Reaction!

From doomkick, In case you missed the original news a company called Super 7 is producing Alien figures based on the original Kenner prototypes made all those years ago. These figures have the 5 points of articulation that was standard at the time and basically fit in aesthetically with the Kenner Star Wars figures from the late 70′s and 80′s. They have even produced vintage style packaging and have come up with some incredibly creative ways of selling them including an Early Bird set in an homage to the original wave of Kenner figures. Now that alone would be great but it’s just about to explode from there into something I can’t even wrap my vintage 5 POA-loving head around. Enter FUNKO!

You should all be familiar with FUNKO. They produce some really great toys and have shown that they know how to scoop up an insane amount of licenses. They also know what properties collectors want and have proven time and time again that they mean business in the toy world. Their line of POPs is growing more and more popular and is easily available and affordable. The partnership of FUNKO and Super7 is like the joining of Hawk and Animal. These guys are going to be the Road Warriors of the toy world.

The plan is to take all of our money by producing 12 to 14 lines under the ReAction banner a year. You read that right, 12 to 14 lines! A YEAR! The lines that have been announced so far is like a dream list that most would never have thought to actually come to reality. Back to the Future, Aliens, Predator, Universal Monsters, Terminator 1 and 2, the Goonies, Escape from NY, Firefly, Dark Crystal, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV Series) and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Most of these properties have never had a toy line and now they get to become what will surely be the biggest thing to hit in 2014, ReAction.

[JPX]  These figures are a delightful throwback to a more innocent toy era.  I prefer these to any modern Alien toys.  They are designed to fit seamlessly with Star Wars-sized figures.  Finally I can have my Love Boat Issac figure serve the Alien in my creature cantina!

Toy Moments

Why do I love toys?  Toys are the only objects besides works of art that exist just to be themselves; every other object I can think of has some main function.  Toys are solid dreams; little chunks of The Adventure that you can take home with you and put on your nightstand.

I'd like to get this blog rolling again, so I'm combing through my photo library for all the toy-related pictures I've amassed.  Both these pics are from our old apartment.  Above you can see our cat Washington pondering some serious disruption.

And here's my son doing a much better job.

Star Wars Beasts of Burden Speederbikes

More chronicling of old stuff so I can reassimilate their asses! I made this for Legoland Star Wars Days in 2011, extrapolating off of my T-Rex on a Motorcycle idea. Lego also makes a decent Tauntaun and Varactyl (Obi-Wan's big lizard from Sith) and I aimed to make rides for them too, but I ran out of time.

As before, you can see a couple detail shots on my flickr page.

Unfinished Arrrr

I made this in 2006 when I was in the running for a job in the model shop at Legoland. The category for the audition build had been pirates (for which I made this) and I threw this tableau together on the chance that the final build category was the same (it wasn't). These two clowns have been part of my desk junk since then, through a couple of desks and apartments. Now that I've finally documented them, it's back to the assimilation bin!

I kept the tentacle plans in case I need them someday.

A couple more pics on my flickr page.

Really?

Poor E.T. He can never catch a break. Ever since E.T.’s 1982 release and its subsequent re-releases, toy companies have been trying to come up with something “cool” for kids to play with in order to take home their movie experience. For some reason they have never been able to come up with a satisfying toy. On the one hand you wouldn’t think that it would be too difficult. I mean, all the elements are there for cool action figures, play sets, etc. Heck, back in the day I would have loved an E.T. rocket ship but it never came to pass. Even the E.T. store currently at Universal Studios fails to provide any product that anyone would actually want to own. From bad stuffed animals to cheap wrist watches, why can’t these toy companies crack it? As I was strolling through the discount aisle at Toys R Us last weekend I stumbled upon the above monstrosity. Really? I mean look at this thing…


Seriously, if a kid came near me with that rubber hand and glowing finger I would run. E.T. go home!

9 Toylines from the '80s Based on Unusual Gimmicks

9) Visionaries and Super Naturals

[via toplessrobot]

See the rest here

Retro Alien action figures!

From cooltoyreview, Remember those cool Alien figures Kenner released in 1979? Oh yeah, they never released them. The world wasn't ready for Star Wars quality figures based on an R rated film back then and what could have been another crucial piece of our childhoods was taken away from us and we didn't even know it. Fast forward thirty-three years and Super7 is prepared to correct Kenner's single biggest mistake by producing all five of the figures we should have had since 1979 (and you must know by now how important we consider 1979 the turning point in the world of action figures). In addition to this portion of their display, they also revealed the production of Burger King style Alien glasses and a pile of Transformers retro awesomeness.

LEGO Series 8 Collectible Minifigs -- There be pictures!

Groovy Lego stuff revealed at SDCC

My work cronies who were going to SDCC (I haven't debriefed them yet) said beforehand that the Lego booth took up more floor space than the Marvel booth. Sure enough, they're gearing up for a lot of stuff. Behold the white Batman! Also this really awesome Lego Rancor.



More Rancor Set pics are here, pics of the Bilbo's House Set from The Hobbit can be seen here, and more superhero minifigs can be seen here. Credit for all these images goes to my friends at the marvelous From Bricks to Bothans website.

New Gonk Droid has removable top

[via yakface]

The 21 Greatest Lego Collectible Minifigures

From toplessrobot, Lego struck gold when they started releasing collectible minifigures in both limited edition waves and in blind packaging. These figures are highly detailed and imaginative, and include very specific character types, many that wouldn't otherwise fit in standard Lego sets. The selection has been amazing and revolutionized the very concept of the ever-popular Lego minifigure.

Here
are, in TR's humble opinion, the 21 best collectble minifigures that Lego has released thus far.

