Wacked Out Weirdos

"Scuzzy! Scummy! A Total Gross Out!"

First off, I uploaded these pics and scheduled this to post like 2 months ago with the intent of going back and writing the post later. I forgot to do that and this posted with just images. Oops. Sorry for the weirdness.

So these guys have been a bane of my monster ball collecting existence for quite some time. I first noticed them when I was trying to win one of those elusive monster wiffle ball bats. They were packaged under the name Gruesome Creatures then, and they contained aforementioned bat and a bonus ball. The card had drawings of all the balls you could collect and they were exactly the same as these. The trouble is, these are packaged as Wacki Balls. You can tell they're awesome because the spelling's weird.

I gotta say, these dudes are pretty cool. They have names, stories, a cool stitched up logo and the designs are inspired by but not stolen from Madballs. They also have cool stuff in French on them. Maybe to sell to Canadians? So wait, the packaging itself is kinda weird because it's simple but still has a TON of stuff on it. Like its just a green background witha black flare around the ball. There's drawings of the other monsters but it still seems kinda spare? Even though there's a deluge of slogans, ("Scuzzy! Scummy! A Total Gross Out", "Collect Them All", "Spook All Your Friend With This Ghoulish Gang", and finally the slightly pedo-ish "Touch 'em if you dare...and...if you dare you'll want to touch 'em all!!!" it seems like everything was spaced just right to give it a no frills look. What am I saying? After the Zombie Zoo fiasco of aught twelve, this is like the Mona Lisa of monster ball packaging.

Like I said before, each monster has his own name and blurb, but the entire line of toys has a back story!

"From beyond the universe, from the dying planet Grotesque, prepare for the invasion of Wacki Balls. Frightening fun with Freaky Footballs and Batty Baseballs, they're the scummiest, scuzziest, wackiest faces ever found on a ball."

Take that Madballs.

Here's a quick look at the drawings of the idiots. Cool names guys. I've seen Mind Stein around on ebay before but Stevie Slimeball and Wrinkle Wart are super elusive. In fact, this is the first time I've had a hint of their existence.


However, I did find out Lucky Star is still making toys! If it's the same Lucky Star from '86, they're still makin' stuff but mostly plush toys and not gross out rip offs. Ok, let's get into our first monstrous meanie.

This dummy's name is Lizard Breath. The "lizard" part is a bit phoned in. I guess he's got fangs and scaly skin ,but other than that he just looks like an ugly dude. Don't get me wrong, he looks like an awesome ugly dude but still not a lizard. He's got the "classic" monster ball one bulging eye but combined with a completely missing eye! And he's also got a worm/snake slithering out from behind his oversized orb! So cool. I will say that out of the three of these that I have, I think that Lizard Breath is the most poorly sculpted. He's painted very well which covers most of his molded flaws but the rest have a lot more subtlety and nuance to them.

Black Jack the Overtaker, is pretty awesome. I still can't get over the football shaped monster ball. As a kid I never even knew this was an option, so it still thrills me when I can secure an oblong oddity. This dude is painted a bit worse than Lizard Breath (look at that stupid tongue)
but the details in the hair and wrinkly face makes up for it. Now, I wouldn't complain about this next thing except that the drawing on the package gave it away, but he's supposed to have missing teeth that are floating around on his tongue (I'm guessing he got hit with a black jack and his teeth got busted). I wouldn't have known or cared but it's right there in the drawing on the package he came in! Still he's pretty cool, I love the detail of the football stitching on the back of his head!


Last, and awesomest is Mud Brain. I love this dude. His paint job and mold is way better than the rest. Maybe they were trying to win an award or something? He's got six colors and the individual teeth and veins in his eyes are sculpted! He kinda reminds me of a mix between Slobulus and Spit Ball Louie. In fact, this entire line seems more like a rip off of Weird Balls than Madballs....and I'm ok with that.


Here's a size comparison! Oh I should also mention these dudes are made out of the same foam as Madballs, not the hollow rubber of Sadballs.

In conclusion, snatch these up if you can! They usually go for a lot on ebay, but they're worth it. I got mine from a cool Italian online toy shop that I won't share with you because he's still got stuff I want (once I save up enough monster ball money).