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Charapros, NFTs, and Birthday Wishes
391 Plays4 years ago
On this episode, friend of the pod and new wrestling figure collector Giancarlo join Dave and Erik to discuss Charapro wrestling figures, the bizarre world of NFTs, and help celebrate Dave's birthday with a couple special guest appearances!
Follow Giancarlo on Twitter @yeahgiancarlo.
Follow us @aic_podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube
Intro and other voices by Joe Azzari
https://www.instagram.com/voicesbyjoe/
Theme Music is "Game Boy Horror" by the Zombie Dandies
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Transcript
Introduction to Adventures in Collecting
00:00:02
Speaker
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 halls, along with our journeys as collectors.
00:00:26
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome back to Adventures in Collecting!
Guest Feature: John Carlo on Wrestling Figures
00:00:30
Speaker
We are back and we are joined by a special guest today, Dave.
00:00:36
Speaker
We are. We're not going to bury the lead on that guest. Joining us is John Carlo, friend of the pod, friend of many pods, actually, and former podcaster himself and new wrestling figure collector. John Carlo, thank you for joining us on Adventures in Collecting. I'm also a listener of your show.
00:01:00
Speaker
Well, thank you. Every once in a while, I'll put it on. And occasionally mentioned on the show. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. We bring you up from time to time. You're a man of worldly talent. Wow. On today's episode.
Toy News and Updates
00:01:21
Speaker
So before we dive in on our main topic today, which is gonna be the reason why we brought you on here to talk about your newfound wrestling figure collecting habit and just kind of talk about wrestling figures in general, we are going to dive into our news desk, which Dave, we have not actually done yet, because we haven't been there for the news desk. It's been a series of rotating, randomly named people, right?
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah, there have been a random series of objects that have delivered the news on a biweekly basis. Yeah, it's been good times there. They've done a good job. They've done a good job. They have. They really have. So we're going to hop over to the news desk and bring you up to speed. AICNN, where toy news matters.
00:02:20
Speaker
So Junk Shop Dog, a friend of the program, released the, or at least released a render of the next, the third, I believe, in the wave of Sofubi wrestlers that he's putting out, and that is Bulnakano. So that's really cool.
00:02:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's a big one. That's very excited for that. We've actually seen news of this both shipping from boss fight as well as from ringside collectibles. The legends of Lucha Libre, Penta El Zero M and Ray Phoenix are shipping. Eric, I know you got a shipping notification that I had already received previously. We saw it in the stories.
00:03:07
Speaker
Eric, I believe your McFarland spawn, as well as other McFarland spawns, are indeed shipping. They are. 2020, people's choice, toy of the year, finally made its way. I mean, is it 2020, though? I mean, that's technically what it won. Yeah, but I mean, nobody got it in 2020. No, nobody did. Everybody ordered it in 2020. Everybody paid for it in 2020.
00:03:37
Speaker
Yeah, I'm very excited. Very excited. Just today as we're recording on an Amazon UK listing, there was a listing for a new Spin Master Batman two pack with Batman and the first appearance of Deathstroke in the line.
00:03:55
Speaker
Yeah, Brock, Brock hinted at, uh, at, uh, at future new villains and fun surprises. So, uh, this is, this is definitely one of them. So, uh, you know, I think we're probably both going to be picking that one up. Um, yeah, I mean, it's, it's either going to be that, or if they, they single card deathstroke. I know we have another Batman fan in the, uh, in the house as well today.
Toy Packaging and Unboxing
00:04:19
Speaker
In the chat.
00:04:20
Speaker
In the chat. Batman fan in the chat. What do you what do you think about the packaging of these? Would you would you take them out of the box? I do. I actually did a marathon unboxing of Spin Master Batman today because it's so like like kid, you know, and it's so weird that Batman symbol on it. So like. Yeah, so it's it's like that rebirth, like the new DC Rebirth Batman. OK.
00:04:48
Speaker
But they're really cool figures and they have a ton of articulation. Like I was actually playing around with all the ones I was opening them today. And you don't see what those accessories are unless you open them. So that's another kind of reason to do it. This is like, if I got a Riddler and you had a Riddler, would we have the same accessories? Not necessarily. Oh, okay. Yeah, usually there's variations.
00:05:11
Speaker
So when you actually open one of them, there's a, instead of the cross cell being on the back, like, you know, you're on the back of the card, like, you know, typical figures, the cross cell is actually like a folded piece of paper that's almost, almost acts like a map inside of the the packaging. And it tells you in that wave, who the chase characters are, there's usually one chase and then one like super rare.
00:05:33
Speaker
And then there's a couple of different missions within that setup, right? So there might be, let's just say there's three Batman figures in a wave. One of them is going to be the chase that's translucent blue plastic or something very wacky looking. But then the other two, the variations will be the weapons because they'll have different weapons depending on what mission they're on.
00:06:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty cool, and the weapons will sometimes be different colors. It's really neat. There's a lot of cool stuff with it. And they've gone into DC Heroes as well, which is pretty cool.
00:06:17
Speaker
Yeah, so we have no idea when that two-pack is gonna hit in the US, but the listing is up on Amazon UK. A lot of times, once the listing does go, if the listing has not gone live on the US version of the website, all you have to do is change the .co.uk to .com, and it'll take you to what eventually will be the listing page for it in the US, so we posted it on Instagram if you wanna bookmark it,
00:06:46
Speaker
you know, check back, see if it updates, but... There was a McFarland figure that was... we'll say announced by Target today, or this week. Oh yeah, talk about controversy,
Interactive Grogu and New Releases
00:07:01
Speaker
huh? Yeah, unmasked shriek, which is the single card. You know, we initially thought that it was going to be two shrieks, the same figure, one with the build-a-figure and one that was a single card. As it turns out,
00:07:16
Speaker
the single card shriek is unmasked. Yeah, yep.
