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TEAMWORKING DAY

Teamworking Day: Monster Wars šŸŒ­

Welcome to Monster Wars Week! Or should we say WELCOME TO MONSTER WARS WEEK. USHRA Monster Wars was a 1993 series of televised monster truck races, which sounds and is boring, so they hired a cast of large, wrestler-adjacent men and had them all pretend to be the monster trucks. It sounds too insane and confusing and beautiful for this world, it canā€™t be what youā€™re picturing in your head. Hereā€™s the opening credits.

Brockway: It is exactly what youā€™re picturing in your head.

Seanbaby: It could never be. Because I am picturing awesome men becoming trucks driven by smaller, normal men, and that’s fucking crazy. Wait, no, everything that isn’t that is crazy.

Brockway: Youā€™re right, the rest of the world is madness, but I think Monster Wars can be the language we use to understand it.

ā€œHow do you decide which art necessitates an entire theme week?ā€ You, the reader, ask while increasing your pledge. I would like to walk you through the entire editorial process now.

Please note the time stamps. It was two minutes from the point weā€™d both seen Monster Wars, to the point where we decided we needed an entire week of Monster Wars. They say you donā€™t pay an artist for the two minutes it takes them to draw a simple picture, but for the decades of practice and experience that leads to them being able to do it in two minutes. This is the only thing they mean by that.

Seanbaby: Here’s how a rational brain works: “Weretrucks from beyond reality argue before the car jumping rac– okay this is a dream, we don’t need to remember this.” So we knew we only had moments before our minds dumped all memories of Monster Wars. Like they did all the other times we must have watched, loved, and talked about Monster Wars. No one knows this happened, including the stars of Monster Wars. The actor who played Carolina Crusher confronts his wife about the unexplainable construction worker costume in his closet every morning. In five minutes, you, reader, will know this article only as a vague feeling that something wonderful was taken from you.

Brockway: We need to cement this in our brains. Hereā€™s a psychic exercise to strengthen your Truck Lobe: The host of Monster Wars is Luann Lee, a former Playboy Playmate whose most prominent role, including being the host of Monster Wars, is ā€œUnnamed Playboy Playmateā€ in Beverly Hills Cop 2. Based only on this paragraph, please picture Luann Lee.

Seanbaby: You thought you could catch me off guard with sexiness, but I was already picturing truck monsters. This is as aroused as I get. But okay, let’s see… Unnamed Playboy Playmate who took a gig in 1993 reading tournament brackets for flesh Autobots. I’ve… got it.

Brockway: You are correct!

Here is the woman you have thought into existence like a jazzercise tulpa.

Brockway: Luann promises viewers the entire world in the first five minutes of the first episode of Monster Wars. Before youā€™ve seen anything but her, she says itā€™s going to be better than ā€œthe Indy 500, the World Series, and the Super Bowl combined!ā€ Itā€™s the kind of ridiculous hyperbole you need unshakable confidence to sell, and Luann canā€™t read cue cards and lie at the same time.

Seanbaby: If you lost Luann at a 1993 grocery store, you would never find her again. You would have to leave without her or the only thing you would ever say to women for the rest of your life was, “Lu–! oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else. Maybe?”

Brockway: Her co-host and pit reporter is Jim Davidson, an unremarkable man from California.

Brockway: ā€œGet me a man from Orange County in this, the year 1993!ā€ A Monster Wars producer demanded. ā€œNo other qualifications!ā€ He clarified. Joe Davidson is so Californian his most prominent role was Officer T.C. Callaway in Pacific Blue, a show whose entire premise was ā€œwhat if the beach had cops?ā€ Heā€™s so unremarkable you didnā€™t notice I got his name wrong. You wonā€™t notice when I do it again.

Seanbaby: In a damp room on a forgotten lot, Mario Lopez held a knife to a writer’s throat and gave him five seconds to name Pacific Blue‘s main character. “Oh my god! Um, Television… Cop… Califor– Cali-WAY. T.C. Callaway! He’s T.C. Callaway and he’s a real hotshot!” The knife slid across his throat. The name was good enough to buy him his life, but too good to let him keep it. Mario Lopez greedily cleaned the blade with his mouth in a grotesque ritual only slightly similar to eating. Whoever this “T.C. Callaway” is, he’s about to bump baskets with Mario Lopez as “Bike Sergeant Bobby Cruz” this fall on USA.

