Stitch as Elvis

I went to a Star Wars mini-con for May the Fourth and didn't buy any Star Wars merchandise in the vendors room. Instead I picked up this guy from some dude's box of cheap Happy Meal toys. Why? Well I'm amused by Elvis merch. Especially crossover Elvis stuff. What's great about this toy is that it's actually a bobble head type thing. You know those hula girls that shake around when they're put on a dashboard? It's one of those, which makes sense because of Lilo and Stitch's use of hula.

Love it. Especially since it cost less than a dollar.

Amazing Spider-Man 2 Happy Meal Toys

I love that for the McDonalds Amazing Spider-Man 2 happy meal toys they're not doing a set of girls toys from a different property but instead are just offering pink Spider-Man toys with hearts on them.

Batman Fingerboard

Fingerboards are silly. But you know what can make them less silly? Nothing.

But if you put Batman on one it becomes a kind of silly I'd be willing to buy a happy meal to get. Particularly if its Young Justice Batman. Now, I haven't watched much of the show, but what I've seen has made Batman look awesome, primarily by not being told from the point of view of Batman but instead of people who are in awe of Batman.

Flea Market Stuff

I went to a flea market this weekend. It was hot and I sweat a lot, but I picked up some stuff. There was one dude who was selling a Living Dead Doll for $4, but someone snatched it up before I could.

So instead I ended up getting these items.

Einstein Bobblehead

From the McDonalds Happy Meals for Night at the Museum 2. I loved that movie. And the writer's commentary is hilarious since it was written by the two main guys behind Reno 911. Also, Gotta love Einstein.

Jack and Kelly Osborne Smiti minifigures

Sadly, no Ozzy figure to accompany them, but they were insanely cheap, so okay. I like the figure for Jack because he looks like what I think hipster kids look like. Kelly, I dunno, I never watched that show so I never really got into these people as cultural figures. They were kind of figures in the background of my pop-culture. But I kind of hope these are in scale with the 3-inch stuff I have, because throwing emo/hipster-boy Jack into some of the Playmobil stuff seems like a good visual.

Barack Obama Action Figure

Discounting 12 inch figures, how is it that this is the only Barack Obama action figure that's ever been produced? Ah well. I've been looking at this figure for a while now, but never taking the final plunged and buying it. So when I saw it at the flea market I finally picked it up. It's going to require a little cleaning, since it has some sticker tape on it from some scotch tape put in the box, but it shouldn't be too bad. Also, it means I can cross another name off my "Presidential Action Figures" list. Although, to be honest, I've only crossed off one other name.

Interestingly, I also saw some Barnyard Commandos stuff for sale, (listen to the last Articulated Monster Podcast for why that's interesting) but at prices I couldn't justify paying.

I realized while driving home that the items I picked up are all toys of real life people. I love when they make toys of real people. Although I admit I kind of yawn if they're a sports star. But historical figures? Newsmakers? Toys of them are awesome.

Pac-Man Hide & Seek

I'm rather disappointed by this set, if only because it was the one I was most looking forward to. When I heard Wendy's was doing this promotion and went to their website to see what the toys looked like, the faces on the cups looked like they were painted on. But no, they're stickers. You've fooled me again advertising industry.

So this is essentially a version of the Shell Game, but with blue cups with cheap stickers on them to evoke the imagery of the Ghosts during Pac-Man's Power Up time. Those stickers are really cheap and obvious. And the yellow ball with a Pac-Man sticker on it isn't great shakes either. But it does function fairly well as a shell game. I tried it on a few of my co-workers and after a few rounds they were perplexed as too the correct placement of the ball.

Pac Man Tag Game

Did you know that Wendy's has Pac-Man toys in their kid's meal until April? I found out the other day so at lunch I drove to my local Wendy's and got some. I didn't find out until after I bought the kid's meal that you can also just buy the toy's for a buck. But whatever, I needed lunch anyway.

I didn't get them all, because quite frankly I didn't want them all, so here's one I did get: The Pac Man Tag Game. I don't actually care about using these game pieces to play tag, or Pac Tag, which is pretty much a 4-person tag game where whoever is "it" gets to hold onto the Pac Man game piece. (There's an included booklet that explains the rules to Pac Man Tag and also a weird hide and seek variation where the three ghost players try to find and tag Pac Man.) No, I wanted them because the game pieces of Pac Man, Inky, Blinky and Clyde can all double as key chains. Noot good keychains mind you, the images are stickers attached with cheap cardboard placed in the plastic frame. But for cheap kids meal toys they'll do. My plan is to use them as decorative wall hangings.

Hawktor & Swayther

Damn the collector's mentality. I've been having a lot of fun transforming the Bakugan from McDonalds. Too much fun. So I decided to go out and get another one.

I know it's a silly purchase, and not really worth it, but damn it, transforming balls... ARGH!

Then I wondered what the Battle Gear, which connects to the Battle Balls (they really call it that) look like, so I went back and got another happy meal.

Something is wrong with me. But yeah, when you transform and then combine them, they look like this.

And with that I feel my need to obtain any more Bakugan fading into oblivion. Unless the collector streak flares up again.

