Colonel Catcher

I'm always curious when MegaBloks releases a new line with a new property. Not enough to buy their bloks, but usually the blind pack figures give me pause. I'm not a fan of the Halo or Marvel Mega Bloks style of figures, although I'm impressed by their articulation, but the Hello Kitty style stuff or the Dragons, those intrigue me. The way they combine various parts of the Lego aesthetic (because let's face it, that's what it is) but using distinctive non-Lego sculpts can lead to some cool stuff. And because of the MegaBlok compatability with Lego systems, it means all these minifigures will be compatible with Lego builds. So when it comes to stuff like the Smurfs or Hello Kitty, I'm curious to see if the figures are any good.

So I finally broke down and picked up one of their latest lines: the Moshi Monsters. Research (wikipedia) tells me that it's based on a British online Social Network game for kids. Combining Webkinz with Facebook or something like that. Don't know, don't care. I'm more interested in the toys which seem to include characters like overly happy sasquatches and angry rabbits.

Fortunately the local Target has the blind packed figures in the Easter section. Yes they're blind packed, but I smooshed the packages and felt around until I found one that seemed interesting to me. This guy.

I like him The pith hat, handlebar mustache, and over-sized monocle eye makes him look like a Victorian era British adventurer. More research (The Moshi Monsters Wikia and 30 minutes more than I wanted to spend) tells me the dude is named Colonel Catcher and he's the playable character in  butterfly catching mini-game as well as a helpful character for the Moshling "Catch them all" game.

His hat is removable, but that and the base block are the only parts of this figure that is modular. So the rest of the figure is pretty solid with four points of articulation. (cut shoulders, combined t-joint legs, and a cut waist) Fortunately the hat peg fits the hole at the top of the minimates I have. So that's awesome. Yes, it's an over-sized fit, but still hilarious.

Actually it kinda looks like the over-sized hats those guys were wearing in Big Trouble Little China.