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Ghosts of Christmas Past Vol. 3 - The Gift That Got Away Feat. Toyfarce
460 Plays4 years ago
Happy Holidays! We're back with the 3rd installment of our Ghosts of Christmas Past series (that's our fancy jargon for "annual holiday episode") and this time we're joined by special guests Santa Claus and ToyFarce! Hear the latest news, hauls, a brief interview about satirical toy humor and then listen as Dave, Erik, and ToyFarce recount the toy from their Christmases past that they wish they had gotten!
Follow ToyFarce on Instagram and Twitter @toyfarce for all the funnies
Follow us @aic_podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube
Intro and other voices by Joe Azzari
https://www.instagram.com/voicesbyjoe/
Theme Music is "Game Boy Horror" by the Zombie Dandies
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
Hmmm. Ryan Ting. Nice. Magic Olmos. Nice.
Santa's Tech Critique and Relatable Humor
00:00:10
Speaker
Mark Zuckerberg. Naughty. It's not nice to delete people's Instagram accounts. Steve Ozer. Hmmm. He didn't make that tank the boys wanted. Ho ho ho ho. Who am I kidding? Very nice.
00:00:31
Speaker
you snuck up on me you'd think after over a year of zoom calls with the elves in the remote workshop I'd be used to this sort of thing
00:00:44
Speaker
While I may be a social distancing champion, I still can't get the hang of these virtual meetings. Anyway, I'm just finishing going over my list one last time before the big day. And two of my favorite nice listers. Except for that one year. Eric, you know what you did.
00:01:10
Speaker
asked me if I'd be interested in delivering a holiday message to their AIC family.
Santa's 2021 Holiday Message
00:01:18
Speaker
2021 was yet again a challenging year. But a community faced with the threat of a global pandemic and supply chain issues among other things, you all still found ways to connect and brought countless hours of joy to each other through live streams, giveaways, incredible art, and so much more.
00:01:43
Speaker
Me and my elves can't do it alone. And with your help, we're ready to celebrate the holidays and spread that special Christmas feeling all over the world. Continue to take care of each other. And remember, Santa is always watching. Now,
00:02:09
Speaker
This list won't check itself. Merry Christmas! Are you ready kids?
Introduction to Adventures in Collecting Podcast
00:02:30
Speaker
Get your parents permission, check your mailbox, and grab your shopping cart. It's time for the Adventures in Collecting podcast.
00:02:39
Speaker
I'm Eric. And I'm Dave. Welcome to Adventures in Collecting, where we talk toy news, culture, and halls, along with our journeys as collectors. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Adventures in Collecting. Happy holidays. We made it. Are those bells I hear?
00:03:04
Speaker
Yes, those are the bells that you're hearing. I don't know if Santa has turned off the Zoom, but of course, Santa, our good friend, Santa Claus, sending holiday greetings our way, kind words, just wonderful things coming from the North Pole as we gear up to the big
Exploring Christmas Memories and Toys
00:03:28
Speaker
day. So this is our annual holiday episode. Also, hi.
00:03:35
Speaker
brought it back as a gift for the holidays. I was just going to say, it's a Christmas miracle, Dave. You brought it back. So today, if this is the first time you are listening to Adventures in Collecting, welcome. We do have an annual holiday episode. We call it the Ghosts of Christmas Past, where each year we dive into our Christmas pasts. I don't know another way to say that.
00:04:04
Speaker
Volume three. This is volume three. This is our third annual one. In that ongoing tome that is The Ghosts of Christmas Past. I'm picturing one of those, like, you know, like the old Disney animation, like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, where this is like the gilded book that opens on the pedestal. Eventually, we'll have our own version of that if we keep going with these. That's the idea, right? And if you'd like to help us make that book,
00:04:36
Speaker
Yeah, if you'd like to help us make that book, click the links in our bios and buy toys because that helps us, believe it or not. Oh, I was going to outsource the making of the book. Oh, well, I mean that too. If anyone wants to make us like a lovely gilded book that says Ghosts of Christmas Pass Adventures and Collecting on it, I mean, I would do it. But like construction paper and it's it would not it would not pass muster.
00:05:03
Speaker
It would be like Be Kind Rewind. It would be the sweated version of the book. If you made it. Instead of being like a foil paper, it would be like aluminum foil roughly cut out to spell Ghost of Christmas Past and then like Elmer glued to a piece of cardboard. That would be the cover if you did it. 100% and illegible, just completely illegible.
Interview with Toy Farts, the Satirical Reviewer
00:05:33
Speaker
So, uh, for, for this special episode, before we get into the, uh, the, the, the Christmas topic, uh, we do have a guest with us today, somebody that we have been, uh, been trying to get on, uh, the, the show for a while, trying to make this work out. Uh, cause once again, dealing with, with crazy time differences, um, joining us on, on the pod today is, is everyone's favorite, uh, satirical toy reviewer blogger.
00:06:01
Speaker
comedian joining us today is the internationally famous Toy Farts. Toy Farts, welcome to Adventures in Collecting. Thank you for having me. Internationally famous, wow. Yeah, I mean, while you are a part of Toy News International, are you not? I am, I absolutely am. Yeah, so you're internationally famous now. That's what it is.
00:06:26
Speaker
So we'll get into a little bit more of what Toy Forest does on a day to day, just in case you are not yet in the know about him. But before we do that, it's been a minute. Let's hop into some news and some hauls.
Marvel Legends and Star Wars Collectibles Discussion
00:06:45
Speaker
Dave, would you like to start us off with any recent news? I know that there was some interesting stuff in the world of wrestling figures today.
00:06:55
Speaker
Um, record this. Today? Yeah. Oh, did I miss something? Well, while you catch up on that, because I've only recently woken up, so. Oh, well, this is true. I'm used to us recording at night and our time, it's like, it's still like very much so the morning. Um, so while you catch up on that, um,
00:07:18
Speaker
Literally, as of this recording, slightly delaying our recording, the Hasbro folks, specifically over at Marvel, had a bunch of announcements this morning, December 16th.
00:07:34
Speaker
They announced a full wave of Dr. Strange multiverse of madness, Marvel Legends figures that feature another Dr. Strange, the debut of the long awaited debut of Wong, a new astral projection. Dr. Strange, it looks really neat. The debut of the MCU's America Chavez. So she's gonna be in that film, which was announced going back on Disney Plus, but this is the first time we're getting a really good look at her.
00:08:04
Speaker
We have a new look at mordo how mordo is gonna look in this film and he's looking very villainous and then we have a sleepwalker and despair from the comic world.
00:08:19
Speaker
And the build-a-figure is Rintra. I previously am not super familiar with Rintra. I had to look him up, but he is a big old green Minotaur. And it appears as if the build-a-figure is going to be from the MCU. So we can expect to see a giant anthropomorphic Minotaur man in the multiverse of madness.
00:08:46
Speaker
They announced that wave. There is also a Target exclusive Defender Strange deluxe figure, again from multiverse of madness. Doctor Strange is rocking some crazy looking red and black get up that we're not used to seeing him in, no cape.
00:09:09
Speaker
And he does come with the portal, a giant portal effect, a sling ring portal effect. So that's pretty neat. And then from going back to the comics universe, they announced a deluxe Ragnarok robot Thor, basically. Loaded with accessories. It's got everyone's favorite Thor accessory, which is like the multi hammer that looks like it's mid swinging.
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, and that also appears to be, at this juncture, a Target exclusive. And both of those deluxe figures are running the 30-ish dollar mark, and the rest of the wave available on Amazon, Pulse, Entertainment Earth, Big Bad Toy Store, all the places you're carrying the multiverse of madness wave, and those retail for $22.99 apiece.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah, target exclusives, our favorites. Yeah. So I have to ask you, you're in Finland, a place that is very much on both Dave and my travel bucket lists. When something like that happens where there's like a target exclusive, what does that do to you as a collector? That means I will have to look it up on eBay or count on some friends in the US to find it for me.