Dharak

I've always been intrigued by the Bakugan toys. They all seem like crude transformers that turn into balls. If they didn't cost a ridiculous amount I would already have bought one. (Since technically they're game pieces and come with cards for the game. So, pretty much they're plastic miniatures.)

So now that McDonalds is giving out fully functional Bakugan, which are actually bigger than the toys, as one of their happy meal toys, I decided to bite the bullet. It's actually cheaper than getting one in a retail store, plus I get a burger.


It's pretty nice, I gotta admit. There's a button on the bottom of the ball which activates some springs, and BAM, it turns into like a robot dragon thing. I am totally unfamiliar with the Bakugan univers, although the Happy Meal box implied that all the characters are named something-oid or something-tor.

Whatever, It's a nice cheap toy. Not bad. But I really don't need another one. I'll just stick with the trasnforming sphere I already have. Although according to the insert that came with it, I guess you can combine two transformed pieces together... Wait, no.

Momma

So I found this dinosaur toys in a Goodwill 50 cent bin. I couldn't stop playing with the damn thing's action feature. If you push it's head down, it spins around and alternates with a second head.

Happy-angry
Happy-angry
Happy-angry

I couldn't stop playing with it. So for 50 cents I just bought it.

Now that I've done some research I know it's the character Momma from Ice Age 3. And that it's from a McDonald's Happy meal. To tell the truth, I sort of suspected this. Except for the fact that the character is named Momma. I assumed the dinosaur was a dude. So I was wrong. Unless in the movie Momma is a dude. Seems unlikely, but I haven't seen the movie.

Play 'n Build Animal Pals II

So I went to Subway Sandwiches today and noticed that the kids meal toy for toddlers under 3 were Mega Bloks. Mega Blocks are one of the Lego knockoffs in the US, but rather than offer a Duplo clone to toddlers Mega Bloks offers oversized blocks, basically giant lego like blocks. And since the Kids meal costs about the same as a regular sandwich I decided to go for it. I'm so smart with my money.... not really, but it made sense at the time.

From what I can tell about previous Subway megablocks, they usually give you 3 blocks with a sticker on them to create a design. Since right now the regular kids meal has a wildlife theme you can see that they've attached animal stickers to these blocks. One side is a panda, the other side a giraffe. And something that came as a surprise, there's sculpted feet.... with one side as panda feet and the other side something resembling deformed giraffe feet. I don't know why that's better than a regular block... it certainly is worse if you want to put the feet on other Mega Bloks because the feet protrude and get in the way of the other studs.

As you can see, one of the benefits of having two animals printed on the blocks is that you can mix and match. I call this a Panraffe.

Ultrasphere

Taco Bell has American Gladiator toys this month. I tried to ignore them, but one of them called out to me. And through a series of odd circumstances I got them.

The UltraSphere.


Oh sure, that's the name, but it's really the Atlasphere. It was the most awesome of the events in the old American Galdiators, which is the only real American Gladiators in my mind. There were toys of the Atlasphere back in the 90's as part of that American Gladiators line but it was pretty expensive and they were kind of unweildy. These are kids meal toys, so they're pretty compact. Here's a picture to give you a sense of scale.

I was secretly hoping these would be awesome, and they're pretty cool, but what turns the dial up to 11 is that the spheres split apart and you can put something in the middle.

Like minimates.

KIRK VS. THE GORN IN THE ATLASPHERE!

Lego Racers 6-8

From left to right those are cars #8 (Sport Racer), #7 (Curve Chase) and #6 (EZ Rally). So yeah I went back for more. I skipped #4 because I thought it looked ugly and I was too late to get #5, but I was able to get these three. So far my favorite is #8, with its green complexion and grey window definition.

My favorite part about these cars is the mix and match parts. For example, take the all yellow car I made from the parts.



And my favorite combination, which pretty much just adds a new bottom peice to car #8. Now it looks vaguely like the tank from that game Spectre. Man that was a good game.



These Happy Meal toys have totally gotten me back into Lego's. So I guess mission accomplished. Although ironically, not into the Racer Lego series, because the Racer cars you can buy at the store don't appeal to me the way these toys do.

Lego Racers 1-3

Bad week. I'm sick and I'm moving at the end of the week. That means all my toys are being packed up, and the ones I haven't opened are all packed away. (FYI, I review toys once I've opened them, not when I buy them. So I've got my SDCC Doctor Who stuff, but I haven't opened them yet. After the move.)

That means I don't have a lot to review. Although for some reason my sick addled mind thinks it's a good idea to eat Happy Meals when I have a cold. Although only because I've become enamored with this month's Happy Meal toys. Lego Racers. This is the first Lego Happy Meal they've done in a while which actually has Lego parts. The past few have been action figure/statues based on the lego design. But these: These are in between.

Each racer is made up of three interchangeable parts that connect to one another using the lego design. This means they're customizable and that you can attach any other leg pieces to them.

And that's just enough Lego for me to be giddy. The end result is something that combines the customization and building potential of Lego with a sleeker, stream-lined design that eschews the normally craggy appearance of other Lego products. I approve. I haven't added the sticker/decals yet and I don't know if I ever will. I'm kind of digging the raw look they've got now.