The Holy Grail Of Sadballs!

He's Totally Gross!

HOLY CRAP! This is it dudes, the absolute Crème de la Crème of fake Madballs. IT'S RUDE RALPH TIME! Made by Axlon around 1986, Ralph is a deluxe version of a Madball with the size and detail to make him extra disgusting. He makes noises, he's got hair, multiple colors of paint that are applied well and that horrible eye. Ralph IS gross like his tagline suggests, but in a different way than his predecessors. While most of those were monsters or surgically altered (stitches, cracks, etc), this nerd is basically a straight up ugly dude. Sickly colored skin, buck teeth, warts, pock marks, crooked nose, this dude is gnarly. For some reason I imagine him as British. Maybe it's the teeth. Does that make me racist? It may also be the British Horrid Henry books by Justine Fontes, that have a character with the same name.

I never had one of these when I as growing up, and this one came to me very recently as a present. The first thing that I noticed was how big this goblin is. I knew he was big, but I really didn't know how big because none of the photos I've seen of him have anything for comparison. So, check out Ralph and Aargh for scale. It's pretty insane. Awwww, they look like they may be related. Yeah, think about how awesome that family reunion would be. Just a bunch of scary heads rolling around making small talk about work and their yards. Would you need a chair if you were just a head?
While Madballs were made of soft foam and many of their imitators were soft inflatable rubber, Ralph is made of hard cast plastic. One thing you can notice from these profile pics that's extra creepy, is his gingery doll-like hair. I don't know if this was an intentional side effect or if Axlon was just going for detail and got disturbing instead. But it bothers me. Especially with the green hue of his skin. It's troll doll hair and that in of itself is deplorable, but this is such a massive quantity! Ugh.
You can also see all the wrinkles that make a cool pattern on the one side of his head. These left and right views also highlight just how comically crooked his nose is. You can't even see the honker from one side and when you do see it from the other, you notice that wart looks like a Boston Baked Bean! Maybe he's a troll or something. If it wasn't for his name I'd thing this was a lady and even a Baba Yaga head. The warty nose and wrinkley face are super witch-like as well as those awful chompers. From those profiles you can also see his suspiciously simplified ears. It's oddly dark in there, no? Well, look above to see how far those earholes go. This was another decieving part about his size. The package I got in the mail was large but light. I had no idea this was what was lurking inside.
The fine details are what make Ralph so nasty. A close up of his crooked teeth show how textured they are and that they're crammed into deep-red, squishy gums. And his tongue....ewww......cratered and rotten. I would hate to imagine what his breath smells like. If you look at the sides of his mouth you can see what appear to be freckles, but on closer inspection reveal themselves to be pock marks. Could he have been an acne riddled teen? Do Madballs go through puberty?! Maybe they're beautiful at first and then they go into a cocoon where they turn into the garbage monsters we know and love. Unless they had added stitches and slime there's no way they could have made this more revolting.
Now, we're at the pinacle of Ralph's grossness. All the other stuff was cool and super-sized but really, the eye is what you bought this dude for. You can PULL IT OUT! OK ok ok. So look at it first. It's huge, bloodshot and creepy. Now add the pulling it out part! If that's not enough for you, he makes four different noises when you yank on it. Since mine's a bit old, all the noises sound the same. Kinda like a general "arrrrrgggghhhhhhhhhhh" sound. I think, theyre supposed to be a fart, a barf, a scream and a yell? I'm surprised it even works at all after 24 years but I can distinguish 3 different sounds! Don't overlook that while that one eye is awful, the other eye isn't there at all! I hope he can super-see out of that bulgy one.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the package with my troll head (which is a shame cus it's sooo rad) but you can check it out here.

In conclusion, if you can track one of these idiots down, buy it! I know they go for around $50 to $75 but, trust me, it's worth it. IT'S HUGE first of all. It's got those teeth, that matted hair, and that EYEBALL! Because it's made out of that hard rigid platic, it's not very functional but that's the only downside to Ralph. He's the Cadillac of Sadballs.

ps-If you're diligent, you can find one for cheap on Ebay. I've seen auctions close at $5 with one bid.