Transcript
Speaker: Test, test, one, two, one, two. Are you ready, kids? Get your parents' permission, check your mailbox, and grab your shopping cart. It's time for the Adventures in Collecting podcast. I'm Eric. And I'm Dave. Welcome to Adventures in Collecting. Where we talk toy news, culture, and hauls. Along with our journeys as collectors.
Speaker: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Adventures in Collecting. We are back with a special episode, Dave. I know I'm cutting you off for this, but you can't hear it right now because I'm going to add it in post. But there is a special song playing in the background because it is the 25th anniversary of Pokemon. Hi.
Speaker: Well, Dave, we gotta catch them all. We gotta do it. I was gonna ask if you were gonna catch the lead instead of burying it. Yeah. Yes, in fact. As I mentioned, this year, the world is celebrating 25 years of doing just that.
Speaker: catching them all as the ever -evolving global phenomenon Pokemon turns the big two five. Joining us today to talk about what they have in store for the festivities and more are jazzwares brand manager Aaron Margolin and Pokemon design manager Scott Wilger. Aaron, Scott, welcome to Adventures in Collecting. Thank you so much for having us.
Speaker: Yeah, thank you so much. This is awesome. We've been really, really looking forward to this. And as you guys know, I've been I've been deep in your guys's DMS really, really wanted to to talk about what we have in store for you guys. Yeah, we've been going back and back and forth now for a while. Months for months. Yeah, it's just it's funny, like our
Speaker: Neither of us could have ever imagined where our relationship would be with jazzwares at this point, like two years into the show, between having Jeremy on the show, I think magic on the show. We've been talking back and forth to Greg. I almost feel like they're part of the adventures in collecting family at this point.
Speaker: Mike, right? How could I forget Mike DeCamp? Yeah, of course. We love working with you guys. I mean, you guys are great collaborators. I've been following you guys on Instagram and you guys are pretty much the best news source for toy news that I follow. In addition to listening to you guys as a podcast, so no, we're really happy to always happy to be working with you guys.
Speaker: Well, thank you. That means a lot. And we are excited to have you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So before we dive into Pokemon, we ask all of our guests to start off the show. What are you guys collecting? Oh, I will go first because I'll go first and immediately disqualify myself. It's a little bit tricky for me.
Speaker: not that big of a toy collector. Hold on. I do collect everything that I've worked on. So I haven't just worked on Pokemon toys. You guys know that I also work on our Halo line. I have worked on the launch of the Halo line and I have pretty much every
Speaker: Figure that we've ever done of halo. I've also worked on some of the cabbage patch kid toys. I did some of the sound design For for that line and I collect everything that i've ever like really had a part in um, but in terms of like what I collect outside of uh, you know professionally
Speaker: I actually collect vinyls. I'm a big record collector. I started my collection when I was in college. Chicago has a really big vinyl scene, and I went to college in Chicago. So I just started collecting. And then I got my parents' old records. And at this point, I try to make it a point to collect as many of certain
Speaker: Album variants even like symphonies because I love classical music as I can get my hands on But also I'm a big art collector to collecting the art of a lot of my friends in the animation and independent comics community Obviously, there's a huge animation scene in LA and everyone is an incredible graphic designer And so at things like you know cake in Chicago as well the comic exhibition there I always try to get my hands on as many
Speaker: physical prints as I possibly can. I want to mention though, very specifically, I very specifically collect Yukomori Pokemon trading cards. My Pokemon trading card collection isn't as impressive as let's say another Jazzwares family member who has appeared on this podcast who may have a slightly impressive Pokemon trading card collection.
Speaker: Maybe I don't have some of the pops that he does. But no, I'm a huge fan of Yuko Mori, who is the TCG illustrator. She does a lot of the clay Pokemon cards. I don't know. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? Have you ever seen it?
Speaker: She is so incredible, and she's done like Psyduck and Shuckle, and I think she's done a Dunsparce, some of the really weird ones, but the way that she renders the Pokemon in a 3D space. Obviously, it has a lot of kinship to what we do in the toy industry, but I love her work, and so I try to collect as many Yukomori cards as I can. That's awesome. That wasn't a disqualifying answer at all.
Speaker: Not at all. Yeah, I mean, we've we've had everything from pop up books to, you know, we have people come on from from brands that collect other brand stuff and stuff that's not out. That's outside of the toy industry. So, yeah, and we're we're we're big vinyl guys, too. I might I might have missed an episode. Have you guys ever had a stamp collector on? No.
Speaker: No, not yet. That's a huge field. And only my grandfather is the only stamp collector that I know. But I know it's a big collection thing, so. Yeah, we've had doll eyes. That was another one. OK, so no stamp collectors, but, you know, doll eyes, though. Yeah. Yeah. Just the eyes. Doll eyes is good.
Speaker: But she's also, she's also a toy designer though. So she's okay. Yeah, that's fair. There's like a application there. Yeah. That makes more sense. Fantastic record stores in Chicago that I remember. Oh man. Really? A very specific Silent Hill character who's collecting doll eyes. Yeah. Well, I'm an accountant by day, but by night I collect doll eyes. Uh, makes more sense as a toy designer. All right, Scott, what do you collect?
Speaker: Uh, so I'm, I'm also like, I think the kind of collector who's very frustrating to any collector. That's like a completionist. Um, because I think I generally collect figures that sort of represent characters in my favorite stories in like comics or games or that sort of thing. Um, I have, I think the thing I am the most of is, uh, Marvel legends figures, um,
Speaker: But it's very spotty. I don't collect everything in every wave. I mostly collect the X -Men and Young Adventures and Spidey and some of the magic user characters. I'm a lapsed Marvel zombie. But other than that, I have a bunch of the DC collectibles Batman animated series figures. I love those.
Speaker: Totally beautiful, like the shading, the way they play with the shadows on those figures is just so, so beautiful. And then I got several of the like the Figma figures for like Mega Man and the Zelda figures. Me and my son have actually been getting, we've been playing a lot of Breath of the Wild still. Nice.
Speaker: Um, so, so, uh, I, I like to just like hand him stuff and like, see what he like explodes or like drops from the sky or whatever. But, um, so we've been getting some of the, uh, the amiibo from, from that, uh, recently we've been picking up all the, all the breath of the wild characters as amiibo. So things are.
Speaker: Remarkably well made. Oh, yeah, so good. They're so cool You know like and and for for breath of the wild unless you're going to to pick up like a very very costly statue That's kind of the best place to to get your hands on on the characters from that game It's either that a really really expensive statue or a nendroid. It was really the only yeah, that's your only options Scott Scott you have you have the breath of the wild nendroid don't you or
Speaker: Um, I, I think I just, I just have the regular, the green tunic Zelda or like, God, I'm going to get kicked off the internet green tunic link.
Speaker: Actually picked up my first ever figma figure and it's the I'm looking at it right now, so I don't get the name wrong It's the link between worlds Link, so it's like kids like kid link but the the art style of the figure is very much so like the It looks like straight out of like the instruction manual like the original Legend of Zelda or the links awakening The late 90s era
Speaker: Oracles, Oracle of Seasons, Oracle of Ages and Awakening. Does he have pink hair? I haven't seen the Figma. Does he have pink hair like he does? No, no, no. He has like the, I guess you could say like dirty blond hair. It's not like the dark brown of like the first iteration of Link, the first NES version. But it's like when you close your eyes and think of Kid Link, it's that one.
Speaker: That's cool. Those are such, they're really incredible figures. Yeah. And it's, there's really not much out there in terms of like one 12 scale link figures. Um, no, I was, I was, I had to pay a little more than I wanted to for it, but, uh, cause it's, it's already long out of print by the time I got it. But, uh, you know, it's, it's a gorgeous figure. I've been dancing around a few of the more expensive ones and it's like, I pull them up and we're like, yeah, I should, I, maybe I will. And then I,
Speaker: Just buy more of the amiibos. Um, well, but yeah, so I have a lot of like one off stuff. Like, you know, just, uh, there's, there's a while I, I was just chasing the, um, I missed the, the comic con where the, where, where Hasbro released to the X force, uh, gray suit figures of a bunch of the X -Men, uh, from the Rick remainder. Um, and he said, ribbit run, uh, of, uh,
Speaker: of X force on Gany X force. Uh, and so I've been like chasing those figures as one offs for like seven years now. Um, and they only get more expensive. Yeah. No, I know. I keep thinking I'm like, Oh, no one's like, no one's reading that book anymore. The price is bound to go down. Nope. Nope. I think still up there. I think my favorite, cause I go back in the olden days when we were in the office,
Speaker: I would bother Scott. What not? Three, four hours out of the day, I'd walk over to his desk and I'd interrupt what he was diligently working on to talk about something that has nothing to do with anything. But I would always look at his collection and probably my favorite piece from at least your work collections, guys. You have this great Klaus Umbrella Academy figure from the designs. Oh my gosh, such a good figure.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. I have a bun. I have a, it was like a set that came in like a big tube shaped like an umbrella and it's got all of them. I think the Klaus was the one that was, uh, that I had at work. Anyway, non sequitur. Yeah. I got a lot of like art vinyls that I've got at stuff like designer con from artists that I like and that kind of thing.
Speaker: Yeah, the one -off collections are kind of fun, and you kind of can stumble into them almost backwards. I actually blame you guys for my video game collection that I have, because I started collecting the legendary series, Fortnite Figures. And then you put out the Halo ones, and I got that. And then I started getting Pokemon. I was like, hey, wait. I actually have a fun little video game corner here. Now I need Mario. Now I need Sonic. Now I need Link. And that's the cool thing is like,
Speaker: That's the cool thing is there is no like yes, you can get be a full -blown completionist and get everything and get every you know Chase and what have you or you can be a completionist of what you want to get? Yeah, and then you are you know, like So there's no there's no wrong way. Yeah, I mean I like have one of those graphic novel collections that makes people that are like
Speaker: very particular about the graphic novel collections really upset because I've, you know, like my transmetropolitan, I have like one of like the large scale absolute additions and then I have a bunch of the paperback books and then I have a hardcover at the end or whatever. Scott has Scott Pilgrim one, two and six. Okay. He just skips the middle. No, I don't know that. Don't put me on record for that.
Speaker: I don't actually know if I have Scott Pilgrim. I read it. Oh, I don't know if I got to get them. They're in color now. Yeah. So to hear those I have. They're so good. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah, I just got the game. Oh, limited run. So good. Art design. The on amount of Gucci's score for it or soundtrack for it. So good. All around. Great. The accurate references in it. Oh, yeah. Unbelievable. Nostalgia overload in that game for sure. For sure. For sure.
