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Diving Into Store Exclusive Toys
397 Plays6 years ago
On this episode, the brothers Weinbrecht are back to business as usual - they run down some toy news, their recent hauls, play a contentious round of "Name That Toy," and take a dive into the world of store exclusive toys!
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Intro and other voices by Joe Azzari
https://www.instagram.com/voicesbyjoe/
Theme Music is "Game Boy Horror" by the Zombie Dandies
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, Dave. Hi, Eric. Hey, Dave. Do we curse on this podcast? Yes, Eric. Yes, we do. 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.
00:00:21
Speaker
I'm Eric. And I'm Dave. Welcome to Adventures in Collecting, where we talk toy news, culture, and halls, along with our journeys as collectors. So welcome back to Adventures in Collecting.
00:00:38
Speaker
Hey, everybody. It's been a while, but this is just gonna be a normal episode. We don't have no special guests. No interviews, no clip show. This is an old school Eric and Dave take on the world talking about toys episode.
Impact of COVID-19 on Toy Events
00:00:56
Speaker
Yeah, pretty standard fare. We're back in business. So we're recording this. It is March 13th, Friday the 13th. And on today's episode,
00:01:06
Speaker
We are gonna go back to news and halls. Dave is gonna try to stump me with a name that toy, right? Yeah, we've got a name that toy. And then our main topic today, because it's been quite a topic across toydom lately, is store exclusives. Yes. So we'll get into the business of some store exclusives in a little bit.
00:01:32
Speaker
Before we fully get started, though, there is a small announcement that we have to make due to the current coronavirus pandemic. Unfortunately, ZapCon, which was scheduled for March 28th and would have been our first attempt at a live show, is currently postponed. Yeah, that's a bummer.
00:01:59
Speaker
I was really looking forward to getting to see everybody and hosting a panel and getting to interview Gene.
Safe Toy Hunting Practices
00:02:10
Speaker
You know, there's more important things to take care of these days. Yeah. And, you know, while while we're on the topic, I mean, it is just a topic in toy news as well. You know, we heard rumblings of it back when we were at toy fair before, you know, before the virus kind of made its way stateside here. But, you know, it is affecting the toy industry as a whole, along with, of course, many other facets of life.
00:02:39
Speaker
So, you know, if you are out there hunting toys in person and you're not doing it online, just keep your hands away from your face. Make sure you're washing your hands. Dave was just was just playing the the Uncle Dave card to my daughter about an hour ago, reminding her the trick when she's washing her hands, which is to sing the happy birthday song twice. Yes.
00:03:04
Speaker
Yeah, so just take care of yourselves, take care of other people, be respectful, and we're not gonna dwell on the coronavirus anymore this episode because it's everywhere, and I'm sure you're probably sick of hearing about it. Yeah, as tired of talking about it as we are, I'm sure. Yeah.
00:03:23
Speaker
So onto other toy news, right?
New Lego Mech Sets
00:03:28
Speaker
They're gonna save hashtag spawn gate for a relater in the episode as that ties into a little bit of our main topic. But there have been some really cool things coming out and I started hitting shelves. Some of the things that we saw at the Lego booth at New York Toy Fair are starting to hit shelves, those $10 price pointed Thanos,
00:03:53
Speaker
Spider-Man and Iron Man sets that look like mechs. They look like they're in little mech versions of themselves. Yeah, to kind of go with the Spider-Man and Venom mechs that are out there. The Thanos is great. It comes with an Infinity Gauntlet that he's wearing and each gem is a solid or a single peg.
00:04:16
Speaker
It's just, they're neat, and especially at a $10 price point, it's great, because you get opposable, multi, or super articulated Lego mech along with a minifigure, so it's a good deal. Those mechs are, I gotta say, they're not the easiest build as well.
00:04:36
Speaker
No, they're not. Now, these
Marvel Legends and Distribution Challenges
00:04:38
Speaker
are not as complicated as the Venom and Spider-Man mechs that came in that two-pack that we both have some experience with. That I unfortunately bought for a four-year-old's birthday? Yes. Or Christmas? Yes. I have to say, Lego is very good with the ages that are on their packages. There's a lot of thought that goes into what number they put on there. Yeah, but there was a 39-year-old having problems with that one too.
00:05:06
Speaker
Accurate well, I'm not 39 yet, but 38 year old having problems with that one. That was it was a challenging build Along with the other Lego stuff the Mandalorian pack is out Some of the black widow stuff is is starting to hit shelves I saw some sort of I I saw it in passing took a picture of it to post on our Instagram and looked no further at it because I know sometimes there could be some Spoilery things
00:05:30
Speaker
Generally not if it's out. Yeah, well I mean that's how I found out about technically Funko spoiled Giant Man for me. Because they had that Giant Man pop out before. I think that that was known. I don't know.
00:05:48
Speaker
I remember seeing it and that was at least how I found out about it. So maybe the information was out there and I just hadn't seen it yet, which is entirely possible. But yeah, the other thing too with some of the new figures, speaking of Black Widow, our buddies over at Caster's Corner, they found the new wave of Marvel Legends, the Black Widow Marvel Legends in Connecticut. They've also showed up in California and then somewhere in the middle of the country.