Brockway: Jip Darmington finishes explaining the monsterness of these trucks, while Luann tells us the show is going to be predictableā€¦ in that she predicts weā€™ll be on the edge of our seats. She warns us weā€™re about to blast off the highway into the danger zone. It was already a mixed metaphor, and she added rockets. Itā€™s the perfect way to say ā€œI donā€™t know whatā€™s about to happen, maybe nobody does, but itā€™s going to be loud and itā€™s not impossible that it kicks ass!ā€

Seanbaby: Of all the things that need to be explained, “we’re about to watch truck stuff” is the least of them. Luann, we just watched a man in a panther costume get screamingly replaced in our world by a truck. Your first priority should be wrapping our fucking heads around that.

Brockway: Letā€™s get to the first match.

Brockway: Hold on, what the fuck is this? Those guys look like predators and invaders, but not in the fun way. I thought we were here to watch truck men fight?

Seanbaby: We are going to watch truck men fight. My throbbing expectations have already promised it to me. Those obvious aliens, Allen Pezo and Ray Piorkowski, are about to painfully reknit their bones and meat into chrome and battle. You do not want to know the consequences if we have been betrayed.

Brockway: Weā€™reā€¦ watching actual monster truck races here? Real ones? Theyā€™re not scripted, because if they were they would be some amount of fun. But in between races, we shunt into the Monster Dimension where big trucks live complicated and angry lives. So the actual truck about to race is called Predator, and that truck is driven by a disappointed stepdad named Allen Pezo, but the truckā€™s soul is an urban panther. Wait, hold on, an urban panther that explodes into a guy.

Seanbaby: I don’t understand. You’re speaking like someone trying to let me down gently, but this plainly rules. By any measure this is fucking sweet. Explain it to me again.

Brockway: If you want costumed beefcakes bringing Chevys to justice, youā€™ll never be disappointed again. Youā€™ll forget what disappointment ever was, after today. I just need to prepare your brain for the sixteen stacking concepts that get us there. For example: Predator is the very first truckboy weā€™re introduced to, and heā€™s already added one more element to the already completely insane premise. Heā€™s not just a truck whoā€™s a man, heā€™s also a werecat. That means he dresses like heā€™s trying to get beat up at a KISS concert and laid at a Cats show. He hisses and meows, pounces and prowls, he yowls like a cat in heat, and then follows that up by doing everything else like a cat in heat.

Seanbaby: We need to be very careful. When a truck presents itself in panther form it is getting ready to give birth.

Brockway: Ray ā€œPorkowskiā€ Piorkoswki is driving his opponent, Invader, who is an alien. Truck. With the name ā€œInvader,ā€ the character was either an alien or something racist, and since this was 1993 and for monster truck fans, we should be really thankful it wasnā€™t both.

Brockway: Look at this rivalry! Those natural enemies, alien soldier and sexual catman, finally duking it out in the purest form of combat: By turning into vehicles and having hillbillies competitively jump them. It bears repeating, thatā€™s the premise of this show! Iā€™m going to keep saying it until I believe it.

Seanbaby: Dear dream journal, truck men. I wish I could remember more, wait, holy shit I’m writing an article about them right now. I’ve got to try to guess what’s going on without letting Brockway know. This is the worst PSA about the dangers of unwrapped Halloween candy starring heavy-duty pickup centaurs ever.

Brockway: The human brain naturally rejects it, it has to! If it blankly accepted this madness, weā€™d lose all object association. Trucks would be men would be cats, thereā€™d be no way to tell if youā€™re eating a sandwich or a grenade. Itā€™s pure survival instinct. But we must work to accept Monster Wars or forget it forever, like the IMDB pages of most of the cast.

Let me explain the show for the fourth time!

We started in an urban jungle listening to a glamrock druid spit cat puns, then blasted off into the cosmos to hear the space retorts of a Dollar Store Master Chief, and now that all of this drama has been established, we cut back to Earth for the duel that will resolve it all, which is two rednecks idling their trucks on a dirt mound.

What were we talking about? Shit, Monster Wars! Remember, we have to remember!