The 10 Least Essential Mego Action Figures

10) Dr. Kromedome

Mego reportedly created this 12-inch baddie as a kind-of unofficial addition to Kenner's Six Million Dollar Man toyline. Yeah, remember that episode where Steve Austin fought the bastard son of Magneto and Seven-Of-Nine who had pursued his destiny in community college Shakespearian theater before stumbling into a life of crime? Hell if we do since that show was before our time, but this figure sure doesn't want to make us get our bionic fix on Netflix.

See them all here

Not Bad!: LEGO Super Mario Level Aquarium Decorations

From geekology, This is a couple pictures and a video of the 55-gallon aquarium Redditor jennyleighb's roommate decorated with a custom LEGO Super Mario Bros. scene he built. Pet fish never had it so good! Still, you know what it needs? "A skeleton pirate drinking out of a jug of rum?" Exactamundo. I'd suggest hitting up the Wal-Mart pet department, but all the dead fish in their tanks will end up depressing you. I don't know who's supposed to take care of those things, but they should NOT be allowed to own pets (I suspect it's the greeter).

Go here for more pictures and a video tour.

World Record Lego Tower built in Korea for Lego's 80th birthday

[via attractionsmagazine]

Mommy, Where Do LEGO Babies Come From?

From geekology, Seen here moments before child services were called, two LEGO parents grossly neglect 22 of their 24 bundles of joy crying hysteria. And now custom LEGO printer Citizen Brick is selling the orphaned minifigs for a scant $1 apiece. But seriously, somebody should have told that guy to put a plastic cap on his nubbin. Wrap it up, bro -- your wife is FERTILE. Kidding, I have no clue where LEGO babies come from. But I suspect a dragon from one of the medieval castle sets brings them if you pray really hard and put enough little gold pieces of eight from one of the pirate sets under your pillow at night. "They had sex, GW." WHAT? Toys don't have sex! None of mine do anyways. Okay, except for the Ninja Turtles. And, if I get drunk enough, MAYBE the Jurassic Park playset. "Is that why you've been walking like a penguin all day?" I think a t-rex might've chased the Jeep into my keister!

More customs here

I hate toys with sensors!

On a recent spring Saturday I had some time to kill and where better to kill time than Kmart, right? As I entered the depressing monstrosity my pulse quickened as it always does when I am heading to a toy department. Previous recent visits already suggested that I would find nothing of interest but then again no toy collector has ever found treasure without consistent persistence. As I entered the section I was startled by this horrible thing, which I set off by walking past it,



Mind you it was 8am, I was the only person in the store and it was very quiet. I must be honest; Elmo scared the hell out of me. He yelled, laughed, and sang for what seemed like an eternity. Moving right along into another aisle I was again startled when this started barking at me as I walked past,



Having just recovered from my Kevin Clash scare, Cookie again triggered my fight/flight instinct. I finally made it to the only aisle worth checking out, besides the Lego aisle, of course, and I was betrayed by Star Wars! Nestled right next to the Star Wars figures is this noisy weapon,



The loud ‘whooshing’ sound and ensuing lightsaber ‘clashes’ just pissed me off. At this point I was really annoyed. It’s only a matter of time before some elderly woman meets her demise by walking by these sensor toys. This and similar experiences in the toy aisle has made me very gun shy when I walk through department stores. I now have an eagle eye out for potential toy bombs. I hate these things!

STAR WARS Series 5 (1977) Trading Card Puzzle Finally Assembled!

I was recently organizing some trading cards and I realized that in 30 years I never assembled the puzzle featured on the card backs of Star Wars series 5. This major oversight was most likely because for many years I was missing some of the cards from the set and I hate making puzzles that are missing pieces. Series 5, the ‘orange’ set was difficult to acquire back in the day. By time this series was released it was clear that Topps had used every possible cool imagine they could find in the previous 4 sets. In fact, I thought they hit a new low in series 4 with this card,



Yet Topps was somehow able to procure 66 new images for the orange set. I don’t recall these being out for very long and at the time I think I had stopped collecting Star Wars cards. Years later I only found a scant amount in my vast trading card collection.



However the 21st century arrived and with that we got nifty things like The Toy Vault and Ebay, which enabled me to easily complete the [sad] orange set. Here are a few examples of how truly pathetic this set really is,




Want to see the entire set? Of course you do! Go here

I would be embarrassed to tell you how much time it took me to assemble this (arguably) difficult puzzle but I believe I watched an entire episode of Happy Days before it was finally completed (Fonzie thought he lost his 'cool').

Droid Factory Coming to Disney

From swcollector, The Orlando Sentinal has posted news that the Star Wars Droid Factory Droid Pieces will be available next month at Disney World's Tattooine Traders at Hollywood Studios.

"An array of Disney merchandise was on display Friday. Coming May 10, just before Star Wars Weekends, will be a Droid Factory at Tattooine Traders at Disney's Hollywood Studios. It's a build-your-own Astromech Droid activity resulting in 3-inch figures that fit into other playsets."

Star Wars: The Ultimate Action Figure Collection: 35 Years of Characters

From Amazon,Here at last is the complete and definitive collection of the more than 2,500 Star Wars® action figures produced over the last 35 years. Fans and collectors can finally trace the evolution of each character in toy form from the time of their first appearance through the designs of today, with pages of amazing and inventive variations crafted to tell the stories of Luke Skywalker, Darth Maul, and literally hundreds more. Compiled by Stephen J. Sansweet, owner of the world's largest private collection of Star Wars memorabilia, the book also showcases and details the rare, popular, forgotten, and beloved figures coveted by fans the world over, drawing figures from the feature film, video game, and cartoon realms of the vast Star Wars universe.

[JPX] Holy crap, 2500 Star Wars action figures???

New York Toy Fair Hasbro presentation

Go here to see everything that Hasbro is releasing in 2012.