00:06:18
Speaker
Those are starting to make it out on shelves. The Stan Lee, the long awaited Stan Lee Marvel Legends figure is somebody found at Universal Studios in Orlando in the Marvel area for sale. It's also starting to show up from those fan channels. Hasbro Pulse at this point is a little bit behind on the shipping date. The shipping date was scheduled for February 26th for that.
00:06:46
Speaker
And we are now a few weeks past that so understandably yeah but they're starting to get out there on this they're starting to make their way to two people. That's a very storied figure at this point was supposed to be a bill to figure they ended up canceling the wave and.
00:07:04
Speaker
Now he's got his own look and I'm sure at this point everyone has seen it. If not, just take a look on Hasbro Pulse's website. It's a great looking figure. Can't wait till they get that one. Other toy news, what else do I have? I mean those WrestleMania standees I guess are at Walmart. Oh yeah, the shippers. Talk about that a little bit. Basically it's the
00:07:33
Speaker
WrestleMania Elite Wave and the WrestleMania Basic and Battle Pack Waves, as well as the current top picks, Elites, and the Series 74 with Jim the Annual Nightheart. And apparently, Peyton Royce went from being a Target exclusive to a Target and Walmart exclusive, which we'll talk more about too. Interesting. Later.
Virtual Conventions and Exclusives
00:08:03
Speaker
Other new things, again with the cancellation of some things, Funko did a virtual convention event. They did. They did kind of like their, I guess they called it virtual con. They did. But it was for all the ECCC exclusives, which there were ones that made it onto the website that I don't think people thought were gonna be there.
00:08:32
Speaker
Like I was unable to get the Grand Budapest Hotel pop to pack but I was able to pick up the Scott Pilgrim sodas I was gonna say did you did you go in for the sodas? Yeah, I got I got sodas Yeah, those are cool. I like and I like the marketing that they're doing it for it like making it look like a beach party and yeah, they'll
00:08:53
Speaker
We'll kind of unbox once those arrive. Cool. And I was able to pick up Recyclops Dwight from the office, which was a Walmart. And I think they, Funko also, this is coming off the heels of the TargetCon thing that they did too. Yeah, which is just, they kind of, it was a fan thing that kind of gained steam. And then they just decided to be like, well, we'll release all of our Target exclusives on one day and call it TargetCon.
00:09:22
Speaker
Yeah, because that used to be what people called Funko Fridays back in the day. When they'd have the Funko Friday drop at Walmart, or excuse me, at Target. Like with Pikachu and... It was more for when they would do groups of exclusives. Gotcha. They referred to it as Target Con.
00:09:40
Speaker
Some other toy news, the Vintage Collection Mandalorian figures are starting to hit shelves. Our friend of the pod, Yuma, at YumaBuma on Instagram. He was able to find Cara Dune, the Mandalorian, the Remnant Stormtrooper.
00:09:58
Speaker
So it's really cool that those are finally starting to make it out onto shelves along with the big announcement from LEGO, of course, which is the partnering of LEGO and Nintendo. So some pretty cool stuff in terms of news.
Spin Master's Batman Collection
00:10:14
Speaker
Yeah. You got anything else? Oh, no, I got nothing.
00:10:17
Speaker
Yeah, so I guess on to hauls. I've actually caught the Spin Master Batman bug. I'm fully invested now. I actually have the entire first wave minus just the regular gray Batman in favor of the regular gray Batman. I went with the Target exclusive all black Batman with the yellow.
00:10:45
Speaker
Bat logo kind of gave me that that 89 Batman feel but um I picked up killer croc Who's a Walmart exclusive but not labeled? I got that super rare like pseudo translucent looking Robin Okay, that's that's the what it yeah, I think it's called super rare. Yeah. Yeah and I got man bat Okay
00:11:11
Speaker
The big figures, those like chunky figures, like Killer Croc and Manbat, they're so cool. And their center of balance is like crazy. Like you can have Killer Croc pick up two different other figures. Like you can have him pick up Robin in one hand and Batman in the other and have him hold them above their heads.
00:11:32
Speaker
It's wild how sturdy they are, which makes me excited for potential future figures. I immediately started thinking about, will they make a Bane figure? Which would be great. I mean, they got a lot of world to play with there.
00:11:48
Speaker
Yeah. And they have, you know, again, we saw some of the new ones coming at Toy Fair and, you know, like we saw, I think it was Copperhead, who's like the snake guy. Yeah. Who's another big guy. Who's the shark? King Shark. Yeah. He's a Target exclusive. I didn't pick him up. I wasn't crazy about how that figure looked. Plus, I've never really been a big fan of that villain. In terms of Batman, it's a more aquatic villains. I've always I've always liked Croc.
00:12:16
Speaker
So I'm curious to see what else they make in that line, but I picked up those.
