Tag Archives: playmates

May 23 2013

Star Trek (2009) Command Series: Captain Christopher Pike by Playmates

Star Trek Week presses on, and it seemed only fair to look at some toys from the 2009 movie series. Of course, Hasbro’s Not-Lego Kre-O aside, there are no proper toys from Star Trek Into Darkness. Why? Because Playmates’ 2009 Trek line was such an unmitigated disaster. Ironically, if you do want some Into Darkness toys, just go to your local Toys R Us, and you can still buy the 3-year old clearance figures from the first movie right off the pegs. I have looked at some of Playmates ’09 Trek toys before, The 6-inch figure line and more recently the hand phaser, but I never got around to checking out any of the sixth-scale line. Playmates produced a select few of the characters in this twelve-inch format: Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Spock Prime, and Captain Pike.

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I was never planning on going all-in with this scale. Originally, I was going to buy Kirk, Spock, and McCoy and be done with it. But Playmates just up-scaled the same terrible Kirk head for the larger figure and so I went with Pike instead. And that’s fine, because I really liked Captain Pike in that movie. This figure is part of the Command Series, which is what Playmates called the twelve-inchers. Alas, the packaging for this guy is long gone. I had a photo of it somewhere on the FigureFan Zero Mainframe, but I think it got deleted when I spilled Jameson on the HDD. Suffice it to say, it came in a pretty cool window box, which was fairly collector friendly. It’s been a year or so since I’ve had this figure out of storage, so let’s take a look.

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The portrait is decent enough for a figure in this price range. It at least bears a passing resemblance to actor Bruce Greenwood. You get little touches like creases in his forehead and around the eyes. He has a fairly neutral expression, which works for me. The paintwork is very precise. I dig the little grey added to his sideburns. I don’t know that I could recognize the likeness if the figure were dressed differently, but when I know what I’m looking at, I can see the resemblance. Yes, it is rather cartoony, but when you consider the horribly misshapen “man-baby” abomination that was Playmate’s Chris Pines headsculpt, this portrait is a welcome treat.

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The figure’s outfit is also fairly well executed. The new Starfleet shirts have a complex texture of tiny Starfleet emblems running throughout. Playmates managed to capture this effect with a simple pattern. It’s not quite screen accurate, but it looks good and I applaud them for making the effort, rather than just going what would have looked more like a Classic Series shirt. I’m happy to see that the stripes on the sleeves and the Starfleet emblem on the chest are both sewn on, rather than stickered as Playmates has done in the past. The shirt is a little long in the sleeves, and it’s rather unsightly in the back where it fastens, but otherwise fits the figure well. The trousers have a sewn pattern on the knees and the boots are simple sculpted rubber and make up the figure’s entire feet.

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Pike’s is built on a very serviceable 12-inch body. The proportions are good, with the possible exception of the hands, which are a tad too big. The head is ball jointed, the arms are ball jointed at the shoulders and elbows, and the wrists swivel. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, the knees are hinged, and there’s a swivel down by the boot. The chest has a ball joint which allows for swiveling and some limited up and back movement.

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Pike isn’t heavy on the accessories, but you do get the necessary basics. There’s an equipment belt, a phaser, and a communicator. The belt is easily removable and has a holster for the phaser and a slot for the communicator. The phaser is a very nice sculpt and painted in metallic silver. The communicator is just a block of plastic with a sculpted disc and Starfleet emblem. I’m not really a fan of the Abramsverse communicators. You also get a very basic figure stand sculpted to look like the Starfleet insignia. Only one of the figure’s feet are pegged for it. It works, but it’s rather awkward. I would have preferred just a straight disc stand.

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So, all in all, I gotta say… Pike’s not bad. Keeping in mind that this is a pretty “low end” over-the-counter 1:6 scale figure, and keeping in mind how sub-par most of Playmates ’09 Trek toys were, they did an Ok job with this one. I’m probably being extra forgiving because you just don’t see many sixth-scale figures at mass market retail anymore, so I’m grading with a curve. It also helps that I got this guy when he was slashed down to about nine dollars, as opposed to the $29.99 he was originally stickered at. Tomorrow, we’ll look at the only other one of these guys that I picked up… Doctor McCoy!