Speaker: But with that said, getting back to the toy industry. So how did you guys get into the toy industry? Yeah, I'll start that off. So I went to school for illustration and animation in Western New York, where I'm from. And then I moved to
Speaker: Manhattan, or moved to New York in Queens and spent a bunch of time in Manhattan trying to be a freelance illustrator and mostly doing underground band posters and stuff like that. And realized that I was not going to, at the level that I was at anyway, be making New York City
Speaker: you know, comfortable living money on by doing that. Um, and, uh, you know, uh, so I went to school, uh, back to school, uh, at, uh, FIT for toy design, specifically, uh, at the fashion Institute of technology in Manhattan. Um, and I did that. And, uh, then I started, uh, in the industry shortly there after graduating at Mattel.
Speaker: I worked on a bunch of stuff at Mattel in the girls department. I started on launching a brand called Ever After High, which was a spinoff of Monster High.
Speaker: And then I went from that to Monster High and I did a lot of their large scale play sets like the catacombs and the high school and all kinds of stuff there. I did a lot of their feature stuff. We made like a doll's hair stand on end with static electricity and made a doll levitate with giant magnets in its head and stuff like that.
Speaker: So that was cool. And then after that, I went to loot crate. Uh, I worked at loot crate for a little over a year, which I don't know. Are you guys familiar with? Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I, uh, I worked at loot crate for a little while. I worked on the Marvel, uh, crate, their Marvel specific crate, the wizarding world of Harry Potter crate and their WWE crate.
Speaker: Um, doing like, just learned all kinds of wild stuff about stationery and t -shirt printing and, you know, a bunch of cool stuff there along with, uh, doing some of the more figural stuff. But, uh, yeah. And then after about a year and a half there, um, I, uh, started at wicked cool toys in, uh, 2017.
Speaker: Um, and I was the second designer on the Pokemon team. Uh, good friend, uh, Chrissy Lee helmets, uh, was on the plush side and I was the plastic side and we sort of launched the brand. We got, we got another designer a little while after that, but we kind of started the first couple of waves of that.
Speaker: Awesome. That's quite a journey. You have a lot under your belt coming into the world of creating Pokemon toys, huh?
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess so. It feels like, uh, hasn't been so long, but I guess it has been, yeah, it's about a decade. That's one thing we've learned so far by talking to people in the toy industry who have these backgrounds where it's like, you know, started at this company, did freelance work for this company, you know, some sort of background like that. It's like we start to hear about all of these toys that we haven't thought of in like forever. And just the different stops along the way. Yeah. It's, it's,
Speaker: It's so cool. It's it's so like I'm I'm sitting here listening to you tell the story grinning ear ear to ear because it's like that's so cool. Like what's, you know, what school came out of school, started working for Mattel, worked on like an insanely popular toy line, like first and foremost, like straight out of the gate. Like that's awesome. It's so cool. Yeah. Yeah. Mattel. Mattel's was my time at Mattel was really fun. Did a lot of really wild stuff and like, you know, they had a lot of really cool, um,
Speaker: people in the electronics engineering and stuff like that that I bounce a lot of ideas off of and stuff. And they're just getting ready to fire up Monster High again. I think it's making a comeback. Yeah. I was reading earlier this year. Yeah, yeah. Aaron, how about you? How did you find your way to Wicked Cool Toys slash jazzwares?
Speaker: I have none of that legacy story that Scott has. My background is actually in writing, but also for animation and TV. So Scott and I all kind of both went into school for animation, left that going.
Speaker: Let's do something and then kind of pivoted from there i also was a freelance editor when i move from chicago to los angeles and i was making making rent editing listicles for youtube channels like
Speaker: Well, actually, I'm not going to give them screen time, because honestly, they weren't very kind. But that's pretty much what I did. I was a freelance editor, and I also did a little bit of sound design for a couple of animated projects. And I got a call from a good friend and old coworker, Molly Womack, who was a designer under Scott at the time.
Speaker: And she called me up and said, Hey, you do sound design, right? And I look at the one project that I did sound design on and knew fully that she designed Pokemon toys. And I was a big Pokemon fan and I was like,
Speaker: Yes, of course I do sound design. Yeah, what's up? And she said, cool, you are going to get a call from my manager in half an hour, get a quote ready. We need someone to do sound design for a toy. And I was like, okay. And I quickly thought of what my quote was because I had never given a full sound quote, get a call. And I'm working on this toy that sadly never came to fruition. But what that eventually led to was me going into the old
Speaker: Wicked Cool at the time, Wicked Cool Office, where I met the entire team, including Scott, and I recorded everyone in the office doing their best Pokemon impressions. So my first interaction with Scott was Scott doing his best Bulbasaur and Squirtle, I believe. That, again, the toy never really ended up going anywhere, but that got my foot in the door. So when I was leaving the office,
Speaker: again, I was doing this dead end job working for this, this YouTube channel that was not very kind to any of its employees. I saw this incredible office with a lot of incredibly creative and wonderful people and I was like, and Pokemon and like they were making Pokemon toys my all time favorite thing ever when I was a kid. So I was like, okay, I have to you know, shoot my shot here. So when I was leaving, I remember turning I think I told the
Speaker: Chrissy and Scott, but I'm pretty sure I very much told Chrissy. I was like, listen, if you guys need anything, I will get you coffee. I will do whatever. But if you guys need any help, give me a call. I don't just do sound design. I do other stuff as well. And she was like, okay, you know, we'll.
Speaker: I get a call a week later from Molly being like, we need temps. Can you come in and help the design team as a temp do really a lot of paperwork? But from that, I spent the year after that doing temp work, but also doing sound design on a bunch of different brands, including Pokemon.
Speaker: doing everything I could to be like, hey, I know a lot about Pokemon guys, you should let me help you out more. Thankfully, they never put a stylus in my hand because Scott knows this full well. I am a horrible, horrible physical artist. I can edit video, I can edit sound and sound engineer and I can copyright. That was another thing that I did as a freelancer, but boy, I cannot draw for my life.
Speaker: And so after a year helping out the Pokemon team, Jeremy, who has been just the most incredible, incredible person to me, this great guidance figure, he very wisely a year into me assisting the team was like, you are not a designer, but you can talk like you're very excited about things because you genuinely are, especially Pokemon. I would like for you to work.
Speaker: under the brand team and be training to fully run and manage a brand. And that is where I started working with the Halo team at Wicked Cool and then over that time eventually merging with Jazzwares. And so I was working with the Halo team and the Pokemon team, but then I was brought fully back onto Pokemon as a brand manager in October of last year. And I've been on ever since.
Speaker: Why did you undersell that story? What's the matter with you? Aaron is the closest I've ever seen to someone literally like starting in the mail room. That's like a pretend thing for movies, but Aaron did kind of just like help us with organizing documents.
Speaker: and photograph stuff for us when we were a three -person team. What's fun about that is that I still do that sometimes. I still get to go back and photograph a few things just because I love doing all of it. Honestly, it's such a fun process, every little bit of it. I still do help design in a way that I still do all of our sound design. I direct the VO for a lot of our feature products because every part of the process has a little
Speaker: unique flavor to it but i didn't sorry i didn't mean to undersell is more so that the scott does have this great seasons career and i was like well i started here and i'm still here but it's it's been an exciting road the entire time you know that is that is super cool yes it's a cool story.
Speaker: And you kind of alluded to something which which leads into our next question You know clearly you know you're Aaron you're very passionate about Pokemon. It's it's obvious But where did for both of you? Where did your relationships really start with Pokemon? And and what does kind of like the brand mean to you outside of you know the work you do for for jazz players? I'll let Scott take this one first
Speaker: Okay. Um, yeah, I was 12 when red and blue came out in the US. Um, I think I saw as a 12 year old, the classic, um, Pokemon on a school bus commercial is like one of the, the old commercials for like, for the, the, the Nintendo, the game boy game. The incredible, the slightly terrible.
Speaker: So I saw that and was like, this is 100 % my jam and begged for it for Christmas. Got it for Christmas that year. And then that was sort of my whole world. I was very into Pokemon.
Speaker: until for, for a few years, until a little after a silver and gold released, I played it and then became, you know, a moody teenager. Um, it's, it's amazing. We're on the same. You and I are on the, cause I was the exact same cycle. Like, cause I was, I was 10 when it came out. So like we're right in that perfect and same thing. I played, I like religiously played those games up until gold and silver. And then I took a break.
Speaker: Yeah, I was too into scream out to like Pokemon. You're amongst friends. Yeah. So I got back into it in college.
Speaker: And I would play it in the hallways waiting for class. And there's a little secondhand game store in the little college town I was in. And I think I traded in old systems or something for whatever
Speaker: the the the the console that um the third game was on and i basically played my way through the whole series um in college and then it's sort of like stuck as part of my design dna because i played it so much when i was sort of like learning how to draw as a professional um and and so yeah it's it's been kind of like in the background there like i remember doing stuff
Speaker: Freelance and for basically every company I worked for that was basically just like What if I did the brand that I was working on but it was actually Pokemon? so Yeah, so so it's been you know a thing that I've kind of been very into the whole time and then now it's a thing that I
Speaker: Um, my son who has been home for the last year and a half, uh, with me, uh, he, he sees what I work on and he's gotten really into Pokemon and now he's, um, he's better at, uh, let's go Pikachu than I am. So, uh, yeah, it's like a thing that we sort of nerd out on together. Awesome.
Speaker: I have to. This is the part where I because that reminded me of this wonderful, wonderful story about Scott and his heyday. Scott, you told me the story a while ago that you in the in the during the big PokeMania stage that you you beat a kid in a TCG game to win his. I won't spoil what card. Can you please tell that story?
Speaker: Yes, I can tell the story. And hopefully I don't sound like a monster afterwards. But so when when when I was it had to be when I was like 12. Toys R Us was holding like kids. TCG tournaments like Pokemon game tournaments. Yep, pewter city.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, you got like you like you'd show up and then you'd play and if as long as you won a match You got like a badge for that week. It was really cool and so there was a kid who was I think a little older than I was and thought he was very good at this game and Bet me that if I won
Speaker: a match with him, like we had to like put down a card that, you know, and whoever won the match would get both cards, right? And he, he bet me his Charizard, his, his, his, um, shadowless first edition. That's right. That's right. A PSA 10, this 12 year, this 13 year old is like, I've got a PSA 10 in 25 years. This is going to be worth $1 .5 billion. This is going to be the biggest rage of the pandemic.