00:07:19
Speaker
And initially, too, when that report first came out, people were saying that there's gonna be a third variant. And you know what, in all fairness, it's a completely honest mistake to make because within the McFarlane toy world, there are so many different variants of the figures that come out. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a third variant, but in this case, it turns out that that $20 price mark one that does not have the build a figure piece is indeed just unmasked.
00:07:47
Speaker
And then the last bit of news, we had a Hasbro Pulse exclusive go up this week. Eric, you can probably speak more on that, as it is everybody's favorite 50-year-old space traveler. It is the galactic snack in Grogu. And it's- Definitely a tongue twister. Yeah, say that 10 times fast. No, I'm not gonna.
00:08:15
Speaker
But he's nine inches tall. He's fully interactive. He comes with a bunch of different fun accessories that mimic some of the things that he did in season two of The Mandalorian. So he comes with a little macaroon. He comes with the shifter knob, the squid that tries to eat his face.
00:08:36
Speaker
Yeah, and he's kind of more full motion than we've seen from the previous animatronic baby Yoda, Grogu dolls that have been out there so far. So really cool. He's up now for pre-order at pretty much everywhere. So Hasbro, Pulse, Amazon, Target, Walmart, all those places, Shop
Nostalgia and Anniversaries
00:08:56
Speaker
Disney.
00:08:56
Speaker
for 80 bucks. Jumping over to NECA, we are celebrating this past week. We celebrated the 30th anniversary of Ninja Turtles 2 Secret of the Ooz. I can't believe that movie is 30 years old. It's still a ton of fun. We ordered pizza and watched it.
00:09:17
Speaker
NECA announced their Ultimate Shredder. So not Super Shredder, they're making Ultimate Shredder from Ninja Turtles 2. They showed off a really fun time lapse of Jeff Trapp from NECA, one of the artists there, hand painting one of the Shredder faces and it looks gorgeous. I mean, NECA's doing
00:09:41
Speaker
borderline otherworldly stuff with those licenses, so that'll be coming sometime later this year.
00:09:50
Speaker
Also, we had mentioned previously the Snyder Cut is out there, all four hours and 16 minutes of it. It is. And there have been additional figures from the Snyder Cut that have been announced since our last news brief. Mezco is putting out a three-pack that they're calling the Snyder set. That's Flash, Black Suit Superman, and Batman.
00:10:18
Speaker
And that is $260 for those three figures. It's up for pre-order currently. And there has also been announced an Entertainment Earth McFarland toys unmasked Batman. So you can get yourself a Batfleck figure for $20 from Entertainment Earth. And I actually just saw this now on lego.com. The Discovery.
00:10:46
Speaker
Space Shuttle Discovery is coming on April 1st.
Exciting Announcements and Giveaways
00:10:49
Speaker
Oh, that's awesome. 2,354 pieces. My goodness. Yeah, so that's really cool. And it is the Discovery. It looks like it comes with the Hubble and a robotic arm, which is cool too.
00:11:09
Speaker
And the last thing I wanted to say for news, so we're currently running a giveaway through our Instagram page. So this week we reviewed Diamond Select, Diamond Select Toys, Captain Jack Sparrow.
00:11:25
Speaker
courtesy of our friends over at Diamond Select and they sent us they sent us one to giveaway so we have a giveaway posted on our Instagram it'll be highlighted in our highlights by the time you're hearing this episode and you'll still have time to enter so you know make sure that you head over to AIC underscore podcast on Instagram and if you're interested in winning a Jack Sparrow figure all the information on how to do so is there so
00:11:55
Speaker
Check out our review on YouTube of Jack Sparrow and then, you know, head on over to Instagram and try to win yourself one. Yeah, like it, subscribe to the channel. That's how you're gonna see more unboxings and other video stuff we do. Now, Dave, I have a question
Birthday Celebrations and Personal Collecting Journeys
00:12:15
Speaker
for you. And it's not about naming that toy. I was gonna say, I don't know. What question do you have? So do you remember
00:12:26
Speaker
when we had our one year anniversary episode and we had that phone. Yeah. So. I have a feeling you're going to mention another we'll say anniversary. Well. Rotations around the earth. You know, your your birthday is your birthday is just happened. That is correct.
00:12:49
Speaker
By the time we're recording this, we're a little in the future. But when you're hearing this, Dave's birthday will have just happened. And it's been weird. Your birthday is always around WrestleMania. So I was hoping that we could do something fun and maybe take a trip and go to WrestleMania and do some fun wrestling stuff, right? That would have been a cool way to spend a birthday.
00:13:11
Speaker
Yeah. But, you know, obviously this year it was supposed to be it would have, you know, go to Disneyland. Yeah, it would have been great. But, you know, there's a global pandemic ride. Sorry. I love Mr. Toad's wild ride. You can always talk over me when it comes to Mr. Toad's wild ride. Always.
00:13:31
Speaker
Um, but, uh, yeah, so since we, since we can't do that, uh, you know, I was trying to think of other things. You have a fun box to open. Um, that I sent you, but, uh, do not open until 28th, which, um, as of right now is still not happened yet. So it was still unopened. Um, but as you listened to this, I definitely enjoyed it.
00:13:53
Speaker
So with the help of our friend here, John Carlo, I fired up the old phone just now. And we have a couple of, well, we have one so far, voicemail that's on there. So I think maybe we should listen to it before we do a little bit of talking. And I'll keep an eye on it. Maybe more, I'll pop up. Who is it going to be, Dave? I literally have no idea.
00:14:24
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. All right. Well, let's I don't know. That's I'm going to I'm going to hit play. Let's let's see who left this message. I don't have. There's no caller ID. This phone is basically like the bat phone from the Adam West Batman. It's a rotary phone. Yeah, it's just a road to the voicemail. Yeah.
00:14:43
Speaker
Hey, wine brand, wine Brecht, wine bad breath. I don't even know how to pronounce your name. Nor do I care. As you can see, I put a whole lot of effort into making you this happy birthday video. Got the scarf and suit on, right? And the pinky ring. Wrong. I don't care about you. Let's be honest here, bud. You're old now, okay? What are you, 50? And you're still playing with toys? Grow the fuck up. Happy closer to death day. I'm happy that you're closer to it. Bye.