May 4 2013

Star Trek: Starfleet Phaser (2009 Movie) by Playmates

Today’s feature is going to be a quickie, because I’ve got a bunch of stuff to do. No, I mean actual STUFF, not just drinking. I set about to think up something quick and easy and then I remembered that we’re less than two weeks away from the premier of Star Trek Into Darkness. A quick dig through one of my Toy Closets and… voila… I found this little beauty from the original film. Playmates certainly had their share of stumbles handling the toys for the first Abrams Trek movie, but their hand phaser was not one of them. This thing is definitely a cool little toy. Let’s take a look!

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The hand phaser comes sealed in a clamshell with a cool, curvy bubble. It’s not collector friendly by any stretch, as you’ll practically need a phaser to cut it out of there, but it is very nice to look at. There’s also a “Try Me” hole that lets you pull the trigger, but because of the moving parts, you can only try it in vaporize mode. Still… pretty nice. The 2009 Phaser is one of my least favorite of all of Starfleet’s hand phaser designs, but that doesn’t mean I dislike it. It certainly reflects the alternate Abrams timeline in which Kirk’s dad dying prematurely suddenly gave Starfleet engineers a collective chrome fetish. It borrows a bit from past phaser designs, and it does manage to capture at last the profile of a Classic Starfleet phaser while tossing in a whole lot of originality.

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In hand, this phaser looks pretty amazing. The chrome finish looks good, and apart from some plastic seaming on the top, it doesn’t look overly toyish. The size is also a pretty comfortable fit in my hand. All too often Role Play toys tend to go too big and chunky or undersized to better fit into kid’s hands. Damn toy companies pandering to kids, with their tiny hands! It’s the extremely light weight that betrays this piece as an inexpensive toy, as there’s virtually no heft to it at all. One side looks totally clean, while the other features some exposed screw heads, the copyright stamp, and the “Hey asshole, don’t throw your old batteries in the garbage” icon.

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The thing I like least about this phaser design is the switch-gimmick. Setting aside the toy talk for a moment… The engineering on the design uses two different emitters: A red one for vaporize and a blue one for stun. The emitters sit on opposite sides of a revolving piece, so when the user switches from one setting to the other, the appropriate emitter snaps to the front. They made a point of showing this in the film and when they did, I wanted to stand up and scream, “WTF??? Pause the movie… I need to see that shit again!” The design goes out of its way to be more complex than it needs to be, and much like the old Automatic vs Revolver debate, it seems like it’s just something extra to malfunction on the weapon. There’s nothing worse than when you’re in a shootout with some Klingons and your phaser jams. Now, I’m no 23rd Century weapons engineer, but I can’t see why it would be necessary to do this over the old elegant phaser design.

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Anyway, getting back to the toy… Playmates’ phaser replicates the moving emitters… sort of. If you have the phaser in the stun position, you can press a button on the side of the handle to automatically switch to the vaporize position. You cannot, however, switch back unless you manually re-position it. It seems like it should have been easy to make it work both ways, but whatever.

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The rest of the electronics feature an activation wheel on the top. Rotate it toward you and the panel lights up a bright greenish yellow and the phaser makes a nice, loud activation sound. This one is my favorite of the toy’s FX. The trigger activates the emitter light and sounds depending on which setting you have it on. The red light is very bright, and while the sound is loud, it sounds a bit abbreviated. I think that’s because the Abrams phasers shoot pulses and not sustained beams. I hate that, but in fairness to Abrams, I think that shit started during The Next Generation. Pulse phasers are evil, they just don’t feel like Star Trek to me. The stun setting on the toy is all around crap. The light is really dim and it sounds like the phaser is either malfunctioning or farting.

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Even with its flaws, this phaser is a pretty cool toy. I think it originally sold for around $15, but chances are you can still find it on clearance at your local Toys R Us. One of the TRU’s here still has an endcap of these and the figures. Hell, even the local Books-A-Million, in their bizarre transformation into part book store and part toy store, still has these. None of this stuff sold well because there probably hasn’t been a kid since the early 70’s that said, “Hey let’s get our phasers and go outside and play Star Trek.” Sad but true. But this phaser is still a wonderful piece for convention cosplay and a nice addition to any Trek arsenal on a budget, particularly if you want to display all the designs. Now, if you’ve got a little extra gold-pressed latinum to spend, Quantum Mechanix made a remarkably nice prop replica of this piece for under $100, which can still be found at various e-tailers around the InterWebs. (If you have a little more money to spend, they also make a $10,000 Enterprise model!) I don’t own their phaser, but I got a chance to hold one at a convention. The static model doesn’t feature any FX or moving parts, but it does look and feel really nice in hand.