00:10:35
Speaker
Because usually the exclusives, they don't show up here. There is a website, Xavi, where they sometimes have some of the Azlab exclusive and things like that. But the Target or Walmart ones, that's just impossible to find from our side of the pond, let's say. Gotcha. So yeah, eBay prices. Woo-hoo. Let me know if you need any of those Target things, and we'll work it out. Thanks. Appreciate it. Yeah, we'll figure it out.
00:11:05
Speaker
no pun has ended on figure because i just thought i just realized i said that hey leave the puns to toy farce okay he's here for that this episode leave that to professionals please
00:11:18
Speaker
Dave, are you caught up? Are you ready to lay it on us with some wrestling moves? I found any one of three things that this could be. So I'm going to go in order of, they're all exciting. So I'm going to start with the one that started earliest today, which is Chella has announced their first bone crushing wrestler in the vein and genre of the Jack's bone crunching.
00:11:46
Speaker
Superstars and this one fits in very nicely. It's blue meanie So it's pretty cool The pre-order looks to start on January 22nd, so that's cool
00:11:59
Speaker
Um, and also we've, we've, we saw, um, Dan house and leave series two of wrestling's heels and faces to get his own special release. So that left a gap in a friend of the pod zombie sailors, um, series two lineup. And, um, that's going to be Andre the giant now. So that's really cool.
00:12:19
Speaker
Andre and the Singlet, so very cool. And then there's one that I had no idea existed, but I am extremely excited for. Apparently Storm Collectibles is making a Minoru Suzuki, which rules. I saw the picture, I was like, oh my God. I've only seen the head, but that's amazing. And immediately shot up to near the top of my
00:12:49
Speaker
things I'm excited for next to your list. Now, I got to ask because those storm collectibles figures, they're a little bit in terms of like wrestling figures, they're a little bit larger than they're more kind of like in like the seven to eight inch scale as opposed to that, that, that seven inch, you know, uh, like what jazz wears and Mattel is doing, um, has Suzuki ever fought, uh, Liger?
00:13:15
Speaker
Oh yeah, they had a huge rivalry. That's why this makes so much sense. Even his final rivalry was against him when he removed the costume and became the evil Liger again and all that. Oh, there you go. So my knowledge of Japanese wrestling is very, very small. Extremely small. Extremely that goes back a long time. That's awesome then. Because I was thinking, in terms of just modern wrestling and me getting back into it,
00:13:42
Speaker
Oh, it would be cool to pick that up to have him, like, to pose him with, you know, say like Moxley or something. But, um, he's gonna probably be too big. That series too, Moxley's huge. That'll work. Touché. Yeah, you're not wrong. All right, well, we'll see when you get him. Yeah. I think a nation figure of murder grandpa is gonna be awesome. Yeah.
00:14:10
Speaker
Oh, all right. Uh, any other, any other news that, that we should, we should probably cover. Um, you know, I just wanted to touch on it super briefly, but, uh, the, the vintage collection team, um, again, over in Hasbro has been super busy, uh, with the, you know, hate to, to beat the dead horse, but with the, the failure of the, the, um, the has lab brand core. I know the black series collectors and fans are, are feeling a little beat up.
00:14:39
Speaker
Uh, you know, by, by the team and, and kind of the way that things are going, it seems to be a lot of repaints as of late and, you know, uh, just kind of few and far between things to be excited about, uh, in, in the world of the black series. However.
00:14:54
Speaker
the vintage collection which in my opinion has kind of been neglected but has definitely taken a backseat in most recent years is seeing some some much needed and much deserved attention i mean you know we've said it countless times on this show but
00:15:12
Speaker
The star wars vintage collection three three-quarter and star wars figures represents arguably one of the most important scales and figure lines in the history of toys modern toy so it's nice to see that the team is kind of putting a not only putting a spotlight on the line but also giving us some some really cool things in those those deluxe sets that were recently announced there is a series of deluxe sets from the Mandalorian with soca and grogu
00:15:42
Speaker
the Incinerator Trooper and Grogu, a Stormtrooper with a Pulse Cannon that will go very nicely with that Navarro Cantina playset that they announced back at PulseCon. There is the Deluxe
00:16:04
Speaker
Boba Fett from the book of Boba Fett and Fennec Shand on a single card from the book of Boba Fett. So just lots of things to be excited about in the world of the vintage collection. As a long time three and three quarter Star Wars collector, it feels nice to have things to be excited about in that line. Emily and the team over there say what you will about what's going on.
00:16:27
Speaker
in the World of the Black series, but they're absolutely, absolutely crushing it for the vintage collection collectors. And those retro-looking boxes look awesome as well, like really, really...
00:16:40
Speaker
You look exactly like the old ones. And I love that they've moved, you know, a lot of the toy companies are starting to move away from, from using plastic and packaging wherever they can. And, um, you know, these, these big paneled deluxe boxes with like really great toy photography on them. Um, I think they look fantastic and they are very reminiscent of, you know, the kind of that Kenner aesthetic from the late seventies and, you know, and into the eighties.
00:17:07
Speaker
So not only is it a chance to remove plastic and be a little more environmentally friendly, but they look great. So I think it's the best of both worlds. Collectors who keep things mint. We'll have something to be excited about there. And then, you know, we got to be good to the environment. We can enjoy toys if we don't have a world to enjoy them in. That's a good point, yes. Any other news, Dave?
00:17:35
Speaker
Um, I know the, uh, the other two has labs were successful. Yes. One, one of which you are a happy backer of. Yeah. Which one? Yeah. Um, the proton pack. Oh, awesome. That's, that's a future gift. Um, it's already known, so not given any, not a spoiler for that, but, uh, is it a gift to yourself? No, no. Um, so.
00:18:03
Speaker
A couple of years ago, I got the, uh, the, um, Neutrona wand for my girlfriend. And so I was like, Oh, this is, this is clearly the next, next future big gift. So what's cool is they got all the way through to the stand. So everything's coming with it. I was just going to say it was hugely successful. I mean, they, the final tally was like 21,000 backers. Yeah. What was cool was there was no doubt about this.
00:18:33
Speaker
Yeah, it was just a question of what tier it was gonna get And it blew through even the 15,000 that they needed Yeah, I honestly I I knew that the proton pack was gonna get back to when they announced that one of the One of the tiers was the ability to connect it to the Neutrona wand I knew
00:18:55
Speaker
That at least that would get done, you know, cause, cause it only makes sense. Um, yeah, there are a lot of cosplayers out there and people who do like proper replicas themselves. Um, that could have probably very easily figured out a way to connect the two together, but you know, an unofficial way to do it is, is awesome. And something I actually didn't know until I watched.
00:19:16
Speaker
very interesting video with Hasbro's John Warden and And Adam Savage from of Myth Busters fame who was actually a consultant on the Ghostbusters film which all of this was kind of like a realization to me as I was watching this video on on Adam Savage's tested YouTube channel so the the Neutrona one has its own kind of separate battery pack and
00:19:40
Speaker
that needs to be either, I don't know if it's loaded with batteries or it's USB and needs to be plugged in, but it has a battery pack in its batteries. So this cable, when you actually pull out the battery pack from the Neutrona wand,
00:19:59
Speaker
And when you plug in the cable, it plugs into the now absent battery connector. So you don't need to power, you don't need to have two battery packs going. The Neutrona wand will actually run off of the juice coming out of the proton pack. Which explains why it was a tier and not just like a plastic hose that connects the two. Yep. It is an actual like way to power the, uh, the Neutrona wand from, and I believe too, it allows them to, there's some kind of like.