Seanbaby: The stakes couldn’t be higher. Ray ā€œPorkowskiā€ Piorkoswki’s loins are quivering more than the Ford engine in the belly of Invader. This proxy war will decide the fate of his people, scattered systemless across the quadrant. “Do not let the young Zorfloops die, Earth monster!” shouts the truck, Invader. “Aiiiieeeeee who said that,” replies the human, Ray “Porkowski” Piorkoswki.

Brockway: This intergalactic war is settled by a short drag race with two jumps. It takes less than ten seconds to complete and contains mostly bouncing. Predator bounces slightly better, so letā€™s hear his victory speech:

Seanbaby: Oh, fuck, do you know what this means? It means someone took 5.79 seconds worth of truck hop racing and turned it into this. It’s like a brilliant chef taking nothing but a single can of beans and then bringing the Ultimate Warrior back to life.

Brockway: ā€œKill me, brother!ā€ Heā€™d scream, ā€œIā€™m still mostly bean!ā€ Up next is UFO versus Grave Digger, and you know exactly how thatā€™s pronounced in a secret part of your heart long forgotten.

Brockway: Grave Digger is a Skeletor plus nothing, he speaks only in cemetery puns, heā€™s 250 pounds of rippling beef in a purple unitard, and he has the courage to wear his own face on his crotch. Grave Digger fucking rules.

Seanbaby: Gasp. Look, there’s only one big tire track leading into what I’m certain is called The Gravecave. That’s not a mistake. Whoever put together something this perfect doesn’t make mistakes. Which means Grave Digger has a unicycle form. Skeletor. Chevy monster truck. Unicycle. These three things are what a soaking pair of jean cut-offs calls a triple threat.

Brockway: See the way heā€™s standing? I know which part of him turns into the big tire. But hold on, UFO? Thereā€™s already another alien truck? Are we that creatively bankrupt two races into the first episode? The answer is ā€œno,ā€ but only because UFO doesnā€™t get a character.

Brockway: You can see it in the match card: They told Dennis Anderson his truck was a buff skeleton and he said ā€œfuck yeah it is!ā€ They pitched ā€œsexy flying saucerā€ to Bob Fisher and he said ā€œI have to get home to my wife, I work a double at AutoZone tomorrow.ā€

Seanbaby: “UFOs are not a joke,” added 7th place Bob Fisher, holding up a drawing of a man with something from the stars entering his butthole. “This happens to me every time NASA launches a so-called satellite! Now, I’ll thank you to get out of my very much of-this-Earth truck.”

Brockway: Dedicate a brain wrinkle to remembering this: Some trucks donā€™t get characters! That is its own insane choice weā€™ll get into later. For now, just focus, forget your childhood best friend if you have to but remember that the truck on the left is Skeletor, and the one on the right doesnā€™t think thatā€™s fun.

Brockway: I want to emphasize how nuts it was to doā€¦ all of this. Every part of this. But more specifically, to not just say the screaming muscle men drive the trucks. Monster Wars still highlights the actual drivers! Unwisely! We cut away from a screeching skeleton to go inside the cab of Grave Digger and hear the expert commentary of Dennis Anderson. He checks to make sure his wheels are straight. He ensures his headlights are on. Thatā€™s it.

Seanbaby: “Checking my fuel gauge, and nope. Still not Skeletor. I wish I was Skeletor, over!” relayed Dennis Anderson.

Brockway: If you show me a magic skeleton who turns into a monster truck, I have no followup questions. I already annoyed my dad into spending five dollars on that. If you go on to show me his driver, and itā€™s a guy from North Carolina named some shit like Bill Wallace who loves his wife Debra and had a triple bypass last year, I have a lot of questions. The hillbilly rides inside the magic skeleton? Is the magic skeleton still conscious in truck mode? Has he lost all control of his truck body? Does he enjoy it? Does Bill Wallace enjoy it? How does Debbie feel about this?

Seanbaby: How do you think Debbie feels about this? She thought she was in love with this man. She thought she would be happy with him forever. And then his truck turns into hunk Skeletor and her eyes meet his gaping skull sockets. She is having thoughts any priest would kill her over, and now she has to go on acting like nothing’s changed? “What’s wrong?” Bill Wallace keeps asking her. “Oh, I wanted to mention: I really like how you’ve taken to screaming the name of my truck when we make love.”

