"You'll Want 'Em All! Catch 'Em! Toss 'Em! Bounce 'Em!"I know a few weeks ago I said Foul Balls were the worst imitation Madballs I'd ever encountered EVEN worse than the nerds I'm about to discuss...HOWEVER, upon further inquiry I have to recant. Super Bouncing Weird Balls are just as bad. But I still haven't decided who gets the final crap-crown and maybe you can help make that decision. It's too much pressure for one dork.
Both are really lazy, and Foul Balls originality was a hindernance because it was so bizarre and trippy. The laziness involved in Super Bouncing Weird Balls is SO intense that it may eclipse it'
s rivals shotcomings. I will give SBWB one thing in their favor, they're made out of rubber and not foam, so maybe the medium presented some difficulties to the manufacturers but....they're still awful. Wait. I'll give them two. I really like their logo. I know that's lazy too but I really like the bones that spell out "Weird Balls".
At a quick glance, these seem like traditional second tier Madballs (second tier Weird Balls more likely). Like, a REALLY quick glance. Like, from a speeding car. Closer inspection reveals that these are rubbery examples of how drugs can hurt your toy design career. Let's look at the two I've got.
Of course, these don't have any names. This may be saddest part for me because it's the most often copied element of the winning Madball formula. Make a buch of gross dudes that loosely function as balls, then give them (sometimes) clever names. Even the Argentinian rip-offs have names! But here we are, stuck with this dude. I guess I should try to be clever and think up a name for him but all that comes to mind is Half-Assed Harry. Done. Named. You want a better name, you should make sure you're designed better. Anyway, Half-Assed Harry seems like he may be an attempt at an Argh type character. The blue skin color the stitches, the grimace, the one eye. Let's talk about that one eye. Yeah, the one with the "worm" in it. This is part of what's baffling about SBWBs. If you've already painted part of his mouth black why wouldn't you paint his gaping eye-hole black? It can't be that much more costly. Oh and his stitches are great. Of couse, I mean great in an abysmal way. The stitches themselves aren't sculpted, they're just stenciled on, but the holes they would've made are sculpted but not painted. So confusing. 
OOF! I though Half-Assed Harry was bad. What the heck IS this?! It looks like a rotten apple that kinda resembled a face that someone made a mold of and had underpaid workers in Taiwan paint. The sculpt has no eye detail, barely a mouth and no teeth. What it does have is a few pock marks and scratches. WOW! How did the sculptor find time to eat or breathe with all the rendering he/she had to do?! Screw you John Stanley Ind, Inc. I suppose this dude is a second rate Slobulus or another Argh but he looks like crap. We'll call him Gramma Dried Apple Head. He doesn't deserve any more of our time, though. Let's take a closer look at that packaging.
Somehow, this offends me less. It's possibly because I didn't spend money on these guys and I'm looking at someones poor unsupervised ideas for fake Madballs. Like looking at bad art on Deviant Art. It's funny to look at and laugh at but to actually own a piece would be a bit too sad. The first batch here looks like everyone just got their asses kicked. Some dude that had a goatee and tennis visor on got into a fight with a purple muppet monster. A lizard tried to break it up, caught a few in the nose and needed some bandages. The purple dude must've gotten hit with a mallet while the tennis guy asked him how many lumps he wanted for his tea. That's probably how the whole thing started.
The rest of them look like aliens of some sort. Well, that first dude looks like the three-eyed vagina mouthed variety of alien. The second one just looks scared and the third is the kind that gets eaten by alien moutain lions. Actually, this batch has a lot in common with their Foul Ball brethren (genitalia faces and being caught in an non-descript monster's mouth). Dummies.
Various searches for "John Stanely Ind, Inc" yeilded nothing, so I don't even have anywhere to focus my rage.Siiigggghhhh...In conclusion, I still can't decide who's worse. Foul Balls or Super Bouncing Weird Balls. SBWBs win the lazy award hands down but the Crap-Crown still needs to be awarded. You make the call.
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