Hip Bones - Greatest Skeleton Action Figures of All Time (Part 1 of TBD)

I have a bad habit of waiting too long to flip the pages on my DOMO wall calendar. I missed almost all of June this year. I blame my habitual calendar tardiness mostly on apathy; I don't actually use the calendar as a calendar; I just like the big pictures of DOMO. But maybe, just maybe, there is a small part of me who is desperately trying to slow the proverbial sands of time from falling through the hourglass.

Even though October is still more than a week out, I can feel Halloween slipping away. Soon I will be lamenting that I waited too long to put together a costume and I never found anywhere to go to wear said costume. From the corner of my eye, I can see Christmas lights and tinsel encroaching on the ghosts and goblins. Hold your reindeer, Santa, you can have all of November and December to be fat and merry. Let Halloween have its time in the spotlight.

This Halloween countdown needs a shot in the arm and if there's one thing that can inspire a blog more than a countdown, it's a countdown within a countdown - all Inception style, y'all. Thus, I present the Greatest Skeleton Action Figures of All Time countdown.

I won't set any limits on this countdown. It could theoretically continue until next Halloween. Unlike Frankenstein and the Mummy, skeletons are universally accepted all year round, so why limit what will undoubtedly be the greatest countdown in the history of countdowns?

That would be a bone-headed thing to do! (Yeaaaaaaaaaah!)

Bad-to-the-Bone Ghost (The Real Ghostbusters)
When Columbia Pictures released Ghostbusters in 1984, they were sued by Filmation, the company responsible for The Ghost Busters, a paranormal detective comedy series produced in 1975. The lawsuit was settled out of court and Columbia agreed to amend the name of its animated Ghostbuters adaptation to resolve any confusion between it and Filmation's Ghost Busters. Hence The Real Ghostbusters.

Unlike Mattel's current line of movie-based Ghostbusters, Kenner wasn't afraid of no ghosts. The Real Ghostbusters line included an entire sub-set of ghosts for the heroes to tangle with. Bad-to-the-Bone Ghost, H2Ghost and Bug-Eye Ghost joined the already established Stay Puft Marhsmellow Man and Slimer in the first series of ghouls. Bad-to-the-Bone Ghost was one of my favorite figures despite the obvious handicap of not being a ghost. He was larger than the human figures, so kids could trap the Ghostbusters inside his ribcage while the tortured figure's head stuck up through Bone Ghost's skull.

The origins of the specters in the Ghostbuster universe have always remained a mystery to me. Some were clearly the remnants of the dearly departed, but others appeared as if they were never human. From the waist up, you could assume Bone Ghost was the skeletal remains of an abnormally large human, but instead of legs, Bone Ghost stood on a crescent appendage resembling a fish tale. Was Bad-to-the-Bone Ghost a mermaid or did Hasbro's design team run out of steam before they could sculpt a proper set of legs?