More on the Maco Molotov Cocktail

Fascinated by the toy molotov cocktail, I've been researching it. The manufacturer, Maco Toys sold their products through a catalog masquerading as a war comic.

The back page of the comic featured a "Loyalty Oath"

"LOYALTY
I will always obey the laws of the United States of America, the laws of my state and community. I will obey my parents at all times. I will abide by the rules of my school.

HONESTY
I will tell the truth at all times. I will be honest with my parents, my teachers, and all with whom I come in contact.

HEALTH
I will get plenty of sleep, fresh air and exercise. I will eat three good meals a day."

And they sold in toy stores as well as evidenced by this trade ad geared toward retailers.

So where did Maco go? Did they get bought out by Hasbro? Did they decide to start manufacturing REAL weapons for the Contras? Or were they just too honest in their glorification of war? GI Joe had fictionalized villains and no matter how many bullets were fired none ever found its human target. Perhaps parents preferred Joe's kinder gentler way to prepare the soldiers of tomorrow.

Click Here for the original molotov cocktail post.
Thanks to Comic Book Resources for information.

Toy Molotov Cocktail (You know, for kids!)

More of "Your Awful"

DeAnn replied to our call for awful and after getting a peek at just a few of the awful things in her collection I decided I had to visit her home and see first hand what other treasures I could find. She welcomed me and my camera to come by next Sunday.

In the meanwhile the piece that most intrigued and thrilled me was this Molotov Cocktail toy, yes; TOY! It says so right on the package. And love the subtitle, "Tank Buster." Well at least it's teaching kids to fight the power instead of to fight for the power. Maybe we could use more toys like this eh?

It's actually got me thinking that they might have missed some great marketing opportunities with movies like Fight Club. Who says a "Tyler Durden doll with imploding building©" wouldn't be appropriate? I dont think Maco Toys would have a problem with it. Hell even United 93 or World Trade Center might have great untapped potential for toys or maybe breakfast cereals. The "My First Act of Terrorism©" kit will be a big hit at Toys 'R' Us. How about "September 11th Cereal©" shaped like little people. You'd shake them out of twin boxes shaped like buildings (Good way to sell mulitple boxes of cereal!) with a toy airplane in each box. I just got carried away didn't I? I'll just move on now...

DeAnn and her husband Lurch run cool local movie screenings. Click here for more on that and watch for the Truly Awful Stuff field trip to their house featuring many more photos of great awful stuff, coming soon.

Update: Click here for more on this awful thing!

A Whole Lotta Awful

If you're paying attention to the right column you may have noticed our new Awful Links section, because there's more awful than we could ever cover on just this one site. You'll find links to awful Star Wars collectibles, awful lunch boxes, awful sex scenes and more. Click Here to go directly to our links page and enjoy.

Bobblehead Monkey Picture Frame with Cowboy

I am deeply hesitant to refer to this item as awful as I love it so much. The frame, which came to me along with The Eagles Clock, is truly a 3 dimensional non sequitur.

Taken one at a time the elements that make up this little gem are largely unremarkable but blend them together and you are left with the benchmark by which bizarre items will hence forward be judged.

Sure the notorious Elvis-Last-Supper painting is odd, but is it "bobblehead monkey frame featuring a random cowboy" strange?

I think not.

I would like to note the picture in the frame came with it. This item was in no way doctored leaving us to ponder this question; Was the random cowboy just something they had sitting around or was there some thought given adding him into the frame?

The random cowboy made his arduous journey from China nestled safely behind a thin layer of polyurethane sheeting all the while his ever vigilant simian companion seeming to nod out the message “Hang in there little random cowboy, in America we will be loved!"

And they are.
(A little aside; I had never actually seen an Elvis last supper painting and was using it to make a point. How ever I googled it and found not one but many. Arbor day is coming soon and nothing says happy tree day like The King.)

Hear us on the Radio!

