Everyday Free World Photographs 3: Severed Hand

The severed hand M.U.S.C.L.E man figure

A long time ago, in the 1980s there used to be a toy line called M.U.S.C.L.E., (Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere). Back in the old days when Corey Haim and Corey Feldman were child stars, children in the UK and US would collect and play with these M.U.S.C.L.E men in a strange ritual of absurdity. I recall at one point a kid in my class wanted to buy a particularly 'rare'  M.U.S.C.L.E man figure from another kid and was willing to spend over a hundred pounds for one. It was a particularly stupid version of cottage industry capitalism but gave me an outlet in painting these miniatures to bolster my pocket money.

The pink version of the miniatures were like gold dust for a year or two, mainly because you couldn't buy them anywhere. It was the multi-coloured ones that were a dime a dozen. But hey this was England in the late 1980s, and not America where these things were easy to get hold of.

Kids would make a game using these miniatures and a long school table. One kid would put his miniature down on its feet at the edge of one end of the table and the other kid would put his miniature at his end of the table. The goal was to knock the opponent's miniature off of the table. You could only tap your miniature once before the opponent had his time. You were not allowed to pick up your miniature. There were a few moves you could do:

Clothes line: where you flicked your miniature at your opponent's miniature in order to knock them off the table

Stab: where you stabbed at your miniature which was underneath the opponent's miniature to knock them off the table

Flip: where you tapped down on your miniature which was underneath the opponent's miniature to lift it off the table

All heady stuff I'm sure. What makes me cringe is the amount of money kids would spend gambling on who would win the match. Such is the greatness of living in the Free World, whilst those poor kids in the former Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain could just look on in awe at our amazing, educational experiments conducted by the kids. Sigh. The folly of youth.

Wikipedia tells us the following:

"The M.U.S.C.L.E. figures were based on the Japanese toyline called kinkeshi. Kinkeshi were based on a manga and anime called Kinnikuman, and some figures were based on anime-only characters. The main hero was Kinnikuman, who, in the US, was "Muscle Man" and was the leader of the "Thug Busters." He was described as the greatest wrestling champion. The only other named figure in the US line was Buffaloman, who was renamed "Terri-Bull," and said to be the leader of the "Cosmic Crunchers."
 Some of the figures were sculpted to resemble popular wrestlers who had competed in Japan such as Terry Funk, Dusty Rhodes, Abdullah The Butcher, and Jushin "Thunder" Liger."

Here are some links for all of you nostalgic freaks out there:

http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/muscle/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suguru_Kinniku

By Penelope Itchy