was still sitting on store shelves (albeit for more than $10) when Kmart closed, and I’ve seen the doll (or a doll; I haven’t kept track of which versions were for sale in particular auctions) go for very little at times. If I really wanted that My Pet Monster plush that badly, I could have gotten it. The truth is that I don’t really want it. Oh, sure, I’d buy it on sight if I saw it that cheap again — like I bought this wannabe when I found it on clearance for $1 some years back — but I don’t really need a My Pet Monster plush.
So why does my mind keep coming back to that blasted thing? I don’t know — but I think that, somewhere deep down, I do want a My Pet Monster toy. Maybe not the plush, but some tangible representation of My Pet Monster to add to my collection. It’s probably the reason I got kinda excited when Shocker Toys showed that My Pet Monster Mallow figure some years ago (also Madballs; I love Madballs in any form), and why, despite knowing the company’s reputation, I’d undoubtedly send my hard-earned money to Shocker — or whatever the company’s called now — if it started taking preorders. And by “undoubtedly,” I mean “never in a billion flipping years.” But I’d want to. I’d feel the pull. Heck, I’m even feeling the pull when I look at the new Monsters University merchandise. I’ve never seen the original movie, but Sulley is blue and furry and has horns and something about that seems kinda familiar.
Maybe if I buy a Sulley figure, paint it a darker shade of blue, and sculpt it a tiny, warty nose… maybe then my mind will finally put this regret to bed.
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Gunwild says:
I know this feeling. Somehow, I mean, you look back on certain things where you go “Oh, there are all the risks I never took, the girls I never talked to, the jerks I never stood up to,” and that’s one sort of pain. But in those, you always had some skin in the game. It could have hurt you emotionally.
On the other hand, when you miss getting something like this, you think nothing but, “Dammit, what did I have to lose?!” And of course, the answer is “money.” But it’s hard to value a few dollars from years ago more highly than some sought-after trinket that you can now only imagine the charms of.
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I really regret not buying the “revised” My Pet Monster doll from what I want to call “a few years ago,” but was probably more like 10+ years ago. It wasn’t as big or nice as the original (felt more like a “doll doll” than some high art carnival prize from Hell), but still, it *was* MPM and was still pretty cool.
Its attempted resurgence could not have gone well, because the thing was always on clearance at TRU. For whatever reason, I held off. I guess it was one of those cases where you just assume the price will keep dropping, but the thing was seriously 10 bucks or less already. Really regret missing out on that. (I have the original here somewhere, but it’s in bad shape. One of those dolls that simultaneously looks very dirty and like it’s been through a washing machine 1000 times.)
As for K-Mart, we’re down to one last store around here. I try to get out there as often as possible, because the store design and layout is such a relic. I’m especially mournful during the holidays, since every department store gets its own batch of goodies, and for everything wrong with K, they always had nice Halloween stuff. Love Target, but they don’t get as gritty and their holiday stuff ends up blending together after a while.
Hope you find one!
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Huh — I was under the impression that the 2001 doll was the same size as the original, but it definitely does seem like there were more than just two versions floating around out there (not counting the monster friends or whatever those were). I don’t remember ever seeing the thing on clearance at TRU, though! I’d probably have bitten after the Kmart closed, even if it cost me a couple of extra bucks to buy it.
And yeah, Kmart does continue to hark back to a simpler time, and not just because the stores smell like mildew and are perpetually dusty. They do get really nice Halloween stuff, too… which, incidentally, I never buy. Sometimes I regret that, but there will always be another Halloween season! The season for My Pet Monster, however, seems to have come and gone forever.
Btw, you do realize that now you have to dig out your original. Do it for nostalgia’s sake, Matt!
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It’s so true how our regrets can stay with us so long, even silly ones (hell, I wish my regrets were so frivolous).
Anyway, I remember My Pet Monster well. I never saw the cartoon, but in my early years we rented the live-action film several times, and I had one of the storybooks (the one about a school talent show). I also had one of the stuffed toys, but not the iconic blue monster himself. Mine was a similar orange monster character that was named “Gwonk” . I used to love playing with the breakable handcuffs.
Hey, just looked it up and found this page: http://www.ghostofthedoll.co.uk/mypetmonster.htm
They have some pretty nice pics of all the dolls. -
Good stuff, Wes. All of our Kmart stores have closed here. I think there’s one about 45 min. away if I trekked. As a kid I’d ride my bike to one that was right down the street (well, a large hill, to be precise) from my home. It was my first taste of “freedom”. Riding my bike down there, eating a fried shrimp and fries basket in the little commissary (which was closed and walled over long before it closed). I think you’re the only other person I’ve met that loved Madballs as much as me growing up.
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TR says:
Not toy related: I saw a 1970 Pontiac GTO ,[ a car], for sale last year, for about $7000. I had the money but DANG IT, I just new it was most likely a money pit. Oh man!
—My mom should regret this- she threw out a favorite board game of my Dad’s: The voice of the Mummy. It is a 1970s game. It talked. You can’t get them for less than the price of a couch, now.
— I was about 17, 18- I was in a suit + going to a fancy restaurant on a school trip. I could have bought WWII-themed Mego 8 inch action figures. Did I stop + but ’em? NOPE! I guess I didn’t want to hold up the group, or look like a “little kid” to my friends.
Sigh…the big fishes that got away. 🙂 🙂
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Also, Wes, may I call you Wes?, I totally get the “not wanting to buy it now”-thing.
I once lost a small hand held video-game in my childhood. But will I buy another? probably not. It’s probably cheaper for me to make a symbolic copy out of clay, than to by it for $40 or $80 online, now. 🙂
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My Pet Monster was my big childhood toyline. There actually are plushes of the semi iconic blue guy in different sizes. In the States it was only available in one size. Overseas it was available in two or three different sizes. There was another large monster in the line, My Football Monster, that was also available in different sizes overseas. In addition there were two additional smaller monsters, Yiplet and Yaplet, sold overseas along side Rark, Gwonk and Wogster who were the only three of the small puppets available in America. You could also buy Beastur, the cartoon’s villain, overseas but not in the States. This seems to be common for American Greetings properties as there are also Care Bears, Care Bear Cousins, Popples and Get Along Gang plushes available in other countries that never made it to America. Fun trivia fact: The Super Madball, Touchdown Terror, appears with My Football Monster on the back of the Football Monster box.
You are correct in assuming that the live action movie was terrible. I had it on tape and while I liked it as a kid it wasn’t very good. The cartoon wasn’t much better. They made the monster too cute, with a voice that, to quote my best friend at the time, sounds like Gurgi from Disney’s Black Cauldron. It was like they took the concept, placed a Care Bear in a MPM costume and gave it the starring role. There was nothing particularly monstrous about the character in the cartoon. My biggest problem with it was that it could have been pretty good if done right. But you could tell the writers were basically phoning it in.
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Phil wright says:
Im trying to locate and buy a MPM Beastur for friend with autism. Any help locating 1 would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
I still have both versions of the toy living in my overhead storage