Written by Stu Cooper
If you grew up in the 80's and early 90's you most likely encountered one of the many tiny toy franchises. "Micro Machines", "Z-bots", "M.U.S.C.L.E.", and of course "Monster In My Pocket" were all the rage! I wanted to focus on the "Monster in My Pocket" franchise since it's that time of year. I mainly remember the franchise because of the video game but it was most famously known for being a line of tiny rubber horror/science fiction characters. Most of them were based off of pre-existing horror genre archetypes but after the first series they started going pretty crazy with it. Board games, lunch boxes, t-shirts, and even an animated TV special followed. The only thing missing was it's own cereal, tho Frankenberry would probably have none of that shit!
Since I mainly remember "Monsters in My Pocket" from the video game I'll focus on that. The game was for the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) and was released in all it's 8-bit glory in 1991. It was apparently similar to the comic book and animated series pilot that had already been made. The game followed two characters by the names of Vampire (basically Dracula) and Monster (basically Frankenstein). Not exactly the most creative character names, but they obviously couldn't call them by their traditional names. The characters are of course micro sized, so most of the levels take place in random parts of a house. It's almost like a horror version of Toy Story. You have to fight a wave of zombies and various other memorable monsters from the toy line. As a child I had fond memories of fighting one named Spring Heeled Jack. One of the few monsters whose name I actually remembered. I absolutely love the mythos created with these little things. The idea of a massive universe of monsters all fighting each other in the creaks and crevices of your home is disturbing but awesome. The gameplay is pretty smooth and is a basic side scroller with a few puzzle elements mixed in. If you play two players you each take the monster of your choice and you will fly through the game twice as fast. You can really finish the whole game in about 40 minutes if you've practiced. The game brings back a lot of nostalgic feelings and is a great example of a classic NES game. You have straight foward controls, colorful characters, fun boss battles, and as a game where you get to play a tiny version of Frankenstein and Dracula. It's a winning combination.
