Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Happy New Year's Eve!

Have fun and be safe tonight!


Dancing Groot (Funko Pop! Marvel #65) and E.T. (Funko Pop! Movies #130)

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

New Year's Eve Bash!


Bash (series 2), Bop (series 4), and Bash (series 1) ready for Skylanders NYE.  
Plus, Daddy Bash and Baby Bob selfie. 

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

SLUG Zombies X-Mas

The SLUG (Silly Little Ugly Guys) Zombies were one of the coolest toylines to come out in 2012. Unfortunately, Jakks Pacific cancelled this series of 2-inch figures before all of the anticipated characters had even been produced, much less shipped to retail.  Despite this disappointment, they did surprise us with these eight holiday inspired zombies which showed up at select Target stores.

Santa Claws and Eli the Expired Elf

Frozen Fright and Ralph Reindead

Johnny Hammer-Stix and Nutty Nate

Surprise Demise and Hungry Humbug

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Santa Gizmo

This highly detailed Santa Gizmo figure is made by NECA. He stands 4 inches tall and was released in 2012 as a Toys R Us exclusive. Like the other mogwai figures in this series, he has several points of articulation and movable eyes.


Santa Gizmo comes with the trumpet and candy cane shown -- though his hands weren't really designed to hold either.  This figure is based on a scene from the 1984 horror-comedy Gremlins. 


Monday, December 22, 2014

Holiday Hexbugs

The Hexbug Nano by Innovation First was one of the most popular toys of 2012.  Available in a variety of colors and styles, you could find these 1.5-inch "robots" at diverse retailers.  The gimmick was simple: You flip a switch on their undersides and they scurry around like roaches.  But the real gimmick was the collect them all effort to find the rare varieties and to buy the exclusives only available in "habitat" playsets.


That winter they released three holiday Hexbugs which had tiny translucent antler attachments.  The red and the green came packaged as ornaments, and the brown reindeer came packed pulling a tiny paper Santa and sleigh.


Interestingly, these have still shown up the past two holiday seasons -- even though Innovation First has not updated their design in any way.  It's such a missed opportunity because these are the perfect stocking stuffer to make exclusive special edition versions of every year. Considering how strong the Hexbug Nano came on in 2012 (with 40+ varieties), I'm surprised we have not seen metallic versions, flocked versions, and a huge array of attachments.  Nope, just these.


Sunday, December 21, 2014

Noggin Bops X-Mas

Noggin Bops are 4-inch tall toys made by Z Wind Ups.  These quirky toys basically dance the Cabbage Patch.  It's actually kinda cool when you realize how many little mechanism are required. They were available in 2011 and 2012 in several varieties.  Here are the Christmas versions:

Elfy, Santa, Rudy


Cool Yule, Snowy, Cookies

Dance Party!

Saturday, December 20, 2014

The Grinch

The Grinch Wacky Wobbler by Funko, 2000.

based on the Dr. Seuss character in:
the 1957 book How the Grinch Stole Christmas
the 1966 TV special How the Grinch Stole Christmas
the 2000 live-action film The Grinch


Again, I ask: Why hasn't Funko made a Pop! vinyl version of The Grinch?

Friday, December 19, 2014

NMBC Trading Figures

These 2014 figures/dioramas were made by Jun Planning, a Japanese company famous for their big-eyed Pullip fashion dolls.  They come in small boxes not unlike blind-box figures.  At first glance they even look like blind-boxes since images of all four figures are shown on every box. However, they are actually individually named -- so you know exactly which one you are going to get.  Inside each box is around nine or ten pieces and instructions on how to assemble the figures and their dioramas. Once assembled, they measure between 2.5 and 4 inches tall. The sculpts and the paint applications are impeccable and extremely detailed.  Here are the four "Trading Figures Series 1 Extras" released just around November.  They of course represent specific scenes from Disney's forever toyetic 1993 stop-motion musical The Nightmare Before Christmas.  

Welcome to Christmas Town

Snowman Jack

It's a Dream World

Jack with Vampire Teddy

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Funko Pop! Holidays

Funko began their Pop! line of "super stylized" vinyl figures in 2011.  That winter, they released the first four in their Holiday series.  No. 1 and No. 2 were the Snow Miser and the Heat Miser from the 1974 Rankin/Bass stop-motion classic The Year Without a Santa Claus.


