Well, Christmas is coming up soon. and I have been thinking of picking up the Zombie by Small Minds, and I was hoping someone could tell me what it’s like/how it plays; keep in mind, I don’t expect it to play well, I just want to know things like Spintime, Stability, and just how fun it is. anything is appreciated, thanks!
1 Like
Where are you finding a yoyo from the late 90s
1 Like
At a second hand store.
Edit: It’s $25 if that helps anyone out, in terms of recommending it to me.
1 Like
I set the junior world record for sleep time with a Zombie at Worlds 2000. Four minutes 41 seconds if i recall correctly. I still have the yoyo and i have the certificate somewhere.
Side note: my record was bested like 8 hours later with a YYJ Mega or Super SpinFaktor with ceramic bearing installed
4 Likes
25 not bad I would say go for it
1 Like
Gentlemen, it is with displeasure that I announce… somebody else purchased it. 
I must know who! There is a mysterious fellow yoyoer in my midst! 
3 Likes
The Zombie is a special yo-yo.
I keep my ‘special’ yo-yos in a special place>
In the basement at my older house…in an old file cabinet
To my best recollection, it wasn’t that the yo-yo a lower performer, considering there were other low performing yo-yos out at that time when the zombie was released.
I think it had more to do with the fact that when the zombie was released, I was somewhat of a yo-yo customizing fanatic for lack of a better explanation. I could get just about any yo-yo and do something funny to it to help out a little.
The zombie just did not compute for me being eligible for any kind of modification upgrade that I thought might improve It’s playability. I was so busy or I should say just too busy to just sit down and stare at a zombie and fiddle around with it and decide to do something cut it up. Cut it down. Add rims to it. Altered the bearing size… Etc.
The two guys that presented the zombie to the yo-yo World were not yo-yo players or former players or really cared about playing with yo-yos. At the time pretty much anything that said yo-yo on the package was selling and these two guys were enterprising guys that could see at least on the short game that they could sell a few thousand of these at least so it was worth their efforts. I don’t remember the exact timeline… But somehow they just weren’t moving the numbers to support justifying ramping up production. So the zombie guys just decided to divert their energy and finances to other endeavors which would make them more money. So the zombie which was readily available for a certain period of time , just became a cool little dinosaur.
In the last few years, I see a post here and there about the zombie yo-yo. I always smile. Shake my head. Go down to the basement garage at the old house. Open the file cabinet and look at a bunch of zombies and just smile. Production quality was inconsistent. Anodizing quality was hit or miss. The aluminum that was used for the zombies is at best low quality and inconsistent. The bearing was small and narrow. The axle was short and fine thread. And if you’re one of those guys that has a habit where the misfortune of being able to strip a yo-yo, the zombie would be the perfect yo-yo if you just felt like destroying something in 10 minutes.
When they were really moving the products, I don’t know who is putting them together? But somebody screwed some of them together funny in the first place. They played OK for what they were. But what happened was the first time people unscrewed them they ripped the threads out. What a fun surprise you think? it wasn’t a huge problem. But I did have a number of people asking me if I could tap a zombie, which sadly said it’s not worth the trouble. Just buy another one. I think they were like 10 bucks at the time if that?
I think I have zombies at three different houses? I will go down to the basement and come back and edit this post with an image or two of some zombies and misc. other yo-yos in the same filing cabinet.
The zaniest part of this is the yoyos in pics are from just ‘1’ file cabinet…
…I have at least 5 more file cabinets😳
I’ve done a lot of thinking about yo-yos that I never bothered to mod way back then. And I have some fresh thoughts on how I might be able to twist some of these suckers around and turn them in into something better than they were ever intended to be. I will be retiring in the next month or two and in the process of spending at least $50,000 to upgrade my machine shop specifically to make it easier for me to do some things that were too much of a pain before.
8 Likes
That’s so cool!
how do you like the AXL Elite?
1 Like
In my opinion, it’s still a great player and I’d recommend getting one if you can. @DocPop has an excellent blog about it and I agree with his sentiments.
With bind return yo-yos becoming more and more common, I’d like to see another attempt at the less is more mentality in yo-yoing. A wide gaped & ultra light butterfly yo-yo could really take the gold. - Doc Pop
2 Likes
Thanks Aaron, I’ll give it a read!
1 Like
Do you know where I could find replacement G Bearings if/when needed?
2 Likes
I got a personal grudge against the Custom Axl Elite. I remember asking for one for Christmas back in 2008 or 2009. 10 year old me was expecting this yoyo to be this long spinning great performing yoyo based on the description I read off of YoyoGuy. Low and behold the thing was a piece of junk that was comparable to a $3 Butterfly. To say I was let down was an understatement.
2 Likes
I laughed out loud when I read that😂
I can’t say it’s not a fair question…… but>
Considering I already mentioned the Axl was in a file cabinet drawer…. In the basement of the oldest house I own…. And if you look at the vintage of the other yo-yos ‘filed with it’ in that drawer…. That alone may allow you to at least somewhat understand I certainly don’t/didn’t care very much for it, lol🙀
Because if I liked it at all, it certainly wouldn’t be in the basement….
Now, that being said, I ‘do’ think that a certain percentage of semi/or/responsive players would like the Elite very much.
2 Likes
Accurate assessment. It’s fantastic as a modern responsive for a 25 year old design.
That I’m not 100% sure of.
I guess it was a very stupid thing of me to ask…
What yo-yos from that era do you like? old things are cool…
Not a stupid question at all. …There are few stupid questions.
There are ‘more’ stupid answers…
1 Like