Today, we'll be on Insight, on KXJZ at around 1:45, talking about our awful stuff and your awful stuff too.
You can listen live at CapRadio.org.
Or, if you miss the show it will be archived HERE.

Your Awful Stuff

Jennifer sent us this lovely clock. Well, she sent us a picture of it anyway.

She says: "It lights up and blinks red. They can be hung on the wall or sat on a table. You have the option of just using it as a clock or having it blink."

We'll pick the best reader-submitted piece o' awful for an awful of the month spot each week.

Please send us your awful stuff. You can go to our myspace page, http://myspace.com/trulyawful and post it in our comments section. You must add us to be able to post comments.

You can also put it online and send us the link at trulyawful@gmail.com. Please do not send attachment. We'll not be able to open them.

O'Reilly, FOR KIDS?

Okay, don't think we're getting partisan on you here. True, two guys who are this good looking, this smart, this poor and who know how to use the internet don't need to tell you that they're pretty far to the left, but that's not why this book is qualifying as awful.

No, it's not that O'Reilly is such a right-wing, crack-pot nut-job, it's that anyone out there would think that A KID would want this book. I mean look at the cover for Chrissake. What on this cover says for kids, other than those exact words of course, "For Kids"? What kids rushes home from school, begs his dad to turn off the Nick-Toons so to enjoy his milk and cookies while devouring all the wit and wisdom that Ol' Uncle Billy has to offer?

I was looking for a present for my nephew Antonio, a real, actual present, but I saw this and decided Brett had to have it. I'll get it to him soon, and then I expect a full book report. The cover alone has me thrilled to no end but I'm sure the contents would cause my head to spin around and my brain to explode. If this book makes the best seller list, which it may, it will be because people are buying it to find out if it's for real.

Brett won't have to get past page one of the text to find a Truly Awful Stuff worthy quote. "Even though I am now famous and successful, I still keep my old friends. And believe me, none of them looks like Jennifer Aniston. It would not be hard being her friend."

As you can see, this is his greatest work since his 1998 erotic thriller, "Those Who Trespass."


And, because it's late, and I've had sugar AKA crank for Keith, I'll tell you a quick story involving a conservative and a kid's book. The book; The Rainbow Fish. The conservative; Mike Coppola, a former employer of mine.

The way the book is written, a rainbow fish won't share his pretty rainbow scales with other fish and so has no friends. He wants friends, he decides to share, (SPOILER ALERT) at the end of the book each fish sports one rainbow scale, all is happy. Mike, lovable ditto-head that he is, of course recognizes communist propaganda when he sees it.

And so we have, the book as Mike reads it to his little boy; Rainbow fish has beautiful scales. The other fish ask for his scales. Rainbow fish says, "No. You can get a job and buy your own scales you lazy bums." The other fish won't be his friends but he stands firm for he is a solid citizen. The other fish learn a valuable lesson and they all get jobs, work hard and buy their own rainbow scales. All is good.


Oh, and don't worry, I got my nephew a very nice Magic kit. It's how I annoyed adults at his age and I figure the tradition should continue.

The Eagles

Clocks seem to bear the unfair brunt of hideous art. It is as if the sculptor or painter realizing their limited artistic ability have confined their art to the form of utilitarian. I imagine a bright eyed understudy working in a remote Italian villa. "But master" says the neophyte sculptor "fish... I can only craft fish." The master regards him wearily “how do you feel about banks?”

The eagles represent a multi tiered tragedy. The first of which would be the artist sitting down to his work table a lump of clay resting before him representing an endless multitude of possibilities. He takes a long drink of his breakfast Pabst and says to himself “I have it ….. EAGLES!”.

The next and perhaps most dismaying tragedy inherent in this item is that it represents an escalation. Not only was this item part of pair of items gifted me at the same time, a gross breech of protocol, but that it was selected by Bryna!

In any war it’s the family who suffers. I watch as the small eagle pendulums back and forth and I think not of majestic avian in flight, rather I think of collateral damage and a woman’s fall from grace……..

