Issue: Volume: 23 Issue: 8 (August 2000)  A Blast from the Past
Using digital technology to retrofit classic model kits  By
Karen Moltenbrey  During the height of their popularity in the
1960s, The Testor Corp.'s (Rockford, IL) Weird-Oh line of
monster-like drivers in dragster-style model cars were, well,
weird. Last fall, sporting drivers with newly styled heads that
gave them an even "weirder" look, these car-crazed denizens of
the fictitious town of Weirdsville became the stars and
namesakes of a new animated television series, prompting Testor
to reintroduce its model kits.  Prior to creating the 3D Weird-
Oh models for the animated television show, Mainframe
Entertainment, a Vancouver, Canada, animation facility,
refashioned the characters' dated appearance to appeal to its
young crop of millennium viewers. While Testor wanted to cash in
on the Weird-Ohs' newfound popularity, it couldn't risk spending
tens of thousands of dollars to make new die molds for
reproducing a small number of its Weird-Oh model