So I have this friend Preston, we’ve been friends since 1985, and if there’s one thing everyone knows about Preston is that pretty much everything he thinks is great is hot garbage… Except Eddie and the Cruisers, he likes everything about it, and I agree with him on that. So today he was discussing how Switchblade was the best vehicle from the M.A.S.K. series. WHICH if he was in America would get him immediately checked into a mental health facility with a drug rehab as part of the program. For some of you, you’re super pumped someone is writing about one of the greatest cartoons and toy series of the 1980s, and the others are completely clueless about what this M.A.S.K. bullshit is. Let me enlighten you.
M.A.S.K. (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand) was an elite team of badasses that drove transforming vehicles, lead by Matt Trakker who were at war with Miles Mayhem’s evil group Venom (Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem), who also piloted their own army of transforming vehicles. OH and they all had helmets that gave them special abilities, be it a built in flame thrower or a tracking beam that levitates anything you want it to. I mean really, this was like G.I. Joe and Transformers got together and made something way better than the both of them.
Anyhow their vehicles, typically had two purposes, and USUALLY they were just your every day car, or motorcycle, that then turned into some sort of attack vehicle. AND SOMEHOW…. they were able to make toy versions of these that stayed really close to the same form as the series. MY GOD WHAT A GREAT TIME TO BE A KID… Unless you were Preston, and you liked the dumb vehicle the best. He was a strange kid, always wearing a knock off Scottie Pippin jersey and rode his bike in a gang called The Panda Bears. Anyhow…. let’s take a looks at these vehicles in… let’s go alphabetical order.
Afterburner
Well, we kinda start right off in the shitpit of M.A.S.K., while most of their stuff was really cool, this is clearly one that wasn’t thought out too good (Preston probably loves this one), but it was a dragster (which are awesome) that turns into a stealth plane and a cannon. Now the pilot of this vehicle was Dusty “Powderkeg” Hayes, and his special helmet’s super power? It made a computer image of himself, so he could become two people for both parts of this vehicle… that’s just one part about how dumb this vehicle idea is “Let’s make a one seater vehicle turn into two separate weapons that both need a driver”. If that’s not enough, this is a great weapon should Venom decide to attack an NHRA sanctioned event, or one particular dragster garage. I mean, a top fuel dragster isn’t going to be patrolling city streets. Even if you ran patrols in the plane part of it, then you’d be like “Okay, gotta lure this bad guy to the drag strip so my computer version of me can shoot it down. Just ridiculous. Surely Miles Mayhem would eventually say “Look guys, I can’t help but notice we’re losing a lot of people around drag strips… let’s start avoiding them, if the NHRA is in town, we work somewhere else”. But then again, that fucking nitwit flies the Switchblade, if he can’t figure out how stupid his own vehicle is, I’m sure he’s going to end up dying at the Winternationals in Gainesville.
Barracuda
Okay, so Venom was a little more on the ball with their vehicle here. Barracuda was a motorcycle driven by Bruno “Maddog” Shepherd. While it was still the same dumb idea of a single seater vehicle turning into two vehicles, at least this one isn’t restricted to sanctioned racing events. Granted, a jet motorcycle isn’t the most “blendy inny” kind of normal vehicle… BUT at least it can go around town. You would THINK that someone out there to do evil would be on something a little more unassuming and rememberable as a bright yellow jet cycle… but who am I to judge? And what exactly is a “Jet glider”? I think once you put a jet engine on a glider plane it’s no longer a glider. *Shrug*. Still better than the shitbag dickface Switchblade though.
Bulldog
Okay, so NOW we get to an actual cool vehicle, Bulldog was your run of the mill cabover tractor trailer truck… well just the tractor…. but anyway, until it didn’t need to be anymore, and it became an armored halftrack with a cannon, machine guns, and a saw sticking out the front…. SEE? This is how it’s supposed to be… it’s not a unicycle that transforms into something that needs 6 operators… this guy can wear a helmet that does more than just make enough people to operate the vehicle. Granted Boris’s “Comrade Mask” only shot out an array of stars to confuse the enemy… it was still more than just making a copilot. Let’s hope this positive trend keeps going. Well it will until we get to the S’s and have to cover that moronic Switchblade
Bullet
Okay, now this one might not be SUPER practical in a war… BUT it would definitely be one of the one’s I would want to have in real life as a civilian vehicle… a crotch rocket that turns into a hovercraft?!?!?! HOW FUN WOULD THAT BE?!?!?!? I mean it DOES do one of the primary functions of these vehicles should, you can ride it on land, or over water…. so there is that… but I am not sure that if I was going into battle I’d want to be exposed on a motorcycle sized hovercraft with a blaster cannon and grappling hook. Unless I was being chased by a helicopter plane, then I wouldn’t be scared, because something that useless wouldn’t be able to do anything to me anyway.