Favorite Marvel Legends Venom Figure
00:12:22
Speaker
I picked up Scorpion from the McFarlane line because I am super, super, super excited to get spawn and I want something to display him with. And I I've been playing Mortal Kombat 11 and I really enjoy what they did with Scorpion's character in that. So I picked up that figure from Wal-Mart.
00:12:39
Speaker
Great looking figure and then the other big one for me is I finally got my my repainted venom in and it's If it's if it's not my favorite Marvel Legends figure so far Which is crazy because I only collect the MCU ones with the very few exceptions. It's it's one of them I mean they just
00:12:59
Speaker
He's such a fun figure to pose and the details on him and he's just monstrous. Like, like he's, he's not that, um, that nineties, uh, Spider-Man cartoon venom. That's just kind of like a little bit bigger than Spider-Man. I mean, this thing is, he's fucking huge. Like it is a great figure. Um, again, great center of balance. So it stands well at photographs. Nice. Um, looks great with next to the carnage figure. So I mean, I'm, I just love it. Um, I was very happy to get that.
00:13:29
Speaker
I have a bunch of stuff on pre-order that hasn't come yet. And the only other thing that I got when I got on behalf of both of us, which shout out to Amy, again from Lego, and Megan, the PR rep who walked us through the booth at Lego, they sent us some Lego dot stuff. So we have two wristband kits along with a jewelry box kit. Oh, very cool.
00:13:58
Speaker
So, um, I posted a picture of that already, but you know, we'll, we'll make a video of us, you know, figuring that out, but it looks really cool. That's all, that's all I got for hauls.
WWE Elite Figure Discoveries
00:14:08
Speaker
I didn't get much this past week. I, uh, I believe I picked up that Superman, uh, the McFarland Superman. I know you talked about picking that up previously. Um, great figure.
00:14:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great figure. I figured it's cool to kind of get into that line. I kind of made some rules for myself as far as what I want to pick up. Yeah. So I'm thinking, I'll say kind of like classic comic figures.
00:14:49
Speaker
I'm looking at it kind of like iconic duos. So like the way you compose them. So like I have, I now have, I know I'm getting Batman and the Joker from that Arkham wave, right? Okay. So like you can pose Batman and the Joker. You can, I have Nightwing cause I caught him at a GameStop that was blowing stuff out. So I got him really cheap. You know, you can, you could do Nightwing and Batman. You can do Batman and Superman. So like I'm looking for like just an iconic duo that I can display together.
00:15:19
Speaker
Yeah, like I'm thinking like classic Justice League maybe, but I don't know yet. Yeah. I haven't really finished kind of mapping out the rules. Well, weren't you saying that you were thinking about doing just movie realizations? Yeah, which there aren't any yet, so. Yeah. That's an easy one to make because it doesn't exist in the line at this point.
00:15:39
Speaker
Yeah, and we haven't seen any inkling that anything's coming that way. Wonder Woman 84. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. We did see both of those, the regular and then the one in the Golden Angel looking gear. Yeah. So really nothing there yet. But I also think that that's a great Superman, so that's a good representation of having Superman. Yeah.
00:16:06
Speaker
And it's cool. It comes in, comes with the packed in flight stand and all that good stuff. Um, and then I got some WWE figures. Surprise, surprise. Um, I picked up all elites. I got a elite, the Ken Shamrock elite from a while back. Um, that's a great figure. It's the only Ken Shamrock.
00:16:33
Speaker
Were these, these are the ones that were, that were living in your Amazon cart for awhile, right? Yeah, they were. I think it was like series 52 kind of Shamrock. Jeez. Um, I picked up, um, so I have a Kurt Hawkins when I went to, um, the major wrestling figure podcast, live podcast that they did WrestleMania week. Um, this past year I got a, uh, elite rider and elite Hawkins signed by.
00:17:00
Speaker
Both, um, both superstars superstars. Um, and then, uh, but I also had an extra rider. So I was like, I need a Hawkins. Um, and I've just been kind of waiting for to do an order to get one.
00:17:17
Speaker
Yeah. Like a rider and a Hawkins that you could open. That I could open. Um, so I got the Hawkins and it wound up being the chase and the black outfit as opposed to the blue outfit. So cool. So I have that one opened. Nice. Um, I also got as part of that order, um, the recent first time in the line, Eric young, um, elite, which was cool. Um,
00:17:44
Speaker
It's a great figure. It's a very underrated figure. It's from the sanity run, which doesn't exist anymore, but really cool figure.
00:17:53
Speaker
Then I took a late night run to to my local Target Random Sunday night target run and The the shelves must have just been freshly stocked what a feeling and I posted this photo on on our Instagram Which is a I see underscore podcast. Oh with the plug he got and I found a fresh stocking of
00:18:20
Speaker
Drew McIntyre, the Page Target exclusive, and the Cassius Ohno Target exclusive. There was a second Drew that I left for whoever else wanted to get it, but I finally got those.