Anatomically Correct Pegacorns

The Ponies. Brett figured the game would end with this. He was sure I'd would crack at having to house this one, or at least that Bryna would make me quit.

Out drinkin' in LA, he went into the liquor store for one last round of bottles and there were the ponies on a shelf behind the register. Brett asked if they were for sale. Of course they weren't, I mean, who would part with such a beautiful item.
Two Unicorns, or Pegasuses, or, um, well they have wings and a horn, Pegacorns? ...anyway they're straddling a clock. One is female. How do we know? She has big pink wings. The other is male. How do we know? He has a big old horse penis! Yep, he's one impressively anatomically correct Pegacorn, and quite happy about it as you can see.

Brett knew he had to have it, or rather, he knew he had to have me have it, and so he offered to buy it several times, upping the price each time. He was obsessed. if the shopkeep had known how obsessed he'd have held out and gotten hundred for this work of art. Instead he took pity and let the weird little white boy have the clock for $20.

Brett was beaming with pride as he presented the Pegacorns to me. Bryna had had enough and was determined that this awful thing live at my work. I figured I could keep it at work for a bit and then sneak it home later. Brett was furious. Since his office is his apartment he can't keep things at work. I reminded him that he broke my unibrow, flowered, ceramic pig (story soon, I promise) and he mellowed out.

My office mates thought the piece quite awful so when ever one of them sneezed they got the Pegacorns on their desk. This was a fun game, with everyone trying not to sneeze and whoever had the Pegacorns listening at all times for somebody trying to sneeze on the low down. Several times I bolted out of the office to sneeze in the yard.

This went on until BoBo (not his real name), my boss let out a huge sneeze. The winged, horned beasts landed on his desk. And there they stayed, and stay still even as I type. BoBo called them his ponies and BoBo loves his ponies. BoBo's macho friends and associates come to meet with him and there, amidst his pictures of George W. Bush, sports memorbilia and a photo collage of past pet pit-bulls sit the ponies. For some reason BoBo felt the need to hide his face when I tried to photograph him with his ponies. (And after I posted this, BoBo insisted I not use his real name, even though there's a charictature of him clearly visible in the background.)

BoBo loves his ponies.

Horse people are bad, like golf people and dog people and angel people. So I'm sure we'll see more ponies, with or without wings and/or horns.

UPDATE: This post was linked at gigglesugar.com and someone wondered if Franklin Mint might be behind this beautiful item. Nope. The smal gold tag obscurred by BoBo's hand in the last picture reads "The Yanglin Collection." I do hope to have some Franklin Mint grace our collection soon.

UPDATE 2: Click here to read comments at another site that linked this page. I love that Laughing Squid and Ouchy led to us. We're indeed in good company.

Teenage Jesus

This one's on my wishlist. I want so badly to buy a print of this and see it hanging on Brett's wall. At Twenty bucks plus shipping this would be one of the more expensive gifts and I can't help thinking it would meet with an "accident" pretty darn quick. There's also the serious problem that Brett lives in Southern California where tacky religious art exists in great abundance. His revenge would be swift and dramatic I have no doubt. I know he had his eye on a life size plaster crucifix painted in pastels at one time.

I found this when I saw a Google ad on my website, which read "Jesus was a teenager. What's up with that?" I had to know.

I'm glad I risked a click. Look at the amazing piece of art I would have missed. Thank you Google, Thank you.

I can't decide what I like best, his belly gang tattoo (it says Apostles), the goth/drag girlfriend or the fact that he seems to be practicing his crucifixion posture.

To really appreciate the painting though you've got to check out the utterly sincere website. www.teenagejesus.com. Teenage Jesus, coming soon to Brett's wall.

The Leg

Click images for larger view
This was a garage sale find.

By the time I found this Brett and I were starting to dread our little game and we would dodge each other if we knew a new "gift" was floating around.

I'm ashamed to say Brett has successfully dodged this one for over a year. I've given him many other presents in that time, but the only way I'll get this to him is if I remember to make him take it when he visits me in Sacramento, as I will not give up my limited luggage space to bring it to him on my visits to LA; not when I can fit two or three other monstrosities in the same space.