Buzzard
This one HAS to be one of Preston’s favorites… because it came SO CLOSE to being really cool, but fucking blew it… and it’s the same guy that flies his favorite Switchblade *big eye roll*… so this one starts off in the shitter… it’s a goddamned Indy Car… so the only way Miles Mayhem is sneaking up to commit a crime is if he’s going to do it during a race. Then as he’s in his one man race car going around the track KAPLOW MOTHERFUCKER one of the racecar becomes two little ground battle units and a jet plane… THAT ALSO has a hang glider. Now he’s going to take over the world by disrupting the Indy 500. Now think about this, if this had been a regular street car, you and a few homies are rollin’ in your normal every day car then BAM you become 2 ground units and a jet plane…. THAT makes sense… I’m still not sure I get the concept of a battle hang glider though. But what do you expect from the idiot moron imbecile that flies the buttsmudge Switchblade.
As I am leaving the B’s to go into the C’s, I want to acknowledge again that this is just vehicles… so I skipped Boulder Hill which was M.A.S.K.’s base, and an AMAZING toy… and Billboard Blast… which was a billboard that had guns in it…. I just want to make something clear about toys in the 80s… they actually came up with, marketed, and sold us kids TOY BILLBOARDS. Jesus fucking Christ. But a billboard is still cooler than a helicopter that can transform and still fly.
Condor
Okay, so this was my vote as the most practical and bestest vehicle in the show. You are crusing around on a motorcycle… able to go anywhere on land you want, places cars can’t even go, then you flick a switch and you’re riding an attack helicopter… THE SIZE OF A MOTORCYCLE… You can fly down any street between buildings…. This is the best vehicle out there, hands down, anyone who likes Switchblade more than this is a big stupid dookie head, and a cancer to society that should be shot in the face.
Detonator
Another one that’s pretty close to being good…. rollin’ round town in your VW and suddently there’s a terrorist attack? Well push that button and split into a hover craft and an attack quad. Now this one got dumb because you can fit two people in a VW bug, but they made this another one where the guy’s mask makes a computer version of him to drive the other half. You COULD have had two people with two masks that do two different things… but instead negated the benefit of making one mask with this stupid fucking computer image thing. SO CLOSE…. ugh. But still head and shoulders above the Switchblade, that stupid piece of shit.
Dynamo
GODDAMMIT, this is another one that could have been SO FUCKING RAD… but they made it stupid. Most of these were series 4 toys, the “Split seconds”… it was the last series of toys, which just goes to show, you can kill something amazing off by going full blown retard for just one series. SO NOW I KNOW WE HAVE TO GO BACK IN TIME HERE, and back when this came out Honda Oddesseys were the single seat dunebuggy like ATV, and the world wasn’t really full of these 6 seater side by side off road things now… BUT THERE WERE MULTISEAT DUNEBUGGIES AROUND LONG BEFORE THE 80’S DAMMIT. So here we have a dude riding around in a little dune buggy, single seater… not even a place for the bikini babe you might see on the beach to hop in…. then what’s that? Someone just saw a plane turn into a helicopter and disrupt the Indy 500?!? Push that button and become an attack copter and a 4 wheeler…. and not have a useful helmet because you gotta make a computer version of your self to fly around while your pop dank nooners with the 12 o’clock boys on your quad. Still makes more sense then a dumb pedophile planeocopter.