00:20:29
Speaker
level of like syncing up that they do through the, through the connection. At least it appeared that way in the video that like the vibrations and things kind of like worked together. Um, once they're connected, which again makes complete sense. Um, but yeah, what hugely successful campaign there. And then, uh, Dave, you mentioned the, the GI Joe sky striker, um,
00:20:53
Speaker
Again, huge, huge, huge success. Uh, unfortunately it didn't get to all the tiers, but it covered a lot of ground in that last 24 hours. Yeah. And the, the, the Cobra mission figures at the last minute when Cobra hacked their websites. Brilliant. That was brilliant. The video to announce it. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely brilliant. And, and again, like a way to, with the price point of those, the new O-ring figures being at like $20 a pop, um,
00:21:22
Speaker
at the end of the day, I think backers are getting seven of those figures carded, uh, with, with the sky striker. So that alone, you know, in terms of kind of just perceived value of, of the project, it's a good deal. Yeah. It takes a sizable chunk out of that, that final cost and really brings the price of the jet, uh, down a considerable amount when you, when you kind of break it up that way. Um,
00:21:51
Speaker
Yeah, Lenny and Emily and the team at Hasbro on the GI Joe side, they really did a great job of kind of being nimble and pivoting where they needed to in order to get that across the finish line.
Toyfarce's Toy Hauls and Humor
00:22:07
Speaker
So with that, I think that moves us into our halls, into our pickups. And Toyfar, since you're our guest, why don't you go first? Tell us a couple of things you've gotten recently that have been, you've been waiting for.
00:22:21
Speaker
Oh, yeah. First of all, thanks for saying I'm the guest and not burying the lead. Wink, wink. You didn't do that. You just got called out. Right away. Damn it. That's it. That's it. Hit stop. Christmas is canceled. Don't be a Grinch.
00:22:40
Speaker
So, um, I haven't yet received the last pile of flute that I sent, but I've already 11 items more on the current pile of flutes. So I guess I'll ship that very soon in which I have like a couple of plunder links because who has enough plunder links that never happens. You always need more.
00:22:59
Speaker
I picked on Big Bad Toy Store. They ended up having the Black Series holiday edition, the Stormtroopers and all dressed for Christmas that they had as exclusive of five different stores last year, which were impossible to get for me in Europe. They had them on Big Bad Toy Store, so I picked them all. And then they are starting to receive the spawn MacFallon figures, the First Wave, the Redeemer, Clown Violator, and the third,
00:23:27
Speaker
one, which I don't remember, Ravenspawn, I think it is. Yes. And the NECA Black and White Frankenstein, which are now in my pile of flutes and are on their way to me. So I should receive two pile of flutes at once. That's going to be fun to explain. And also the Super 7 Donatello, which came a couple of days ago, has now landed there. So that will soon be on its way.
00:23:56
Speaker
They say the best turtle for last. They say the best turtle for last. Did you also grow up liking another turtle? And in the end, you like donatello later on? You know, I think I honestly don't remember. But truthfully, I would not be surprised if my favorite as a kid was Michelangelo, only because like pizza and nunchucks rule.
00:24:25
Speaker
And he's the funny one. He's the one that's definitely targeted towards kids. But I always liked to tinker. And I was always nerdy in that sense, that I wanted to know how things work. I used to take things apart. Dave and my parents can tell you the amount of times that our VCR was screwed up because I wanted to know what was going on inside of it. So I think Donatello always resonated with me.
00:24:56
Speaker
in that sense, that he was kind of like the nerd that could still frankly kick ass. So I think he might have been my favorite from as early as I can remember. But again, I wouldn't be surprised if Mikey ended up being my favorite at some point. The thing that I remember most fondly, just trying to really kind of like rack my brain, I think
00:25:23
Speaker
Two, part of the reason why Donatello was my favorite for as long as I can remember, was he kind of also toed the line of being kind of goofy in Secret of the Us. If you think about that opening sequence when they're beating up all the ninjas in the shopping mall, he pretends to be the clown thing that's bouncing back and forth and doing that rocking motion and everything. That scene always just made me laugh.
00:25:53
Speaker
Like the stuff going on in the lab when they're trying to like, you know, get the last canister of who's like, he, he towed the line in that film of like nerd and funny and, you know, I think it probably was always Donny. I mean, for me, it was always Michelangelo for the reasons stated by Eric, really. Um, he was, he was the comic relief, you know, like he was always the big goofball and.
00:26:21
Speaker
was like the big pizza guy and all that stuff. They all loved pizza, but he was like the big proponent of the pizza. Which, who doesn't love pizza? Seriously. It's a hard argument to break, really. It's funny. For me, I was a Raphael kid. I always grew up thinking Raphael was the most badass one and all dark and brooding and all that.
00:26:49
Speaker
And I even had, that was my favorite figure that I had as a child. And once we went on a hike with some friends of my parents or something, and I lost my Raphael in a river, but I just dropped it once and it just freaking disappeared. And my father went to like every toy store possible to try to find another Raphael because I was like impossible to, it was impossible to get me to stop, like to be sad.
00:27:16
Speaker
But then as I grew up, I guess, yeah, I started to think, ah, Donatello is actually better. He can make stuff. He's an inventor. He's also funny. And now I guess Raphael is number two instead of first. Do you think somewhere else in the world, there was some kid that was like hanging out by the end of like an estuary somewhere and all of a sudden saw a floating Raphael and like that became his favorite figure.
00:27:46
Speaker
It's either that or there's a bunch of fish that are having so much fun with my action figure for the last 20 years. He ended up on that plastic island, like floating in the middle of the Atlantic. Damn it. I got to go and check. Let us know if you find them.
00:28:06
Speaker
Um, all right. So I guess I'll go, uh, halls. Um, so my, my, my top 10 of the year got completely upended with the figure that I got in the mail yesterday. Um, I got the, the, the mythic legions for horseman studios, Krampus figure. Oh my God. This figure is an absolute work of art from, from start
00:28:31
Speaker
from start to finish from the box, which is beautiful. They actually put in a happy holidays, like, like think like, like old school, like 1970s style Christmas card. And it says happy holidays with like the gold foil font. And it's this really nice kind of like, almost watercolory looking art.
00:28:55
Speaker
But if you look closely, it's actually Krampus dragging a child through the snow to his horror cast. It's like beautiful and also terrifying. Which I think is the three word review of the figure itself. Beautiful but terrifying. Because it is.
00:29:16
Speaker
It is an absolute work of art that's like filled. I don't want to spoil it for anybody that ordered it and has not yet opened it. But it's filled with kind of some surprises. I will say, you know, be careful when you open the basket that he comes with because there are some hidden goodies in there. Yeah, really, really, really great figure. One of the benefits of living very, very close by to the Four Horsemen Studios HQ in Little Falls, New Jersey. I got a shipping notification.
00:29:46
Speaker
And pretty much 12 hours later had the figure. So can't complain there. Absolutely awesome figure. Like I said, I have to kind of like rethink of my entire top 10 now how it's going to net out because of this guy. And then the other thing that I got literally right before we started recording, I made my first ever Mezco Toys purchase a few weeks ago.
00:30:15
Speaker
Um, and I ordered the advent calendar. And, uh, so I have, I have their advent calendar here. Um, looking forward to cracking that open. I have literally just taken it out of the shipper and it's a gorgeous green and red boombox looking box. And it's way bigger than I anticipated it was going to be. Um, but I have that. So I'm looking forward to, to cracking that open and catching up because, uh, it's already the 16th. So I have quite a few days to open.
00:30:45
Speaker
Um, and then other than that, I also did pick up the McFarland, uh, the McFarland peacemaker figure from Amazon. Um, and if, if you are following us on, on Instagram, which if you're not, you should be because it's fun. Uh, we're at AIC underscore podcast on Instagram, Twitter, and, uh, and now Tik TOK, but, uh, I got peacemaker from Amazon. Um, but not at first.
00:31:12
Speaker
uh, Amazon shipped me a, a figure swap. Uh, somebody had had put in a, a Frankenstein diversion of John Cena because it was a basic John Cena with an elite or might've even been an ultimate head, uh, on the basic had taken the sword and the trading card, but was nice enough to leave me the, the King shark arms that I didn't need.
00:31:40
Speaker
And the base, the little plastic DC multiverse base. So, um, how generous, right? Really, really nice of them. So I, I, you know, I got on the Amazon chat and I explained to them what I was looking at. Cause I didn't want to just hit return and be like, you know, like someone else can have this from the used section. Yeah. So I messaged them and they said, you know, sorry about that. You know, just return it like usual and, um, and you know, we'll send you a new one and they next aid me one. So.
