Toychest Time Machine: Battle Trolls

Big-haired dudes with bad attitudes.

Now these troublesome Trolls really take me back to a special time in my childhood. It was the very first sleepover I was ever invited to (yes, boys have sleepovers too). I was about 7 or 8 and, though the finer details of the event are lost in my mind, I will always remember three things: 1) pizza plus birthday cake is a bad idea, 2) the opening credits to Ernest Scared Stupid are second perhaps only to Night of the Demons and finally... Battle Trolls freaking rock.

Having just been released (1992), Battle Trolls were Hasbro's answer to their own line of more feminine, jeweled Troll dolls. Marketed directly at young males, the series consisted of various pop culture parodies (Superman, Count Dracula, Frankenstien, GI Joe) that came complete with weapons, scars and backstory cardbacks detailing their cranky origins (basically Fight Club for trolls).

All of my friends had one and so did I, mine being (of course) the horror-themed Count Troll-U-La (see insert) who looks like a cross between a vampiric Zorro and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. It's funny to think back on it now, but I can actually recall having play fights against the other kids at school during lunch and, on the night of the sleepover in particular, a huge battle royale amidst pizza boxes and bottles of Mountain Dew with none other than Jim Varney as our color commentator. Pure childhood nirvana.

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