Surprising Walgreens Finds
00:18:32
Speaker
That was when you had to put back at the toy show, right? Because it was set aside for somebody? Yeah. Drew McIntyre?
00:18:38
Speaker
at not retail price. And then I went to Walmart and found, didn't find a Jim the Anvil Nighthart, but I did find the Seth Rollins Series 75, which is Seth Rollins in the Chicago Bears gear from this past last year's Royal Rumble, which as a Bears fan, I kind of was like, this is the Seth that I want.
00:19:06
Speaker
And what was the one? Didn't I pick up one for you? Did we talk about that yet? I don't think we talked about that. The one that I found in the in the Walgreens that time forgot. Oh, yeah. A women's women's division race, which she showed up in your unboxing. Yeah, she did. She was there as just a scale kind of comparison for for Jushin Thunder Liger.
00:19:29
Speaker
Who is also somebody that you got is also somebody that I got. I didn't mention it because we saw the unboxing, but. Yeah, that Maurice was cool. That was one that I, you know. Would have grabbed if I had seen at a decent price online, but didn't think I would find for retail at a Walgreens in 2020, so.
00:19:55
Speaker
Yeah, it was wild. That Walgreens had such a strange array of figures. It had her, it had two of the Alexa Blisses from that wave. Which was released like later. It had...
00:20:11
Speaker
because that wave, or that line. I should say line, not wave. Yeah, that line of women's division figures was supposed to get the first Natty elite, Natalia elite, and I think there was supposed to be a Naomi coming too, which we still have not seen, so. Yeah, they had that, they had a Marvel Legends Sasquatch wave paladin, which, my god, that figure's like five years old.
00:20:40
Speaker
They had the Mace Windu Funko Pops. It was just weird. They had stuff that I know people were actively searching and hoping to find years ago, all together in one spot. It was weird. It was a weird array of figures. Yeah, that's certainly a hodgepodge. Yeah. Anything else? Did you haul in anything else? No, that's it. I've been...
00:21:09
Speaker
I've not been to the stores lately. So you know what time it is then?
'Name That Toy' Game
00:21:15
Speaker
Is it time to hit the music? It's time to play Name That Toy!
00:21:26
Speaker
Now, it's been a couple weeks since we've played Name That Toy. And if this is the first time listening, first of all, hello. Thank you for finding us. Hope you're enjoying yourself. We play a little game called Name That Toy. Right now, the current score is Dave 2, Eric 1.
00:21:44
Speaker
If you're coming in from Toy Fair, this is what the show generally is like. Yes, yes. So the way that this game works is one of us chooses a toy or a toy line and prepares a few clues that go from very broad to more narrow in their target.
00:22:10
Speaker
And we today will be Dave's turn. My, the last time was mine. If I can't get it, uh, what we'll do is we'll kick it out to you guys on, on Instagram. So again, that's at AIC underscore podcast.
00:22:21
Speaker
or twitter i mean come on yeah twitter anywhere on social media anywhere we'll just post it and um if whoever if somebody guesses it right uh we'll randomly select one of the people who guesses it right and we have some fun prizes so we'll pick uh we'll pick one of the prizes that we've collected and have been hanging on for this we haven't had a chance to
00:22:43
Speaker
deliver on this yet because Dave and I have answered each other's clues both times. So with that, Dave, are you are you ready? Yeah, I am. I think I think I'm in trouble. This may be it. I know. I know that smile. So I'm going to cue the music and let's get started.
00:23:05
Speaker
Okay, so this one I didn't really do in there's no real inherent order to the clues. It just kind of goes through the information about it. Okay. Because this is a weird one. Alright, I'm ready. Alright, so your first hint or your first clue.
Frustration with Kenner Toy Guess
00:23:29
Speaker
I just want to make sure.
00:23:31
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we'll say it's the same here. It was produced by Kenner in 1986, based on a five episode miniseries, based on a licensed person. A licensed person. And the person is a character, I'll say that. Mr. T? No, but that's a good guess.
00:23:59
Speaker
Okay, so licensed per can or made these in the year one more time 1986 1986 and it's off of a licensed person Person okay, keep going The cartoon was produced by Ruby Spears entertainment Might as well be Britney Spears entertainment 1986
00:24:29
Speaker
All right, give me another one. All right. The heroes fought the evil organization known as Vulture. Ah, man. This sounds, this sounds familiar. I'm gonna have my toy card revoked at the end of this episode. I have a sinking suspicion. Vulture, and it's not Mr. T, but it's a person. All right, keep going.
00:24:58
Speaker
Vulture was led by the Claw and his associate Super Ninja The only bad guy I know that was there are two bad guys in Oak Claw are from Black Panther and Spectre Gadget and Spectre Gadget was not a person.
00:25:18
Speaker
It's neither of those. Yeah, I know. I'm not even gonna take that as a guess. I'm just trying to work through it out loud. I'm a fucking person. I don't know why I'm stuck on that. How many more clues do I have? You have two. Alright, give me another one. Are you sure? I mean, I don't have any other choice. A comic book based off of the cartoon and inherently the toy line was created by Marvel imprint Star Comics.
