053 Brad

Brad is the TDD kaiju.  

Kaiju is the Japanese term for an enormous creature that shows up and destroys mankind's cities.  It literally means "strange beast."  The term daikaiju is sometimes used to specifically denote the giant monsters.

Wreaking havok since 1954, the most popular kaiju of all time is Godzilla.

Like many Japanese kaiju toys, Brad has been released in multiple colorful varieties.

His "evolution" is pretty straightforward.  The G2 figure is the G1 figure with arms, and the G3 figure is the G2 figure with arms that bend.

Then they made another G3 figure in the Astro-Nots series.  Man, the design of this figure is dumb. They took one of the coolest characters and made one of the worst figures.  First, this is the series with additional magnets in the hands and on the backs -- a detail that is just silly and unwanted.  Second, they put Brad in clothes.  Why?  Third, they took away his fire-breathing flame. Why?  Fourth, they put the spikes (that are supposed to be on his head) on the outside of his helmet.  It makes no sense.  Not only is the oversized helmet a ridiculous accessory to begin with, it just looks absurd when on the figure, hiding his facial features.  Of course, the figure also looks stupid without it because now he has no spikes on his head (and no fire-breathing flame).  All of these accessory packs suck for the same basic reasons.

If that wasn't bad enough, Spin Master re-released this version of Brad in the G4 phase.  This time, they did not even bother to include the helmet at all.  So you get Brad wearing human clothes (and gloves) with no spikes and no fire.  Man, did they ever neuter Brad. You can identify this figure from the G3 version because it does not have any of the magnets. What a horrible design.  I wish they had just re-released the regular version of Brad -- which is an awesome figure.

Also, it seems that Brad was probably originally going to be called Dudezilla.  In the second trading card series, there is a "Monster Mash" card with Brad and Frank N. Finger.  Here is the text on the card:

Can anything save Dudeville from these rampaging monsters? Will it be destroyed?  No, silly, this is just a movie set.  Look for "Dudezilla Returns" this summer in theaters.  

Ah, I see. Dudezilla is just a movie character played by actor Brad.  He is always being type-cast as a villain.  Poor Brad.