Firecracker
Okay, so this one doesn’t jump out as being a great idea but hear me out, and you’ll see it’s still way better than a plane that turns into a helicopter… unless you’re someone Forrest Gump would make fun of for being slow. So you have a dually pickup truck… so you can haul big trailers carry heavy loads, and on it, you have a motorcycle… you know you need to get places, and those dually fenders get in the way…. so you can hop on the motorcycle and go anywhere you need…. BUT you can also push that button, when someone is causing a ruckus by converting back and forth between two methods of flight to take over the planet…. and it becomes a raised armored tank with a spare tire sized chinese start shooting out. BOOYA. And even if it’s not the best vehicle out there, it was a great toy… the way the body would spring up into the tank mode, and you had a motorcycle. MAN that was a fun one.
Firefly
Okay this one is awesome, even though it does rely on some cartoon magic to work, but it’s a dune buggy that turns into an airplane. I’m not sure how it attains flight as it transforms to a plane as the front wheels become part of the wing… BUT… with the suspension of disbelief, it’s fucking rad as fuck. I guess you could go flying over a dune you could turn into a plane… who cares… it’s a bad ass dune buggy, and a bad ass plane with guns AND bombs…. WAY better than the stupid fuckface retard Switchblade.
Fireforce
I’m not quite sure how great this is in battle, but it’s another one I’d like to own… Imagine having a badass Pontiac Fiero (provided if it’s a GT, not the pussy 2M4) and then you drive past a Hells Angels clubhouse and think “Hey, I wonder if they’re hiring” so you hit a button and suddenly you’re riding a chopper trike. Although I’m not sure this guy in the picture on the box knows what he’s doing, dragging feet like that on a trike… but he’s still smarter and more skilled than the ignorant buttface that chose to fly the Switchblade.
Gator
This is another example of what M.A.S.K. vehicles SHOULD be…. you got yourself a Jeep (Okay, there’s the flaw…. why would you pick a unreliable shitheap like a Jeep for a your battle vehicle, but I digress) and suddenly you need to fight on the water… flip that switch, and you go funny car mode and shoot out the front as a speedy little attack boat. Now THAT makes sense. Unless you’re a bobbleheaded nincompoop who wants to have two flight options.
Goliath
So what do you do when you want to race Indy cars AND fight terrorism? Well, instead of being a shortsighted buttfucking mongoloid that gets out of your Switchblade to get into a one person indy car that turns into 5 vehicles, you do the smart thing and you get a transport truck for your indy car, that turns into a battlewagon from hell with a buddy to drive, while you fly your indy car attack plane around to kill that stupid asshole face that only drives stupid vehicles.
Hurricane
This one was definitely one of my favorite toys, it was SO cool how you push a button and it goes from a car to a six wheeled tank, you didn’t even see the middle wheels in car mode. The only down side was it was kind of dumb to be cruising in a 57 Chevy with off road tires. BUT it was cool in battle too…. got your 57 Chevy and making out with a broad at the drive in, when suddenly a helicopter flies past with a down syndrome guy driving it while sitting on a dildo and it becomes a plane in mid-air… you hit a button and your car becomes a GODDAMN SIX WHEEL TANK… you pop out and shoot that boy-touching douchebag out of the sky, and go back to banging the babe.
Iguana
Okay, so this is an interesting concept… you can cruise along on your 4 wheeler, then suddenly you can till a field while shooting people. I’m kind of lost on this one… but what do you expect, it was a Venom vehicle, they’re the baffoons that think the Switchblade is a good idea. Knowing these Einsteins, it’s a balsa wood blade, being that they’re lead by a stupid old man with no common sense…. still way better than the stupid fucking Switchblade though.
Jackhammer
Okay so this one isn’t overly special, you go from a Ford Bronco into an armored Bronco… but let me tell you as far as a toy went, that thing was DURABLE… I can’t tell you how many times that thing got launched down a flight of stairs and never broke… even with it’s pop up turret on the back… I think the grill broke off eventually, but jeez. Anyway so you’re cruising in your Bronco working for Venom when you’re idiot boss calls and is like “Hey I need to do commit some terrorism down there, but all I can do is fly or fly because I’m in the dumbest fucking vehicle ever made, so you need to do it”… and you hit the button, and your hood goes over the windshield as a barrier, cannons come out from behind your grill, and the whole back of your Bronco becomes a spinning gun turret…. so it’s basically you go from a regular street car to a military grade Humvee like thing. Makes sense and is a vastly better vehicle than that shitbag turdstreak of a Switchblade.