Speaker: Sorry, my Siri went off for some reason in the middle of that, I don't know why. But yeah, so this guy, this kid, guy, he was like a year older than me, I think, bet me his Charizard that he could beat me, and I kind of pool -sharked him. Sort of made him think that I was like,
Speaker: Oh, Mr. I don't know. I don't know if I can, you know, and, um, that's 12 year old stock. Yeah. Yeah. 12 year old. So I says Mabel. Yeah. I don't know what a Pokemon is, but I can sure give my hand. Me. I guess I have this Pikachu. Uh, no. Um, as we were talking about earlier, not, there's anything wrong with Pikachu, but, um,
Speaker: Yeah, I won, and I took his Charizard. And you still have it, right? Or you think you still have it? I still have it. Yeah, yeah, I still have it. No, I definitely still have it. I checked. And that is Scott's retirement money. There you go. Just hang on to that and get that graded.
Speaker: That's right. I don't know. Yeah. I looked at it briefly after Aaron and I talked about this and I, I, I'd have to like, see if it's actually still in a quality. It's just in like a sleeve since then, basically. No, see, it's funny. I have, I have a toys or us story going back to around those times when they did the, uh, when they had the scratch offs.
Speaker: where the where, you know, you could bring your game cart and if you won the scratch off, they would load, you know, a legit copy of Mu onto your blue or red cartridge. And I still have my blue cartridge with the official Nintendo Mu on there. The game freak me. Boy, when was the last time you you powered up that that game boy and check that out? Just a couple of weeks ago, actually, because it's all it's still working and my battery has not died yet.
Speaker: My god, oh you gotta you gotta figure out a way to replace that sucker because that is that's incredible You are one of like two people. Yeah, that has a legit mew. So I was talking to a friend of the pod and and co -host of another Pokemon podcast daycare dittos our friend Dave and I told him that and he was like
Speaker: you're going to carefully bring me that cartridge the next time you see me because he does he does a modification so like he knows how to like change the batteries and he was like we're going to hook it up we're going to make sure it's running and we're going to change he has like a whole plan of how we're going to save this this cartridge and i was like listen like chain many old consoles together to get it yep that's right yep basically and he yeah that's so cool
Speaker: I don't know. I don't know if there's a way. I don't know if there's a way because I think everything's locked out at Ruby Emerald and Sapphire in terms of getting in terms of transferring. But that is such a rare card. Like the only more the only Pokemon that is more rare to legitimately get I believe is Celebi in gold, silver,
Speaker: crystal because I think they canceled all the events around it, but having a legit new, that's huge. That's super cool. Yeah, because I know the Celebi that I have in gold and silver is not legit.
Speaker: That one came from a game genie, but yeah, the, uh, the, the, the, the mu is, I remember getting the scratch off. I remember going to good old toys or us in total in New Jersey and, uh, and, and plug in my, my, uh, my game boy color, my purple game boy color into, uh, somebody from the game freak teams. And they, they uploaded me a, uh, a mu. Yeah. That's cool.
Speaker: That's awesome. Aaron, so how did you fall in love with Pokemon? What does it mean to you?
Speaker: It's a bit of a hard question to answer because, so Pokemon came to the US at large when I was, I was very young. My cousin though, who's older than me, introduced it to me. And from, from that moment, I believe, I believe he probably showed me an episode of the show. It was Pokemona nonstop obsession, obsession with Pokemon. I'd watch the show, I'd play the games, I'd listen to the to be a master CD ad nauseam and knew all the,
Speaker: I had that CD. I had it. Honestly, bops start to finish. Bops start to finish. And and I want this very important note. I did all this while I was illiterate. I could not read. I could not read yet. And honestly, I credit Pokemon for me learning how to read quicker than any of the other kids my age because I needed to play the game.
Speaker: I remember this is a very specific story. I remember getting the first Pokemon game I got I had as my own because I would always play my friends copies and my cousins copies of red, blue, yellow. I got crystal right when it came out, which was awesome. But I released a bunch of my Pokemon because I didn't know what the words were.
Speaker: All of a sudden I had, I did not have the Pokemon that I had. I released my starter. I released my Tokapi. It was a misery. All the Pokemon that you just can't catch again, I released all the best ones. So after that, I think after that traumatic experience, I was like, okay, well, my brain's still developing, trying to dedicate a bunch of that neuroplasticity to learning everything about Pokemon. So this never happens again. Might as well learn how to read too, I guess.
Speaker: mathematics out the door. But no, I honestly, I really do credit Pokemon for I learned how to read quite quickly. And then everything else was like, this Pokemon evolves at this level. This Pokemon learns this move at this level. But Pokemon was my it was pretty much my entire life until I was around 10 or 10 12 years old somewhere around then.
Speaker: Then it became very much Yu -Gi -Oh and I dropped that and Pokemon came back in waves for sure. I do remember when Soul Silver came out and HeartGold came out. I remember being like, oh, new Pokemon game came out? Whatever.
Speaker: I should get a, I should get a DS, like hard cut a week later to me weeping at how beautiful the orchestration, the DS orchestration of the national park theme was on a DS. I was so like touched by it. Uh, but, uh, every time a new Pokemon generation would come out from then, I always really got, I got the system.
Speaker: I got the game, I beat the game, I caught every Pokémon, became a master in every single generation, so on and so forth. But as soon as I joined the team at Jazzwares, the obsession, or I guess not really an obsession at the time, me just being a fan turned into a full -on obsession professionally because that's what it felt like it took to become
Speaker: someone who could officially make Pokemon toys to really know everything front to back, not just what I knew as a kid, but everything within the newer generations. So I'd like to say that if there was a program to be a licensed Pokemon professor, I feel like I'd be pretty qualified at this point. Forget Professor Oak, it's Professor Aaron, or Professor Aaron or nothing.
Speaker: And Aaron, you you like learned all that stuff because it's like there wasn't even any cues like past the the like literal not even black and white, like green and dark or green of the Game Boy screen. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. You know, like my son can play those games because everything's color coded and he knows what colors are good against other colors. Right. So like that's how he plays right now. Primarily, but yeah, like you had to. It just goes to show how you get out.
Speaker: Like the visual language of Pokemon is that that an illiterate child
Speaker: or an illiterate adult, who knows, can play the games unless they're releasing all their Pokémon. They know what they're doing. I don't want to carry all this stuff. That's right. Just drop it. We're 25 years into the world of Pokémon. We've established that it's a brand that means something to us.
Speaker: But it's hard to argue that 25 years ago there were 151 Pokemon and now we're up to nearly 900, right? So getting into the actual production of toys, how do you guys determine where to start with so many different Pokemon to choose from? I will start. I will answer that one first.
Speaker: So I do wish that I could say it's not a popularity contest, but it very much is, as you said, well over 900 Pokemon. And then you've, I mean, not even taking into account all the different forms that so many Pokemon have. How do we figure that out?
Speaker: I guess, so from the top here, Pokemon and more formally, Pokemon Company International has, they've done an incredible job expanding their brand with all the partners that hit all the different parts of interest across like demographics and retailers, territories, et cetera. You have like Pokemon Center, their own toy making company. And then you have their partnership with Bandai, our friends at Funko and Mega Constructs and more,
Speaker: They've got so many partners that all cover little bits and pieces of the Pokemon, I would say retail world. And I bring up all the different partners because Jazzwares is the master toy license. And as the master toy licensee, excuse me, master toy licensees, we cater to like as many people as we can across our line. So that means collectors of all ages, of course,
Speaker: But very, very most importantly, we cater to two children, the younger fans. Because of this, we look at which Pokemon are the ones that fans of all ages gravitate towards. So which Pokemon is going to have the highest visibility where the kids will go?
Speaker: Oh, that one's awesome. I want that. And then fans of all generations will go, oh, finally they they made this one or oh, that note that new pose for that Charmander is so cool. So that actually kind of threads into like Scott and I have been key collaborators in this for years. It's one of my favorite parts of the job.
Speaker: when he and I get to kind of sit down and talk about what Pokemon are featured in the new games, or the new trailer for the new games, or if an awesome battle in the show could be used to create a fun multi -pack. I think one of my favorite conversations is right when Pokemon Journeys came out.
Speaker: Ash has his Dragonite, and they brought back Karina, who's a gym leader from the Sinnoh region, and she has, oh my god, did I say Sinnoh region? That's a crime. Kalos region, who has a Lucario, which is a Sinnoh region Pokemon, but there's this incredibly animated sequence where it's a battle between Ash's Dragonite and Karina's Lucario, and Scott and I were like, geeking out about that, and they were like, okay,
Speaker: how can we make sure that Lucario and Dragonite are like on shelves at the time that kids are seeing this episode so they can go, Oh my God, it's Dragonite. Oh my God, it's Lucario. And thankfully we've, we've been able to, to play that, that game quite well. Yeah. Yeah. And like Aaron said, it's, it's got a lot to do with the timing of the wave releases and where we learn the brand is going to be going. Um,
Speaker: sort of in that timeframe. And, um, you know, a lot of our, our main line, so like the stuff that is not, you know, specifically collector focused select, uh, a lot of our main line is us working directly with the Pokemon company on, you know, the, what are, what the biggest moments in the animation are going to be. And Aaron watching all of the, the, um, the episodes,
Speaker: when they get released in Japan and calling me and us having very excited conversations about that and what the impact of the brand will be in the animation.
Speaker: So yeah, it's basically us timing it out with that. And then we also, you know, Erin is right, we are very focused on what is going to be the most exciting for kids, what kids are going to see as the most recognizable first, but we also have stuff like our select line, which is
Speaker: aimed more at, uh, super fans of the brand. Um, and it's where Aaron and I and the other, uh, super fans at jazzwares get to lean more into what we really want to see as fans ourselves. Um, so that has been, you know, a huge joy to work on. Um, yeah.
Speaker: So, you know, we talked about actually just seeing kind of all these new characters and just kind of where they evolve from and evolve to in in the series. So what are some of the challenges in taking those characters from the screen to a physical plastic or plush form? I think.
Speaker: The biggest challenges is that, uh, you know, I think at the top of that is the brand has changed a lot, um, over, over 25 years. Um, uh, and you know, sometimes we, we do pull out something and we're like, wow, I can't believe no one has done this yet and it's going to be relevant again. And like, we get super excited about it and you know, they have like, we, um,
Speaker: We have Pokemon companies sort of like go and be like, all right, well, we'll, we'll dust off the, uh, the almanac of, of, of reference we have for this character. And, you know, and then we, we, we work with them to like, make sure that it's like the most that it's in line with the most up to date, uh, look of that character. And it looks like the modern iteration of that character. Um, and, uh, you know, on top of that, like the characters and the animation are very elastic.
