September 25, 2006:
I was only four or five when Michael Jackson's Thriller video debuted, and my sister frequently used it to torment me. It was as close to a horror movie as my young eyes had seen; in fact, it had better effects and far creepier creatures than most of the real horror movies of its time. I've always loved the song and have of course grown to adore the video, but yeah, as a kid, Thriller was for all intents the absolute worst thing on the planet, and my sister delighted in forcing me to watch it as often as possible.
The whole video scared me, but there were a few specific elements that sent me into a hide-under-the-blankets frenzy. The first offender came early, when Michael and his biotch break the fourth, fifth and sixth walls by watching a movie with him in it. Just before Michael turns into a werewolf, he gets a stomach ache, doubles over and screams "GO AWAY!" with these hideously demonic yellow contact lenses on. (Later "making of" specials told the story of how demonic those contact lenses really were -- Jackson endured eye-related injuries pretty much every time put them on during the shoot.) That part funked my spit up almost as much as something that came later in the video. After Michael got ghoulish and assembled a team of the similarly toe-tapping undead, there was this one guy -- a mostly bald blue-skinned zombie dude -- who just downright scared the piss out of me. I don't know why my fear sensors targeted on that one zombie over all the rest, but whenever he appeared onscreen, I ran through the nearest wall and left a hole in it shaped just like me. The "bat" scene from Gremlins 2 stole my bit six years later.
Thriller was obviously a smash hit with teens and adults, but little did I know then that kids just a few years older than me were taking to the song like flies on a dead smelly thing. This transformed the video and its star into a children's merchandise cash cow, and in-between the puffy stickers and Viewmaster reels was a nice quality and very much official doll featuring Michael Jackson in his red sequin Thriller outfit. The doll wasn't spooked up at all -- no hideous Michael makeup, no removable werewolf mask, nothing. Fortunately, Thriller was an easy enough franchise to rip off, and in 1984, shitty toy company "Powco" used Michael Jackson's likeness and his hottest video to create a series of low-rent action figures that glowed in the dark.
Officially called the "Graveyard Gang," this series of six clothes-wearing bendy figures was clearly inspired by Thriller, a fact proven when you notice the otherwise irrelevant "Thriller" text spanning across the top of the packaging. I call these "bootleg" toys, but technically, that's not correct -- the figures weren't a "bootleg" version of anything, because there were no official lines of vamped-up Michael Jackson figures. They're low quality but entirely unique toys, perhaps "just legal enough" to avoid any lawsuits left on Powco's doorstep.
If you're still somehow doubting that the figures were meant to capitalize on Thriller's popularity, note that the figure shown above -- the "Michael" of the set -- was named "Midnite Mike." Says so right on the back of the package. Speaking of which, the "Graveyard Gang" features some of the best toy packaging I've ever seen. I say that a lot, but I'm pretty sure I mean it this time. From the eerie artwork featuring a zombie-in-a-suit to the coffin-shaped bubble with coffin-shaped paper inside, I really didn't want to open Midnite Mike. But, since opening Midnite Mike was the only way to get a long enough article out of him, I went against my convictions, and now one of you bitches owes me twenty-five bucks.
Midnite Mike is interesting, as he's composed of all kinds of shit-quality materials, but was still somehow forged with so much love and care that he doesn't feel nearly as "generic" as he should. With lifelike hair, really nice paint details (less interested artists would've made him look more like a racoon, I think) and a Velcro-close jacket, Mike successfully guarantees himself a front-and-center spot on the shelving unit in my office. A lesser figure probably would've been shoved behind my tin coffee can full of pennies.
The figure can be posed in virtually any fashion, not because it's got all of these fantastic points of articulation, but because, at heart, "Graveyard Gang" dolls were just crappy dollar store bendy figures. The figures had different heads and clothing, but universally shared one emaciated alien bendy body. I don't really mind that so much -- it makes the figures a great example of how much can done with even the simplest toys.
Even when they're patterned after Chewbacca, I've never liked bendy figures much. Too cartoony, too plain. Amazing how far a few well-placed blotches of black paint and shredded pleather pants can take 'em.
It's incredible that something like the "Graveyard Gang" managed to amass a series of six different figures, and in some ways, the characters not based on huge pop stars were even cooler. "Howard the Howling Hound" is especially neato, what with his canine-like facial structure and the fact that all the parts of that facial structure are bunched up around the nose. "Cool Ghoul" probably would've been my favorite had I been old and worldly enough to collect these as a child, because if I remember correctly, any doll or action figure I owned that was dressed entirely in black was immediately promoted to ass-kicking commander of my other toys.
On the collectors' market, these figures are not easy finds. Still, they're not very expensive finds either, because so few people have ever even heard of them, much less developed an obsession with collecting them all. For me, luck struck twice last year. Right after picking up Midnite Mike, I happened upon his girlfriend, Karen Corpse.
I wasn't going to open Karen Corpse either, but after freeing Midnight Mike from his yellowed plastic prison, he kept looking at me, unable to speak but still managing to convey that he wouldn't be complete until someone reunited him with the man-faced sleaze whore also trapped in a coffin-shaped bubble. I didn't think I'd ever be kowtowing to Michael Jackson, but I guess he's just more rootable as an undead creature who trendsets in the cemetery.
Midnite Mike has a sort of anti-cuteness going for him, but Karen Corpse is just face-first ugly. She's the only female in the collection, and no effort was made to feminize her features. Right down to the chiseled cheek-enhancing black lines, she's as much a man as Midnite Mike, Howard the Howling Hound and even Freddie Funk, a guy who PRIDES himself on his ricockulous levels of masculinity. Outside of the name, the only things helping Karen Corpse be a natural woman are her old lady hairdo and Edith Bunker dress. Take away these things, and all the other graveyard gents might as well just fuck each other.
It's poetic that these figures hang in a graveyard, because I really dig them. I'm pausing for laughter. Now I'm done. Bootleg/cheap/generic horror-related toys and action figures are still being made today, but there's something about these that just feels so "they don't make 'em like they used to-ish." Maybe it's the clothes. Maybe it's the packaging. Maybe it's that they were born of a music video belonging to an artist who'd later gain fame not for his songs, but because he painted big white letters on live turtles' shells and tried to talk them into spelling out words for him over hot coals. Or maybe it's because the figures glow in the dark.
It's very, very difficult to take pictures of things glowing in the dark, so yes, this is a Photoshop special. Still, the doctored photo is pretty close to how the figures actually look after being held to a light source and then chucked in the blackness, and even after all these years, Mike and Karen haven't lost their special glowability.
The only downside is that they remind me too much of that mostly bald blue-skinned zombie dude, who is assuredly underneath the couch I'm laying on right now, waiting to bloody my shin with a hook the second I get up for a drink.