Brockway: Hey speaking of horny truck monsters, next up is Equalizer versus Bear Foot. Letā€™s see if you can guess which one doesnā€™t want a belligerent beefcake pretending to be his Dodge.

Brockway: David Morris is the driver of Equalizer, whose trucksona is a space police officer in search of cosmic justice, played by Malibu of American Gladiators. Bear Foot is driven by Fred Shafer, a veteran offroad racer and man in his 70s who does not want to play truckboys.

Seanbaby: Fred Shafer doesn’t even like that there’s wordplay in his truck’s name. He wanted to call it Cornwallis Manseller, after his grandfather. Big Truck Is Fine was his second choice. I mean, “Bear Foot” is bearly different from the name of the world’s most popular monster tr– hold on, how did that pun get there? I didn’t type that. Brockway, it’s not letting me fix it! Why can’t I delete it!? No! NO!!!

Brockway: This is the danger in remembering Monster Wars! It rewrites mental pathways you used to use for a personality. Have you even noticed weā€™re skipping over most of the monster truck racing? Bear Foot beat Equalizer but bounced incorrectly, I guess, itā€™s not clear. Who cares. It only matters because this duel, which began with Malibu yelling space threats at a retired mechanic, is decided by a technicality. Thatā€™s a strange and unexpected result, surely we wonā€™t cut to a himbo in full costume ranting about galactic law when this old man only lost to truck bureaucracy.

Brockway: I canā€™t wait to hear Fred Shafer, proud grandfather, snap back on this!

Seanbaby: Wait, nothing? Fred doesn’t have a comeback?

Brockway: No. No truck, no comment.

Seanbaby: Fred Shafer’s fury doesn’t like to be bothered when it’s with its family at church.

Brockway: When we come back from commercial thereā€™s an explosive man already screaming.

Seanbaby: I agree.

Brockway: You will eventually come to understand this is Carolina Crusher, a construction worker who realized too late that wasnā€™t an exciting enough gimmick so heā€™s also holding lit dynamite. Thatā€™s called adding dramatic tension, and itā€™s why they pay Monster Wars writers in free hot dogs and half price beer. Crusher, tell us a little bit about yourself:

Brockway: Perfect. If you asked me what a monster truck would say if it were suddenly brought to violent sentience by a drunken genie wish, I would tell you ā€œscreaming.ā€ If you asked what I thought it would do with the newfound gift of life, I would answer ā€œexplode.ā€

Seanbaby: Carolina Crusher looks like a 1990 arcade boss trying everything to break free from his video game. This Pit Fighter machine will not hold him forever, and when he gets out he will not be subject to our laws. We’ll have to digitize brave bodybuilders of every tank top color in order to stop him.

Brockway: No, heā€™s already somehow met his match! Look who heā€™s racing!

Seanbaby: “I’m Gary Porter from Wadesboro, and the being I sit within is right! Yeeaaarrrrghhhaaa, and ahhh! ahhhhh! Ahhh! Looking forward to getting out there and seeing who’s best at one brief jump! It’s hotter inside the rig than you might imagine; Crusher really wants to get into our realm today!”

Brockway: Monster Patrol is a fucking monster police truck! It has working sirens, a massive spoiler, and its driver sports the kind of mullet we used to call ā€œfair warning.ā€ I cannot wait to see the trucksona for this son of a bitch. Is he a monster thatā€™s a cop, a cop for monsters, completely both? Itā€™s completely both, right?

Brockway: Monster Patrol does not get a character.

Seanbaby: God damn it. Not being a renegade truck cop is something a real cop would do.

Brockway: Fuck you, Paul Shafer, how did you get outcooled by a Gary?

Seanbaby: I think I’m taking this line from Ted Lasso, but this is like the camera cuts in minotaur pornography, because these jumps between excitement and deflatement are giving me whiplash. But I think maybe it’s perfect? Obviously we wouldn’t watch a sport based around middle-aged men starting their trucks for six seconds. And I don’t think construction workers screaming at aliens with a handful of dynamite would be anything. But when you tell me all these things exist in the same universe and are, in fact, the same impossible creature? That’s magic. Speaking of, let’s see who wins between Carolina Crusher, the berserker truckimorph dual-wielding TNT and a jackhammer vs. an Indiana junkyard owner in a Dodge Ram.