00:32:10
Speaker
I now have the DC Multiverse Peacemaker figure. May have to hit up our friends at Resin Armory for a better pistol for Peacemaker here. I have an oversized Marvel Legends one in his hand right now that looks pretty good, but I kind of want the one that he has in the movie, and I think Resin Armory has a mold for that, so I might have to hit him up. But I saw the trailer for
00:32:38
Speaker
the Peacemaker series and that pushed me over the edge. I was holding off on getting the figure, but after seeing that trailer and kind of realizing that there might be a little more longevity to this character, I had to pull the trigger. So those were my pickups. Dave.
00:32:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good figure. I have that as well. So my top 10 also got a little upended recently because I got the McFarland DC Multiverse Swamp Thing Mega Fig from Amazon. Was the antlers or without? No, without. Just the standard non-GameStop one. I would have picked that one too.
00:33:20
Speaker
Yeah, it just kind of looks more like what you envision Swamp Thing to be. And like what we know from the movies and all that good stuff, the cartoons. It's huge. It might be too big, but it's also awesome and very... It's one of those figures where when you see pictures of it, it doesn't show you really the detail that's in the figure.
00:33:51
Speaker
It's awesome. When that episode comes up, do not be surprised to see where it falls in the top 10. Other than that, I got a couple other McFarland DC figures. The Birds of Prey Harley Quinn came in. The Kenner superpowers-looking Lex Luthor came in.
00:34:18
Speaker
Um, what else? I saw an unboxing video earlier today of a certain unrivaled series two. Yes. Unrivaled series two came or unmatched. Unmatched. Oh, unmatched. My bad. Yeah.
00:34:31
Speaker
Yeah, that came yesterday or two days ago. I forget when. I don't know what day it is anymore. But it showed up very recently and that's the benefit to being a short drive from Ringside Collectibles when that shipping notice goes up. It's going to be here the next day. Not to self, move to New Jersey.
00:34:54
Speaker
It's a good place. New Jersey gets a bad rap, but we're in a good spot. I love all the Kevin Smith movies. I'm fine with that. You'll fit right in here. That is also a short drive from where we are.
00:35:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's unrivaled too is good. I think the real standouts, the Sting is awesome. That's the one I want. The Ty Conte is really good too. Those are probably I would say the two, the two standouts in the series. How about Wardlow? Wardlow's cool. I don't love the yelling face. I think the regular face is better. Okay.
00:35:33
Speaker
Um, but he, it looks good. Um, Wardlow looks good. Um, Santana and Ortiz are, I think, minor upgrades. Um, but they are like a little bit of a step up from the first figure. Uh, but whereas they were really the standouts of their first series, the newer figures are the standouts of this one. If that makes sense. How's the MJF?
00:36:03
Speaker
Um, yeah, I mean, he's, he's definitely everyone's favorite, least favorite wrestler, but, um, I still think I like the robe. The robe is, um, it's not a cloth robe. It's like a rubbery robe, but, um, I still think series two is the best one.
00:36:29
Speaker
Yeah, that's my favorite one out of the ones that I've seen, you know, in hand. I haven't seen the, you know, obviously I haven't been over yet to see the new ones, but yeah, there's just something about the face on that Series 2 that's like perfect. Perfect. Because it's- It's a smirk. It strikes, I love, and Dave and I have talked about this many times, but like, I love a face that's smirking.
00:36:58
Speaker
especially for photography because depending on what side of the face you're taking you can really get like two expressions out of them and I love that like there's there's this Roman Reigns head sculpt I think it was like a top picks it was still when he was a face but he's he's making this like
00:37:18
Speaker
this smirk that's awesome because like that head of the table when I have like where he was just coming back but in the process of turning yes um and it's it's perfect because like no matter what way you look at it like you can have him looking mad you can have him looking
00:37:35
Speaker
Obviously, it is a heel smirk, same as MJF, so you're not gonna make him look like a good guy with it, but you can get kind of more, it's a little bit more dynamic than a face that's permanently screaming, or a face that's permanently smiling. So I love neutral expressions or smirks. I think those work kind of the best, just in general.
00:38:01
Speaker
You have to take a peek with the MJF from Series 2. That's a Roman range you just talked about, and the Marvel Legends Ant-Man polar rod figure, where they all smirk to the camera. That would be a cool picture. Definitely. And you know what? You can actually throw into the, there's the ego figure from Marvel Legends. Yes. He's got a good smirk too.
00:38:25
Speaker
And then put the smirking head on the Matt Cardona figure when it arrives. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, true. Can't wait for those. Cannot wait for those. Those are on the stuff that I'm looking forward to as well. My first ever pile of loot from Big Bad Toy Store will be... Will be Valaverse, Sargent Slaughter, and Super 7 Ultimate Matt Cardona.
00:38:50
Speaker
That will be my first ever pile of loot, one of those two. Because they're scheduled to arrive, like some people are already getting their valaverse figures. They've just started coming in, the action force. So they're scheduled to hit Big Bad Toy Store around the same time. So I shouldn't have to wait too long. But that's one where I've had those two sitting in my pre-orders for a very long time now. And so I'm excited. At least a year. Yeah.
00:39:16
Speaker
Yeah. And then the Brian I'll be getting as well. Um, but I also, yeah, I'm getting both. Um, I partook in some of the ringside, uh, black Friday slash Sliber Monday sales, um, caught up on those one B variants of, uh, unrivaled. Just so I have ones that are, that are openers because I've, I've kept the series one closed. Um, the original ones that I found in the store and, uh,
00:39:45
Speaker
You know, a couple other things too. There was some great prices on stuff. Some of that stuff is still, like even though the sale is quote-unquote over, is still available at those awesome prices. So use code AIC to save yourself an extra 10% when you're looking through your ringside stuff.
00:40:05
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And I mean, again, it's one of those things where the prices there are definitely a little bit over MSRP, but they are a small business. And you get it before it hits store shelves. Exactly. And you're saving yourself, especially with the AEW stuff, which is really, it's kind of like feast or famine. It's starting to show up more?
00:40:30
Speaker
Yeah, but I mean you'll guarantee yourself the figure you know getting getting it from ringside, so definitely Definitely check it out and also their defender cases are fantastic You know if you have if you have figures that you want to keep nice on card You know we tend to be openers here for the most part But if there is something special like if you have you know if you're fortunate enough to have a chase or a rare from from jazzwares or
00:40:59
Speaker
They automatically put them in one of those defender case when they send you a chase. That's amazing. Yes. If you're fortunate enough to get a chase pull, they will send it automatically in the defender, which is super nice of them.
00:41:16
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, so before we get into our, uh, our Christmas chat, our, our, our, uh, going, going back in the history, um, let's learn a little bit more about, uh, about our guests. So, uh, I know this is not an unusual format, a break from our normal format, but, um, toy farce, uh, tell us a little bit about, uh, how you got started in the world of toy satire.
Toyfarce's Satirical Content Journey
00:41:43
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:41:45
Speaker
So, well, I've been part of the toy community for a long time, but mostly as an observer or just commented a few times on different Facebook groups or any social media. And every once in a while I would post a joke post. For example, if I was following some Hot Toys action figure group, I would make a joke like Hot Toys announces this figure and put just something that's completely absurd that nobody would ever want to buy.
00:42:13
Speaker
And it always got some, some success, some reactions to it. So one day a friend just told me like, why don't you make your own page and just post those there. And it evolved from like, you'd see the first few posts I did were really just hot toys and one six scale figure because I was just making more jokes about that. And slowly I started to add Asbro, McFarland toys and every other brand that I also collect.
00:42:39
Speaker
And then it turns out also nobody was doing it before I started. There was no toy parody news and stuff like that. There is some for wrestling in the shape of Kfabe news. There is some for every other thing that exists except for toys. So I just decided, eh, I like to make joke about toys. I'll do that. That's how I got started.