Speaker: Uh, and very cartoony, especially in the most recent seasons. Um, so, you know, um, we really want to capture sort of the life of that character. Um, that for me is like one of the most, you know, especially for stuff like our two inch figures, which are static. We want to, um, capture like what, what like a pose for that character that is, is really says something about that character and how they move and how they.
Speaker: interact with the world in the show and in the games and anything with articulation. We want to make sure that it moves like the character does in the show and that we highlight articulation if it's limited in the most important places for that character. But we also want to focus on stuff that
Speaker: Hasn't been done much or at all, um, before in terms of poses or in terms of even characters in the 25 years that the brand has been around. And that, that can be tough sometimes. Um, there's a, there's a lot of, I don't know if you guys have looked on the internet, but there are a lot of pikachu's out there. Um, but, uh, so, you know, we, we legitimately want to do something new, especially if we can pull something from the animation.
Speaker: the current animation that is like, whoa, look at this new thing that Pikachu did that he's never done in the animation before. We want to do that. I know exactly what Scott's talking about. When they first announced the new series, there's this incredible animated sequence by, oh, no, I forgot. He's one of the best key animators in the entire animation industry anywhere. And he does all the most complicated sequences. But you can watch any episode of the new series where Pikachu does a big attack.
Speaker: And it's this incredible, like you can see where the electricity is sourced, like touches his cheeks, which is where all the electricity in a Pikachu is generated. And then the electricity courses through Pikachu's body and then it's a big attack. It's very cool. But that's, there's a lot of us going like frame by frame. Oh yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. In the animation and like being like this one right here. Yeah. And that's the pose. That's, that's a two inch figure. That is, you know, what we want to encapsulate in a four and a half inch figure or something like that.
Speaker: Um, but it, it helps, it helps. And it's, it's, it's, it's really a necessity in this way to have a team of fans who know how to approach an IP that demands that level of detail and attention and love. It's not just from the jazzware side too. Uh, honestly, I have to give a huge shout out to our counterparts at the Pokemon company. They're, they're incredible at their jobs. They know Pokemon six ways to Sunday and all that passion and
Speaker: pressure between both sides to always be putting out the absolute best work. It creates diamonds in that way. So in the challenges of bringing these characters to life, can you guys think of one recently that was one that you had a hard time bringing to life and then you nailed it and you were like, yeah, I got it. Or something that was a struggle to get to.
Speaker: There's got to be a, I mean, I'm going to let Scott talk about this because he and I talk about literally every single thing that we do ad nauseam in both an excited and also a very business way. But there's, I feel like it's gotta be like a four and a half inch figure where it was like, what's this feature? What's this feature? And then it was like, yeah, yeah. I mean, four and a half inch. So like, I think maybe the most difficult.
Speaker: toy I've, that might not be true anymore, but for a long time, the most difficult toy that we put out was the four and a half inch battle feature Greninja that does a back flip. Um, and it's, you know, like it's iconic poses with the, you know, one arm up with the water shuriken in its, in its hand and then with its other foot on the ground. And I was just like,
Speaker: Oh, we got to make it to a flip and land in this pose. And for some reason, nobody told me no. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so we did it. We did do it. Um,
Speaker: Uh, but boy, like the gear boxes and the, you know, that, and, and like the, the, like taking a little bit out of here and there to make that thing balanced just enough. So that most of the time it does land that flip. Um, keep in mind that was more physics than I think I ever had to do with science in there. I want to, I want to mention as a part of that too, that like I oftentimes describe Pokemon as a brand of mascots because despite the fact that there are over 900
Speaker: individual unique characters plus each one has mascot power because that's just the power of Pokemon and Greninja I mean above you know is absolutely an iconic character but one of our key things one of the things that we have to make sure that we're taking into account is that we never want to modify the physicality of the characters unlike animation which has squash and stretch right we want to make sure these are like iconic poses where the characters don't look distorted in any way the colors are true the
Speaker: physicality is true. And so to make sure that something has an internal mechanism, like it's it being able to do a flip and then land, you're playing a very delicate balance game. And Scott, I mean, you, you balance that perfectly. Thank you. Um, you know, and then there's stuff like there's been interesting design challenges, which is like, um, I love ghost Pokemon. And so I really wanted to do a Haunter. Um,
Speaker: because I thought it's never been done, A, had never been done. And because of, for obvious reasons, it had never been done.
Speaker: Um, and, and also it needs to be, uh, needed to be at a, at a decent size. So we couldn't just, so we wanted to articulate it. Um, so that, I think I'm really excited about our hunter figure. I really love our hunter figure because it's got our, the articulation is in the clear stand. So it like floats and the arms move around on the clear stands. Um, so stuff like that is, as I think we've, we've done pretty good, uh, a pretty good job at.
Speaker: Um, sort of getting the essence of those characters. Um, I, I have an exit. Aaron, can I, can I talk about the, the 12 inch figure that's coming? Well, I was actually going to say we have a transition that I think will work perfectly right here. Sure. I don't know. I don't, cause we, I haven't told you guys about it. So I don't know if, if, if we're on the same page, but I mean, it's all good, honestly.
Speaker: Well, since we are celebrating 25 years, what else is planned for the rest of this year? Okay, I'll give the... Is it okay if I say this one, Aaron?
Speaker: I don't know what it is, but please. Well, the new 12 inch figure. Oh, yes. I mean, I do know what it is. Well, there's a part. There's a blind spot. I actually don't know what we're coming out with. No. Honestly, to answer that question, that could be an entire podcast episode in itself because we have we have so much coming out. But I will let because this is such an exciting figure. I will let Scott go ahead and then I'll tell. So so we really wanted to make Rilla boom.
Speaker: And I, I refuse to do it without its drum. Do you guys know who Rilla Boom is? Yes. Yes. And my eyes just, my eyes just shot out. Yeah. He is the big old monkey with drums. Yeah. Yeah. So, so we are doing like the full, like Rilla Boom with its arms out with its drumsticks. And we're doing like a freestanding drum with it. Um, and it's, it looks, I'm really excited about it. It came out really good. So clean. Oh.
Speaker: Yeah, so so look forward to that. But that was one that I was like. I need to make it with the drum. I will be so upset if I make this character and it doesn't have the drum with it. Yeah, he's got to have it. Yeah, I have it. He's a he's a drummer. He's got to have his drum. Um.
Speaker: Uh, I will, so yes, we are going to be refreshing our, our 12 inch, uh, figures. We're going to have a Rilla boom on shelf. So the first partner Pokemon are so essential. I th I think in terms of how we approach lion architecture and being like, okay, well, let's see. Grookey's out. Scrubbing these out. Sobble's out. Let's look at Intellion. Let's look at Rilla boom. Let's look at cinderace, et cetera. But in terms of, to answer your question, cause it's a very large one as a whole.
Speaker: So this year Jazzverse is launching more newness than any year before on the Pokémon line. It's not just because of the 25th celebration, but because Pokémonia has returned. I really genuinely believe it's returned with this incredible fever and presence. This year alone, I think everyone has seen the popularity of the brand skyrocket in new ways.
Speaker: I mean, we're seeing we're seeing two Pokemon games launch the remake of Diamond and Pearl for the switch at the end of this year. And then immediately in January, Pokemon Legends RCS, which is that's that's like three, four months between each other. Yeah, that is never ever happened. So so Pokemon knows how how big of a deal this this this incredible rise to prominence as just the biggest media franchise ever has been.
Speaker: And we want to, as the master toy licensee, we want to bring the Thunder in the same way the Pokemon company is. So you're going to be seeing a lot of really, really exciting new items come out from us for the rest of this year. We're really just getting started, honestly, this month. And you guys have seen some of the stuff that we're going to hopefully have some time to talk about. So we don't just have our 25th celebration 8 -inch plush that were announced in February on Pokemon Day.
Speaker: I, this is going to air what Monday you guys said? Yeah. So this is going to, yeah, tomorrow. So last Friday, for those listening, we will have announced, will announce weird, weird time thing going on. Uh, uh, our 25th anniversary three inch silver figures.
Speaker: And you guys got the figures that we sent, right? Yes, I'm holding them right now. Right now I'm looking at, well, I kind of let it out of the bag. By all means, it shouldn't be much of a surprise when it airs, but by all means, announce it. Yeah, so series one, I'm looking at Pikachu, Charmander, Squirtle, and Bulbasaur, the core four, if you will. That's right, the Kanto first partners, all four of which, of who, excuse me, they are Pokemon.
Speaker: all four of whom were designed by Scott Wilger himself.
Speaker: And Scott, they are absolutely gorgeous. The finish on them is fantastic. The mirror -chromed finish, it's gorgeous. And the poses are awesome. Listening to you guys talk about the amount of time you spend on just the poses alone and deciding what direction you're going to go in order to really encapsulate that character.
Speaker: You really did it with these four. I mean, especially, you know, as somebody who, you know, who really was of the right age when Pokemon launched in the US, you know, 25 years ago, like we mentioned. I mean, it takes me right back, you know, seeing these characters like this and, you know, in these poses. I think people are going to really, really enjoy these.
Speaker: That's thank you so much. That means a lot to hear it for me. That's awesome Yeah, we're really excited about them. I can't wait for people to see them And yeah, I mean it's something that
Speaker: that I don't think the Pokemon company's ever really done before with these characters, which is saying something, I think. And it's also like the poses are poses that we have not done in this line yet. So yeah. Yeah, it was fun ideating on these. And as we discussed about poses and
Speaker: characterization through poses of the physicality right because it is about sometimes it's about telling a story and and there's a story within every pose and how do you summarize a character's charisma and how do you summarize what kind of character Pikachu is or Squirtle is and just one static pose and and that's something that we try to especially for something that's so exemplary as as the 25th anniversary 25th celebration yeah it was really fun watching this develop and again I got to give all credit to
Speaker: Scott for executing these in such a, such a beautiful way. Uh, so the first wave of the, uh, of two of the celebration silver figures, um, is the Kanto first partner Pokemon. Uh, those are hitting shelves right now. Uh, I'm sure that they're going to fly off the shelves honestly. And it's very important to note that we, we really, again, catering to all of the fans, catering to all of the fans, uh, these are.
Speaker: figures that are going to be on shelf at Target. These are figures that are going to be on shelf at Walmart. These are not mega, you can't find them anywhere type of figures. I can't say anything about them selling out, but it was very important to us that we're making something that's accessible because growing up, I've got my allowance money and I want to make sure that
Speaker: the kid that's spending their allowance money, a collector that is my age, older than that, or a kid that's five years old, 10 years old, can go to Target. They see their favorite first partner Pokemon. They see Charmander, they see Pikachu, and they can buy that figure. That's super important that it's accessible in that way. So we've got that wave that's going to be hitting shelves. And then later this year, we have a second wave coming out.
