Grossery Gang: Trash Head

Trash Head aka Clanky

Trash Head used to be your average filthy trash can until he was splashed by toxic juice and mutated into a pile of trash that’s ready to smash!

Trash Head is choc full of slop and is ready to empty himself on his enemy!

He’ll always throw up a challenge to the Clean Team!

Get ready to fight dirty!

Well, I’ve certainly referred to action figures as garbage in the past, but I think this is the first one where I didn’t mean it as a pejorative.

Last year, I took a look at a couple of Grossery Gang miniatures back when Series 1 was first released last year. We’re now up to series 3 – released under the title of “Grossery Gang vs The Clean Team” – and as something of a supplement to the main series of blind-packaged miniatures, Moose have release a number of Grosseries as fully-fledged action figures.

Trash Head here is (unsurprisingly) a trashcan. He’s leaking slime from his lid and his disgusting gaping mouth, while his limbs also appear to be made of the green stuff. In the mix is all sorts of other stuff, including cockroaches, fish bones and even an apple core. It’s totally disgusting and it is completely AWESOME! It’s the must-have accessory for every crust punk this year.

The overall aesthetic is quite reminiscent of the 1980s/1990s Playmates Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line, both in packaging and sculpt. Others have been pretty swift to point out the similarities to the long-defunct Food Fighters, who were originally released by Mattel in 1989. You’ll also find that the price point is reasonably retro, too – this figure retails for $11, which is impressively cheap in this day and age.  

As befits the figure’s pseudo-retro look, articulation is not amazing – but it’s slightly better than you would expect. I was expecting cut arms and legs, similar to a 5POA figure, but they’ve actually included swivel joints on all four limbs, which gives it an adequate range of movement.

Trash Head also comes with two accessories – a large set of fish bones which serves as his weapon in his war against cleanliness, and a Grossery of himself*. I believe the Grossery (or at least the paint scheme) is unique to this particular set, which will make it worth the price of purchase alone for some obsessive fans.

The Grossery Gang action figures are collectively great, and I hope we see more of them in the future. They’re incredible designs, a reasonable price point and they have a fantastic throwback feel overall. Highly recommended, even if you haven't been collecting the line. 

With that said, while these figures have been out in the US and Canada for a few months now, they’ve only just shown up in Sydney. The Grossery Gang brand seems to be going gangbusters overseas, while apparently having a bit of a mixed time here in Australia. Series 2 never really seemed to get much distribution, and Series 1 is also still hanging round in quite a few places too. Hopefully with the arrival of series 3 we’ll see a bit of a resurgence the public’s awareness of the brand.  

*What a narcissist