00:15:11
Speaker
That that voicemail sounded a little better than me and I'm pretty aware of it. Damn. Wow, that's sick from the Greek Holly.
00:15:27
Speaker
Well, it's funny, because first of all, I want to say thank you, but first of all, I know A, he's not listening to this, and B, he would not want to thank you for this. But it's the same thing. We were talking to Magic last episode, and I said, you got to be careful, man. You said that MJF was gracious about his action figure. Nobody wants, he doesn't want to hear that.
00:15:58
Speaker
This is what we get for complimenting his figure. I guess so. So happy closer to death day, Dave. Thank you.
00:16:09
Speaker
All right, well, I'll keep an eye on that phone and we'll see if we'll see if we get any more See if that light blinks at all and anything else comes up as as we continue on but um with with the news now covered Let's let's talk a little we usually talk a little bit about our halls and I feel like this will be a perfect transition into into talking to John Carlo here about what uh, I
00:16:35
Speaker
what he's been picking up. So Dave, do you want to kick us off with some of the things that you've picked up lately? Yeah, I got the speaking of Spin Master Batman. I saw it on the shelf and was getting a little a little FOMO about it. And I got the two pack with the bat cycle. It's Batman. I believe he's in like the armored suit. And it's that series one Joker. So that's really cool.
00:17:03
Speaker
I picked that up, like, today. Oh, I got a couple sodas in. And I got the Chase, which I posted. About damn time you got a Chase. Yeah, it was the first one since Gene Simmons. I got the Chase for the Marvel Lucha Libre, El Furioso, which is the Hulk character.
00:17:31
Speaker
L hero hero Invicto Which is the Iron Man one, but that one I got the just the standards of What else did I get it's been there's a lot, but uh oh?
Spotlight on Elite 84 Angel Garza Figure
00:17:44
Speaker
We posted that today the Elite 84 angel Garza came in the mail. That is such a good-looking figure It's a good-looking figure, and I like how he's got the tear away pants. That's cool. I Was wondering do they actually tear away or are they just kind of like slip on I
00:18:01
Speaker
It looks like there's Velcro, so it looks like they tear away. That's funny. I believe I posted that Kim Pine, the Spring Convention pop exclusive, came. Yeah. What do you guys consider a haul here? You talk about what you got for the week or what you got for the last two weeks?
00:18:23
Speaker
It depends on how often we do just like a non-interview. The last few full-length episodes have been interviews. We've been booking a lot of interviews with people from the industry. When we come back around to this hall segment, it's usually like, what did we get?
00:18:44
Speaker
been a while I got the the Fantasia Funko pop art series with like the stars on the Mickey on the Sorcerer Mickey I'm just looking around to see like what is new
00:18:58
Speaker
Well, mine, I've been honestly, for me, it's been it's been like a two week long hunt that finally yielded results this past weekend.
Ninja Turtles Collection and Nostalgia
00:19:08
Speaker
I got my Ninja Turtles. I got I got all four of the the Ninja Turtles. I know I've said countless times on on this show that the the mutagen tour, the coming out of their shells turtles would be it for me. But the more I photograph them,
00:19:28
Speaker
And the more I have been posing them and looking at stuff, it would be really nice to just have four of the regular turtles. And to be fully transparent, the four main turtles, they're near perfect action figures, 100%. They did not make my display, though, because those mutagen turtles are still my display turtles. But the ability to take pictures and have them fighting
00:19:56
Speaker
the Foot Clan, and also just to have their screen accurate weapons, because I can now use the screen accurate weapons with the Mutagen Turtles. So I love that kind of mix and match nature of it, plus now I have a slew of additional hands that I can swap in and out on the Turtles.
00:20:16
Speaker
They're an amazing set. The hunt for them was a little insane. And something that I actually did want to talk about for people that are still looking for them, because they still are hitting around the country, is exclusively at Walmart. If you are a BrickSeek user and you're familiar with BrickSeek, what you want to do is you actually want to look for the Super Shredder, the new Super Shredder that's hitting the Shadowmaster one. If you search for him on BrickSeek,
00:20:48
Speaker
It will show you stores where he's in stock. The turtles are actually reusing previous UPCs from other two-packs, so they don't show in stock. But if you find a store that has the Super Shredder in stock, there's a high likelihood that if you catch it early enough, you'll also get those two two-packs, the Leo and Donnie two-pack and the Mikey and Raph two-pack.
00:21:17
Speaker
But they are, they're amazing. Worth, worth every penny, you know, worth, worth the, the hunt. And, you know, I found them at the, the, the store in Bhutan, New Jersey.
00:21:32
Speaker
I actually spoke to the manager there, he went to the back and found the box for me, and I had my pick of the litter. But then I also explained to him what's been going on with NECA, especially with these turtle figures, how difficult they are to come by, how people tend to come in and buy an entire case and then try to flip it.
00:21:55
Speaker
So he did actually move them behind the counter in the electronic section. He didn't leave them out. And a couple of our followers who are local were able to actually go to Boone and ask and they got them.
00:22:12
Speaker
trying to do what we can to try to stymie the aftermarket so that way people who actually want these things can get them and don't have to pay exorbitant prices for them because it truly is exorbitant. Those two sets are $50 a pop. They're going for $4, $4.50 on eBay and Mercari in places. Now, do you wish you got the token, Razor? I was thinking about it.
00:22:44
Speaker
I love that movie. I prefer Secret of the Ooze to the original one, to be honest. I mean, there's a lot to really like about that movie. It's just... Kevin Nash. The first movie is excellent.
00:23:00
Speaker
It's historic. For the longest time, it was the highest grossing independent film. I was just watching something on this the other day. I think it was. I think it cost them like $13 million to make or something and it made $200 million. And New Line took a gamble on that, right? Because at that point, New Line was showing art house films and Freddy Krueger movies. Yeah, they were in Nightmare on Elm Street.