This is a real prosthetic leg complete with stump grime (see overhead photo.) It is, so far, my girlfriends least favorite awful thing but she won't put it in her luggage either. She won't go near it.

In a couple of months, when we start our ebay auctions I think this little beauty may be the first to go. The stump grime should be a big selling point. I really like saying stump grime. I think maybe that should go on a t-shirt, stump grime.

PS: Stump Grime!

Crying Baby on Toilet

The piece that started it all.

Brett, where did you find this damned thing?

Brett excitedly presented this monstrosity and I accepted it, much to my poor girlfriend's chagrin, but I pledged revenge.

Look at it. It's beautiful. First, the child is still wearing her diapers (pink diapers, so it must be a girl?) while sitting on the toilet so the training isn't going too well. Thing get worse as she has fallen into the toilet. It would seem the toilet was full of milk, milk that is for some reason foaming out of the toilet.

It's the little details that really make this special; the hand clutching the yellow roll of toilet paper, the two white tears streaming down each cheek and the fact that the little statue is made out some sort of painted plastic.

Did I mention it's a bank? Insert the coins in the back. Could your quarters be any safer? Thanks Brett, you son of a bitch.

In a couple of months we'll have many of our treasures up on e-bay, but this little gem will stay right where it belongs, in a display case in my hallway, except when my girlfriend takes it and hides it, but I usually find it again pretty quickly.

Who Are We?

Click to enlarge at your own risk
Brett Wilson lives in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Hollywood California. Brett's home is a tiny little apartment full of reptiles and bugs. He really doesn't have room for the awful stuff that Keith keeps giving him, but of course he will not concede defeat.

Brett makes his living showing his animals to kids at Birthday Parties, Schools and Babtisms. See, http://www.lizardboyzoo.com/.

Brett's apartment is located in Wilton Place, an amazing apartment building full of artists, musicians and assorted other poor people. Officially Wilton Place is a no pets building.


Keith Lowell Jensen lives with his fiance Bryna in Sacramento California where he performs comedy both on his own and with the troupe, I Can't Believe It's Not Comedy.


Keith spends WAY too much time online maintaining numerous blogs all of which can be accessed via his homepage http://rockass.net/.
He somehow still finds time to panhandle.

Bryna has threatened to leave Keith if he accepts any more awful stuff, but she herself has found some of the worse things now occupying Brett's collection. Ah, the complexities of a good woman.

Brett and Keith met when Brett and his 1st x-wife walked by Keith's house after ingesting l.s.d. Keith invited the total strangers up to "see his water puppies." Brett then had Keith over to "see his bearded dragons, leopard geckos, water monitors, snakes, white's tree frogs and more." The two have been pals ever since, even though Brett once evicted Keith from a room he'd rented him as Keith annoyed the Mrs. Eventually he wizened up and lost that Mrs, and several more since.

Awful Links

Just getting started here. We plan on this becoming the definitive list of Awful. Keep checking Back

Other Sites Celebrating The Awful
Awful (and real) Star Wars collectibles
Blender Mag's Awful Music
More Awful Music
Awful Religious Stuff
Awful Commercials
Awful Album Covers

RetroCrush.com
They have some great awful lists
Awful Sex Scenes
Awful Lunch Boxes
Awful Movie Titles
Awful Movie Characters
Awful Pulp Fiction Books

Our Sites
Rockass.net home to Keith's many blogs
LizardBoyZoo.com Is Brett a furry?


Inter-Friends
Fine folks who've linked to our site
Wikipedia's Maco Toy Entry
Insight on Capitol Public Radio
Metafilter.com
Extreme Fajita
Giggle Sugar
my.opera.com
A Whole Lotta Nothing
www.latejedora.es
www.nezinau.lt
www.aventuraspez.blogspot.com
www.misslapin.blogspot.com
www.bored.overnow.com