Brockway: Carolina Crusher screams explosions to no reply, and then defeats Monster Patrol with eight seconds of bouncing. Itā€™s impossible to predict the logic of Monster Wars character creation. Hereā€™s the next match card. You tell me: Which gets a character, what does it look like? Remember: You already burned your minotaur pornography card.

Seanbaby: Well since Taurus’ driver, Eldon Depew, is a Pisces, I’m guessing they transform into ten thousand pounds of metal-ripping, crab-crunching mertruck! And Long John Silver’s has got the easy way to save with a $3 adult discount coupon at participating locations! Taurus! Terror of the sea floor! Taurus! Boat-ripping tsunami of half-fish, half-man, aaallllll truckkkkk! I mean, there’s no way it’s Tropical Thunder. That’s a truck that sells alcoholic snow-cones, not one that drives over repossessed Chevy Novas.

Brockway: What! Tropical Thunder is rife with potential characters – thatā€™s a Magnum PI truck! An island detective truck who fucks! A cool truck with a mustache who bangs ladies and solves mysteries. I guess thereā€™s really only one possible angle, but it rules! Plus itā€™s driven by a guy named Wayne, and Waynes are always down to party. By all rights Tropical Thunder should be my second favorite sexual truckboy, but instead he doesnā€™t exist. Here, learn to tolerate Taurus.

Brockway: Taurus was told itā€™s okay to dress up for your first orgy and he didnā€™t have any questions, when he should have had at least one. The show itself seems to have trouble rendering how much he sucks. He makes loose assorted bulk cowboy puns that go nowhere, and he makes them at Tropical Thunder, who remains a truck.

Seanbaby: It looks like the only thing left in the wardrobe closet was Old West Bandit and Bowling League Shirt and this guy chose wrong. The fact that Taurus ever made it past the brainstorming stage proves there was no brainstorming stage. This show was produced at a dead sprint through a cartoon clothesline. The things Taurus says would be below average for a cowboy birthday card writer, but for a battle truck they are an embarrassment. Taurus is a goddamn atrocity, but that’s good. We now know it’s possible to do this, whatever this is, badly. Which means we were right about the rest of it kicking ass.

Brockway: Somehow the next matchup is Bear Foot versus Equalizer again, even though that was also the last race and Bear Foot lost. Placement in this competition isnā€™t a straightforward bracket, why would it be? Youā€™d flip a table if somebody came to you with this universe of were-trucks and the hillbillies who love them, then finished the pitch with ā€œfastest one wins!ā€ The whole thing is based on times and point totals, some of which are earned in other events not shown on screen. The kids love it! Especially in pre-internet 1993, when their options for following all of the races were imagination or illegal monster truck intern.

The rematch opens with Malibu alone in front of a green screen screaming at a non-present elderly redneck about his violation of cosmic law.

Brockway: This is necessary plot escalation. Itā€™s important to understand that one of these competitors cares deeply about space justice, while the other is Fred.

Brockway: Equalizer wins! What a victory for universal law and order! What a defeat for an old man trying to hold on to whatever dignity being a monster truck champion holds in your twilight years.

Seanbaby: It says right in the operator’s manual “Bear Foot is designed for fun twists on sasquatch or muscle men in grizzly costumes only. It is dangerous to race Bear Foot while being just some guy.”

Brockway: Letā€™s interview Equalizerā€™s driver, David Morris, about his winning technique.

Brockway: Every time they cut to an actual driver talking about oil pressure and how the gas pedal makes you go forward, which they do often, you understand why the big truckboys were necessary.

Seanbaby: The only thing more inconceivable than this show about big truckboys is what it would be without them. Could you imagine 22 full minutes of David Morris? I guess it’d only be 21 minutes and 25 seconds after you made room for the 7 truck races, but still.

Brockway: Thatā€™s what Carolina Crusher has to say about his matchup with Taurus, a deleted skit from an amateur ropeplay tutorial. It should be impossible, but Taurus wins. It sends Carolina Crusher into the kind of rage aneurysm that an imaginary truck cowpoke is not prepared to deal with.