00:23:27
Speaker
So that kind of put them on the mainstream map. I mean, think about it now. They distributed the Lord of the Rings movies, among other things. But that first movie was like the comic book.
00:23:44
Speaker
presented the comic book story presented in a way that made sense to like kids that were watching the cartoon, right? Whereas the second one was like the cartoon come to life, excuse me. They were just a little bit goofier, the colors were just a little bit brighter, obviously like the whole mutagen aspect and like the big dumb monsters and like that had really kind of encapsulated
00:24:12
Speaker
a lot of what made the show really interesting. So in a roundabout answer, am I disappointed I didn't get Tokai and Rezar? They're beautiful figures, they're massive. I'm looking at my poor cramped display right now thinking where the hell I would possibly put them.
00:24:32
Speaker
I'm gonna say no, because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the Ninja Turtles really, it's about them and Splinter.
00:24:43
Speaker
fighting the Foot Clan and Shredder. And I have two members of the Foot Clan, I have the Turtles, I have Splinter, and I have Shredder. And you got Super Shredder too. Well, I just have Super Shredder, when I say Shredder. Because when I think of Shredder, even though he's in the movie for like 30 seconds, that's like the iconic looking Shredder to me. Like when I close my eyes and think Shredder, I think two things. I think the animated one and then I think Super Shredder.
00:25:09
Speaker
And again, that was the Shredder figure I had when we were kids. I had the Playmates one. So that's my Shredder. So I'm super happy to have that. That was worth every penny. But if Toka and Rezar come back around again, which according to NECA is not going to be a thing that happens because they were kind of like a made-to-order product, I would consider it. Or if the aftermarket on the right price, but I'm not going
00:25:39
Speaker
I'm not breaking my neck looking for him. That was my major haul, was finding them and I truly have not been able to put them down and just keep taking pictures of them. As we mentioned too, we got Jack Sparrowen from Diamond Select and he's a lot of fun. It is a great figure.
00:26:04
Speaker
It's weird because it's like just one figure, right? Like we're so used to like these franchises having like waves or series of figures but it's like I have a rocket here and I have a Jack Sparrow that are in the same scale and it's kind of like for me two of the most iconic live-action Disney characters you could have. But Davy Jones would be cool.
00:26:27
Speaker
Right, he would, and we were saying that to Zach, Davey Jones, what was the other, Barbosa would be fun. We've seen them do, what's it, Orlando Bloom, because they have that Legolas figure, so Will Turner wouldn't be too bad.
00:26:48
Speaker
Yeah, and the sculptor on that Jack Sparrow figure, Rocco Tartamella is his name. It's really cool to see, especially now with all the wrestling figures and the
00:27:03
Speaker
you know the the ghostbuster figures and the the marvel legends and all these companies that are using this like face print technology to get these these scans that you know are hyper real to see somebody you know not nail the likeness but really get
00:27:22
Speaker
pretty damn close for something that's hand-sculpted and that small to Johnny Depp is cool. It's cool to see that that process is still being utilized at places like NECA and Gentle Giant Studios and Rocco who did it for Diamond. That's my pickups. Those are my pickups. I mean, the only other thing that I got was I started to get the three and three-quarter Marvel Legends. I don't think I've talked about this yet.
00:27:52
Speaker
Um, but this actually got me more like into getting the three and three quarters spin master Batman. Batman. We'll go with Batman. Um, but I got the pulse exclusives and then I went out and I've found the only one I haven't found yet was Iceman. It's the only one I haven't seen, but I have one of everybody so far. He, um, he appears to be the tough one to find at the moment. That Iceman.
00:28:22
Speaker
Um, yeah, but you're, you're basically rebuilding your childhood. Cause now you're, now you're building secret wars. Yeah.
Rebuilding Childhood Collections
00:28:30
Speaker
I can't wait to see some of those. Like I know right now you're, you don't really have a good space to like photograph, but like, I want to see a bunch of those together out of the box. Yeah. Um, more vehicles for that, for that Marvel line. Um, but yeah, I, uh, I think, um, mutual friend of everybody in the room, uh, Yuma found the, the Iceman one.
00:28:52
Speaker
I think I remember him posting that. Yeah, these are right up his alley. Mm-hmm, for sure. Talk about Wheelhouse.
00:29:02
Speaker
All right, so on your inaugural episode here, your inaugural appearance, let's hear what you've been picking up, Giancarlo. What have you been buying? All right, so this happened maybe three or four months ago. I picked up this, there's this wrestler, Oneida. He's a famous Japanese deathmatch wrestler from FMW.
00:29:32
Speaker
frontier martial arts wrestling promotion in Japan and I picked up this figure of him and when it came in the mail, I was only gonna get one of these, right?
00:29:45
Speaker
And it came in the mail and it was just so like mint. It looked like it was a brand new figure. So I I don't know. I think most of my figures are out of the box and they're displayed here on my kitchen counter. And they're just like, you know, random different, you know, figures. I have a Bernie Sanders figure. I have a Kiel. How do you pronounce the guy from Mandalorian? Oh, Kiel. Kiel. Kiel. Kiel. Kiel. I have spoken.
00:30:15
Speaker
Yeah. I got like an Andre the giant, you know,
00:30:18
Speaker
I got a Dan Severin figure. So like, you know, it's just a mishmash of different things. So I picked up this Oneida, and like I said, it was just so mint. I was like, maybe. This would be a great opportunity to kind of maybe start a little collection, right? So I've kind of in the past like four years, I've kind of lived like a minimalist lifestyle. I didn't have any collections of anything. I thought maybe I'll start like a vinyl collection, because I figured that's like, you know,
00:30:47
Speaker
I'm looking at my 30s. That's the thing to do. So I didn't do that. So basically, yeah, living this minimal lifestyle. And lived in this three-bedroom apartment in Jersey City. Really wasn't always around, because I'm traveling a lot for my job. And didn't really have a space to have a collection there.