00:25:51
Speaker
I'm trying to think that the 80's a person. Like a fucking person, not a character, right? The person is a character in this, but it's a person. So the person, the person went, we've never established rules by asking questions back. I don't know if we're allowed to do that. You got one more clue, so I'm cool with it. So the person was known as their character? No, the person is the character.
00:26:23
Speaker
Okay, wait, so I've been thinking about this all wrong. So it's not like a Mr. T, where he was like a character that was, but everybody knew him as Mr. T. I mean, he's Mr. T, so that's... Umm... So I'll put it this way. This person is who this person is. It's not like Hulk Hogan. But he's a real person. He's a real person.
00:26:52
Speaker
Or like, you know, like it's not like Sergeant Slaughter. Yeah. It's... Okay. It's not like... Magnum P.I. Tom Selleck. Right. It would be Tom Selleck. Yeah. Okay. Alright. I think I'm... I... That was... That might have been... It might as well have been its own clue. I still don't know, man. Alright, give me the last clue. I think you got me. Shit.
00:27:22
Speaker
The hero was accompanied by Pepper, Reed, and too much amongst others. Too much is a character's name. Pepper, Reed, and too much? Man, I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of people that are going to be very angry with me. This is... Pepper? I had a couple ideas, and this is the one I went with.
00:27:48
Speaker
Was it Ronald McDonald? No. Ronald McDonald isn't a person. I know, Dave. Alright, wait. Let me think about this for another minute. Before I completely throw in the calendar. I'll see if I can come up with another clue. No, how many was that? Was that five? Um... That was six. Yeah, no. Don't come up with another clue. If I can't get it, I can't get it. Run through them. Just run through them again. Read through the six clues again.
00:28:18
Speaker
It was produced in Kenner, or it was produced in Kenner. It was produced in Kenner. It was produced by Kenner in 1986 based on a five episode miniseries based on a licensed, starring, I'll say starring a licensed person. A license? That's such a weird...
00:28:40
Speaker
No, I get I get what you're saying now, but like and now I'm trying to think through like 80s pop culture and who was like a Like I like who was a brand basically like you're talking about somebody that was their own brand and still may be Like I think Hulk Hogan mr. T 86 that's that's too early for like an MC Hammer line of figures and
00:29:09
Speaker
Do you want, I mean... No, it's... They're fighting against an evil organization known as Vulture. I got nothing. This is a good one. You stumping me is a good thing. Like, the idea is that you were supposed to try to stump each other. So, alright. I went through the third clue. Yeah. The cartoon was produced by Ruby Spears Entertainment.
00:29:37
Speaker
Vulture was led by The Claw and his associate Super Ninja. Super Ninja was his right hand man, as it were. If George Washington were to mention that as Alexander Hamilton. A comic book was created by Marvel Imprint Star Comics.
00:30:03
Speaker
and the hero, the licensed individual, the pop culture icon, was accompanied by Pepper, Reed, two separate people, and too much, amongst others. Too much, also a separate person. A person, not like a robot. You wouldn't, that wouldn't. Okay. It's either one of those things where you know that from that or not. I give up. I give up.
00:30:35
Speaker
So how are we doing this? Am I are we bleeping it or are we am I just telling you and So Yeah, here's what I'll do no tell it tell it to me and we'll bleep it remember we bleeped We we bleep the name. Yeah, that's true and we will now yeah
00:30:57
Speaker
son of a bitch i was so close you were when you said mr t i was like he's gonna get this fuck me all right well
00:31:13
Speaker
And I was gonna get one, however, they are not cheap. They're not inexpensive to come by. It's funny you mention these because somebody just posted a picture of one of these within our timeline, like recently. Oh wow. Like posted a picture of one on Card. Really? And I was like, I've never seen these before.
00:31:38
Speaker
Okay, all right, well, so. Oh my god, all right. Okay, so I'll figure out, after the episode's over, Dave and I will look through the couple of things I have set aside for. Well, Eric will come up with a prize. Yeah, we have a couple things that we can give away. You've been teasing things for weeks. Yeah. I'm fully confident in your ability to. Select a prize. Select a prize.
00:32:05
Speaker
We'll figure it out. Yeah, so we'll throw this up on Instagram and Twitter Monday at some point. We'll wait until probably Monday night at some point. I still have a couple other ones too that I think will, but they just need some time. So you get another point. So you're now three to one? Three to one. So this day in history.
Role of Exclusives in Collecting
00:32:31
Speaker
I gotta bleep that again. Oh, sorry. All right, so with that, I'm gonna be mad about that for two weeks, at least two weeks. Yeah, so with that, let's head on over to our main topic, so store exclusives. Yeah. So we mentioned a couple already.
00:32:59
Speaker
You know, I sort of mentioned Spawn, um, Dave mentioned, uh, uh, some of the, the, the Peyton Royce and, um, and Cassius Ohno, right. And Paige. Yeah. So Jim, the anvil store exclusives have been a thing for as long as I can remember with toys. Like there was always like the figure that you could, you either had to mail away for or the figure that like, you could only find a toys or rust. Like there was always, there was always some level of exclusivity when it came to collecting.