00:43:03
Speaker
opened up Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter right away with the name. I thought about the name. I wanted to have the same logo as Toy Fair, which was a magazine that I loved and that I grew up with, and just adding a C to the logo to make it look like it's actually that, but in the end, I was just afraid they would sue me or something, so I just made my own logo. Even though they don't exist anymore. How long have you been doing this now?
00:43:32
Speaker
Uh, uh, officially a story for us. It's a little bit over two years. I think we started, uh, you started this podcast like a couple of months before I started doing this. And we, that's why we started to chat with you a bit more and all, because we both started at the same time and kind of at the same growth, uh, slowly and all that. So.
00:43:52
Speaker
I was going to say, yeah, it was, you, you, you were one of the first like other bloggers that we really were kind of chatting with, you know, going back, just trying to navigate the waters together, which has been a lot of fun, honestly. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's so much fun to like, to watch your, uh, to see your posts, uh, all the time and like see like the growth behind them. And like we have,
00:44:19
Speaker
We have behind the scenes chats about sending each other memes and stuff that potentially could maybe one day be Toy Force content. Definitely, yeah. And now, a word from our sponsors. And now, back to the show.
00:44:42
Speaker
So speaking of the content, what has been some of your most popular content so far? The one that seems to still be sought after and getting clicks all the time is the one where I said that the Swedish inventor of the Dettolf Glascabinet from Ikea was mad that people used them to put toys in them. Apparently when people search for Dettolf on Google, it's one of the first results somehow.
00:45:11
Speaker
And also I did a few ones where I said that leaked reveals of TCE multiverse from McFallon Toys and there was like the Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, George Clooney figures and all that. And there seem to be still people commenting on it like, is this true? When are they coming out?
00:45:29
Speaker
That's a joke Well see I think that's part of the brilliance of like how you're going about doing what you're doing because you You go back and forth between like here's a review of this figure and you do a really nice review where you take You know you take great photos like sometimes you'll sprinkle in You know like a funny pose or something like that But for the most part like the review is is on the nose like it is what it is It's just a review of the figure and it's it's well done
00:45:54
Speaker
It's honest reviews in the sense that sometimes if something is not great, I do not shy away from mentioning it.
00:46:01
Speaker
Yeah. And you go from that to a post that's obviously funny. Say, one of my favorites is the spawn with the trumpet. That was easy. That's easily top five Toy Farts posts for me. In fact, I have that spawn. He's a permanent member of my desk crew. And most days when I look at him, I'm like,
00:46:29
Speaker
Or is this trumpet? It's an actual thing that goes through my brain. I have to send you a trumpet. I have to. You know what? I've been looking in. There's one of the hobby stores by us, either Michaels or Hobby Lobby, one of those. I have to look, because now is the time of the year when those little trumpets and French horns and stuff start showing up as part of Christmas ornaments. So I have to look and see if they have one.
00:46:58
Speaker
But yeah, the kind of flip-flopping between the stuff that's real, the stuff that's obviously satirical, and then the stuff that's fabricated so well that even knowing you, there have been times where I've been like, wait a second, is this real? I don't know, is this real?
00:47:19
Speaker
Well, sometimes companies throw me a bone. Like when NECA announced the musical Mutagen, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figure, people were asking me, like, is it you? No, no, those are real. Or when they were announcing the tears for the Marine Corps, like, is that a joke? No, that was not me. I'm sorry. I actually saw the first comment that I saw when they announced the cardboard was somebody added you.
00:47:48
Speaker
on the you know on the in the comments were like at first I thought this was an at toy farce post and and like me being me my initial reaction was like like just like cringe for the Hasbro team but then at the same time I was like but wait no like toy horses our friend that's actually really cool for him it's not great for them but it's really cool for him because like you know it's a visibility right there
00:48:16
Speaker
Well, then I made more absurd tears myself.
00:48:23
Speaker
the one that had me like laughing just like for the sheer like I didn't even think of this and you know how sometimes it's just a thing that catches you and it just has you laughing for like minutes over for reasons you can't explain um the the spider-man what-if figure the spider-man supreme one with the christmas story leg lamp accessory like I just for whatever reason was
00:48:49
Speaker
dying for minutes like laughing because I was like that's yeah you see this random leg especially if you're not doing the build-up watcher like yeah let's put a lampshade on that
00:49:03
Speaker
I think it's those kind of posts, which are like basically just like the first thing I thought about or a stupid reaction over something that you post that and people seem to react more to it than if I spend a week preparing an article and then there's like 30, 30 people reacting like, yeah, that was not funny. You're like, come on. Hey, remember that time I gave spawn a trumpet? Come on. I give everything a trumpet since then, but yeah.
00:49:31
Speaker
It's like your thing. I'm surprised your logo, your little Grogu wearing the hat logo hasn't grabbed a trumpet yet. There you go. I was looking for something to change. There you go. He needs a trumpet. Done. Done deal. Speaking of reactions to your content, one of the things that kind of always comes up when it comes to publications, especially ones that operate in the realm of kind of that satirical humor,
00:50:00
Speaker
Sometimes there's backlash, right? Whether it's thinking about big names like Mad Magazine or other publications like that. Have you had any run-ins with any kind of backlash yet as you've been doing this? I've had, I think it was a DC Multiverse post where I said as a joke, they're going to make a super pets wave. And in the post, there was a picture of crypto, the Hound Dog, the Hound, what's his name?
00:50:31
Speaker
Batman's dog. Batman's dog. The hound. And the squirrel, green lantern squirrel and all that. And somehow I got a tweet from Warner Brothers that were like, please remove this. This is copyrighted infringement and all. And I still to this day don't know why that post specifically got their attention or not. And the next day they revealed the trailer of the new movie.
00:50:56
Speaker
So I think they kind of thought that I was revealing or leaking that, but that was not my point. My point was to make jokes that Todd McFarlane who makes like a gnarly action figures and big creature, like swamp thing and all that would make a pet dog and a, and a cow, bat cow as the builder figure. Like they didn't read it obviously, but somehow they asked me to take it down right away. I was okay. That's amazing.
00:51:25
Speaker
Never got a message from Ikea or anything about the dead elf, but Warner Brothers, they were mad at me for mentioning the super pets. That's a perfect example of wrong place, wrong time. Yeah, right.
00:51:42
Speaker
And with that movie, I wouldn't be surprised if there are actually super pets coming. Yeah. I mean, he's the McFarland's making those, those, uh, those Disney mirror verse figures. So, you know, he, he's got a, and the Avatar one. So, I mean, he's got his, uh, his toes dipped in the world of like, you know. Kids friendly figures. And the Batman 66 too. We're very far away from the tortured souls and the figure you used to make, huh?
00:52:08
Speaker
Yeah, the movie maniacs. What was the Alice in Wonderland ones that were really messed up? Well, yeah, yeah. At least in some horror land or something like that. Even the dragons, they were super cool. Oh, yeah. Yeah, some of those early McFarlane toys are nasty. They are gross. There's a really good...
00:52:30
Speaker
I shouldn't say really good, really great photographer. At collect horror is his name. And he took a picture recently of, I think he used one of the newer like NECA ultimate figures, but he used an old McFarlane, I wanna say it was like a girl in like a bathtub. Elizabeth Bathory from one of the wave, yeah.
00:52:59
Speaker
And he used that in the picture and I did not recall that figure ever existing. And I actually messaged him and I was like, how did you do that? Like that edit on that to get, because that looks gross. And he was like, Oh, this is, it's this figure. And I was just thinking like in my head, like, Oh my God, I can't believe they made that figure back then. That's insane. Yeah. Some of the tortured souls were like straight out of hell raising. Yeah. Well, it was Clive Barker.
00:53:27
Speaker
That all tracks. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. There were those small playsets also that he had with the three and three quarter inch figures of like Frankenstein, Dracula, the creature from the Black Lagoon and all, but with his like kind of twisted vision of them. And they looked awesome. They were like really bloody as well.