Charapro Wrestling Figures: A New Venture
00:31:14
Speaker
And I've now moved. I lived, I live alone and I have a, this, this closet, this walk-in closet. And I was like, all right, I'm going to start a collection. I think it's, I think it's now time. So I started picking up these, uh, uh, char char a pro figures. So instead of getting vinyl records, he got soft vinyl figures.
00:31:34
Speaker
Yeah, so it's these figures. They're called Charapro, which stands for character product. And yeah, I've just been kind of collecting them mint on card. They're from like the 2000s. So it's super hard to find them on a minty card. Because whatever they use, like this cardboard, it's super thin. It gets super warped.
00:32:00
Speaker
Another crazy thing, and I think after kind of talking to people and stuff, I think that some of them were packaged in different places and they used different plastics because some of these, like the bubbles just turned so yellow and some are just, you know, they're fine. And the yellow ones just are super, like make like little cracks in them and stuff like that.
00:32:26
Speaker
Yeah, another really weird thing is I don't really know that many Japanese wrestlers and I've just been kind of collecting who I can get and then kind of just like learning about them through this. I was gonna ask like who, how did you decide who to get? I've just been seeing like who, you know, which ones can I get that have like these really clean cards on them and kind of just doing it that way.
00:32:53
Speaker
So you kind of are paying for these on eBay, and you're paying anywhere from like $50 to $60 and stuff. So I've kind of taken a little bit of a break on them, but just buying them right now. But every once in a while, you'll find somebody who is getting rid of a bunch of them. You can get a bunch of them kind of in bulk.
00:33:15
Speaker
Well, it's it's all about to like like how they were displayed because even even some you know some other figures that were there produced around that time. So like the McFarland. I don't know if you're if you remember the McFarland movie maniacs figures like they were usually like sitting at like Suncoast video or like Sam Goody and it was like the main horror characters.
00:33:36
Speaker
Yeah, so like they made like The Crow and Edward Scissorhands and you know, all those characters, right? But like some of those, depending on where they were in whatever store they were, you know, if they were in sunlight or had, you know, were exposed to kind of like the elements, you'll find them now and the cards, you know, the cards will be fine, but the bubbles will be that like, it almost looks like a, like it's been in a home where there's been like a chronic smoker. That's exactly what it looks like, yeah.
00:34:03
Speaker
That weird like yellow color. Yep. They like like it almost like a little crack if you like breathe on them wrong. I remember I lived in like a two family house like with my mom and it was like, you know, like upstairs, like apartment and the people downstairs smoked and like my my computer, you know, like my Windows 98 computer used to get like so much smoke residue on it turned like that yellow color. Yep. Yep.
00:34:34
Speaker
Oh wait, hang on guys, before we continue with this conversation, our phone is blinking again. Did this phone ring? We must have missed it. Dave, who is it? I have no idea. Come on, take a guess. Is it Brian? Who's Brian?
00:34:56
Speaker
Myers? No. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Who could it be? Well, you already said it wasn't, so... Is it Matt? Gee, who else isn't it? Is it Anita? Is it Sid Vicious? Oh... Imagine, what would a birthday wish from Sid Vicious be like? I don't know, but he'd want to do it again. Alright, let's figure out who it is.
00:35:25
Speaker
Dave Weinbrecht, it's me, always ready. Matt Cardona, the internet chittery, the host of the Major Wrestling Fear podcast, AKA the $1,000 rose. AKA the Michael Jordan of Wrestling Fear Collecting. Myself and Han Solo here,
Surprise Birthday Voicemails and Treats
00:35:41
Speaker
we want to wish you best wishes and a very happy birthday, you Major Mark. Keep on scratching that figure, Rich. I hope you get a lot of figures for your birthday.
00:35:52
Speaker
I hope you don't keep a mouth. I hope you let them breathe. Who's Lucy? Your figs are Lucy. Happy birthday, bro. He's right, they are. It's better to have Lucy figs than a Lucy belt. They're Lucy. This is true. That's true.
00:36:09
Speaker
And you know, like, so obviously clearly- I didn't want to guess the obvious guess, so I don't want to- But I mean, voicemail, I love the fact that he was like me and Han Solo, because we both know that he was standing next to that Han Solo and Carbonite that's in his living room. I feel like Matt has been on this show more than anyone. Has he surpassed Mike at this point? I think he might have, because he's- He's only on once.
00:36:36
Speaker
So he did a bumper for us first, then our last minute- He did the intro. Yeah, well yeah, that bumper. Then our last minute always ready phone call. He sent us a one year anniversary message.
00:36:55
Speaker
and now he's wished you a happy birthday so like I feel like the next step is like he like if we're ever in in his hood he's gonna invite us to like a barbecue I don't know okay so we're drinking tonight most likely to run into him at Disney I guess this is true alright so tonight I'm drinking
00:37:14
Speaker
It's actually called the Pumpden Rye Lager from Seven Tribesman Brewery from Wayne, New Jersey. This is a brewery that is very close to where my home is. And I went to ShopRite to pick up some last minute baby things, diapers, wipes, you know how it is. And I dipped into the liquor store. Neither of us know how that is. Well, fair.
00:37:43
Speaker
Yeah, but I always dip into the little liquor store there because they have a really nice local section and I saw that they had beer from seven tribesmen and I've been wanting to try it, so it's good. I have a combo brewing collaboration from Bolero Snort in Carlstadt, New Jersey and Imprint Beer Company, which I don't know where they're based out of, but I guess they put the recipe together and it's called Fluffy Rainbro.
00:38:13
Speaker
And all of their their beers, the Bolero Snort beers have like a bull or cow name to it. But this is a marshmallow candy kettle sour ale. It's delicious. Nice. It's not as sweet as you think it would be. I was just going to say, that sounds like it would be very sweet. Yeah. So like I think with like sour beers, like the really syrupy ones, I don't like those.
