ONM Remembered – #233
“PIKATCU PLUSH CHARACTER”
from Pokémon Master Guide (1999)
Stacks and stacks of nerdy gamer crap, available through mail order only from Excitement Direct! … fifteen years ago!
Ads of this nature did show up in regular Nintendo magazines, but I don’t think I paid them any notice until I saw them in the Pokémon Master Guide (probably because the page is so spartan you can actually identify what it’s offering). Look at all those sweet action figures! And plushies and watches and accessories and FREE POSTAGE!!
It’s actually scary to think that my brother and I owned at least one item from nearly all the action figure franchises in the bottom left corner. Barring Tekken 3 and Quake II, we had the Zelda figures, the Mario Kart toys, the Diddy Kong Racing figures, the Metal Gear Solid collection (with limited edition glow-in-the-dark Psycho Mantis), even the bloody Final Fantasy VIII figures. I think they’ve all since been sold on, partly because I haven’t the collector mentality to appreciate it, and partly because eyyy gimme the money. (they still live on in those old Motorbike Man cartoons that you probably shouldn’t check out)
It was a fascinating sensation back then discovering that there were toys of our favourite video game franchises… a notion that feels a little diluted when darn near every video game has a custom statuette as a pre-order exclusive, which they inevitably manufacture in excess and can’t shift to save their life. Clearly they should be producing more merchandise of “Dingo Dille” instead. I’d buy a dozen.