Speaker: It's got the first shots from the factory are looking at me right from the desk. I don't want to spoil it. I don't want to spoil it. I'm not going to spoil anything. They look really good as first shots. So that's exciting. That's not always the case in just production in general, but these are looking really nice. So I'm excited about them too.
Speaker: Yeah. We're, we're, yeah. So, so get excited about those. Um, but, uh, to continue, see, I told you this is going to be a long, got to answer the question of what are we coming out with? That should have been multiple questions. Cause, cause let's see.
Speaker: I wanna talk about, I wrote down a little list. So a huge newness here. We are launching a battle game that incorporates. It's so much fun. It incorporates our entire two inch figure line. So there's no lockout where if you have a collection right now of our two inch figures, you can use them. It is accessible for that. This is a,
Speaker: It's a battle game that was designed by a designer, Paul, Paul, it is incredibly addictive. There was a whole after there's a whole morning and afternoon where Scott Paul and I were just sitting in a conference room and masks.
Speaker: socially distancing and playing this game together. Super, super fun. A lot of there, and we're doing multiple sets of rules. So younger, uh, younger players can play in their own way. And then older players who maybe understand how like type advantages work, uh, can, can play as well, but it's a simple game, but there's a lot of nice strategy in it. It's, it's, it's a really solid as like, I'm a big board game nerd and, um,
Speaker: It's like a solid tabletop Pokemon battle game. Awesome. Do you get a nice arena with it? No, but it's an on the go type game. You can play anywhere much like how you can have a Pokemon battle anywhere. Gotcha. There you go.
Speaker: Uh, let's see. Uh, we have a new feature plush coming out really, really awesome. New feature plush designed by Becky foot. Uh, we have more, have you, have you guys seen the sleeping plush that we've done? We have like Pikachu and Charmander out. Yes. We have some more. Yes. Super soft. We have some more styles of that designed by a designer, Andy Monroe. Um, and after we released the first, we had our, we had a very limited holiday calendar last year, uh, around the, the, the winter holiday season.
Speaker: We're actually going to be releasing a 2021 version with more seasonal versions of our Pokemon figures, like limited release seasonal versions designed by our designer, Alaya Orlick. We don't want to fully spoil everything. There are multiple versions of that calendar, and we're actually adding. Now, the smart person who knows how the year works.
Speaker: There are only a set amount of holidays left in the year. We're adding an additional holiday seasonal calendar beyond just the winter holidays. So I cannot spoil it, but I think someone could make a random guess and be like, oh yeah, that's what it is. But I will not say. One could say that you might have seen something relevant to that in Pokemon Go.
Speaker: Um, uh, we, uh, we are, this, this is the final little bit. Cause there's, there's some other things that I, it's not that I can't tell you it's that simply we, we gotta let the prestige that right. You gotta let the prestige happen. But this is, this is the absolute best podcast for this ventures in collecting. What do we have for the collectors beyond just, you know, what we've, what we've told what is very specifically geared to collectors. Um, we, we are launching what, uh, I like.
Speaker: Yes, 100 % yes, 100 % yes.
Speaker: I should call a passion project or a long time coming or some other way to convey that Scott and I have always wanted this and it's finally happening. We have the select
Speaker: super articulated six inch figure series, which got officially, again, if this goes up on Monday, it would have been announced today. Check, check your social medias. Uh, we, we would have officially revealed it, uh, today on our socials. Um, uh, it is the first, it's our first major step to build a like classic collector style poseable Pokemon figure line. Um, we looked at what other partners
Speaker: have done we know that other partners have done like articulated pokemon figures in the past but but looking at like what's going on in the collector market right now marvel legends star wars black series halo spartan collection aw unrivaled high detail higher articulation night night excuse me nineteen ninety nine price point right.
Speaker: There's never been a better time for us to launch something like this. And I have to give full absolute credit to Scott, who's been the mastermind behind the execution of this line. And we sent you guys the very first figure that's hitting shelves right now, our six -inch Charizard. Oh, wow. Because we're like, you guys report on our ADW line and the Spartan collection. And we're like, oh my god, this is the six -inch articulated figure. We have to send it.
Speaker: It's going to be our Oprah moment where you look under your chairs and there's a Charizard there. Charizard! Well, I have to say, as I could tell, you were starting to hint your way towards this. I wish our cameras were on because my jaw was just, I was like, go ahead, say it. He's going to say it. He's going to say it. They're making a 112 -scale Pokemon line that's going to be super articulated. So this was a surprise? This was a genuine surprise for you guys, huh? Genuine surprise. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. So they're, yeah, they're like a roughly all six inch week, you know, um, line of, um, articulated Pokemon, which is, which is a thing that I've been like giving anybody who will listen a hard sell on since I started at, uh, working on Pokemon. Um, and it's coming out now and, um, it's yeah, it's, it's like my, my big, my big passion project. Yeah.
Speaker: And we're really proud of it. I'm holding the Charizard in my hands right now. I'm really excited about it. I think it's up there with some of the more articulated stuff that has come from Japan that we're like... You're inspired by it, frankly.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have, I have a bunch of them, uh, and, and was looking at them, uh, when we were, when we were talking about this line, um, but you know, but for like, you know, accessible, so it's, they're going to be 20 bucks. Um, and come with a full stand and yeah, every one of them comes. And that was a huge thing for that, that Scott, you wanted to cover is that we're adding all this articulation to Pokemon that oftentimes are not so articulated, uh, in, in terms of most figures because of scale or some other reason.
Speaker: And so for a lot of, for a lot of the larger Pokemon that would fit in that six inch category, and it should, I should definitely mention the Pokemon, the selection for these Pokemon are like final level, final stage of the evolutions of first partner Pokemon. We're doing legendary Pokemon. We're doing, uh, just, just these really highly demanded Pokemon that deserve phenomenal, lots of articulation points. So for instance, Charizard.
Speaker: Charizard flies, right? How are you going to post Charizard exactly the way that you want? And Scott, you very, you're like, okay, every one of these comes with a stand, even if it, whether it's a flying Pokemon or not, it's going to come with a stand. So, uh, to, to articulate it stand. That's right. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. And so like so Charizard will be the first one out. It hits shelves first and then the first wave, the other figures, you know, we wanted I really wanted the first wave to be able to do like a cool in air in air battle with with your Greninja. So that'll happen.
Speaker: That was Scott hinting. That was Scott very much saying that another edition of the first wave is Greninja, who, mind you, does not flip, but does have multiple points of articulation. And if you really wanted to, I guess you could make it flip. But you can make it to a flying kick.
Speaker: That is so cool. So you guys are with this super articulated six inch line, is the idea that these larger scale Pokemon will scale with the smaller scales that you put out in the past, or is this kind of like its own, exists in its own bubble?
Speaker: It exists in its own bubble a little bit. So we do cheat scale a touch in the way that the animation does a little bit. So you'll see as time goes on with the few waves that we have started working on.
Speaker: There are characters that are a little bit smaller that we scaled up to sort of feel more in line with the rest of the, you know, Charizard's a good size. Um, so we want to want you, don't want you to feel like when you're slapping down $20 that like you have one that like really fills that out and one that doesn't. Um, but, but they are, you know, like they are in line with each other. Um,
Speaker: a look like mostly every one of these comes in a black like a kind of new design black package with like silver.
Speaker: line art of the characters too. The whole presentation we put in so much, and again, it's a great shelf piece as well if someone doesn't want to open up the package, but you should definitely open up the package because the articulation's really good. Please, please open up the package. Oh yeah, believe me, we're advocates of letting them breathe, as they say.
Speaker: But I mean, even even like, you know, just with the other stuff in in the jazzwares kind of circle, like the packaging is always good. The articulation is always good. Like everything is so off the charts that it's like this just continues in that that line of quality. You know, Chris Metzger. I was going to say, is this is this Chris? Did Chris do the packaging for this, too? Because literally everything that men touches is ridiculous.
Speaker: Yes, Chris Metzger and Amber Huang work there. Just absolute magic on these. Yeah, no, I every every time I see a Chris Metzger original, I mean, I was gawking over that Jurassic Express. So my god, I was losing my mind. And so when I saw the first mock ups of these, the super articulated figures, I was like, Yep, that's that's in line. That is a brilliant
Speaker: You know, very, it's very efficient, but also truly premium looking packaging that honestly, it is, it is so, uh, it's got such an incredible footprint on shelf. It's quite big. Uh, it is not as lean because again, you're not dealing with humanoid, purely humanoid characters, right? You're dealing with Charizard and you're dealing with Greninja who are, are technically anthropomorphic, but they're also quite wide. You know, one does have wings and humans tend to not have wings. Uh, but, um, I can say the other one that's on the box, right? Right.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, well, actually, I mean, I want to, I'll bring up that one and then you can bring up the big, the big one. So, so wave wave one is, uh, uh, right now it's very important to mention Charizard is a limited exclusive at target and it is hitting shelves like right now. Uh, I don't know if you could, again, don't know if you could find one because I'm sure they'll fly off, but, uh, Charizard is going to be exclusively at target for a little bit.
Speaker: before the full wave one drops later this year. That's where you can find Greninja. And of course, again, as I said, we're dipping into the legendary Pokemon, which we haven't really done that many legendary Pokemon in our line. And we're starting with Articuno, one of the three Cantonian legendary birds. But Scott, by all means, please talk about the big mamajama.
Speaker: Oh, well, and that one's coming out a little bit later, but, um, yeah, so articuno is also really cool. We have like a wire poseable tail, um, so that you can like fold the tail underneath it, or you can have it like sort of waving behind it and, um, you know, big wingspan, uh, yeah. And, and, you know,
Speaker: think, you know, draw whatever conclusions you, you, you might about what we're going to keep in mind. We do try to tell a story in terms of ways. And if we are doing our, you know, and, and the, and yeah, yeah, we're doing the one that starts with UNO, but, or the ends with UNO. But, um, but actually the story that we're telling is that I'm a, I'm team mystic and I'm really,
Speaker: Team Instinct in me is not appreciating that. Listen, I'm just happy that Articuno is on the list because he is, as far as I'm concerned, the best of the three Kanto legendary bird Pokémon. Who's going to beat Lance? Who's going to beat Lance? It's not Moltres. Dragonite's got fire resistance.