00:38:40
Speaker
Yeah, this is not like it doesn't taste like you're eating a marshmallow, but it's got like that nice little kind of sweetness to go with the sourness, which is nice. And what are you drinking? So I was drinking Gatorade and then I was like, you know what? I got to turn up a little bit, you know, loosen up a little bit. But so there's this stuff from screwball and it's the peanut butter whiskey. Do you know about this? Yeah. Yep. With the little squirrel on it, right?
00:39:09
Speaker
The lamb lamb lamb. It's got a lamb on it. Yeah, I feel like I feel like this is like this is going to be like this year's White Claw. I guess. It's not going to be that cool to be drinking like in a couple of months, if not, I hope whiskey doesn't become this year's White Claw. No, this is this this peanut butter whiskey. Have you had it? No. OK, so it tastes like a Butterfinger candy. Interesting. I amazing. I have had it only in coffee.
00:39:40
Speaker
So I was at a friend's house, and dinner was done, and he was like, can I make you guys a drink? And I said, I actually have a cup of coffee. And he was like, actually, I have something for you to try. And he gave me a cup of coffee with that in it and blew my mind. Blew my mind. It was really good. Dave, you got to try it.
00:40:02
Speaker
I will be, um, or I will have gotten out yesterday for, um, for the actual birthday, um, the Lagavul in 16. So I will have, I definitely enjoyed that, that pour. Um, but actually speaking of the peanut butter whiskey, if you want to go on like a weird hall, since we're making hard rights, um, I got a box of Reese's, um, direct from the factory peanut butter cups.
00:40:31
Speaker
It's like two and a half pounds of individually wrapped peanut butter cups. It's delightful if you've never had a like fresh peanut butter cup and you like those. Cause like the chocolate is fresh. Like it's not like where you get that like kind of weird, almost like waxy taste to it. It's still like shiny and crisp and like the peanut butter is smooth. It's not stale yet. And you might even get on like the wrapper a little like peanut oil.
00:41:02
Speaker
And it's just delightful. Like, it's such a smooth... It's like how you think peanut butter cups should taste. And these are coming directly from Hershey's. Like, they're coming from Hershey PA to your house. Yeah, they were shipped directly to my house. I don't know, like, the logistics of it, but yes. I mean, save one for me. They just showed up? No, I ordered them. They showed up because I paid money for them. Okay.
00:41:33
Speaker
Alright, so full disclosure, we do not have any additional birthday wishes coming for you, Dave, but happy birthday. Thank you. Yeah, happy birthday, Dave. This was a joint effort. We got you. You got me.
00:41:50
Speaker
We got it. But let's jump back into the Sofubi figures for a little bit before we call it quits.
Modern Sofubi Figures and Dream Picks
00:42:00
Speaker
Have you seen any of the kind of new Sofubis that are coming out from people like Junk Shop Dog? Yeah, you know, I saw the bold Akana one, but yeah, no, wait, who else is making them?
00:42:18
Speaker
Well, right now he's kind of restarting those popey figures, right? The popey line. I think right now he's the only one that's doing the new ones in that format, but it kind of got me thinking, seeing that somebody like Junk Shop Dog, who, by the way, if you're not following him on Instagram, he's an awesome follower, especially if you're looking to purchase some of these figures that we're talking about, he always has them. I believe foreign objects is the other one too. Yeah.
00:42:48
Speaker
The other big one. What are those? They're fun to see. What are some of the wrestlers you'd love to see in that format? Like, like modern wrestlers get like that cool because we're always talking about like wanting retro figures. And when people say that, you know, in terms of wrestling, they are usually referring to the Hasbro, you know, the Hasbro, WWF, WWE wrestlers. But like, what's a modern wrestler that you think would make an awesome chara pro figure?
00:43:18
Speaker
So who would like it? So the problem would be like, would you have to pick somebody who like their license isn't owned by another company? No, blue sky question. You could have any wrestler you want as a charbro. Hmm.
00:43:35
Speaker
Well, you know what, while you while you two are thinking, because I was kind of thinking of my answer while I was asking the question, I think the one that would be really cool. He's not necessarily a modern wrestler, but first one I thought of because I've never seen one and I might be wrong. There might be one, but like a cactus Jack. Char Pro, right? Cause he, he wrestled in Japan.
00:43:54
Speaker
No, not that that is a prerequisite for this question, but I feel like a Cactus Jack style figure with the two gun hands in that Sofubi frozen stance would be a really cool figure. If we're talking that error, I'd want probably a Masato Tanaka. That would be a fun one. I think that would be cool. I would imagine there might be one.
00:44:23
Speaker
I don't know that he was in ECW at that point, so. I would say maybe, I think like, this would be kind of a weird one, but I think like a Walter would be really good. Okay. Well, we heard from him a little bit ago, but I think MJF would be a good Sofubi figure too, because especially like, you know, with thinking like, you know, with the scarf.
00:44:46
Speaker
And I don't know, do they typically have like soft goods? I'm trying to think of if there's like sofubi figures that have like capes or or stuff or anything like that. But that would be a fun a fun figure. You know, you got to think of like like when I think of them, I think of like the figures that have just kind of like fun poses that they're kind of known for. I also want to get like wrestlers that I've seen. So I know there's like a bunch of ligers and like there's I think there's a
00:45:14
Speaker
a Jinsei Shinzaki and like Satotanaka. Yeah, I have the Jinsei figure. It's in here somewhere. Oneida, like. So a few of these guys have like really cool like variants to like the Oneida one comes in like crystal and then bronze, which is like an all black figure.
00:45:37
Speaker
And, uh, the, then also like a white shirt and a black shirt, or Anita too. So if you guys, so I have right now the, the black shirt, Oh, Nita and the bronze, Oh, Nita. And I have to get the other two. That's cool. I feel like black shirt is like more current and white shirt is more classic. So the, so the white one is the real one and the black one is like the rare one. Okay.
00:46:06
Speaker
And I didn't realize that until I got it. So that's cool. Yeah. Who's your favorite one that you have so far? Probably the one with the black shirt. And then I have also I have a Sasuke, too. And that's like that's super, super mint, too. So, you know that I have like an Otani, which I got.