Mar 29 2013

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Rippin Rider (Nickelodeon) by Playmates

Once again, it’s Turtle Time! And if there’s one thing the 90’s taught me, it’s that ninjas love to ride motorcycles, and that goes double for ninjas who happen to be turtles. I already checked out the Sewer Cruiser, and the Rippin Rider is another vehicle in the same size assortment, but instead of being a crazy cobbled together creation, this one is more of a legit motorcycle for when the Turtles want to cruise the streets and hunt down Foot Clan without getting tied up in traffic. Originally, I was going to take a pass on this thing, but I found it for really cheap through a third-party seller on Amazon and even the shipping was next to nothing, so I figured, what the hell, my Turtles need a bitching ride.

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Of course, the problem with super cheap third-party listings and super cheap shipping is that you often get what you pay for. In this case, the seller literally just wrapped the toy in a plastic bag, put a shipping label on it, and kicked it into a post box. The box got pretty pulverized in transit, and while I would have preferred to have it for storage, it’s not a big deal. In this case, I think the low price was a worthy trade off for bad service. Anyway, the box is plenty colorful, with an exciting illustration on the front and a photo of the toy on the back calling out its features. To be honest, there’s not a whole lot to this toy, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun.

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Unlike the Sewer Cruiser, the Rippin Rider comes mostly assembled straight out of the box. Indeed, the bulk of the bike is just a big hollow piece, although it’s still plenty sturdy and it’s lack of heft doesn’t really make it feel cheap or flimsy to me. Quite the contrary, kids could probably beat the hell out of this thing and it would still be fine. In addition to the motorcycle, you get an instruction sheet and a very small bag of parts along with a very small sticker sheet. The parts include a pair of yellow headlamps, a pair of foot pedals, a missile launcher and two missiles. The sticker sheet has only one sticker on it, and it goes right in front of the shell between the front of the handlebars. The rest of the parts just peg right onto the bike.

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The sculpt is quite detailed and includes everything from the engine right down to the brackets holding on the quad exhaust system. The gas tank is designed to look like a turtle shell, but other than that the Rippin Rider is a pretty subdued and practical motorcycle design. It’s almost too subdued for the TMNT line. Even the colors aren’t too outlandish. The bulk of the bike is dark grey and black, with some bright green thrown in to make it pop. Still, it looks mighty nice standing there amongst my collection.

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In terms of play value, the Rippin Rider is primarily designed to hold a figure (or two!) and roll along and it does that very well. You do have the missile launcher, but it doesn’t actually fire. You have to flick the missiles out with your finger. There is a folding kickstand, which is great for holding the bike up on your display shelf. Even with a figure, the stand holds the bike perfectly upright. On the downside, the handlebars don’t even turn, which is probably the only thing about this toy that disappointed me.

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I got my Rippin Rider for $10 shipped and it feels like a pretty ok deal. Unfortunately, I think this thing is turning up at retail for around $15 and that would give me pause. I don’t think it’s a bad toy. On the contrary, it’s big and sturdy and I’m definitely going to use it to display one of my Turtles. It isn’t as fun or inventive as the Sewer Cruiser, but then I guess it isn’t meant to be. I’m not someone who requires a lot of play gimmicks with my toys, so the Rippin Rider’s simple nature doesn’t bother me at all. If you feel the same way, this vehicle probably won’t disappoint.

Mar 15 2013

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fishface (Nickelodeon) by Playmates

Last week I checked out the amazing Dogpound, who by the way is still sitting on my desk because just looking at him makes me happy. This week, I’m looking at another one of Shredder’s wacky new minions, Fishface. Like Dogpound, this guy was impossible to find during the Christmas season, but thanks to recent restocks, he’s starting to turn up on the pegs again. And yet, with eight pegs of TMNT figures, my local Walmart still only had one Fishface. The rest of the pegs seem to be filling up with the gimmicky Turtle variants. I haven’t decided on picking up those yet, but today we’re here to talk about Fishface. I like saying Fishface. Fishface!

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Have I mentioned how much I love Playmates’ TMNT packages? Yes, I have. Many times. Because of his unusual fishy shape, Fishface is carded on his side as if he’s running. Think about that for a moment. He’s a fish and he’s running. You just know wackiness is going to ensue and I’m really excited to get him out of the package, so let’s get right to it.

