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!