And, yes, Virginia, that is a real cartoon. God bless the 80s!

Yep, indeed it was

I wanted to get this out before the holiday since it's a shame Happy New Year, Charlie Brown! doesn't appear to be on TV this year since stupid Apple had to buy the rights to Peanuts for their stupid Apple+ that they can shove right up Tim Cook's core (apple...core...hello?).

Maybe it's because this came out in 1986 when I was 8 that I've always been particularly fond of this Peanuts special, but after The Great Pumpkin and A Charlie Brown Christmas, this is probably my favorite Peanuts special.

Poor Chuck just wants to dance with the Little Red Headed Girl but he has to read War and Peace during Christmas break. There's a couple songs from this I've always remembered, and while the comedy in Peanuts is never over the top like other cartoons, Peanuts has always had that subtle charm that endures. I wish it were on PBS or even ABC, but stupid Apple ruins everything.


I may never actually do the Foxtrot, but I kinda sorta know how...


Musical chairs!


Poor Peppermint Patty just wants to get with Chick while Chuck wants the LRHG and Marcie watches idly by opining for Patty's peppermint. Sally wants Linus, Linus dances with the LRHG while Chuck sleeps. Lucy wants Schroeder, Schroeder wants a full-sized piano, while Snoopy wants to lick Lucy's face and put an end to the Red Baron. Holy crap, I never realized what a children's soap opera Peanuts really is, someone should make a Wonder Years or adult sitcom with all these characters, come on, Apple and Charles Schulz's descendants!

WARNING: VULGAR LANGUAGE

Ok, Happy New Year I liked Peanuts too PB. Apple isn't the only one that's ruining everything, there's so much more than that I'm afraid Anyway, maybe its special to you because this is it's 35th anniversary Some of that I never saw before. This a good one you made PB

Oh, dang, it never occurred to me it would be the 35th anniversary. Time, time, time, see what's become of me. Damn, it should be on tv for sure! Or a special commemorative DVD (not that I buy those anymore). If you haven't seen it, you should check it out!

Finally when I talk about anniversaries its acknowledged, I've only been posting about anniversaries with My items and such for a long while and there's yet more to come but I figured people didn't know or just whatever...while other people is spectating and doing this and doing that I keep up with things...things that are imperative to Me and to history itself

Well, can't wait to find out what your spoiler belongs too

Let's see, where were we? Ah, #39. I was planning on posting this yesterday morning as a Saturday morning cartoon present, but other things took my attention, and let's be honest, only BradonDaCollector is reading these anyways--at least he's the only one that ever responds. If you're reading these, say something. You should always tip your waitress, and you should always try to respond to posts. It's the polite thing to do. This thread is almost at 10k views, so someone's scrolling around it. Talk about another cartoon, say anything!



What came first the toy or the cartoon? The chicken, dummy. The chicken had to lay the egg. The cavemen had to make scrambled eggs so they could evolve into people willing to scare the crap out of 8 year old's in the 80's with this fiendishly frightening affront to innocent children's cartoons. Sorry, I'm feeling a little salty today, so this might go off the rails fast.



Inhumanoids did not begin as a half hour cartoon like many extended toy commercials of the 80's but instead it debuted on June 29th, 1986 as part of the Marvel/Sunbow Super Sunday Cartoon anthology block that consisted of several shows of six or seven minutes length that watched over several weeks, told a complete story.



Alongside, Inhumanoids there was Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines, Robotix, and a show that was truly outrageous, Jem and the Holograms. Truly, truly, truly outrageous as it was the most successful of the lineup eventually going full length for 65 episodes before being knocked out of circulation.



But we're not here to talk about Jem, so let's talk...

Inhumanoids, Inhumanoids!!!
The evil that lies within
Down in the fiery depths of the earth where the
Nightmares begin..!!

Our story begins with humans doing what humans do best, meddling where they don't belong as Earth Corps. has uncovered a giant amber monolith they believe contains the remains of a dinosaur. Meanwhile, evil industrialist, Blackthorne Shore coincidentally discovers another buried creature. We know he's evil because he has a trench coat and an eye patch.

You can have a trench coat.


You can have an eye patch.


But you can't have a trench coat AND an eye patch and not be evil.


Plus, he's an "industrialist" which is just another way to tell the kids that capitalism is evil and only leads to bad things. Rise up, my proletariat brethren!