00:33:29
Speaker
or like specific box sets at Kmart or Target or Walmart or...
00:33:35
Speaker
Yeah, remember before we had a Target around us? Like back in those Jack specific days? When Target was only a Midwest thing? Yeah. Yeah, our dad would go on business trips and would come home with like, I remember there was like a three pack, a Buried Alive three pack. And King of the Iron Rungs, those were the two three packs. But it was the only way you could get the executioner was in that Buried Alive one. And then who was the exclusive in the other one?
00:34:04
Speaker
I'll look that up. You know Dave's gonna look that up, but
00:34:08
Speaker
It's so interesting that, you know, now as these kind of store, like a lot of the toy stores are gone. So like the KB, the obviously Toys R Us in its original form, you know, some of the stores that kind of got folded into GameStop. So there was like electronics boutique and there was another one too, software, et cetera. You know, these stores used to have these these exclusives, but
00:34:38
Speaker
And even to an extent, Kmart's going away. A lot of those are closing, if not all of them at this point. But store exclusive is still a really big thing. And the big brands, you know, play into it. So the Mattels, the Hasbros, the... It must have been the first way to either get the Ref or the Ladder, or the Stone Cold and the Austin 316 shirt.
00:34:59
Speaker
Okay. Now I remember that set. You're talking about it, I remember it. But yeah, the store exclusives, still a really big deal. Like right now, as we're recording this episode, recently somebody got handcuffed and let out of a Target for trying to steal a Red Hulk.
00:35:20
Speaker
And we've talked about the aftermarket before and how some people are a little opportunistic, right? So these targets are not getting a lot of the red hulks and people are going and getting them before they even hit shelves, but buying all of them and quote unquote,
00:35:42
Speaker
to help other collectors who don't have a target in their area. It's like, oh, yeah,
Do Exclusives Help or Hinder Collecting?
00:35:46
Speaker
great. But, you know, you're not selling it at the retail price plus shipping. You're, you know, upcharging and, you know, oh, I'm saving you on your gas money. And, you know, it's just it's wild how the store exclusives kind of get twisted sometimes depending on the popularity, which we talked about in the don't be that guy episode. Yeah. Yeah. Or don't be that person. But Hot Topics, another one. Hot Topic with the Pops, right? They have they get a lot of exclusives.
00:36:11
Speaker
Yeah, but I mean, so does any store, you know, Hot Topic or Walmart or Target or, you know, GameStop. There's always some exclusive. I feel like the big three at this point would probably be Walmart, Target, and Amazon gets exclusive. And Amazon, oh yeah, I forgot about Amazon, yeah. But there have been some weird ones for Pops, like there are Foot Locker exclusives, like there was a Foot Locker exclusive Charlotte Flair.
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah, some of the athletes, they try to play into the demographic of the type of shopper that goes into the store. Somebody who's more athletically minded. Yeah, I guess like sports stars. Yeah, which makes sense. Which makes sense. And same with GameStop gets a lot of the video game and or anime type exclusives. Again, they're playing to- Again, Hot Topic is more like horror. You'll see horror music exclusives. Yeah, or CW stuff.
00:37:08
Speaker
You know, they had a lot of- Like the supernatural and stuff like that, yeah. Yep, you actually, you picked up one of those exclusives, didn't you? I got a supernatural car chase. You did? Um, cause I just saw it there. Yeah. Still have it. I just thought it was like cool.
00:37:24
Speaker
And then Hasbro's taking the exclusive moniker and going kind of a different route with it. They do what they call fan channel exclusives. So they're exclusives to, they won't be in brick and mortar basically. They'll be on your Entertainment Earths, your Big Bad Toy Stores, your Amazons. Entertainment Earth has their fair share of exclusives too. Yeah, they're starting to get a lot more of them as time goes on. Well, they've had pops for a while.
00:37:54
Speaker
Yeah, and they announced two pretty cool ones at Toy Fair. They have the Wolverine, Venomized Wolverine, I think, or Zombie Wolverine, maybe, and that Cosmic Spider-Man, which is awesome. The store exclusive stuff, do you see it more as a blessing or a curse when it comes to it? I mean, it's always been there, so I wouldn't say it's a curse, necessarily.