Rudolph (No. 3) and Santa (No. 4) were also released in 2011.  These, of course, are characters from the 1964 Rankin/Bass stop motion classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.


In 2012, the series was expanded with four more characters from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Here is Yukon Cornelius (No. 7) and Bumble (No. 5).


And here's the super-rare Misfit Elephant (No. 6) and Hermey (No. 8).


2012 also saw the release of The Elf on the Shelf (No. 9) and Buddy the Elf (No. 10). 
Buddy, of course is the main character in the 2003 comedy Elf. 


In 2013, Funko released three more figures in their Holiday series.  All three represent characters from the classic 1983 comedy A Christmas Story. Pictured are Sheriff Ralphie (No. 11) and The Old Man (No. 13).  Not pictured is Bunny Suit Ralphie (No. 12) because I hate that figure (as it looks like an Easter toy than a Christmas toy) and I also really hate that scene in the movie.


In 2014, Funko added zero figures to the Holiday series.  ZERO. This comes as quite a surprise.

First of all, it has been a stellar year for Funko.  With 180 licensing partnerships strong, the Pop! figures are enormously pop-ular.  Funko has churned out a ridiculous amount of characters for every blockbuster movie and hit TV show  -- with an incredible amount of chase variants and store exclusives to boot.  At the time of this writing their Television series is up to 176 figures, Movies is at 156, Disney is at 127, Marvel is at 82 and DC (Heroes) is at 68!  Insane!  And here's the unfortunately neglected Holiday line at a mere 13.

Second, Christmas time is the biggest retail shopping period of the year and a time when people buy figures like these both as gifts and as decorations! Funko missed a huge opportunity to not expand the Holiday line to match their overall popularity.

Third, 2014 is the 50th anniversary of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Talk about an enormous missed opportunity!  The whole collection should have been stocked at all retailers.  They could have done more characters like Sam the Snowman, Clarice, Mrs. Santa, the grouchy elf foreman, and the Charlie-In-The-Box! They could have done tons of variants too -- flocked Rudolph, maybe an LED nose Rudolph, and of course their new larger-sized somewhat-scaled Bumble!

Huge disappointment.  Someone at Funko clearly dropped the ball.  Anyway, that's my rant.

By the way, if you ever come across one of Funko's failed ideas -- the Pop! 3D Bookmark of The Elf on the Shelf -- you should pull it apart and glue the head on one of the non-Funko Elf on the Shelf figurines.  Like this:

Cute! Super cute!

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Santa Vader

The darkside loves Christmas! Aside from the annual Lego set, here are three examples:
 
Ornaments

Candy Dispensers

Wacky Wobblers by Funko, 2008

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Robot Santa

This is the Robot Santa from the Futurama Build-A-Figure series by Toynami, 2008. You had to buy six other characters to get all the parts to put this figure together.  He stands 8 inches tall.


In the show, Robot Santa (built in 2801) lives on Neptune and uses Neptunians as slaves to build weapons. He comes to Earth every "XMas" and attempts to kill those who are naughty.  Which is absolutely everyone... except Zoidberg.


I re-watched the episode where Robot Santa first appears entitled "XMas Story" (S2E8), and I realized that his eyes rotate upside-down when he's ready to go in for the kill.  Sure enough, I examined this figure and discovered that you can twist its eyes as well.  So I had to take another photo with this expression...

Monday, December 15, 2014

Kidrobot Santa

These 3-inch vinyl figures were produced by Kidrobot in 2012.  They are called Kid HoHoHo Mini Bots and came blind-boxed.  These are the only two figures in the series with the black Santa being a significantly rarer chase figure appearing in only 1/12 boxes.


The figures feature a removable hat and articulation at the neck, shoulders, and wrists.  The wind-up key on the back makes an intentional clicking noise when turned, but does not propel the figure.

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Holiday Skylanders

Here is the brand new Winterfest Lob-Star with last year's Jolly Bumble Blast. 




Other Skylanders Christmas ideas:

Christmas Tree Rex
Deck-the-Halls Wrecking Ball
Stealth Elf on the Shelf

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Minecraft Minifigures

Mattel jumps into the Minecraft madness with this set of sixteen minifigures. These colorful figures vary in size from 1 to 1.5 inches.  Four figures are exclusive to carded 3-packs, while another four figures are exclusive to blind-boxed single-packs.  That makes the other eight figures available in both package types.