Don't worry, the scientists will save us. Trust the science. Apparently, none of the big brains in Earth Corps. ever saw King Kong or The Lost World: Jurassic Park Electric Bugaloo(may not be the correct title--Bob), because they decide to bring the amber monolith in to San Francisco for an unveiling gala. What could go wrong? Well, suddenly the creature in the amber begins to screech like Cobra Commander and Kathleen Turner's love child--not surprising since the show was made by the same people that made GI Joe and Transformers. In fact, some of Earth Corps even sound like Transformer cosplaying Joes. One sounds like Duke, another like Beach Head, their leader sounds like Shipwreck. Which ones? I'm too lazy to look it up. Besides, nobody is watching this show for the puny humans. We want monsters!



That's right, somehow a Swamp Thing like creature has made it's way through San Francisco without being noticed and has arrived at the gala. Though, to be fair, if there were reports of a large, swampy creature rampaging through San Francisco, most people would've probably just assumed it was Nancy Pelosi on another bender. Hiccup. The swamp creature, helps free the amber monster who we now know is named D'Compose because he says D'Compose repeatedly and how else would kids know what toys to ask for if their names weren't repeatedly pounded in to their little tv addled brains?



After the monsters escape, one of Earth Corps returns to Big Sur where D'Compose was found to search for clues to what they are (probably would've been a good idea to do that before dragging it into a major metropolitan but trust the scientists nonetheless!) There the trees come to life and tell him that There is trouble in the forest, And the creatures all have fled, as the Maples scream ‘Oppression!’, And the Oaks, just shake their heads. Actually the tree (which always looked like Marvel Dire Wraiths to me) tells him of the history of the Inhumanoids, and rather than type all that up, how about a visual aid?



See that? Lots of toys to buy. So the monsters are going to set their not so scary looking leader, Metlar free and they're going to get revenge against the Mutores and Granites while also...<checks notes>...make sweet love to the Statue of Liberty?



"Give me your tired, your poor, your giant monsters. yearning to get freaky."




<finger snap> "Me'Shell!"

Wait, what the hell was that? That's actually a later episode entitled Primal Passions in which the Liquidator (an EC scientist) miscalculates a formula (but he's a scientist!) and makes the Inhumanoids crave some Barry White and alone time with inanimate objects. This is the same episode that Blackthorne frees another Inhumanoid named Sslither, a Kobra Khan like creature covered in snakes (draw your own conclusions). Damn the 80s were the best! Yeah, this show was definitely odd for a kids cartoon, in fact, some of it was down right scary for an 8 year old me in 1986. Here, Blackthorne Shore's sister, Sandra, who had sought to aide Earth Corps upon discovery of her brother's insidious intent to rule the world by ruling the Inhumanoids, is touched by D'Compose...



Coincidentally, that's also what the fifth Moderna jab does. Who the hell wrote and animated this? Wes Craven? Yikes. But that was nothing compared to the Marvel comic. Actually, it was Star comics, which was always kind of odd to me as I thought of Star as strictly kids comics like Heathcliff, Alf, Madballs, Spider-Ham. "But PB, this was a kids show." Ok, I guess. But the comics could apparently get even more gruesome and frightening than the cartoon, as here's Sandra's hideous transformation as depicted in issue 4:






Oh no, what will become of Sandra? Well, if you only read the comics you wouldn't know as that was the cliff hanger to issues number four, and we're still waiting for issue five just like Image United #4. But fear not, at least we've got the cartoons to show us Earth Corps' eventually finds a way to reverse the transformation and Sandra is ok. Ok at least, until Primal Passions when D'Compose wants Sandy to pour more sugar on him so he fires her up...



Good thing her clothes grew with her and didn't d'compose or else this would have to move to the scrambled channel on the old cable converter box. There was a lot of horror for a Sunday morning kids show. People and creatures were turned into undead minions. There were amputations. Brick killed a guy (that was actually Anchorman--Bob) One guy was literally just a head (more on that later). Heck, an evil scientist (his evilness is blatantly obvious because his last name is Manglar) dies in a vat of acid only to have Blackthorne somehow attain his acidy remains and use D'Compose to transform his talking skull into a hideous patchwork monster named Bamf!, I mean, Nightcrawler. Here's another visual aid...