Manta
This was a pretty cool one too, it was Venom’s answer to the Firefly… Cruising in your Nissan 300ZX and suddenly need to go into flight to finally kill your embarrassingly stupid boss in his Retardocopterplane? Hit that button and become an airplane. I never owned this toy, but the pictures look like it would break pretty easy while suspending your whole “Wheels becoming wings” disbelief… but you know, if you can pretend that a plane/helicopter is awesome, I’m sure you’ll believe anything.
Meteor
Okay so M.A.S.K. tried their hardest to out-stupid the Switchblade, but the best they could do is a stunt plane that becomes a tank, so it’s STILL a way better idea than the god forsaken hunk of skunk taint that’s the switchblade. I guess they were afraid that Switchblade would show up at an airshow to bore the shit out of the crowd, and might need to shoot it down some something better could come out for the show…. like a paper airplane. Fucking Switchblade man…. ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS PRESTON?!?!?
Outlaw
OKAY, so THIS ONE is BAD ASS… and the toy was AMAZING. FUCK! Man I wish I was a kid again sometimes, But this is one of those really strange plot holes that M.A.S.K. had, because this was a Miles Mayhem vehicle… yeah, you know, that stupid inbred kidfucker that drives the most retarded vehicles on earth… but anyway this is a tanker truck, So he’s driving this oil tanker, and decides “Hey, I wanna blow some shit up” and he presses a button and it becomes a mobile rocket launcher. SEE Miles? This is what all your vehicles should be like. MIght have made more sense to make it look like a common company’s truck to blend in, but hell, the Snake Oil is a funny word play. The only thing I can think of is this was Miles Mayhem’s first vehicle, then after years of eating lead paint chips, head injuries, and growing an extra chromosome, he decided to use Switchblade.
Piranha
This was a good one, but the real star of the show was it came with the coolest looking action figure. He had a motorcycle with a sidecar that turned into a submarine. Which is pretty good for being a terrorist… you can look like a bad ass biker, and have the stealth aspect of a submarine, his helmet shot harpoons, which probably wasn’t very good for when you’re IN a submarine though…. but shooting harpoons in a glass top submarine makes way more sense than flying a plane that turns into a helicopter. But everything makes more sense than that absolutely submoronic idea. Anyway, check this dude out… what kid didn’t want to play with a bad ass like him?
Raven
Man the R’s are good in M.A.S.K., Raven was a sweet Corvette (you know, it just dawned on me, I wonder what kind of licensing deal they had to be able to use all these real cars instead of things that kinda look like them, like the GTA games), that would turn into an armed sea plane. This one was a super cool toy, because you’d hit a button and the whole front of the car would flip upside down, and the wheels became gun turrets. The doors folded down like a reverse DeLorean to become wings. This could be one of the absolute ultimate vehicles, I might have to rethink Condor, this covers ground, sky AND sea. Damn… that’s tough. Either way, it’s awesome and would beat the shit out of the atrocity they call Switchblade.
Razorback
Okay so this one is kinda dumb in reality… I don’t get why the M.A.S.K. team felt this need to make these hyper specific oddball vehicles that just don’t fit in.;.. So again, this one is great provided there’s a terrorist attack on a NASCAR race. HOWEVER, that being said, this toy was SO BAD ASS… the thing that needs to be DRIVEN THE FUCK HOME, was these toys mostly changed shape on their own, this one would spring up into that weird position, and the axles would flip forward to accommodate it on their own, you didn’t have to do that by hand, that was just A PUSH OF THE BUTTON. It was SO AWESOME. But at the end of the day, a NASCAR turning into a rescue tank (whatever that is) still kicks the dogshit out of the Switchblade. Funny enough, they made a pit stop catapult to go with this…. yup… billboard AND pit stops.
Rhino
Okay so if there was a M.A.S.K. version of GI Joes aircraft carrier, this was it…. this was SUCH a cool toy, probably one of my all time favorite toys of my entire childhood… this big rig truck turned into a battle base. But it was AMAZING… first the whole front of the truck was a spring loaded battering ram. If that wasn’t enough, the passenger seat was an ejector that would shoot your action figure across the room, it even opened the door when you did it. The sleeper had a mobile base WITH a rocket launcher, and the back wheels became an ATV. AND THIS WAS A FIRST SERIES TOY…. like they pulled off their magnum opus right out the gate. Can you believe we share a planet with at least one knucklehead that thinks a stupid fucking plane/copter is a better vehicle than this. Sometimes I think we really do need some sort of Armageddon.