00:53:51
Speaker
Yeah, I remember the laboratory one with Frankenstein's Monster. I remember that one. It had the bed gurney thing that was on the hinge. That was a cool one. And the eye gore with it. That was a great set. Yeah. I think I actually had that at one point. I still have it somewhere in a basement. So tell us how you partnered up with Toy News International. Oh, that was...
00:54:21
Speaker
a very, very intricate thing where he just happened to ask. And he sent an email out of the blue once, Jay from the Toy News International said, like, yeah, how about a partnership or
Collaboration with Toy News International
00:54:34
Speaker
collaboration? Could you post maybe exclusively on our website or something? I was like, uh, yeah, absolutely. Like that's, uh, how could I say no to Toy News International, which
00:54:45
Speaker
is the website that I've been the first website I check in my bookmarks every day for the last 20 years. It's so cool because there are a couple of those toy blogs like Toy News International and Dan Pickett with Action Figure Insider that have been doing this and Khalil with Caster's Corner that have been doing this for like
00:55:09
Speaker
Yeah, in some cases like like 10 years. Yeah, plus respect to them and Like when you when you made that announcement, I actually got like
00:55:20
Speaker
Like no joke, I got like emotional. I was like, this is so cool. Because yeah, it is one of those websites that has survived the kind of migration of news moving from people going to blogs and websites to getting it from social media. Like people still go to Toy News. And yeah, that's congratulations. It's one of the most trustworthy sources. Thanks a lot.
00:55:48
Speaker
And we had a few conversations with Jay and he was saying that he's been looking at what I was doing and that he sees that I'm poking fun at things, but at the same time, I'm like, I have a point sometimes, like I make fun of things that Asbro or any other brand does that bothers the collectors in general for real. But I say it with like a funny twist so that the companies can actually understand that there's a problem, but not being like pointed at them.
00:56:17
Speaker
like in the comment section on the drink a live stream, let's say not toxic like that more like, yeah, I make a joke about it. But still, that's a problem. It's it's tasteful. And it's and like, as funny as it sounds, like, as we're talking about satirical humor, it's professional. You conduct yourself in a way where, you know, where there is
00:56:43
Speaker
you know, negative feedback towards something. It's provided in a context where it's almost kind of like softened by the humor behind it. Yeah, that's right. I don't want to make a page of people just commenting badly about everything that's already the internet. It already exists. It's called Twitter. It's called the comment section on any Hasbro livestream. Yeah.
00:57:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's but it really is pretty much it. I mean, kudos to you, man, because you've you've you've figured it out because you're doing exactly that. You're presenting, you know, an honest take on things.
00:57:25
Speaker
in a way that is thought provoking but also funny. I think that's the key. Anybody who is getting bad news, if there is some way for them to get that bad news and something that
00:57:42
Speaker
And I'm not saying like life changing bad news, but like bad news where it's like an opportunity for improvement, right? Um, it's much easier to get that information where it's like, look, this is a really cool thing. We're still having fun with it, but you know, here's, here's something that you can improve on. And I think that's a, that's something that a lot of people miss. Uh,
00:58:03
Speaker
especially people who are you know, who kind of live and breathe in those those the live chats and the comment sections and stuff where it's like You know, you still have a thing that's really cool and like probably one could argue that night at least 90% of said thing is really cool, but You know, here's here's something to think about and and again, you know The way that you do it is really effective and it's fun and it's been amazing You know watching you kind of develop that voice over the last two years Thank you
00:58:33
Speaker
Yeah, well, I try. Yeah, it's kind of like. Yeah, it's kind of like the line between like critique and just flat out. Just bashing something, it's it's it's actually fine when you think about it, it's a very fine line and just being able to kind of like critique, but still show the love for the thing that you're critiquing is.
00:58:59
Speaker
almost an art within itself, you know? Yeah, I still have the passion for toys. Like I'm a second generation superstar toy collector. My parents, my father collected the old vintage Star Wars figures when I grew up and my mother, everything that would have to do with ET or the Smurfs, the small, like, Schlage plastic PVC action figures of the Smurfs.
00:59:22
Speaker
my mother must have like four or five hundreds of those, like pretty much all of them. So I grew up in a house full of toys the whole time. So I grew up reading those old action figure digest and toy fair and all those magazines and all. So I kind of had this, I already had the
00:59:40
Speaker
journalistic toy review thing embedded inside. I also like to make fun of things, which makes me horrible at a funeral, for example. But if I could make fun of toys, I was like, I actually have ideas of things to make fun of that. But not being just mean or stupid. A lot of people are asking me now, why didn't you post something when the rancor failed?
01:00:05
Speaker
What? Just post a post with the title like, ha ha ha, you know, full caps and all. That's just stupid. That's not funny. That's just mean. So no, I stay away from stuff that we are going to get toxic reactions on purpose. But otherwise, everything else has a carte de blanche, like we say in French. Pardon my French. I was going to say, I hope we get at least a little bit of French on the show. Neither of us speak it, but like a little bit.
01:00:31
Speaker
Dave, would you like to fulfill your role as this podcast's James Lipton and ask our final question? Yeah. So as is tradition when we have a guest on this show, the final question of the Q&A. So Toy Force, what is your favorite and or strangest piece in your collection? It can be one of each or it can be both.
01:00:59
Speaker
For strangest, I don't think I can go further. Like I mentioned, my mother collected ET memorabilia as I grew up. And maybe you already see where this is going, but there was an item that was sold about ET that represented ET's finger in a card packaging. I had lots of questions from my friends growing up about that. The glowing finger of ET is probably the weirdest thing that has ever been in my home.
01:01:30
Speaker
I have a life size 18 my home actually also, but that's just something that.
01:01:35
Speaker
Oh my God. We love ET. We're huge ET fans here. When I was a kid, I had the glowing thing as well. Nice. If you haven't told her already, I don't know if your mom still collects ET stuff. Yes, yes, absolutely. The Noble Collection, the Bendy Figs line is going to be producing ET Bendy Figs for the anniversary. So they should be out in 2022. That's cool. I will definitely tell her or order them for her right away.
01:02:06
Speaker
As for the favorite, well, I guess from now I do have that spawn with a trumpet that I have on my desk as well that I kind of like look at every day and just think like, how did it go that far? Just making a joke like that. So I would say this is one of my favorites right now, this good old Mortal Kombat spawn with a trumpet that I got on Amazon. Well, there you go.
01:02:32
Speaker
We got a favorite and we got... Honestly, the ET finger is something that has come up on this show before. I think Steve Evans mentioned it there. I was going to say, previous guest, friend of the pod, pillar of the toy community himself, Steve Evans. We talked about the weirdness of the finger and boy, it's up there with that Jar Jar Binks tongue lollipop thing.
01:03:01
Speaker
Who doesn't want to make out with Jar Jar Binks? Some decisions. You know, hindsight is 2020. Yeah. Well, go explain to your friends why your mother has an ET finger in its packaging on her shelf. You know what, though, at least, you know, truth be told, it's probably easier to explain why it would be more difficult to explain why it would be out of the package.
01:03:26
Speaker
At least if it's still in the package, it could be like, listen, this is weird, but like, it doesn't come out of the package. So like, everybody chill. It says ET. We have ET stuff. All right. So now, now that we've got, we've asked the final question. Now let's get in the, uh, let's get in the Griswold family car and head off for Christmas.
01:03:50
Speaker
This segment is brought to you by our friends at Chubsy Wubsy Toys. A traditional mom and pop toy store in Little Falls, New Jersey, Chubsy Wubsy Toys brings you the best new toys from the brands you love without the hassle of pounding the pavement, searching for them at larger retail stores.
01:04:06
Speaker
Visit them in person at 106 Main Street in Little Falls, New Jersey, or online at ChubsyWubsy.com. That's C-H-U-B-Z-Z-Y-W-U-B-Z-Z-Y.com. And tell them Adventures in Collecting sent you. I hope there was going to be a car with a hot chick driving next to us, like in the movie. Yes, Holiday Road is currently playing in the background.