Hell, there was even the horror of the fate of a former GI Joe, and rather than type his story I will just cut and paste from here:
https://wheatflaw.myz.info/gi-joe-inhum ... -ace-fate/

"Sabre Jet was introduced in Episode 12, "The Masterson Team,"...io a hospital, recovering Air Force pilot Brad Armbruster, seemingly only a head encased in wrecked metal, recounts how his plane was downed over Cambodia by Metlar's ancient rival, Sslither....When Armbruster appears in the next episode, he's now a potential Earth Corps member in a cybernetic suit called Sabre Jet.
Many fans over the years have noticed Sabre Jet was given the real name of Brad J. Armbruster, which is also the real name of Ace, G. I. Joe's famous fighter pilot...Dille confirms that Sabre Jet was, in fact, intended to be Ace... with an added piece of information that's fairly gruesome.Dille told Excelsior Journeys that, following Ace's plane crash, the robotic skeleton of the mortally injured pilot was constructed out of the crashed Skystriker XP-14F jet. Presumably, there was more Skystriker than Ace left after the crash. As Dille put it, Ace "got so badly messed up, they used his jet as his body armor." That's the fate of Ace, following the original run of G. I. Joe episodes: He's horrifically injured by a monster and destined to live life as a cyborg, inside his beloved Skystriker jet. It's a pretty cool cybernetic suit, but still, a surprisingly dark fate for the character."

So poor Ace is apparently like Iron Man if Tony Stark had nobody. I guess what they say about the technology fields is true, you have to stay ahead of the competition.




There was another tie in to GI Joe and Transformers that episode, as Geraldo caricature, Hector Ramirez appeared in episode 12 aired a live journey to the center or the Earth to rescue the Statue of Liberty from Metlar and to unveil the secrets in Metlar's vault. Metlar's vault, like Al Capone's was empty and I may've made this part up--maybe if there was a season 2!



Speaking of terror, DON'T CLICK THE SPOILER!



After the intial shorts were turned into a five episode miniseries, a full Inhumanoids series was launched now retitled Inhumanoids: The Evil that Lies Within, because kids love long titles or something. Sadly, that would only last another 8 gruesome silly episodes. So let's talk toys!





Holy huge heads, Metlar! Spinmasters made some of the Earth Corps scientists, several versions of the Mutores, and massive 14 inch versions of the real stars of the show that I would've really wanted as a kid. But I don't remember owning any of these. First of all, the Earth Corps figures are just boxy, and cheesy looking. Like I described them earlier, they looked like lame Transformers cosplay (not that I knew what that was as a kid), and if I asked my parents to buy me a bunch of rock and tree figures they would've told me to go to the park. Or maybe just the tree figures as I did own some Go Bot Rock Lords and MOTU Stonedar and Rokkon, so maybe they weren't so anti-rock people. Wait, was that a Granite that tried to marry Lydia and Beetlejuice? Hmmmm...




And the monsters sold for about $25 in 1986, which is about $65 in today's prices, and I can see why my parents wouldn't buy me a bunch of them. Plus, maybe they thought them too scary or creepy. But someone I knew had these, probably my spoiled cousinn who got everything, because I remember playing with D'Compose's ribcage that opened and closed to capture anything that got to close to his corrosive touch. There was a planned series 2 of figures, but just like the show, it only made it to one series.



But what a wild show that actually had some big guns behind it with writers like Steve Gerber, Marty Pasko and Len Wein contributing scripts, and artists like Russ Heath and Bruce Timm doing character designs. The show was available on VHS and DVD, but the DVDs are currently unavailable on Amazon. But you can find most episodes on youtube as far as I can tell. If someone ever wanted to launch a universe like the recent Godzilla/Kong stuff, Inhumanoids would be a great place to start with some redesign and more mature characterizations of the Inhumanoids (we could probably do without any Lady Liberty love).



Speaking of monsters, anyone remember Bugmen of Insecta? I came across images of them as I was searching Inhumanoids online and it was one of those, "holy crap, I forgot about those!" moments.




That has nothing to do with Inhumanoids, it was just such a rush back of a memory, that I wanted to share it since there doesn't appear to be any commercials of them that I could share in the amazing Toy Commercial thread that is frequently updated.



HERE ======> post41365.html#p41365

Wow, PB, I just got done checking this out. You outdid yourself with this one. Cool about the Inhumanoids. That really was a odd yet great series. I do regret not getting into the series back then. I had mentioned earlier in your good commercial topic that I have a couple of them, the only figurs that I have is Magnokor & Redsun. I do not recall any others. I had already taken pics of them, just haven't got to them yet.

I know a lot of obscure 80s toys but them Bugmen I've never seen them before to honest They looked fun

Did you put dem pic of Clinton there or...

Great stuff PB

BrandonDaCollector wrote:Did you put dem pic of Clinton there or...

Not sure what you're talking about, those horrifying images are straight from the comic.


I did have a lot of fun with this one. Man, I thought for sure you were going to say you had some of those Bugmen. Bummer. I distinctly remember owning the black one with the yellow arms and the green one.
https://www.battlegrip.com/who-are-the- ... insectica/