Identifying Machine Made Marbles

  

Man, fads used to be so strange, right? Between marbles and pogs, we used to just think, "You know what kids will like? Weird shit with goofy names!" and it was true, we ate it up, man. We didn't know any better, we were nothing but classless swine, told by the system what was cool and appropriate to enjoy, which is why when people finally started having sex as a teenager and didn't immediately go to hell, they realized, "Hey, adults have been lying to us forever!" and everything changed. But that's a different subject for a different blog. A much better blog. Not this blog. This blog isn't about the bullshit propaganda that our parents and the establishment fed us to turn us into unquestioning subservient drones for their 9 to 5 minimum wage slave jobs. No. This blog is about bad box art. So let's talk some bad box art!

The weird thing about both marbles and pogs (and anything like them that fell into the ever expanding category of "does this even really qualify as a toy?") is that I'm fairly certain nobody, ever, at any point in time, anywhere, bought either one of these things. I think kids just woke up one day and they suddenly had pogs and marbles. They materialized out of thin air and into our childhood. And nobody questioned it, we just had these things now, and none of us knew where they had come from. Some say The Devil. Some say an alternate dimension. Others say a KB Toys. But the fact of the matter is, nothing can be verified concerning their true origins and it's a mystery we will just gave to live with for the rest of our lives.

This box art (of which I could sadly only find the front cover for), both confuses AND delights me. On one hand, I'm curious as to how big an issue the inauthentic reproduction of marbles is, and one the other hand I'm absolutely thrilled to learn that there may even BE such a market! What a wonderful thing to bootleg, and what a wonderful thing to have to be worried about being bootlegged! I mean, of all the things in the world to be knocked off, I never would've guessed marbles would be an important one. It's like if I suddenly found out there was a market for fraudulent frisbees, which, after saying together as a phrase, I realize is a great band name.

This is as plain as box art comes people. This is made by someone who has no real knowledge of design and is just doing this because they were assigned to do it. Likely Greg, again, that dirty little deviant, always getting his hands into something or other film related and mucking it up. God damn you Gregory. This looks like the kind of thing an 8th grader would've made (when I was in school) with absolute minimal effort for an easy grade in their computer class, and yes, I'm that old. We had computer classes, and most of them were spent trying to play flash games on the internet without the teacher knowing.

I mean, the marbles in the images look pretty cool, I'll give 'em that, and the font is pretty 'of the time', definitely, but this looks like something you'd rent at your local library next to other pseudo informational videos with titles such as "Brush It Off! How To Bully Your Plaque!" and "Wilderness: Friend Or Foe?"

I know it isn't a part of the box art, but I do love the dollar ninety nine sticker on it, because...yeah...that seems about right.

There's sadly not even a wikipedia for an entry like this one, which doesn't shock me in the least since it's not really a movie and more something your history teacher would put on instead of doing their job. In fact, just googling the name of the production company brings up nothing, as does searching the name of the supposed host of the program, Danny Turner, all of which only lends credence to my previous theory that this, much like the marbles themselves, are simply some sort of abomination that somehow wriggled their way into our universe. I mean, it's not a very interesting shade of blue, for fucks sake. It's not a bad shade of blue, really, it's not offensive visually or anything (the shade of blue, I mean, the box art is VERY offensive visually), but I'm not really sure what to make of this one, guys.

Without any information, or even so much as footage, one can only try and assume what the content of this video was like. Who was this Danny Turner, and why was he trying so hard to try and teach people about the differences between machine made and handmade marbles? And which one was he in favor of? I'm assuming that the machine made is the bad one, since that's the one he's going to be talking to us about. Is one evil and the other not? Was he trying to prepare us for some sort of horrific marble takeover? Was this video a warning? Perhaps this was a video from the future that lost all technology except VHS and he was sent back in time, Terminator style, to try and prevent the marble uprising from happening. We'll never really know for sure, though I'm willing to bet he succeeded at his mission, since I can't recall the last goddamned time I even SAW a marble, so.

Whatever this was, whoever he was, it's steeped in mystery, and likely forever will be. And that's probably for the best, to be honest. Sometimes knowing TOO much about something can really kill the whole joy of it, like when you find out that the stork isn't actually delivering babies and instead steals them to feed to its own offspring. Boy was that one a shocker to discover, lemme tell you.

Let me just say this, Danny Turner, wherever you are, you won, and we salute you.

And whoever made this box art for Danny's noble crusade, we don't salute you, but we at least acknowledge your effort and support in the cause against machine made marbles.

God speed you brave sons of bitches, godspeed.