Speaker: I'm a Zapdos. I'm a Zapdos person. Um, but, uh, you know, anyway, there is, there's one additional, you're going to, you would see it on the back of the boss box. There is one additional style that we are doing. It is going to drop a little bit later than see, then wave one setting. Um, but you will see it on the back of the box. Uh, uh, but this is like, honestly, Scott's four and a half inch Gengar figure, one of my all time favorite figures of all time. And then I saw.
Speaker: this next one and I was like, oh, this is I sent I sent Aaron like a figure.
Speaker: I sent Aaron a picture of the Charizard fighting our Rayquaza figure. Um, and it was, I had spent more time in my work day than is reasonable. Um, posing them so that they were fighting. Oh my God. So we're, we're, we're doing, we're doing everyone's favorite green sky servant. Oh yeah. Keep in mind six inch figures, right? And, but they are, they're scaled in, in kind of unique ways.
Speaker: They're scaled with each other. So Charizard is like a little over six inches tall when like fully upright. And we made Rayquaza bigger than Charizard in terms of plastic. So when you unwind it, it's big. I mean, I actually don't, I wouldn't speculate it, but it is substantially
Speaker: bigger than Charizard when you unfurl it effectively. It is a skyscraper. Like if you uncoil it, it does tower over Charizard on that stand in a really cool way. Yeah, well, his ability to coil must have helped get such a large figure in similar size packaging, right? I mean, that's been the trick for a while with figures like that.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, and that's the thing with Pokemon is all of their articulation, like, and this is not to slag on your, your, your general superhero figure, which I love. Um, but you can't do the same thing where with like a, like a superhero or like, uh, like a wrestling figure where you can kind of, you know, you have your go -to articulation or most certainly not all, but most humanoid characters, um, these, like all these characters move very differently. And so they all have.
Speaker: a good amount of articulation and like a similar amount of articulation, but all in very different ways. So that's sort of been the trick. And that's sort of been like the, uh, the, the fun challenge of, of designing this line. It's just the, it's the passion. Like this is like, this has been Scott and I sitting down and like, I mean, we geek out every single day. We geek out every single day, but.
Speaker: Finally, having this part of the line happen has been just so exciting. And again, I cannot stress enough how much to credit Scott because there's so much that goes into the design of making true super articulated Pokemon figures. Well, let me tell you, with the way that the toy photography community is growing and at the rate that it's growing,
Speaker: affordable, accessible, six -inch, super -articulated Pokémon figures are, yeah.
Speaker: A lot of people have been looking for something like this. And actually, we have a little bit of a Q &A for you guys from our Instagram followers, collectively. Thank you, Aaron, for sharing the story out there as well. Oh, of course. I'm going to skip ahead a couple to actually one of the questions.
Speaker: which you've already answered, but at kingdddoom on Instagram asks, is there a chance you guys introduce a lot of articulated slash scaled Pokemon? And here we go. We got it. We got it. It's happening. Absolutely not. And we got that question from, I picked that particular Instagram user only because that was the first person to ask that question.
Speaker: Yeah, the only other articulated question that we had was, you know,
Speaker: Again, a toy photographer out there takes amazing photography, this guy Matt, at mbml underscore destroyer of evil. Along the lines of articulation, he would like to know if you guys plan on doing articulated human figures. So like an Ash Ketchum, or any of your trainers or gym leaders, would there be plans to do articulated people? Despite the hundreds of Pokemon out there,
Speaker: Some of my favorite characters from the series in games and show and beyond are the humans. We made an Alola version of Ash as a four and a half inch figure in 2018. Like the third figure I worked on ever. Yeah, there you go. And we always do have conversations about which humans we'd make figures of. So I wouldn't be surprised if potentially you saw an updated Ash figure or something in the near future.
Speaker: Ooh, okay. All right. Dave, you want to hit the team with the next one? Yeah, sure. Aaron, you have quite a fondness for the bug slash rock type Pokemon Shuckle. Yeah. AtnastalgicAdam wants to know why and also wants to know, Scott, what's your favorite Pokemon? Oh.
Speaker: No, for real though, Aaron. Adam wants to know why? I adore Adam. Adam is one of the finest, finest toy photographers in the community. Yes, he is. He's a deposit member, great collaborator, and for him to read me as filth like this on a podcast.
Speaker: No. I love Shuckle. He's a little worm fella. He's a little worm boy. No. Shuckle is, I mean, a bug rock type. It's a bag worm effectively. It is a little worm, a fungus worm that lives inside of a rock. And if you put berries in the shell, the rock shell, it like ferments into a juice. But the reason why I like Shuckle beyond it being
Speaker: And I'm going to make so obviously appealing, obviously appealing. It's a fungus that makes juice. Oh, it's great. It is. It is a very cute Pokemon. It is my favorite Yukomori card as well. Translates very well into clay art. But the one thing that I really love about Shuckle is if you look at Shuckle's stat breakdown, I believe I don't I used to know the the stat, the defense and special defense that that it had. But it has the highest defense and special defense stat of any Pokemon.
Speaker: Period I believe there might be a legendary Pokemon or two I think deoxys maybe defense form has a higher defense But it is by far one of the highest defense stat Pokemon in the games and it has low everything else But here's the deal guys because I'm I love I love working the system. There is a move called a wonder trick in Pokemon where you if you use wonder trick you switch your defense and
Speaker: and your attack stat with each other. So all of a sudden, Shuckle becomes an offensive god. Now it can't take a hit, but it has an ability called Sturdy that prevents it from being one hit KO'd. So if you manage to play it properly, you have this offensive powerhouse that is stronger than any legendary Pokemon.
Speaker: And he's a little, he's a little worm that makes juice. And that's why I love Shuckle. Anyway, Scott, you can answer the second part of the question. My soapbox, I'll step down. I don't know if I've ever actually heard your full, your full spiel. That Shuckle can do more damage output than any other Pokemon. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's great. Um, okay. So my favorite all time.
Speaker: since when I was a kid is Gengar. Um, Gengar is the character that I would spend like hours and hours drawing the old Sugimori illustration over and over and over, uh, to try to get that, like the shape and the face exactly right when I was like, yeah, like 12. Um, and it's design is like, it's so simple, but it conveys so much about that character. Um,
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, look up the, the old Sugimori, uh, illustration of that character. And it's got like sort of like a, like a, the rock eyes, raised eyebrow and like this, like very, very, uh, you know, mischievous grin. Love it. Just love it. Um, and then I would say I have like a three way tie for second place, which are Raiko Greninja and Ray Quaza. Uh, uh, Ken Sugimori's favorite Pokemon is Gengar.
Speaker: Uh, he says that it's because it's the easiest Pokemon to draw. Sorry. My Siri went off again and I don't know what's going on. It's okay. We haven't heard it at all. It's okay. I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't hear anything, but okay. So Raiko Greninja and, uh, Ray Quaza, um, are like a close tie for second place. And generally I love most of the ghost and dragon types. Yeah.
Speaker: Before we move to whatever the next question you guys have, I always find it to be super interesting. Dave and Eric, what are your guys favorite Pokemon? You know, mine has always been Haunter.
Speaker: has always been Haunter. I too had a fondness for the ghost type Pokemon just because I'm a huge horror movie fan. There's seven years between Dave and I, so I was watching horror films way before I should have been watching horror films.
Speaker: So just the idea of like ghost Pokemon and you know kind of like you know the the spooky nature of it always just you know resounded with me and I and and even like you know in the original Those original anime episodes like I loved the one where you know like they go to the haunted house And you know they think that like the you know the ghost Pokemon are actually trying to you know scare them But really they're just trying to play and then they get all sad at the end
Speaker: Oh, and you look at the Pokedex entries, some of the Pokedex entries for the ghost Pokemon. There's some wild stuff in there. Yep, yep, yep. But yeah, so Haunter would probably be... Haunter and then I would say maybe second, depending on the time of day. Lugia. I really liked Lugia.
Speaker: So for me, my my Pokemon knowledge really came from because I was at the height of Pokemon like starting like that big kind of early groundswell of it. I was a senior in high school going into college. So Eric really was kind of what I was aware of it.
Speaker: from afar almost, if that makes sense. So I only really know like the, from that beginning era, like, you know, the major ones. So like that, you know, Charmander becomes Charizard and Pikachu and
Speaker: Bulbasaur, Snorlax, like Mew and Mewtwo. I always thought that Mewtwo being that psychic energy was cool. I always just thought there was this cool alien cat thing going on there. It reminded me almost of Xenomorph in a way. There's a little bit of Geiger in there for sure.
Speaker: Yeah. And like the way you encounter that character at the end of the game, it's just it is like one of those great moments in the games. It's it's it's very cool. I want to make sure because they're there as far as I'm concerned, based on what I've seen on Instagram and.
Speaker: Uh, uh, uh, listen on the podcast, but definitely seen on Instagram. I feel like there's a third member of your guys's podcast. You guys know what Maddie's favorite Pokemon is? Oh, it's that's easy. You're going to hate the answer though. No, I'm not. I promise I'm not. It's a hundred percent Pikachu.
Speaker: That's great. I love Pikachu on record. Branding works. Yeah, no, she absolutely loves Pikachu. I mean, that's what, so we started playing, before I introduced her to the cartoon, she was playing sword with me.
Speaker: And I realized that I didn't realize at first, but eventually realized that I could connect when I was doing a Pokemon Go to Sword. And I was like, oh, cool. I have some fun Pokemon that I can transfer over. And I was surprised. I was actually caught off guard when I loaded Pikachu in for her. And instead of making the video game sprite noise, it actually did the cartoon Pika.
Speaker: And she, she just, she lit up and then she was like, I need to know everything about this, this Pokemon and what this thing does. Um, yeah. So, so then we started watching the show and then of course, like now I think her birthday, her sixth birthday is going to be Pokemon themed. So, Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, it's, it's cool that they use Akua Itani's, um, uh, voice, uh, VO for just Pikachu and in all the games.
Speaker: Uh, in, in that case though, I'll make sure that, um, uh, especially we got to keep in contact. I want to make sure you guys get that super articulated Charizard. Uh, but I'll, I'll, we will absolutely send a care package definitely with a Haunter. Uh, and we'll, we'll send some, some Pikachu for sure. Uh, especially gosh, if there's going to be a Pokemon birthday party, we got to send a gift. So I'm making a note of that. Oh my God. Of course. Of course.
Speaker: And I mean, that's, you know, Pikachu is everybody's favorite original Super Smash Brothers character. That's right. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Unless, unless you're, unless you're somehow a Jigglypuff Maine and - Hey, Thunderbolt or Buff Maine? My most obnoxious friend was a Jigglypuff Maine and was very good at being a Jigglypuff Maine.