00:38:23
Speaker
It's really just more of, it makes, depending on the availability, it makes the hunt more of a hunt. That's 100% for sure. But I wouldn't say it's necessarily, I wouldn't say it's bad. I think the thing though is with some of these, they're not toy stores. Like yeah, Walmart has a very active toy section, same with Target, but at the end of the day,
00:38:51
Speaker
It was one thing when a toy store had an exclusive launch or they were like a launch partner. Well, yeah, but like, let's look at WWE, for example. So like Walmart had the rock Patterson, Briscoe, um, which were easy to come by. Ghostbusters are relatively easy to come by. Um,
00:39:13
Speaker
you know, the masters of the WWE universe, you're starting to see more of. Yeah. But then I never saw Gorilla Monsoon. So like, you know, Jim, the Anvil, Nightheart, I still have never seen. I hadn't seen for Target. I find that for their WWE ones, they're a bit harder to come by. But then those network spotlight ones,
00:39:36
Speaker
Yeah, you know I haven't everywhere in all fairness though like I've seen pictures of people who have found Jim Nite heart like like multiple times like you scroll You know if you put him in a hashtag or scroll just scroll through kind of like toy Instagram. You'll find them I've seen gorilla monsoon maybe twice
00:39:54
Speaker
like in terms of. Oh in terms of people having photos of it. Yeah just like. I was gonna say you've seen it twice and I don't have it. No no no I haven't seen it twice in person I'm saying I have only literally seen it in other people's hands twice so I think that might be one that's just kind of maybe it hasn't been distributed or.
00:40:13
Speaker
And that's always been a weird thing too because, you know, the, you think back to the retros like series three was everywhere forever. And then there were ones that you've never, I've never seen in stores. Like I saw series four.
00:40:27
Speaker
or I'm sorry, series five in Kmart once and it was all of them and I just grabbed them and that was the only time I've seen them in public. Yeah, but the reason why I brought up what's kind of your feeling is I've unfortunately had an unfortunate experience with the launch of Spawn. So on last Sunday, so what was that, the eighth?
00:40:53
Speaker
was the store exclusive launch of Spawn, which we heard about at Toy Fair.
Challenges with McFarlane's Spawn Figure
00:40:59
Speaker
McFarlane provided a list of 400 Walmarts that Spawn was supposed to be at. We unfortunately did not have one in our area, so that wasn't an option. But he was also supposed to be available at 10 a.m. Eastern on Sunday.
00:41:17
Speaker
Not only did he not show up on Sunday at all on targets or on Walmart's website, he was only in a handful of those stores. People were driving all over to the stores and he never showed up. And not only did he not show up, he wasn't even in the system. So like the Walmart employees couldn't even look for him. And then without any sort of heads up, he just showed up on Walmart.com.
00:41:43
Speaker
on Monday and I happened to get lucky and grabbed two. I grabbed one for myself and I grabbed one for Dave, for Dave P of Calling All Creeps and Zap Comics. And I was like, cool, done and dusted, got it. Full release date is March 13th, great. I get an email two days later, automatically generated from Walmart, saying, sorry, your order is canceled.
00:42:10
Speaker
And then, of course, he's no longer available on on walmart.com. I had, you know, not paid attention when he was available for sale on Amazon as like the second partner store. And he was no longer available there, but he was available at GameStop for, you know, twenty seven dollars instead of twenty.
00:42:29
Speaker
So, you know, it's just weird sometimes, I think because these stores and I and I don't do not put any blame whatsoever on on McFarland toys because they made it perfectly clear to us when we when we met them at toy fair how much they cared about this this product, how much they care about spawn. Obviously, you know, it's Todd's creation that and they made it clear how. He was going to be in these 400 stores. Yeah. And online.
00:42:58
Speaker
like they had their communications out like they were being as transparent as they could and they are very much so like a collector's first brand you know across the board so when it didn't work out and it wasn't available
00:43:16
Speaker
I have to imagine that they were just as pissed off as we were. But because these stores aren't toy stores first, the way that stores used to be, I think sometimes there's a problem doing these limited and timed exclusivities. It sucks, but it was way more headache than it was worth. And I think another big thing too that kind of softened the blow, as it were, it's available.
00:43:47
Speaker
Maybe not right now, but you could get it in other places, times like Entertainment Earth had it, GameStop had it, Amazon had it. The full release date, now that it's been posted a couple places, the actual real release date is April 14th or 17th or something like that.
00:44:09
Speaker
Hopefully at that point he'll start showing up on shelves and everything. I was able to get, as much as I begrudged the experience, I was able to get him on Amazon. Just got lucky, refreshing. Found him, was able to order the same two that I originally had at Walmart. So I'll cancel my GameStop order.
00:44:33
Speaker
Yeah. It's just, uh, it's, it's with these, these store exclusives, it makes kind of the, the hunt a heightened experience. I think overall, whether it's something that's happening digitally or something that's happening, you know, in store. Well, like the, um, I think it was released that the AW figures, I think August is when they're due. Yeah. Late, uh, late summer. I thought, yeah, I thought it was like the first week in August. I think they said, um,
00:45:01
Speaker
and it's going to be at Ringside Collectibles for online and Walmart. Yeah. Which, yeah, fine. But now that you have those kind of two outlets, do you want to go out and get them or do you want to just sit at home? You're going to pay a little more, but you'll get it and it'll be shipped right to you.
00:45:24
Speaker
The other thing you have to consider too is, like you could go on Ringside right now and order even that special Chris Jericho, like the bubbly one. Which I did, yes. It's still in stock. Spawn, people have been waiting for this figure for a very long time. I mean this is the first real super articulated spawn. Like real, real super articulated spawn.