Skeleton, Creeper, Enderman, Snow Golem

Steve, Cow, Iron Golem, Gold Armor Steve

Spider, Wolf, Witch, Pig
These are exclusive to the 3-packs.

Dyed Sheep, Zombie Villager, Horse, Cat
These are exclusive to the blind-box 1-packs. 

Creeper Mob!

Rogues Gallery

Creeper Family
Features Creeper figures from three different toylines. 


These are the box codes to find particular figures among the blind-boxes:

Find this sequence and look only at the last letter:

3174MOBA = Steve
3174MOBB = Creeper
3174MOBC = Skeleton
3174MOBD = Enderman
3174MOBE = Gold Armor Steve
3174MOBF = Snow Golem
3174MOBG = Cow
3174MOBH = Iron Golem
3174MOBI = Dyed Sheep*
3174MOBJ = Zombie Villager*
3174MOBK = Horse*
3174MOBL = Cat*

*Exclusive to blind-box 1-packs.

Monday, December 8, 2014

Monster Marbles

Monster Marbles were blind-bag toys that came out mid-2012.  They were produced by WowWee, a toy company known for making much larger, quite expensive, electronic toys like the Robosapien and Roboraptor.  I don't know if this was their first pocket-money toy attempt, but it certainly was a super sloppy effort.

First of all, the name is unfortunate.  You want your toy name to stand out.  You want something unique.  You want it to lead directly to your product in an internet search. "Monster Marbles" is so boring and generic.

Second, these are not even marbles.  Marbles are spherical by definition.  These are plastic figures on top of steel bearing balls. The toylines Puck Hedz and Angry Birds Go! Telepods use the same basic gimmick.

At any rate, they came in blind-bags of two or three. Each pack also contained a silly little piece of chalk. You could use it to mark up your sidewalk or just throw it away.

To examine these further, we must consult the checklist included with each pack:


As you can see, we have twelve original sculpts.  They are actually pretty cool. 

Then we get this weird smattering of incongruous variants.  This could have been executed so much better.  They knew enough to produce all the popular variant types, but chose the strangest possible way to include them. It really makes no sense at all.

First, there are alternate-paint variants of eight sculpts. Why not all twelve?

Then there are green translucent plastic version of only four sculpts.  Four of the same sculpts that already have paint variants.  And, notice that two of the four are the worst possible choices because the painted versions are already green! 

Next, we get some glow-in-the-dark variants. It's a bit confusing because the checklist mentions "16 varieties" but shows only four figures.  Well, here's the deal.  Each of those four figures are found in each of those four glow-in-the-dark plastic colors.  So, there's only four sculpts producing a glut of 16 glow-in-the-dark figures. The other eight sculpts got completely screwed!

Finally, in a somewhat logical move, we get eight sculpts with a silver variant, and the remaining four sculpts with a gold variant.

In all, there are four sculpts with four varieties, four with three varieties, and four with six varieties.

Total set: 52 figures.  

Now, imagine a tiny bit of logic applied and we could have had a really cool collection.  It's this simple:  12 sculpts.  One paint variant of each.  One translucent variant of each.  One glow-in-the-dark variant of each.  One metallic variant of each.  Total set: 48 figures.  Or... one silver version of each, plus one gold version of each.  Total set: 60 figures. Consistent.  Fun.  Done.

One more thing:  In perhaps the weirdest move of all, virtually all the varieties of the same sculpts have been given unique names!  This makes no sense at all!  There is no backstory to the toyline, so we are left to wonder how "Sobig" becomes "Ray" when he glows, but becomes "Nugget" when he turns gold.

Trust me, there are plenty of other things we could nitpick (like the fact that every single 3-pack contained the exact same figures), but let's just look at the pictures:

(pics coming soon)

Friday, December 5, 2014

Mutant Mania

Mutant Mania is the newest toyline from the Australian toy company known as Moose. Presumably Mutant Mania is here to replace The Trash Pack after its successful run of seven standard series (plus another seven spin-off series). Mutant Mania began in September, 2014 as a Toys R Us exclusive.