Skybolt
I gotta be honest, I don’t even remember this one. I had to research it. So again, M.A.S.K. went to that community organization that gathers up retards to sort glass at the recycling center, and told them to come up with the dumbest vehicle they could think of…. are you ready for this one? It’s a jet fighter… that turns into a…. drum roll please…. jet plane. OOOOH I can hear you now, they just out stupided the Switchblade…. BUT WAIT you didn’t let me finish…. a jet plane AND a booster car…. WOMP WOMP WOOOOMP still couldn’t out stupid the Switchblade. There isn’t enough retards to do that, you know better. The Skybolt goes to show, it’s better to be forgotten because you’re a retarded piece of shit, than be like the Switchblade, and be remembered for making a retarded piece of shit look good.
Slingshot
Okay I had forgotten about this one until I saw the picture of it…. an unassuming RV just minding it’s business, looking like a rolling meth lab when BAM it opens up to a surveillance unit with a plane! I think it kind of missed the marketing target, I don’t really remember anyone being like “I want a toy RV”… but as a parent, I’d be much less worried about having a kid wanting a toy RV than I would be about having a kid that thought the Switchblade was cool…. I’d start to worry that I had fucked a sister I didn’t know I had or something.
Stiletto
This one was a Lamborghini you know fits right in. So you’re rollin’ in yo Lambo, flexin’ with the Rolex, and you see a plane flying by that turns into a helicopter and ever since you got butt molested by a guy with down syndrome you have this urge to kill everything that has chromosome issues, so you hit a button, and your Lambo becomes a plane and a helicopter…. which leads me to my theory… the Stiletto was used to lure Miles in, he is like “Oh here’s another idiot with a double flying machine…. wait… what? It’s a CAR TOO!??!?! NOOOOOOOO” then he gets killed. I’d say he got his brains blown out but we know that’s not an issue.
Stinger
Okay this was another great toy one. Indestructible as fuck too. You had a bad ass GTO… you see, that alone would have been a great toy, but then you push a button and it becomes a tank…. treads pop out, a cage goes over the windshield, the wheels became guns, the blower became radar, and a chain with a claw came out of the trunk. This thing was legit. And let’s not forget, it’s way better than the Switchblade. If the switchblade was a dog turd filled with worms and covered in asparagus pee… then Stinger is a dump truck full of cash, gold and diamonds.
Switchblade
Jesus fucking Christ where do I even begin with this catastrophic shit heap? I mean first off this is just a stupid fucking idea. Someone was out there going “Hey I got an idea, let’s make a toy plane that transforms” and another person was like “Oh? Into what?” and the guy said “A Helicopter” and with this the first case of Even Downer Syndrome was discovered. I mean just look at it, so you HAVE to land it as a helicopter because it’s a plane without landing gears… so what happens if you’re in a plane and it malfunctions and you can’t land? Well I’ll tell you what happens, the world gets better when the subhuman assholeface that would fly something this stupid dies in a fiery crash. So then when they greenlighted this fucking idiocy, they were like “Well who should we have fly it” and they decided to make THE Miles Mayhem fly it… why? Because the ONLY REASON anyone would buy such a stupid fucking toy is to get the main bad guy as an action figure for battles. I mean sure, you could say “Where’s your leader?” and make the bad guy go “Probably playing with a shiny object somewhere, we don’t deal with that fucking toolbag”. And then you wouldn’t have to beg your parents to buy the most god awful idea for a toy, only to hide it when your friends came over so they wouldn’t call you a bitch and beat you up for being such a stupid moron idiot loser dirtbag….. who am I kidding, if you bought this because you liked it, the only friend you had was that kid with really thick glasses that talked to rocks during recess. I MEAN WHAT KIND OF IDIOT would think this is fun *makes airplane noises while swooping it around* TRANSFORM *makes same noises while swooping it around*. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD IF YOU EVER NEED AN ARGUMENT FOR RETROACTIVE ABORTIONS this would be IT. I mean they really think that the leader of a terrorist group with words like Vicious and Evil in its name is going to be flying some fruity pants idiot mobile with a pink cockpit? I would rather have a doctor tell me that I had a week to live, than have my kid say “The Switchblade is the best M.A.S.K. vehicle”… it would be the ultimate moment of knowing that you were an abject failure as a parent, and that you probably contributed to the painful and horrifying demise of society by not wearing a rubber THAT ONE TIME. One a scale of 1-10, where 10 is perfection, and 1 is a penis wart covered in fire ants and infected to the point of your genitals having to be amputated I would give this a solid -32.
