My M.U.S.C.L.E. Story

It all started shortly after M.U.S.C.L.E.s first came out, when I was about 12 years old. I was watching Gem & the Holograms one afternoon and was about ready to flip the channel...but something caught my eye. Something pink.

I remember watching it in amazement that there were so many different ones. Everything in the commercial was in black & white except, of course, for the lil' pink guys. I couldn't wait to get my hands on some!

A week or so later, my best friend Craig Cameron came back from out of town with a 10-pack. We lived in a really small town that had no M.U.S.C.L.E.s in it, so we were dependent upon going to a nearby city for our fix.

He called me up and asked me to come over to his house. He had a surprise.

I pedalled my bike as fast as my legs would allow and when I got there, I was greeted with 10 pink fellas. My eyes must've grown to the size of grape fruit.

We started playing with the toys and did so for many hours. And when it started getting dark, I had to tear myself away from the M.U.S.C.L.E.s and make the trek across town to go back home. As I was getting on my bike, Craig came out and offered me one of his M.U.S.C.L.E.s (#213). I naturally accepted & went home a much happier kid.

Within a week, I had conned my parents into taking me out of town so I could at last own a heap of my very own M.U.S.C.L.E.s.! That day, I purchased two 10-packs and three 4-packs. I was truly in kid heaven!

Well, to make a long story short (or something like that), my M.U.S.C.L.E. collection grew fast! Me and three other kids (Eric Blundell, Justin Russell and Craig)in town were buying them left & right. Then, we'd all gather in Craig's back yard and do some business.

Thinking back, we really thought we were ultra-slick business-kids. The suits and ties had nothing on us. Wheeling & dealing for our tiny pink guys turned into something of an obsession for us and became just as much a part of the hobby as playing with them.

We were on top of the world.

At some point, it was decided that we should each create our own rival federations. If one of us used a wrestler in our fed, then no one else could use it in theirs. We had one day a week set aside for "wrestling day". We would always meet up at one of our houses and in turn, each fed prez would play out his or her own show, complete with cheezy plot angles and grudges. It was a blast! Each prez would always try to one-up the others and this created a lot of interesting shows. Oddly enough, this was a heck of a lot like the big Monday night ratings war between WWF & WCW some ten or twelve years later.

Those were the glory days.

Naturally, darkness would come to follow. Eric Blundell and Justin Russell lost interest in M.U.S.C.L.E. and stopped having much to do with Craig and I. With only two of us remaining, somehow the excitement kind of took a nose dive.

Craig & I remained friends for another few years, but we drifted apart as time went on. In the end, when we would see each other around town, we'd give each other a wave and a smile, knowing good and well that we'd never again be tight like we once were.

Over the ensuing years, my M.U.S.C.L.E.s (I had roughly 200)found their way to a big brown paper sack which was kept in the top of my closet.....until early 1989.

You see, I had met two guys who went by the nick names Mortis and Reaper. We became good friends in a short amount of time, since we were all pretty much outcasts.

We were listening to music in my bed room one day and I was showing them some of my cool stuff. While I was digging through the stuff in my closet, I came across the paper sack! I showed the M.U.S.C.L.E.s to Reaper & Mortis and they seemed to fall in love with them! Mortis tried and tried to talk me out of them and I staunchly said "no". But then he pulled out the big guns!

He offered me a photo of his gorgeous female cousin in trade for the toys. And he knew I had the hots for her something fierce (yes, I'm a bi-female).

Figuring that since he truly showed a passion for my little pink pals and would obviously give them "a good home", I agreed.

The next day, I went to Mortis' house to visit him. When I first walked in, my mouth dropped to the floor! Mortis and Reaper were there and had just finished DEMOLISHING the last of the M.U.S.C.L.E.s through various means of destruction! I was livid!! Had I known they would do this to the M.U.S.C.L.E.s, I never would've agreed to the deal!

For years after that, I often thought about the M.U.S.C.L.E.s and wished I still owned them. But, I had no way of getting new ones in abundance, if at all. So I basically resigned myself to the fact that I'd never own M.U.S.C.L.E.s again (other than the 3 or 4 that I accidentally didn't give to Mortis).

Then came the internet!

In early 1998, I hooked into the information highway and soon found out that there were other M.U.S.C.L.E. fans out there...just like me! I was giddy with joy!

I promptly set out to re-start my collection and the rest, as they say, is history.

So now me, my best friend and my girlfriend are now slowly buying more M.U.S.C.L.E.s.

Oh yeah, I did tell you about my girlfriend didn't I? Well, let's just say that the photo I got from Mortis paid off for me in the long run. =0)