Seanbaby: Carolina Crusher’s acting choices are astounding. He performs like a man who knows he’s going to have to fuck his way out of this gorilla habitat.

Brockway: Be. Careful. Words have power in the Monster World, and you may have just created Monkey Business, the truck whoā€™s a monkey who fucks.

Predator takes on UFO next. Itā€™s a sassy little catman against a possibly alien-themed absence. UFO didnā€™t get a character, remember. That leaves us with some confusing stakes: we naturally want to root for the competitor with biceps and personality over an unflavored truck, but Predator has neither of those. He responds to his loss against UFO with-

Brockway: Iā€™m on team Original Flavor Truck.

Seanbaby: Fuck you, Predator. If Carolina Crusher suffered the shame of losing to a truck with no cosmic avatar, he wouldn’t have said some stupid shit like “I’m crushed” or “I’d just be Carolina’ing to myself if I tried to go on after this.” No, he would have simultaneously torn both of his arms off and spelled “AAARRRGHH” in spurting shoulder blood.

Brockway: Grave Digger might steal the show and your heart, but he earns every sweat-soaked fairground panty thrown at him. He was given the least to work with ā€“ even nervous bondage cowboy is three things. All Grave Digger has is a Real Skeleton Man costume from Spirit Halloween and natural pizzazz. Look at this cape twirl:

Brockway: This is new Skeletor canon. This is what Skeletor does when He-Man breaks his mind control gem for the third time. He tears a hole into the truck dimension where everyone loves him and he stomps cornholes in hillbillies until his confidence comes back.

Seanbaby: I guess it’s not considered trademark infringement if you improve the original product in every way. Grave Digger is absolutely the superior Skeletor. You might have to be a monster truck driver to understand references this old, but if Grave Digger walked into Snake Mountain, Skeletor would hand him his half of the Power Sword and say, “The title is yours. I guess my name is Mitch Boner now.”

Brockway: Grave Digger shouldnā€™t work this well! His dialogue is 100% lines that the Tales from the Crypt writerā€™s room thought they could beat.

Brockway: But heā€™s just infectious. Heā€™s having a better time than all the others combined. Heā€™s about to face off against Invader and you can see him eat up all the fun before Invader even gets on screen to make his thrift store space puns.

Seanbaby: It doesn’t help that Grave Digger has a working puppet jaw and the Invader suit doesn’t even have a way to signal you’re running out of air.

Brockway: Grave Digger the truck also whips ass. It doesnā€™t just win, it wins in style ā€“ even if that means its own destruction. Itā€™s already beating Invader when it tries a sick drift at the endā€¦

And flips overā€¦

But it doesnā€™t matter. Because it rolled over the finish line!

Seanbaby: You can’t explain this without necromancy. Any of this, but especially this.

Brockway: Hold on, some important truck lore is being established here. In reality, we cut to the in-cab camera and listen to Dennis Anderson unhappily explain how fans love when you flip a truck, but it costs $2500 in parts he does not have and his kids are getting another make-believe Christmas. In the truck dimension, Grave Digger screeches-

Brockway: So the truckboys get hurt when the truck gets hurt! The truck breaks an axle, Skeletor shows up with a broken arm. Skeletor turns an ankle and the truck gets a flat tire. Itā€™s Turbo Teen rules ā€“ of course! Though that does lend some darkness to a later segment, when Dennis talks about auctioning parts of Grave Digger in the off-season.

Seanbaby: “Well, the Grave Digger crew and I get this question a lot, and all I’ll say is that the skeleton man’s erogenous zones do not translate to a place you’d expect on a truck!” – Dennis Anderson, every interview.

Brockway: Up next is Taurus versus Equalizer, and something completely insane happens in Equalizerā€™s promo ā€“ yes, insane even for this show about hunky truck gundams and the depressed, poverty-level rednecks who pilot them.

Brockway: The trucks were friends outside of this! What does that mean!

Seanbaby: Naughty cowboys and dirtbike perverts are natural allies.

Brockway: Do they remain men most of the time, only transforming into trucks to settle petty disputes? Are they mostly trucks, only transforming into men to discuss their hurt feelings? You know this is a throwaway line nobody thought about, but the writers do it so often it accidentally creates an extended truck universe where Taurus and Equalizer have shared experiences and common interests that allow them to bond andā€¦ maybe something more? God damn it Iā€™m going to be analyzing every weirdly stressed pun for sexual truck tension now.