Speaker: Oh, that brutal up -up -be combination and then the sleep. Just my most obnoxious friend. My worst friend, really. Nothing like getting put to sleep and dropping to your death. It's so bad. All right. We have a couple more questions from our Instagram followers here. Let's move on to the next one.
Speaker: Friend of the pod that we've mentioned mentioned him already Dave co -host of daycare Ditto's at creepy NJ on on Instagram asks the deluxe collector Mewtwo looks stunning Are there plans for more in this line? Hmm if I answer this do I get to be on the magmar episode of daycare listen that's that's my
Speaker: I'm I can't I can't speak for him But I'm just gonna say yes because I'm gonna tell him that you want to do it I'm waiting to be on the chancy episode personally Oh my magmars so magmars my for longest time was my favorite Pokemon then Shuckle definitely overtook my like social media presence But I I kind of love the the freaks and I say that with truly the most amount of love anyway to answer the question um
Speaker: And I love daycare dittos, by the way, I think it's, I love that they're going through the entire Pokedex, I think that's great. To answer that question about the deluxe, the question was if we're doing more of the deluxe collector statues? Maybe. Maybe Scott's working his magic on something exciting and we won't say what or who, but 25.
Speaker: 25 is a very interesting number beyond it just being the 25th anniversary of Pokemon. So if anyone knows what the significance of 25 is in Pokemon, they could wager a guess that may shock them. Okay. I will just say, if we were doing another one,
Speaker: It would, I really love that Mewtwo. It was also like a thing that I was hard selling our company on for a long time. And I'm really excited about how it came out. And the second one, I think for me, personally, if we were doing one, if
Speaker: Blows it out of the water to me. I or it would blow it out of the water Where a second one does exist I'm I I really it's in Mewtwo I really love Mewtwo and this the the second character that we could potentially do It's it's not as high on my list I
Speaker: But I really, really like. Oh, I'm going to I'm going to pull the veil. That's right, guys. We're doing a deluxe shuckle statue. Everyone's and it makes you say is it a juicer juicer? It's a juicer. It's super loud.
Speaker: It's a juicer. We're not even making a... It's just a juicer, guys. It's a fungus juicer. Great. Great. Mushroom, mushroom juice. Dave, I don't even know how to transition out of that. Dave, go to the next question. I'm usually really good at reading these handles, so I'm probably going to mess this up. It looks like at exited.
Speaker: I think that's right. If that's you, congratulations. Your question got asked. Are there plans to continue the Eeveelutions battle figures? And I know there are a lot of Eevee fans out there. Yeah. You're in luck, exited. We, you know, again, oftentimes we're trying to tell stories with the lines that we put out and making sure that collectors of all ages can have
Speaker: their entire evolution lines, super important to us. Um, figuratively, uh, uh, you know, we're, we're trying to complete every evolution and Evie evolutions are no different. So, uh, just this month, actually like, like I've seen photos and nostalgic Adam sent me photos of on shelf. We have Glaceon and leafy on the Sinnoh region.
Speaker: Eevee evolutions, the ice type and grass type Pokemon have officially hit shelves or three inch figures, which means the only Eevee evolution that is left for us to do is the fairy type Sylveon. And I would wager that chances are, I think you'll see it on shelves soon. Who knows? Maybe. Look at that. Potentially. Potentially. I won't tell you one, but I won't tell you one. But of course, we're absolutely going for it.
Speaker: All right, and the last question we have from Instagram, this is more of kind of like a, I guess we'll say like a logistics question. So at Gunner Adams 1993 asks, it can sometimes be challenging to find Pokemon figures in my local stores. Are you considering more online availability or the ability to pre -order in the future? Very much an errand question. Yes, this is a business. Let me, let me be,
Speaker: Brand manager, that's right. Mr. Mr. Business time. Uh, okay. Genuinely and jokes aside, I do appreciate questions like, like this one. Um, cause honestly I get them all the time on my own socials. Um, so totally,
Speaker: COVID totally, there we go, COVID. COVID totally changed the game when it came to the entire toy industry in terms of shipping and delivering and putting things on shelves. So there's that hurdle that had to be jumped over. I know the past year has been hard for collectors, but the most positive news and assured news that I can give is that Pokemon as a brand is bigger than ever. And every retailer wants to take part in that excitement.
Speaker: which transitions into our involvement in the Pokemon space this year and next, you will see a huge boom in online availability in terms of pre -orders and in terms of accessibility of our entire line.
Speaker: select, mainline, role -play, etc. I will also say that GameStop has been a fantastic partner to us and has run pre -orders on items like we currently have a 12 -inch 25th anniversary silver plush at GameStop earlier this year and throughout this you could order it now is a 24 -inch celebration speaking to that they did this pre -order run for
Speaker: You're going to be seeing a lot more predator capabilities from GameStop for sure. But again, our goal is to open that up and make it much more accessible because
Speaker: There's that demand for it and I never want it to be hard for anyone to get their hands on our work because we put a lot into it and it's from this very genuine place, I want to share that excitement that we put into our work. Just a really wonderful collector, member of the collector community on Instagram whose handle I think is called PokeFiguresCollection.
Speaker: DM'd me about how they don't get figures in their country. And I tried to work with them about having them get in contact with their local retailer and stuff like that. And it looks like there's going to be some listings, so they're not going to have to import everything and pay that extra money. That is the goal. As a fan, I want to make sure that everyone gets whatever Pokemon figure, whatever Pokemon plush they could ever want, because that's just very important to me.
Speaker: All right, so that wraps up our Q &A from our followers on Instagram. And before we wrap it up with you guys, it would not be a proper Pokemon celebration episode if we didn't have some sort of battle. So we're gonna play a little game with you guys.
Speaker: And we're just gonna go back and forth. Dave and I are going to just ask you a couple of rapid fire questions, this or that style, and it just, we'll direct it to one of you, you pick an answer. There's no wrong answer, it's just this or that.
Speaker: I should stop stretching. Yeah, you don't have to pull out an almanac or put on boxing gloves or any of that. All right, so Dave, do you want to start us off? We're going to start with the first question with Aaron, OK? OK. So ready, go. Aaron, Pokemon, red or blue? Blue. Scott.
Speaker: Diglett or Snorlax? Snorlax. Aaron, Johto or Kanto Reach? Johto. Scott, ghost type or fairy type Pokemon? Ghost. Ghost all day. Aaron, rival Gary or Hop? Oh, I love Gary. Scott, Elite Four or Team Rocket? Oh, Elite Four. Yeah.
Speaker: Aaron, name the Pokemon you would least want in your party. Oh, gosh. Alolan Muck. Scott, same question. Palpatote. Oh, Palpatote. I'm going to change my answer. I love Palpatote. It's just the warts. Aaron, Hitman Chan or Hitman Lee?
Speaker: him on top. Scott, fight a Rayquaza -sized Ditto or a gang of Ditto -sized Rayquazas. Oh, me personally or a Pokemon? You - Very important question. Me like fighting it with my fists? No, you get to pick a Pokemon to fight them. Okay, great.
Speaker: Boy, I think, I mean, this is the opposite of whatever you usually answer that, but I think Rayquaza -sized Ditto. I think that's the answer that I'd have to pick, too, because just the idea of a gang of Ditto -sized Rayquaza. It's a lot of snakes. That's a lot of flying snakes is the immediate thing. That sounds very unpleasant to me. All right, last one. Aaron, Jesse or James?
Speaker: Ah, that's hard. James, I love James. That's it, you guys survived. You guys survived the Pokemon battle. You did it. No injuries, we're good. That, honestly, I thought you guys were gonna be like, what's the first Pokemon mentioned in the Poke Rap? Oh my god. Electro.
Speaker: Do you want to just ask questions to answer them yourself? You know there was one thing so before we wrap up there there was one thing that you had mentioned at the top But I meant to say you know like well we gotta we gotta do this now you said that the first time you interacted with with sky iron was when you were when you were recording him and
Speaker: Doing his his best impersonations of a couple of Pokemon and I feel like I almost did this Yeah, but I was like we there was a flow here, but I feel like my way too high I feel like we gotta we gotta hear these we gotta hear these these impersonations now Do you want me to save you Here I
Speaker: What, do you have the original recordings that you could just play? Which one did I do? Oh, no, no, no. Which one, Aaron, having recorded them, which one do you think is the least embarrassing one that I did? I think, okay, so here's what's fair. Here's what's fair. I think that the best thing we can all do, because we all have to do it, is, and I think this is the most accessible Pokemon to do, I think everyone can do a half decent Psyduck.
Speaker: And I do understand, Dave, that your background on this is all, I don't know, do you know what Psyduck sounds like? I mean, no. You know what Psyduck sounds like, right? Yes. OK. Well, why don't we all do, we'll all do a Pokemon. OK. I'm going to do Psyduck. Yeah. OK. You do Psyduck, Aaron. Right. OK. Let me just warm up your instrument.
Speaker: Sigh. There you go. Perfect. Yeah. That's good. Um, I think the one that I did specifically first was Bulbasaur. I think that's the one I did here. And you did. Yeah, you did. Okay. I'll do that. I guess it was like, Oh,
Speaker: I was good. That wasn't bad. That's like like OG Bulbasaur had that, like, because they've because they've changed a lot of voice actors in the past for the Pokemon. And I think he does a great. Yeah, that was good. That brought me back. That brought me back. I'm going to stay on brand and I'm going to do I'm going to do Haunter. OK. I don't I don't.
Speaker: Yeah, solid, solid. See, see, and this is going to be like where my realm is from. I just remember when in Smash Brothers, you throw the pokeball and Snorlax snorlax and then you just knock you off the screen. He comes in and he any KOs, everyone, the best everything on the screen. Absolutely. So that was that was a fun first news action Snorlax, which was a plush that we released last year.
Speaker: Um, I, I did the direction of the voice acting for, for Jacob Browning, uh, who was the VA, uh, uh, for Snorlax, which I mean, that was like such a blast to work on. But like, uh, what are the, the phonetics, uh, what does, what, what phonetics does Snorlax have the capabilities of all around, uh, was a very fun thing because it's mostly Snorlax. And then you pitch that down and then you've got Snorlax. Yeah. So I wasn't far off. No, you got it.
Speaker: All right. You're cast. I'll see you in the booth. I did it. So before we let you guys go and bring an end to our celebration here, Dave is going to do his James Lipton of the podcast here and close us out with our final question that we ask on every single one of our episodes.
Speaker: or one question questionnaire. So what is your favorite and or strangest piece in your collection? It could be both or it could be one of each or it can just be one. Scott. Oh, man. OK, well, man, this is hard. OK, so all of the weird stuff that I have.