00:45:46
Speaker
There was one in the movie line back in the day that had more articulation than most other spawn figures before it had, but it still wasn't great. This figure is unbelievable and we've seen it. So I think part of it too might just be the miscalculation of how popular this figure would be.
00:46:09
Speaker
And I think the same thing goes for Hasbro with Red Hulk. And I think that's tough when it comes to a store exclusive, because you have one option to get it. I think that's relative, to be honest. You never really know what's going to be popular. Let's break it down to you and I. What was your favorite all time store exclusive? I mean, favorite of all time, there was
00:46:37
Speaker
There were some good wrestling ones back in the day. There were always some good Jax ones. But you collected them more, it was more of buying them for you, and that was the fun part. I mean, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna kinda beat the dead horse as it were. Retro series one and series two were Walmart, WWE retros.
00:47:06
Speaker
That was what really kind of got me back into collecting wrestling figures and collecting something that's not, um, pop vinyls. Yeah. And it was, you know, the nostalgia factor was huge with it. It was the, they were, you know, it's something where I have the entire series in Men on Card. Um, and it's something where I've like, should I go get them again, just to open them? Like Mattel, if you're listening, bring back retros.
00:47:35
Speaker
Nah, they're done. I mean, I would love them, but it feels like they're done. We could will it into existence. If Brian Myers and Matt Cardona could not will it back into existence, we will not be able to will it back into existence. Fair.
00:47:53
Speaker
I feel like I feel like two we have to mention only because it is Friday the 13th. Wasn't there an awesome NES Jason with like the box that played the music from the game that was like a GameStop exclusive from NECA? I thought it was Toys R Us. I don't think it played the music. There's one that played music when you like it like a like a greeting card when you opened that
00:48:14
Speaker
I mean, I know the video game ones I think were Toys R Us exclusive, because they had Master System Rocky, they had LJN Freddie, they had LJN Jason. I forgot about the Rocky one, that was all black and yellow, right? No, Master System Rocky was just like Rocky for Rocky. Yeah, those are cool figures. No, there's definitely one. I'm gonna try to find a video of it. I know that they made Blue and Purple Jason. There's one where the box plays that loop.
00:48:42
Speaker
And NECA had like, and this is one of those things that I wish I had bought, they had made the, like you can get still the regular mask, but they had made blue and purple mask. And like I had it in my hand so many times and I'm like, what am I going to do with this? Um, when GameStop had the 8-bit
00:48:59
Speaker
pop vinyl Exclusives of Jason and Freddie from in LJN colors. I got those I never got the reaction figures though, which are ones that I wanted I think the one year they were New York comic-con exclusives the Jason and Freddie reactions that were in the LJN colors Yeah, there's there's one that plays I'm trying to figure out what it was from but it plays the music like the walking through the cabin music or
00:49:33
Speaker
Yes, that's the in the cabin. Yeah. And when you open the box, it does that. That's fantastic. And it says actually on the inside of the box, it says you and your friends are dead. That's great. I'll post this video on our on our Instagram.
00:49:48
Speaker
But yeah, there's a lot of great store exclusives that are still coming in the pipe. We noticed at Toy Fair there was a bunch of announcements. Even the real Ghostbusters figures are Walmart exclusives, the real Ghostbusters relaunch figures. So I guess it makes the hunt a little bit tougher.
00:50:10
Speaker
And I think here's the other thing with it, too, like when it's the WWE elites where it's like, you know, one to two per case, that's going to make it a little bit more difficult than a full case of Masters of the WWE
Community's Role in Sourcing Exclusives
00:50:24
Speaker
Universe. Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess the answer here is that store exclusives aren't going away anytime soon. No, and that's fine. It's.
00:50:34
Speaker
And just, you know, there there is a wonderful toy community on on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook. There are blogs out there of people that kind of do all the work and keep track of stuff for you, which is kind of what we're trying to do as best as we can. And also just, you know, communities of people who are trying to kind of keep it where it's, you know, they'll buy if they see three of them, they'll buy them and then
00:51:02
Speaker
you know, get them to their friends at retail plus shipping. Yep. Which is outstanding. You know, it's kind of one of those things where it's like it's it's the good part of the community. Yeah. So, you know, with that, we're going to wrap it up for today. And as always, follow us on on Twitter and Instagram at AIC underscore podcast. Again, if you if you bought a pass for ZapCon, stay tuned.
00:51:32
Speaker
It's not cancelled. It's just postponed so Hopefully, you know, they'll they'll have a new date ironed out soon and you know We'll we'll be on top of making sure that that gets out there We have some ice cream to eat
00:51:47
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.
00:52:04
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.
00:52:27
Speaker
This has been a non-productive media presentation. Executive producer Frank Kablaui. This program and many others like it on the non-productive network is distributed under a Creative Commons attribution non-commercial no derivatives license. Please share it, but ask before trying to change it or sell it. For more information visit non-productive.com.
00:52:57
Speaker
you