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So, Fishface is basically a fish with arms and a set of cybernetic legs and a water-breathing apparatus. It seems like if the Kraang could mutate him into a fish with arms, they could have gone all the way and given him legs too. Maybe it’s a dodgy process. Then again, a fish with legs is nowhere as cool as a fish that has to wear robotic pants to walk around, so I’m not complaining. I’m sure this kind of thing has been done before, but I still love the concept and Playmates has incorporated it beautifully into their TMNT line.

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The sculpt here is pretty awesome. Fishface has a great scaly texture all over his skin and a fin-mohawk protruding off the back of his head/neck. The combination of underbite and protruding teeth gives him a ton of personality, and he’s got the cold, yellow eyes of a killer. The mechanical sculpt of his robot pants really contrast nicely with his fish features and they even have sculpted treads on the bottoms of the heavy feet. Fishface is a bright and colorful figure, although in the interest of finding something to nitpick, I’ll concede that the red used for  the front of the face should have matched the back a bit more, and the bright orange used for the breathing apparatus is rubbish. I’d like to pick up a second Fishface and try to paint the apparatus, but he’s tough to find again and my customizing skills are crap, so I’ll make do.

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The figure contains more articulation than you might expect a fish to have. He has swivels in the neck and waist, his arms are ball jointed at the shoulders and have swivels in the wrists, and his robo-legs rotate at the hips. Not bad for a fish out of water!

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Fishface comes with a pair of rather unusual looking blade weapons. The sword has a katana blade, the other is a little dagger. They’re sculpted in grey plastic and he can hold them very well in either hand.

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And so the Nickelodeon TMNT line continues to delight me. For a while I thought I’d be able to contain myself to just the main figures I know and love, but Playmates has been working their magic with the new characters as well. I certainly haven’t regretted any purchases from this line, and it’s nice to be able to walk out of the toy aisle with a figure as cool as this for under ten bucks. Now I’m on the hunt for Metal Head.

Mar 6 2013

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Dogpound (Nickelodeon) by Playmates

It was a good Christmas for Playmates and their new TMNT line. The pegs were emptied out in all the Targets and Walmarts around these parts and the prices of many of the figures quickly doubled and tripled online. Of course, that’s not so good if you wanted to actually buy them. Thankfully, the TMNT section is slowly getting replenished and this morning I was able to find a couple of figures that I’ve been hunting for quite a while now. One of those figures just happens to be today’s feature… Dogpound!

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There’s the now familiar TMNT figure packaging. It’s bright, it’s obnoxious, it’s in your face. It also makes me want to buy these things by the cartful. The front shows off the figure wonderfully, and the back has a clip-out filecard for the character and pictures of all the other glorious figures. I’m not watching the show, but I’m happy to see that Playmates is adding to the Turtles universe by creating new characters. Dogpound is one of those newbies, so let’s see what he’s all about.

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Plastic is crazy expensive right now, but you wouldn’t know it from this guy. He’s a huge slab of plastic crammed into a basic assortment figure card. In fact, Dogpound is so big that you actually have to assemble him by plugging in his tail and back spikes. It reminds me of my Star Trek Mugatu, also made by Playmates. The figure is mostly hollow, and that’s probably a good thing, because he’s got quite a heft to him as it is. If he were solid plastic, kids would be killing each other by chucking Dogpound figures at each other’s heads in the schoolyards. Dogpound figures would be regulated and you’d need to go through a 10-day waiting period to buy them.

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Call me immature… or maybe it’s the couple of Jamesons I’ve had, but I can’t stop laughing when I look at Dogpound’s face. I’m serious. I’m giggling right now. Look at it. It’s hysterical. I don’t think that cheesy grimace narrow eyes and those big eyebrows will ever get old. He’s definitely going to stay on my desk for a while. Hell, I may carry this guy around in my pocket so that whenever I’m having a bad day at work I can pull him out, look at his face, and make everything better. I’m still giggling. Look at his face!

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Moving beyond Dogpound’s amazing mug, the rest of the figure is like a cross between a werewolf and Crash Bandicoot on steroids, with Sonic the Hedgehog’s spikey back. His fur is sculpted all over his body and he has little purple Hulk pants with spiked kneepads. His left arm is a lot bigger than his right and it has spikes coming out of his wrist to give him a little extra turtle shredding power. The coloring on the figure is pretty good, with a dissolve between the orange and white fur. I think my only complaint here is that the sculpted straps on his chest and back aren’t painted. I’m guessing Playmates blew some of their paint apps budget on this guy by making him so damn big. It seems like a good trade off.