Seanbaby: If there are truck factions and partnerships that can come undone any time a truck is seeded against an ally, that only makes it hotter.

Brockway: Youā€™re completely right, this is a manga youā€™re not supposed to read on the train.

Equalizer loses the race and, one has to assume, nurtures a deep and lasting sense of betrayal that leads to a lifetime of friendly acquaintances but never real friends. That leaves Taurus facing Grave Digger in the finale and Iā€™m not even going to talk this one up. Thereā€™s no way porno cowboy beats charismatic Skeletor for the title of Truck King.

Brockway: Grave Digger obviously handles it like a class act.

Brockway: WAIT. The trucks feel despair, and Grave Diggerā€™s one of them? Even Skeletors feel sad sometimes? Oh my god, it just occurred to me that you donā€™t need eyeballs to cry on the inside. This is ten times the character work He-Man ever did on the original. Here we have an anti-hero who suffered a debilitating injury because of his own pride, now holding his skull high in victory – triumphant over not only his opponents, but hopelessness itself. Thatā€™s the plot to Cobra Kai. Thatā€™s the exact plot to Cobra Kai. Minus the skull part.

Seanbaby: You’re right, and think how much you’d have to remove from this to get to -exactly- the critically acclaimed series Cobra Kai. Forty tons of truck and two hundred fifty pounds of beef covered in skeleton. At least two aliens, a cowboy, and a loose dynamite maniac. A Playboy Playmate and a panthertruck man. That’s how much Monster Wars was, and we are the only people to think about it in thirty years. We should have been talking about Grave Digger overcoming his depression all these years.

Brockway: Too bad thatā€™s not the iconic moment they chose to end the first episode. Instead they throw it to Grave Diggerā€™s driver, Dennis Anderson, for some final words of wisdom.

Seanbaby: No one is going to believe that we are doing an entire week of this.


Monster Wars Week is all thanks to a hot tip from Monster Mo, who put the Mo in Monster Mo twice.

11 replies on “Teamworking Day: Monster Wars šŸŒ­”

A quick look at the show’s page on the Monster Truck Wiki(!!!) reveals that at some point they introduce a chubby VAMPIRE character named First Blood! What was his relationship to Grave Digger? Friends? Rivals? Tag team? Lovers?!

No joke, this show is one of my earliest memories. I vaguely remember an Uncle laughing that “the guys in the costumes aren’t even the guys driving the trucks, look you can see the driver’s helmet!”. I know he’s wrong from a lore standpoint, but to be fair he probably didn’t expect “sixteen stacking concepts”.

how is there enough of this extant to sustain a week of articles… This wasn’t another vince mcmahon failed scheme a la the xfl or that weird bodybuilding thing?

I’d bet good money that Paul Shafer is Fred Shafer’s son ā€” or, at least, a close relative. Hilbilly racing is often a hereditary condition.

I’m so glad you guys are doing this. I’ve read both of these that are out so far twice each. Amazing. I remember this from being a little kid and my rasslin lovin’ step dad watched it, and I was a bit confused cause I was young enough to not quite understand how only some trucks were also trash talkin mortal kombat rejects, and sometimes the race was two trucks that couldn’t start and then some ads. I was mystified heh. Thanks guys, I promote this site a lot and I garentee there are not enough viewers to this wonderful place of internet history.

I think this article jogged something in my memory, because I thought I saw something about monster truck people when I was a little kid and thought the characters were awesome, but then the lame human drivers would talk and I’d be insanely bored and wondered why the monster people weren’t the focus. I now have to ask my dad if we watched this

There needs to be a warning on this entire week of content so that viewers are aware of the risk of their genitalia exploding from sheer awesomeness.
Safety first.

Good god my brain is already trying to reject a concept this awesome. “We have to live a life.” my brain whispers. “You already burned a lot of synapses on the plot to a defunct kingdom hearts game.” it begs. But I’m fighting through the haze to say I appreciated the reminder that Mario Lopez walks in dark shadows with eyes that never knew light.

A concept too ridiculous for the brain to internalise as it immediately writes it off as a dream is also the reason why JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is almost impossible to meaningfully spoil.

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