Speaker: is not so much toys. I have a lot of fossils and animal skulls from Evolution, which is one of the coolest stores in New York City. I love that kind of stuff, just as art inspiration as just a cool thing to have in my home. And I was a super prehistoric, extinct animal.
Speaker: nerd when I was a little kid. So I got some of that stuff. And I used to run to evolution sprint there when I worked at Forbidden Planet in New York City. It's a really cool comic book store in Union Square. Just to see when they would get new stuff in. I worked there for a couple of years while I was doing a bunch of freelance illustration stuff.
Speaker: God, my favorite figure changes all the time. I think it's probably currently my articulated Hellboy figure. I think it's one thousand toys that makes it. Yep. It's based on the original Mike Mignola art and like every detail of it is just so masterfully considered. It's got the like the fabric trench coat and it's got wire in the coattails. You could pose the coat.
Speaker: which is awesome. The accessories are like, he's got his little big cross, he's got his big giant gun and the extra hands and heads and stuff. All the accessories are really, really intricate and beautiful. So I think that's probably my current favorite.
Speaker: Awesome. Yeah. We've, we've, the answer doesn't have to be toy related. You know, we've had, uh, we've had answers as, uh, as strange as, uh, plague mask, doll eyes and doll eyes and doll eyes. But yeah, forbidden planet is also very cool. Great stories. Yeah. Yeah. Aaron, how about you? Uh, oh, okay. Okay. Um, so this is a, this is a tale of tale of old, um, a,
Speaker: And actually, I can bring him back full circle to the start of my time working with the wonderful, wonderful team that I work with every day now. A while back when I was working with design, so this is like before
Speaker: being brand, the lead plush designer at the time, Scott mentioned her, this phenomenal designer named Chrissy Lee Helmut. She pulled me aside and she showed me some of the earlier samples that the team made designing the Detective Pikachu movie product lines. We had that. So in addition to the products being like a totally different approach to Pokemon figures and plush as a whole, we were able to kind of change
Speaker: certain aspects of the designs, especially the facial designs of the characters to match the CGI designs that you saw in the movie. But Chrissy pulled me aside and she was like, hey, check this out.
Speaker: And she showed me the first pass of the large scale Pikachu plush that we did in the style of Detective Pikachu. And it's one of my favorite plush that we've ever done. It is super cute, very, very fluffy. Like the fur, the plush is much longer than your average plush because Pikachu is very furry.
Speaker: And the movie and the eyes were made with this beautiful kind of hazel coloration. So it just looked super premium. But that was the final version of this plush. This plush that she showed me was the first pass and its face embroidery was so off.
Speaker: It looked like a vacant stare, like its mouth was open, it was looking off, his eyes were like pitch black, and it looked, I kid you not, identical to the Pikachu meme. Have you guys seen the Pikachu meme where Pikachu's got its mouth open and it's just staring off into space? Like, you guys know how to Pikachu? Yeah, no, I know the meme very well. That like mouth agape kind of like wide look.
Speaker: Yeah, like you know how Alpha Group made those SpongeBob meme vinyls a while back? Yes. If we could make a Pokemon meme line, which there's a dream right there. If we could make a Pokemon meme line, it would have been like a toy fair ready sample. I kid you not, it is so perfect and it's beautiful and it will never see the light of day.
Speaker: And in fact, it will never leave the office. It is at my desk in the office, and that's where it will stay. But I remember she was like, check this out. And I think it was the first Detective Pikachu product that she showed me. And I was like, are we sure we don't want to do another round of this? No. And all of them came out super well. But I really love that one. I still have it by my desk. And it's definitely one of the weirdest misfits that I own.
Speaker: Yeah, that, that movie was, um, a Marvel to, to see those characters created like that. And, and like, that was not the movie I was expecting it to be. And I'm so happy it was what it was. Yeah. Absolutely. I'll tell you guys many, many hours, many hours, sculpting the, the first chance giving direction on first strand sculpting on that Ludicolo figure. Okay.
Speaker: I love that that was like the breakout star of the movie in the one scene that it was in, but everyone was like, that Ludicola is great. Its voice sounds so hoarse. That was a big Mr. Mime movie too. That movie put Mr. Mime over pretty big.
Speaker: Yeah. And I don't think it endeared anyone to Mr. Mime. And I say this as a, as a fan, I actually really like, I have the figure. I have the figure that we did. It's hilarious in that movie. It's so funny in that movie. Point out how, how, um,
Speaker: Yeah, how human -like is in a very spooky way. Speaking of the rock, doing the raised eyebrow. And it also helps too, when you have the voice of Ryan Reynolds, you know, helping things along.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. That was a fun, that was actually the very, that was the very, very first plush that went to Mark. Oh my God. That's, that, that reminds me of just going into the office my second day and, and, um, uh, uh, manager, uh, uh, at the time he pulled me into the office and said, Hey, um, sign this NDA. And I was like, okay, I've already signed one, but okay. Uh, and then he's like, can you, can you cut this, this clip down? And I'm listening to him and I'm like, that's, that's Ryan Reynolds and the trailer had not dropped yet.
Speaker: So I was like, oh, oh. And that was the first product that ever went to market that I did sound design on for Pokemon. But I did that. We had a feature plush where Ryan Reynolds voiced Pikachu. So cool. So cool. That's another one of those instances of perfect casting. I can't imagine that movie now.
Speaker: without him doing that voice. It's such a wild concept that like ended up working like surprisingly well.
Speaker: Though I will say any of the sounds that were in that plush that were said in the movie, it was very, cause we all went as an, it was really, really nice. Actually, it was this great little rewarding experience where the entire office at the time went and saw the movie together. And it was this great celebration of like, look, we made the toys for this movie. This is great. And anytime he would say any of the lines that were in the plush, we'd all just kind of look at each other. And there was this weird, like,
Speaker: We've all heard this line 50 million times, so many times, so many times. Yeah. And then, and then you finally get to hear it in context and you're like, Oh, I see why that's not the weirdest thing. Right. Right. Yeah. Oh, there's narrative.
Speaker: Guys, this was amazing. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us and to reveal all these cool things that you guys are doing for the rest of the year. We cannot wait to actually see the rest of these products in person. We can't wait to see them hanging on shelves. It's so exciting.
Speaker: And thank you for all the nice things you said in the beginning. Well, we mean it. We've been looking forward to this for a while and talking with you guys and we couldn't think of a better...
Speaker: Obviously we didn't have, you know, we didn't have toy fair last year and we have so much to get ready for. And things are like the big stuff's hitting shelves now, but it's going to, the celebration's really continuing throughout the year. And then a lot is going into 22 as well. We have so many phenomenal things that are going to be on shelves, but we're like, this is like the best place for us, especially as we really enter in that collector's market, the silver figures and the six inch super articulated figures.
Speaker: We were like, yeah, adventures in collecting is totally the best place for us to talk about it because we know that you guys would appreciate it. And again, you guys have been such wonderful partners in jazz where it's not just our team, but we know that Jeremy loves you guys and Greg loves you guys. So yeah. Well, remind us one more time where we can find all of these awesome products over the next days and weeks.
Speaker: So target is going to be the big target is going to be the real big hitter. They champion us in such a great way. And that's where you're going to find Charizard hitting shelves. The six inch Charizard hitting shelves first. That's where you're also going to be finding our holiday calendars.
Speaker: But of course, again, accessibility, Walmart, Amazon, if you are an international fan, go to your Smith's, go to your game stores, the store game. Yeah, we're really everywhere, thankfully. And again, more and more retailers have been like, we want as much as we can take. So we're very grateful for that. Awesome. And lastly, where can we find you guys online?
Speaker: Scott, do you wanna go first or? I mean, I'm not. Really? Where can we find you, Scott? You can't find me. Yeah, don't.
Speaker: Um, uh, I guess, um, uh, I think I'm, this has a lot cause I don't know if this is actually true. I think I'm Scott underscore Wilger on Twitter. I don't tweet very much. Sometimes I retweet a thing. Um, but we could see your work at jazzwares on Instagram. And jazzwares is absolutely, if you want to see Scott's work at jazzwares, definitely the place to go. Here's the thing also is that, and this is me, um,
Speaker: Aaron to do more of this, but, um, Aaron and I have done, uh, streams of, uh, Nuzlocke runs together. Aaron plays, Aaron plays Nuzlocke, uh, runs. And sometimes I am on his, uh, Twitch stream, uh, sort of bantering around while he does that. So it's pretty much the same thing as what either back and forth that he and I, and we talk about Pokemon and.
Speaker: What we're working on, that's out. We don't treat it like it's a press thing, but we chat mostly about how excited we are about certain things in the show, et cetera. But I'm going to try to have other designers on that.
Speaker: Uh, as well. Um, but, uh, you can, you can find, uh, again, all of our work. I have to big time on, on, underline in bold italics. Uh, no strike through, no strike through, uh, at jazz, whereas, uh, jazzwares .com of course at jazz, where's on all socials, uh, Instagram, uh, Twitter, we're going to be posting incredible new images of these, uh, select figures and stuff like that. If you want to find me, I am at Aaron underscore Margolin.
Speaker: Uh, on, on, uh, on the Twitter where I'm mostly active. And then I am the man with the red main on, uh, Instagram. But again, I gotta, I gotta direct everything to, to add jazzwares. Cause we're, we're stepping up, uh, promoting. What's your, what's your Twitch? What's your Twitch? I am also the man with the red main.
Speaker: Well, we got to have people following you on Instagram, though, because how else are they going to see how you eat a salad and ponder existence? I was thinking specifically, I was like, should I post this on the day that I'm going to be on a podcast where it's this like weird tilt, like millennial humor of like, check out this big piece of Swiss chard. Life is chaos.
Speaker: And the worst part is, is that if this makes the final cut, no one's going to get this. It hasn't been on my story in four days at the time. Oh, well, now it's going to make the cut. That's. I have to put that one on my target. No, no.
Speaker: Instagram is legit fun to follow. So follow Aaron's Instagram. If you're a toy photographer, make sure you tag me and tag at jazz words because like, I love all of our incredible toy photographers. Like we're so lucky across the board, not just Pokemon. It's the halo, uh, uh, toy photography community is so incredible. AEW Fortnite. Uh, no, it, it, it makes my day and it makes, it reminds me every day of, uh, not that I have to be reminded of just like how, how just incredible.
Speaker: this community is and all the stuff that we at Jazzverse get to make. Well, thanks again, guys. And remember, gotta catch them all. Gotta catch them all. Thank you. Gotta catch them all. Thank you guys so much. This was so much fun.
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.
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.
Speaker: This has been a non -productive media presentation. Executive producer, Franca Blaui. 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.
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