00:46:30
Speaker
Dave, who's the one that's the dude who's in the CZW shirt? Zandig? Zandig, yeah. I mean, that one runs that. So I collect more of like the ones that have like, I guess, I think they're like more of like the basic collection. I thought they were like the original series collection, but it's like the ones that are more like with a bubble than like the square bubble, rectangular bubble. Am I saying that right? Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:57
Speaker
So I collect more of just those right now, just the bubble ones. I have a few of the square ones, like the ginseng. I have a Bob Sapp. But yeah, I've been more doing these bubble ones. And who'd you say again? Zandig. Zandig. Zandig. Yeah, that's more of the later ones. But that's so expensive. Right now online, that's $200. Wow. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:26
Speaker
Cause doesn't he have a variant too where like there's one where he's like bloodied? Yeah. And he comes in like a two pack, I think too. He comes in like a black shirt, a white shirt. Yeah. I think there's a couple of him. I think there's that one too. Like an onito one where, um, it's Muda is the other one and there's like two of each of them. And if you get them all together, they make like a barbed wire ring. I didn't know that. That's pretty sick.
00:47:52
Speaker
Yeah, and it's, I think they're deluxe ones, but it's from when Oneida was doing, like having that feud with Muda where he was in face paint too. Yeah, so I just got a Muda and that one's very, that one's very, very yellow. So. So are you gonna open any of these or are you gonna leave these all on card? I was gonna leave in my card. That's cool. Yeah. I feel like for this, like that totally makes sense just based off of the rarity of them.
00:48:21
Speaker
Like I said, there's so many collections too that you can just walk in somewhere and just buy the whole collection out. I wanted to have a little bit of a challenge where you have to hunt these down and I can't just buy the whole collection overnight or whatever.
00:48:41
Speaker
And they have them from so many companies too, like there's the big Japan ones, the NOAA ones, the All Japan, New Japan. Yeah, and right now, I talked to this other wrestler, Chris Hero, because he knows all about these and stuff like that.
Challenges in Collecting Vintage Figures
00:48:57
Speaker
And I was like, hey, can you help me find a list of all of the figures? And all I could find online is this forum where somebody took a picture of each of them and listed them by the series.
00:49:10
Speaker
And that's all I have right now. And I made it into like a spreadsheet to kind of like help me collect them. But yeah, man, it's just, it's just, it's been kind of hard to, you know, like on that, that list that I created, like the Oneida figure isn't on there. So how many other FMW figures are there, you know?
00:49:27
Speaker
What's been the most interesting thing you've learned from doing this? Because you said a lot of the wrestlers, as you're picking them up. I think this is kind of weird to say, but as I'm kind of involved in the wrestling community, I don't really know too much about Japanese wrestling. I was growing up, I was a WWF kid, attitude era. So kind of learning about these guys and having their figure.
00:49:58
Speaker
They're like little tiny statues, you know, and you have this really cool back on them where it tells you about their stats and stuff. And even though it's, you know, in Japanese and you can't read it or anything, I just think it's, you know, just really cool, like little profiles to collect. It's it's definitely something where I've been like.
00:50:16
Speaker
You've actually gotten me to be where I'm like, okay, is this something that I want to do at some point? Maybe at some point, but I just don't know where, how selective I'd be. Because I generally don't have a tendency to be selective. But I've been looking at them there. Yeah, they're really cool and it's, you know, looking at some of the variances of, or variations of the figures,
00:50:47
Speaker
There's a lot of really cool things. And it's the thing that I think is the most deceiving about them is they're smaller than you think they are. Yeah. Yeah. Like you see a picture of them online and you think they're like this, you know, like they're the same size as like a McFarland figure or any of the six inch figures. But I think that what are they like? Almost like four inches. I would say maybe like five.
00:51:15
Speaker
Really? They're that small. I thought they were like LJM size. No, they're not big. Wow. Huh. Yeah. So right now I'm looking at, I have a tiger mask, which is like super, it's, you know, very, very, like, this is very mint. Um, but unfortunately the mask, I guess it's the paint that they use. So his gold mask just turns like a teal color. You know, almost like it's like it's oxidized, right? Yeah. Yeah.
00:51:41
Speaker
So I always thought it would be cool. Like I'm not a mask collector or anything, but I was like, it'd be really cool to have a tiger mask. That's teal. That's neat. Right. Like if you got one, like a custom one made. Yeah. Cause then it becomes, it's, it's like all of the merchandise that over the years it's been made to, um, to mimic the non-screen accurate star Wars figures. So like all those like old counter star Wars figures where like the colorways are like,
00:52:08
Speaker
you know, bright oranges and teals and, you know, then they make t-shirts and stuff with those versions of the characters on them. So the ones that are actually, uh, you know, on in the film. So those like the end of the three and three quarter GI Joe's where you got like, you know, profit director. Yep. Yep. I love stuff like that. That's, and then like, you know, finding a way to bring it into a new medium. You know, there's always, always people out there that are looking to do stuff like that.
00:52:38
Speaker
Then there is like Antonio Anoki, right? So there's like, I guess a comedian that used to dress up like him. And he has multiple figures of these. I only have one of his, but he has like multiple figures, multiple different poses and variants. He's got like a black towel or red towel. It's just so interesting how these were produced.
00:53:02
Speaker
Before we had this conversation, I assumed that they were much older than they actually are. But they're so popular, yet nobody makes them anymore. Yeah. It's very strange. Very strange. But they're super cool figures. Hell yeah, man.
Wrapping Up and Listener Gratitude
00:53:19
Speaker
Well, what we're gonna do now is we're gonna let you go and go back to your evening. We've taken up enough of your time. But before we let you go, where can we find you on the internet? Is there anything you wanna plug? I don't know. My Twitter is yeahjunkarlo. G-I-A-N-C-A-R-L-O. That's about it. I post something on Instagram every two or three months.