01:04:32
Speaker
Christie Brinkley drove by. Quincy Buckingham, right? That's who sings the holiday road? Yeah. Well, that's the song. Yeah. Yeah, the bells are back and I guess we'll have a car. I'll try to find the right Foley effect for that. The sound of that car, specifically. Russ?
01:04:53
Speaker
I'm right here, dad. So ghosts of Christmas past. So in the past, we've traveled back to our Christmases of old to discuss fond memories. And I feel like one of the tropes of Christmas, especially as we get into our older years, is talking about the things that we never got, right? Like the biggest trope of all time is I wanted a pony for Christmas and never got a pony. Unless you're Lisa Simpson, who eventually got a pony.
01:05:22
Speaker
But yeah, it's one of those topics that kind of comes up time and time again, especially with the wide and broad history of toys. So I thought this would be a fun opportunity as adults to look back and say, what if? And ponder the question, what if? So what was the one thing
01:05:45
Speaker
that i got away what was the one thing you always wanted for christmas and you never got on and again i'm too far as being our guest if you would like to go first you're welcome to. Sure thing.
01:05:57
Speaker
The year is early 2000. That's not a year, that's a period. Well, the period is early 2000. The era. The era, yes, thank you. And one morning I was watching wrestling, the WWE at the time, and there was during their show, they showed a quick presentation of their toys that they were going to have at the toy fair that year or something. It was early 2000 or 2001, maximum. The first few waves of titan-tron figures were out.
01:06:25
Speaker
So we had already the first entrance, the one that came with the Vince McMahon, who is the bright gray suit that he never wore on TV ever. And they showed on that, on that small skit where they were showing the new figures that were going to come out, there was a Titan Tron that was the SmackDown entrance of the time with the big ovals in the back, the gray silver ovals entrance. Do you guys recall that one?
01:06:52
Speaker
And there was in the back of it a small screen that was actually playing the videos of the Titan Trunks while you put the figure instead of just the music. I prayed for my parents for that thing that actually never came out even that was just like a display thing probably for the toy fair. But I have asked for that thing for two or three Christmases in a row and I got the
01:07:17
Speaker
to a SmackDown entrance, but without the screen. And I was like, that's not the one. I wanted the one with the screen. And my father was like, no, it does not exist. That's not possible. It would cost $100, especially since nowadays we still don't have the technology. We just barely have it for the basic funds, small TVs that we get from, I think they are Walmart exclusive on your side of the world. So there wouldn't have been a small TV in a Titan Tronset in early 2000. That is not possible, right? But in my head, it was.
01:07:47
Speaker
You saw it, it was real. I saw it on TV, it must be real.
01:07:52
Speaker
And so I asked for it for such a long time and never got it. And when it turns out a few years ago, um, for Christmas, my dad actually sent me one that they made recently from Mattel, where you put your phone in the back of it and you play the videos on the screen of your phone and then it works like that. And he sent me this as like, there you go. You have your video stuff. And I was loving.
01:08:17
Speaker
laughing really hard on that because that's just something that I always thought existed 20 years ago, which absolutely did not, but I really wanted it. So it escaped me for all those Christmases. You know, it's funny you talk about that because I remember that. I vividly remember that moment because we also had we had the Titan Tron, the first Titan Tron, the one with the Vince figure. That thing was so cool.
01:08:42
Speaker
And we figured out eventually how to hack it, where you can make it play whatever music you wanted. Same. When tinkering under the shoe, you could unscrew the thing, and there was just a small resistance, right? Yup. Yup. We went to the hardware store, and we bought 15 different ones to try them all. To see if there was anything hidden, right? Yeah. But I remember that really well, and I remember that video thinking, oh, this one actually plays video. And same thing, we got it.
01:09:08
Speaker
And you know what resonates with me with that that entrance stage more than anything else like absent the screen was I always hated that on the entrance ramp they had painted these like
01:09:23
Speaker
Kind of like blue lines coming out from where the spotlights would have been. And they just kind of looked like they stained the stage blue. Like there was these blue streaks on it. Always drove me nuts. 100% I see what you're talking about, yes.
01:09:39
Speaker
always drove me nuts on that. Plus, it was like some really light plastic. It felt like a Happy Meal toy or something. It was not even that great of a... The rings that were really staid together when you lined them up, like they always kind of were a skew. Yeah, it was not one of the better playsets from Jax at that time. But if you did a video, it would have been. Yeah, cheap plastic, poorly painted lines. If it played video, it wouldn't have mattered. Wouldn't have mattered. That would have been amazing. That's a good one.
01:10:09
Speaker
I was not expecting any of us to pick a thing that didn't exist. It existed for me. It was real of me. Stay real to me, damn it. Dave, would you like to go next or would you like to go last? I could go next.
01:10:31
Speaker
um a pony stop it no um so i had i it was tough for me to kind of like decide what to do um and it turned out like two out of the three were really kind of like blessings in disguise in a way um one was this board game cult and it wasn't even a board game it was kind of like
01:10:57
Speaker
Simon with a cassette player and like a weird little scoreboard that I don't know if that's even really the best way to describe it. I totally bought into the commercial but this thing wound up being something that like broke frequently and it was so good that I never got it. It was this board game called Mr. Game Show. Okay.
01:11:19
Speaker
And it was this little animatronic game show host that stood on this pedestal and narrated whatever was on the tape. So it was like the Teddy Ruxpin technology with Simon Technology built in as the puzzle game, which was the game show.
01:11:35
Speaker
Um, and it was something I wanted because it was just like this animatronic word game, um, that just seemed cool. Um, but word got around that it was like something that broke frequently. So I wound up not getting it. Um, and then, you know, Rob the robot is one too, where I was like, I wanted Nintendo, but I wanted the robot too.
01:12:00
Speaker
And it worked with two games and worked as was very generous and really wasn't very fun. So like it was one of those things where it was like, I really wanted it because I thought it looked cool and Nintendo was the coolest thing of all time. And it was like the worst part of it. Like the worst part of Nintendo is gyromite. And there was one other game. I forget what it was called. Um, it was like the power pad, you know, like that was,
01:12:30
Speaker
Or really, any of the accessories that weren't the light gun. That wasn't the zapper, yeah. The power pad, I kind of knew my limits, so I was like, I'm not running in place. And then the other thing was that I never got was the LJN British Bulldogs. I wanted them so bad, and I never got them. I didn't know that. I didn't know you never had those.
01:12:59
Speaker
No, I never had the Bulldogs. Wow. That was that was the one tag team. Like I had the killer bees. I had. Well, they were the only one that I got has the tag team because everybody else was like it was Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkov and like Hulk Hogan and Hillbilly Jim, I think. Weren't the other two. Weren't the Heart Foundation. Yeah, I was going to say the Heart Foundation. I had them had them all like individually. So all that was different was it was two belts.
01:13:27
Speaker
but I never got the British Bulldogs. Interesting. I didn't know that. All right, well, I'll finish up here. Mine, we're gonna head to the 90s. As I've mentioned time and time again, on the show, the primary, the bulk, the lion's share, if you will, of my collection is three and three quarters. Star Wars figures. The thing that I've always wanted, and to this day,
01:13:56
Speaker
I have picked one up at a toy show and very nearly bought it. They go for so much now and I just don't know where I'd put it, but as a kid, I always wanted the Kenner, the Power of the Force relaunch, the green box, the AT-AT Walker, the AT-AT. I always wanted that set. At the time, it came with
01:14:26
Speaker
two exclusive figures, it came with the, you can't have an ADAT without an ADAT driver, so it came with the pilot, and it also came with the ADAT commander, which was basically, what's his name from Indiana Jones? I can't think of the actor's name from Last Crusade, but he was the commander in the film.