At its core, Mutant Mania is a collection of 60 uniquely sculpted figures plus another 60 variant figures. Then there's another five unique figures available only with playsets, and a final four extremely rare "Limited Edition" blind-pack chase figures, bringing the total number of Series 1 figures to 129.

Things I like:

1. In general, I really like the sculpts, the names, and the factions. The creativity in this regard is what ultimately sells the toyline.


2. I like the size of the figures.  They are typically 1.75 inches tall. This is the perfect minifigure size in my opinion (and the opinion of many other fans and collectors).


3. I like that there are two version of each character and each version is unique by plastic-type and not just paint application. There's a painted version made of opaque plastic and an unpainted variant made of translucent plastic.  Only the eyes are painted on the translucent figures (a detail which I also like).  Among the Reptiles of Rage (a group exclusive to the 8-packs), there is no translucent variant, but rather a monochromatic version made of glow-in-the-dark plastic.  The painted versions of this faction also glow.  The two best plastic toy variants are always "clearies" and "glowies," so they got that right. 


4. I like that there are only two versions of each figure.  With the Trash Pack, there were typically three versions of each figure to collect.  Gluttonous overkill is so common with this type of toy.


5. I like that the two versions of each figure are numbered next to one another. With the Trash Pack, the numbering system was all over the place. 


6. I like that the Mutant Mania figures are made of hard plastic -- also in contrast to the soft, bouncy rubber of the Trash Pack.


7. In general, I like the packaging.  Specifically, I like that you are not forced to buy all these bins and cans like you had to with the Trash Pack.  The Mutant Mania 4-pack has no silly cans and the 8-pack comes with only one. It's a reasonable size and I also like that you can display two figures on the pegs on the tops of the energy-drink styled cans.


Things I dislike:

1. I don't like that the four exclusive figures that come with the Rampage Arena are color-variant pairs instead of either translucent or glow-in-the-dark variants like the rest of the series. I also don't like that "Combo Commando" (who comes with the Mutant Masher vehicle) does not have a variant figure at all. What I'm saying I don't like is inconsistency.  



2. I don't like that some of the figures have weapons.  There's some knives, and swords, and even a chainsaw. Not such a big deal, I guess.  But -- Fangor has a freakin' gun!  What the heck?  These guys are wrestlers!  It's a sport, not a war! Bringing a gun in the ring?  Not exactly a fair match!


3. I don't like the silly rubber "spine" that holds the figure's three body pieces together.  If you must market the "mix and match" gimmick, please use standard peg-joints or ball-joints.  For this reason, I keep looking at these and just wishing Mega Bloks had developed this line.  The figures are the same size (and the same plastic) as Mega Bloks' figures, they just need the articulation. Man, I wish Mega Bloks would develop an original minifigure-driven toyline of mutant characters!


4. I don't like the way Moose arranges the figures within packs to strategically force collectors to buy enormous amounts of duplicates in order to complete their sets.  We're already after 120+ figures, please give us a break with the intentionally packaged glut of duplicate figures.  I promise you, people buy less of a toyline because of this very reason.  Many people get sick of this tactic and reject the whole line. I would say that 60 figures and 60 variants is a reasonable number for a toy release of this size/type/quality because it creates a reasonable goal for collectors if those 120 figures are attainable with zero to very few duplicates acquired in the process.  However, because of the way Moose intentionally develops and packages their toys, you're not only going to spend a lot of money, but also end up with a pile of duplicates, just to assemble a base set.  I know, I know, no one forces anyone to buy toys, but more people, overall, will take interest in the toyline if the attainment of the base set were more straightforward.


5. I don't like the way Moose releases their figures in waves.  At the time of their initial release, you could buy every Mutant Mania pack around and you couldn't form a single set.  The simple fact is, not all the figures on the checklist would have even been available.  At all... anywhere... period.  Sure, plenty of toy companies do this with toys released in package types where you see what you are getting.  However, it's completely disingenuous to say "collect them all" with blind-pack items, when not all the items even exist (yet) in the market.


I'm just saying sell your toys based on their merits as individual figures and a collective set, and not by using shrewd tactics that require fans of the toyline to buy more and more of the same, in hope of getting something different.

So, do the likes outweigh the dislikes? 
Well, hopefully, all these photos should answer that question.