00:53:45
Speaker
Not really. I'm not really as active on social media as I used to be. You're a good follow on Twitter, man. It's OK. It's OK. You post about people finding shrimp in their cereal. Did I post about that? I didn't post about that, did I? I thought you retweeted something. Yeah. Because I think that's how I found out about it. Yeah, if you're listening to this episode,
00:54:09
Speaker
You know, four years from now, we're living in a moment where the top story on the internet is Topanga from Boy Meets World's husband finding shrimp tails in his cinnamon toast crunch cereal. And General Mills' bizarre reaction. And just their very odd social media manager, poor guy.
00:54:35
Speaker
Yeah, what a mess. Yeah, I was like, that's an interesting story.
Exploring NFTs in Collectibles
00:54:42
Speaker
Oh, you know what? Here, hold on. Can we talk about one other thing? Yeah. So there's this app a friend of mine turned me on to called Vivi. OK. I mean, we're going to go deep with this. So you're familiar with what our NFTs are, right? Oh, no. I've seen this acronym, but I have not had a chance to look it up yet.
00:55:03
Speaker
Okay. So this is, this is it, man. This is, this is the next level. So it's a non fungible token. So it could be anything between, it could be like a, a piece of art could be, you know, people are trying to figure out how to make a song. This, um, but a lot of people have been selling like kind of gifts and they're called NFTs.
00:55:24
Speaker
This app called Vivi, I'm sort of into like digital currencies and stuff. I've been like kind of on the Bitcoin bandwagon. Crypto. Crypto. Yeah, or digital assets. That's the proper way to call it. So this app here is, you can basically collect NFTs. I bought two so far. They're two Batman statues, basically.
00:55:53
Speaker
from the Batman Black and White series. If you guys want to kind of get like a little intro into these NFTs, these digital pieces of art, this is a really cool app to use, like VE VE.
00:56:09
Speaker
I don't know them. I don't know anything about it. I just purchased these two pieces of art. And what you can do is you can make a little AR thing where you can take a picture of them in your apartment or whatever. And you can trade them with other people. So basically, you'll have these on your account. And if somebody wants to buy these from you for whatever, three times the price that you paid for them in a few months from now, you do that.
00:56:40
Speaker
And who's, so who did you buy yours from? Did you buy them? So there's, you can go on there. Um, like right here, I just clicked on like, um, it's called like Jim Lee night wing. Um, it's, you know, artwork based on Jim Lee, like, uh, I guess his night wing. Um, it is 89 99. They are, this one's considered ultra rare. Um, let me just see.
00:57:07
Speaker
How many? Okay, it doesn't tell me. All right, so bad example. But it's sold out, so you can't get this one. Say there's only like 5,000 of them available. So you can only purchase 5,000 of these, and then that's it. You're the only person, those 5,000 people, those are the only people who own this digital asset. This is wild. Interesting. It's like card or toy collecting, but...
00:57:34
Speaker
in AR. Yeah. So I saw like, there was like a tweet today where like one of the Winklevoss people were, were like kind of complaining about NFTs and they were like, you know, art, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's not the same thing as art, you know, or like they were kind of bashing it and people were like, he was like, you know, I guess you go to like, see a piece of art, you travel to go see it. And somebody was like, yeah, but you can also like just Google it and we'll look at it online. You know, so
00:58:01
Speaker
And if anything, the pandemic has proven that, right? Because the Louvre and the MoMA, they all had virtual tours where you could put on your, whether you had Google goggles or whether you were doing it through your browser, you could take a tour of the Louvre for nothing, for free. Yeah, so there's all these companies are kind of getting involved. A big one too is like NBA, where they're selling highlights from games.
00:58:27
Speaker
So you can buy like this, you know, this play that happened in this, this replay or whatever of this game, you know, and, uh, you own it. I'm just looking at, apparently somebody bought an NFT home for $500,000 a virtual home. Wow. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Adventures in NFTs is going to be our spin-off Dave.
00:58:52
Speaker
I don't know. If you want to learn more about it, there's a website called OpenSea. It's opensea.io. If you want to look around there, if it doesn't make sense to you, then you're getting it because there's these things called crypto punks. If you have a computer in front of you, just go to seven crypto punks.
00:59:22
Speaker
It looks like it's made on like MS paint where it's like a, just a guy's like little guy's head. And he's sometimes wearing a cowboy hat or an eye patch or, you know, something Doc Brown. Yeah. I'm looking at it now. Yeah. So yeah. Those right there are selling for, you know, ridiculous. Like this one right here is it's worth, you know, 16 Ethereum and I'm Ethereum right now. I think it would be like $1,700.
00:59:52
Speaker
We're getting into like some Jeremy Padour level stuff here. Oh my God. Well, he, so that's where I first saw this, this, uh, this one crypto punk sold for $25,000 or it, or it's being sold for that. So, and they're little just like pixelated sprites. Wow. I missed my calling, man.
01:00:14
Speaker
Like I said, this one app, just go take a look at it. It's pretty cool. They have Ghostbusters, Ultraman, Batman, Powerpuff Girls, Adventure Time. Interesting. And yeah, I guess the guy who kind of brought Pokemon to the States, he's kind of behind it. So he's getting all these brands involved.
01:00:39
Speaker
So remind us again when you're dropping your new podcast on NFTs. Listen, I dip my toes in things. I'm not a genius. Please don't take any financial advice from me. And that's it. Thank you for having me on. Happy birthday, Dave. Thanks, Jay. Yeah. If any of us just buy $100 worth of Bitcoin tonight, that's it. Thank you.
01:01:05
Speaker
Thank you, dear listener, for hanging out with us today. Subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen, and then tell your friends to do it. Thanks also to Joe Azari, the golden voice behind our intro. Our music is Game Boy Horror by the Zombie Dandies. Find more about them both on our show notes.
01:01:21
Speaker
Follow us on social media at AIC underscore podcast on Instagram and Twitter. Stop by and say hi. Show us your toy hauls and share your toy stories. Maybe we'll talk about it in a future episode.
01:01:45
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.