Thunder Hawk
This was the leader of M.A.S.K.’s original car. See how this works? You get a sweet Camaro that becomes a plane. THAT, is what we’re talking about. This was a pretty cool toy because the car actually had seat belts, so when you launched it off the top of the staircase, the guys inside stayed there. Even after the doors flew off. This was why M.A.S.K. was better than Venom… it was M.A.S.K.’s absence of extreme asininity. As the leader of M.A.S.K., Matt Trakker had to be SO at ease knowing that his arch rival was an absolute dipshit in a completely useless vehicle.
Vampire
The evil brother of Condor…. it’s pretty neat, but it’s JUST NOT as practical…. this is a big ol Bagger bike that becomes a jet airplane…. you gotta admit though, a jet plane motorcycle would be fun as hell wouldn’t it? There’s not a whole lot to say about this one, other than it’s infinitely better than not just Switchblade, but any motorcycle that fans of Switchblade has ever owned, unless they ever buy a KLR 650, they’re immune from scumbaggery.
Vandal
Okay this was another one I didn’t remember…. and I’m still not sure what to make of it. But it was a front end loader, that transformed into a “dirt tractor” and a recon plane. It’s a Venom vehicle, so I’m not sure if they were going to infiltrate farmland or something, but remember, this IS from the people who brought you the Switchblade, so it’s CLEAR they’re not very smart or good at coming up with ideas. But I guess there’s a market of kids in Nebraska that would love to have some battle farm equipment. I mean it’s not the DUMBEST toy I’ve ever heard of…
Volcano
Okay this one was super cool in the cartoon, but it translated kinda bad in the toy world… it had it and while it in itself was cool, they had made it battery operated, so instead of being a free rolling death machine, it slowly rumbled around, and would split open and a gun turret would pop out and spin as it drove… the big issue was the base of it was so big that it couldn’t climb like a 4×4 or anything, it couldn’t even go over rough surface without dragging. BUT it was pretty rad in the show. And even a 4×4 that can’t drive down a dirt road makes a hell of a lot more sense than a plane that can become a helicopter. AND it should be known that in general society thinks people with jacked up 4×4’s have bigger penises than people who like Switchblade, UNLESS you count the one in the Switchblade fan’s butthole.
Wildcat
Here we go back to making sense… got yourself a tow truck to maintain the fleet, but if some bumbling shitdick comes along in Switchblade you can turn into a vertical fighting machine and kill them and do the whole wide word a giant favor. Then you can tow the remains of the flying butthole into a ditch and burn it. I remember the toy pretty well because it shot discs out of the front bumper… just once, because you always lost them.
Wolfbeast
I got to admit, I don’t remember this one, and I’m typing this before I look at it… I bet it’s gonna be fucking stupid with that name.,.. Manbearpig would have been much cooler… I’m betting the driver has long grey hair, a t-shirt with a wolf dream catcher, and a bandana. Now let me go look. GODDAMN IT… It’s MILES FUCKING MAYHEM…. AND HE RUINED A SPLIT WINDOW STINGRAY…. So this genius vehicle is a Corevette that becomes a “Gunner’s Shuttle” and a “Tank” I don’t even know what the fuck a gunner’s shuttle is, and I’m not sure a convertible tank is very good… but again this is Miles Mayhem, and one thing I can say, this still makes more sense than that stupid fucking Switchblade.
So there you have it, a look at the original 4 series of M.A.S.K. toys, and I think anyone who has any sense, any rationality, and isn’t a completely insane looney that should be locked away in a nut house somewhere will see that there is no more worthless, bigger piece of shit on this planet, than Switchblade.
One thing that did bother me though… Miles Mayhem was listed as being 44 years old when I looked up Wolfbeast…. this guy on the right is 44? See what being the stupidest idiot moron fartface buttchugger douchebag loser fuckwad jismface does to your youth?