01:14:55
Speaker
Not Piette, not Admiral Piette. Veers, General Veers. So it was not labeled as General Veers, but very much so. If you look up a picture of it, it's effectively him. But I always wanted that at At Walker, it was an electronic
01:15:18
Speaker
thing as well um so it made sounds it had light up cannons it had launching missiles um it was a beast of a thing it's expensive now it was expensive at the time and frankly you know space is a luxury and i had was very we were both dave and i were very fortunate as kids where um our parents pretty much made it happen if we wanted it but like
01:15:47
Speaker
You know, I already had the Millennium Falcon. I had a TIE fighter. I had an X-Wing. I had Darth Vader's TIE fighter. I had the Slave I. I had ships on ships on ships. I had A-Wings. I think I even had a Y-Wing at one point. But this thing was just so big, and it was so expensive, and it just never happened. So it never materialized, and it's still the one that got away. When Rogue One came out, and they put out
01:16:14
Speaker
the Rogue One version of the AT-AT, which is a little bit different. It had that big orange door on the side of it. Even then, when Toys R Us was blowing out toys, I almost bought it on clearance there, but the same issue. It's so big, I don't know where I would put it. And even storing it is a problem, because I'm going to buy it to leave it in the box.
01:16:42
Speaker
Yeah, so that that was the one thing we're like at and I mean, that's one of those things where as a kid, like you're not really concerned about where am I going to store this because like, you know, the entire living room floor is your play set. So, you know, would have been awesome. You know, back in like, I was probably like 95 96 97 the latest when that came out so
01:17:04
Speaker
I would have loved to have had that thing back in the day. The adventures I would have gone, that would have been in the backyard, in the snow. It would have been so much fun. Yeah, so that's the one that got away from me. So maybe one day, Santa will hook me up and I'll eventually have my ad at Walker. But until then, I have an ATST that I'll have to do.
01:17:32
Speaker
You often see those tweets also at this time of the year of someone says, today marks the 34 years that I still didn't get the USS flag from G.I. Joe. That's one of the big ones. Yeah, yeah. It takes too much space. Have you ever seen that impression? Yes, it's it was incredible.
01:17:51
Speaker
It is way bigger than I ever imagined it was. I only saw it for the first time very recently. Dave, what was that? That was like two years ago at a toy show? It's the size of a table. I mean, one of my friends had it. It is. It's effectively a table. Truth be told.
01:18:13
Speaker
Yeah, and it's funny too because people always float the idea like anytime like Haslab conversations come up, people are like, you should redo the flag for, you know, this was before O-ring. They're like, you should redo the flag for classified. I did a post about that and I had like a size comparison and it was like the size of the entire living room.
01:18:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it'd be like an old computer when it just was the room was the computer you would need a flag like you know those Jurassic Park side by side where you see the dinosaur and the human next to it and the size you can see the scale compared to each other and there was like the the the USS flag was taking like eight tenths of the picture and the small human next to it. It would make no sense logistically at all.
01:19:00
Speaker
Yeah, it would be a tough sell for like, all right, so granted the Sky Striker worked out for for the Joe team, you know, it has lab. But honestly, like I would be terrified to see what a flag for O-ring Joe's would cost these days.
01:19:19
Speaker
Because you know everyone making the assumption like, oh, they made the fighter jets. The fighter jet needs somewhere to land. So like they have to make. First of all, I don't have to do anything, but I have to be like, they have to make a they have to make somewhere for the jet to land now. And it's like, well, they don't. But also, you know, the barge. Yeah. Yeah. It would probably be in that ballpark would be my guess. No, it would be bigger, definitely bigger.
01:19:44
Speaker
Because the sail barge is very large, but the flag is significantly longer. If you put the sky striker on the barge, it's probably like taking half of the space of it, and the USS flag was still way bigger. OK. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, so. But yeah, there you go. So those are the ones that got away. I'm curious now, as a father of two,
01:20:14
Speaker
You know, 25 years, my kids will be like, yeah, I always wanted this. And they'll have a podcast about noise. Yeah. I'm curious. Uh, I'm curious to see if that, uh, if that ever happens. I mean, my, my, my eldest wants a wants the Barbie dream house this year for Christmas. And spatially we can't, can't swing that, but she's getting them the Barbie Malibu house, which is a little bit smaller, but it's effectively the same thing. So.
01:20:44
Speaker
I can see the conversations like, but dad, you have the barge from Star Wars. Like, why can't I have this? Funny enough, I do not have a barge. That is, that is my, like my as an adult collector, that is my biggest regret. Not a day goes by. And again, I have no flippin idea where I would put this thing. I'm already like dreading when the Razorcrest gets here, because I got to figure out where I'm putting it.
01:21:12
Speaker
But at least the Razorcrest comes apart. So I can make a museum diorama out of it where I'm going to basically take one of the engines off and take the side panel off so they see the inside and make it part of a display. But the barge, there's no way to do that with it. It's either assembled or it's not. Even the box is already by itself.
01:21:37
Speaker
Like Blaine recently posted a picture of him standing next to the box as like a throwback. And the thing is almost up to his shoulder.
01:21:49
Speaker
It's insane how big that thing is. And yeah, it is probably the most special piece that's ever been produced for the three and three-quarter inch Star Wars line. I think an argument can be made that it's probably the most special piece. But logistically speaking, the coolest thing outside of the way Steve has his displayed, the coolest thing I've seen somebody do with that is they bought a table that happened to be the
01:22:18
Speaker
longer than this thing. And it has a glass top. And what they did was they sealed the sail barge, like not permanently, but sealed the sail barge in the bottom of the table underneath the glass. And it's like a permanent staple in their home. So like every day, like when they're sitting down at their TV, like they have this low, almost like coffee table style table that has the sail barge in it. And I think that's the coolest thing ever, but I don't even remember to do that. That's super cool.
01:22:45
Speaker
I've seen people do that for the, I have the Hot Toys Batmobile from Batman 89, which is huge. And it's on top of like three dead elves right now and just fits barely on that. And I've seen people put a glass table custom made with like exactly the size on each side. And then it's like just locked inside of it. And that would be really nice as well. One day. Display, hashtag display goals. Yes.
01:23:13
Speaker
Yeah, that new generation arena is coming. Dude, that's another one. I decided to back that thing too for the sake of having a scale ring and photography and some of the figures were interesting to me.
01:23:32
Speaker
But like, looking at pictures of scale rings, like the Jazzwares scale ring right now that has Ref Aubrey, that's another one where I'm like, when I set that thing up to shoot it, I don't quite know where I'm gonna actually shoot it. Like, I feel like the dinosaur in Meet the Robinsons, like, I don't think you thought this through. Yeah, so we'll see what happens when that gets here. That'll be a conversation starter. That'll be a conversation starter.
01:24:01
Speaker
I think you meant the starter. I mean, yeah, I was gonna say I'm my conversation starter. I mean, there will be a conversation and you will neither start nor end. It's called the 12.
01:24:17
Speaker
Well, with that gents, I think it's time to wish everybody a happy, happy holidays, however you spend it, whoever you spend it with. I think I speak behalf on everybody when I say that I hope everybody stays safe and stays smart this holiday and does what they can to enjoy it as much as they can as safely as possible.
01:24:43
Speaker
Before we let you guys go, Toy Farts remind our listeners where can they find you on the World Wide Web. On the World Wide Web, they can find on social media at Toy Farts pretty much everywhere or on Facebook as well. And the articles and reviews are posted on Toy News International. ToyNewsE.ToyNewsi.com.
01:25:06
Speaker
You know what, since you have the awesome accent this episode and we haven't spent the entire episode talking about our New Jersey accents, why don't you send us off in French?
01:25:24
Speaker
Thank you, dear listener, for hanging out with us today. Subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen, and then tell your friends to do it. Thanks also to Joe Azari, the golden voice behind our intro. Our music is Game Boy Horror by the Zombie Dandies. Find more about them both on our show notes.
01:25:41
Speaker
Follow us on social media at AIC underscore podcast on Instagram and Twitter. Stop by and say hi. Show us your toy hauls and share your toy stories. Maybe we'll talk about it in a future episode.
01:26:04
Speaker
This has been a non-productive media presentation. Executive producer Frank Kablaui. This program and many others like it on the non-productive network is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives license. Please share it, but ask before trying to change it or sell it. For more information, visit non-productive.com.