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Unless you’re a turtle, articulation hasn’t been one of this line’s strong suits. Nonetheless, I would argue you get everything you need to have fun with these guys, and Dogpound remains true to form. He has ball joints in his shoulders and hips. His head can swivel, but because it’s located on the front of his torso, it doesn’t so much as turn, but cock from side to side. It’s like Dogpound is hearing a strange noise. He also has swivels in his forearms and his waist. Yes, hinges in the elbows would have been awesome, but I’m still pretty happy with what we got. Besides, I can pose him with his arms out wide like he wants a hug.

Dogpound doesn’t come with any accessories, unless you count his tail and back spikes. Because he’s so big, I don’t feel cheated by not getting anything with him.

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God, these figures are so much fun! I came pretty close to paying double for Dogpound online a couple of times. Obviously, I’m glad I waited and got him for $8.88 at Walmart, but I wouldn’t have been disappointed had I paid more. I love him to pieces and like most of the basic TMNT figures, he’s an amazing value at this price. He’s also a great addition to the TMNT roster. Just because I’m not watching the series doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate what it’s adding to the TMNT mythos and characters like Dogpound definitely enrich the franchise. And yes, I’m still laughing at his face.

Feb 7 2013

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Sewer Cruiser (Nickelodeon) by Playmates

Yesterday’s pizza playset is going to be a pretty tough act to follow, but today we’re going to see what Playmates can do with a vehicle. No, this isn’t the first vehicle from their Nick Turtle line, but it is the first one that I’ve picked up. I usually talk price at the end of a feature, but in this case I’m going to bring it up now. You see, I was a little skeptical about buying this thing because it was only $11.99 and the box felt really light. I even had to double check to make sure this was scaled for the figures and not something else entirely. But after checking out the box for a bit, I decided, to go for it. Playmates’ new Turtles haven’t done me wrong yet, and I had nothing to lose except twelve bucks. Turns out it was a really good move.


The box is everything you’d expect from the TMNT line. It’s wacky, it’s colorful, and it features amazingly exciting artwork. This is every bit a package that you’d expect to find in the toy aisles 20 years ago and I mean that in every way as a compliment. Like most of the second wave of TMNT toys, this vehicle is part of the Mutagen Ooze line, meaning it has a gimmick that is meant to interact with the ooze. I haven’t decided whether I’m actually going to buy any ooze yet, but even if I do, I doubt I’ll be willing to gunk up my toys with it. The box is a really weird shape and it seems way too small to contain the zany awesomeness of a worthwhile TMNT vehicle.

But that’s because this thing is in pieces. Oh yeah, it’s toy building time! The Cruiser comes in a cardboard tray with two baggies full of parts, a small sticker sheet, and an instruction sheet. It’s pretty easy to put together and you can easily take it apart again to store it back in the box. Once together, the Sewer Cruiser is actually a really nice sized toy that fits the figures perfectly. Most of the pieces are hollow, but it doesn’t feel cheap or flimsy. In fact, I suspect it’s mostly hollow so that it can float, and while I haven’t tested out its ability to tread water, the package does indeed promise that it can.


The Cruiser is clearly one of Don’s wacky, cobbled together inventions. It’s made from a motorcycle chassis attached to a surfboard, with two ooze barrel pontoons, and a tailgating cooler on the back. It’s quite the imaginative piece and it’s positively (dare I say it?) oozing with great detail. If you look closely at the barrels, you can see a sculpted weld line where the Turtles welded together the two barrels in order to make the pontoons. That’s awesome! The motorcycle engine is detailed as are the rivets holding it together. Even the crosshatch seat has some broken straps to show wear and tear. I love how the cooler even has four cup holders on the top and a couple of fish sculpted into the bottom. This kind of detail in a toy is love, folks… pure love. Playmates loves you.

The coloring on the toy is straight out of the neon 90’s. It may have sucked for some toy lines (*cough* GI Joe *cough*) but it worked just fine for the Turtles and it still does. Most of the colors are the actual plastic and not paintwork. The motorcycle is grey, the barrels are bright neon green with black supports, the board is orange and turquoise and the cooler is red and white.

Any one of the turtle figures will fit just fine on the Cruiser, even with their weapons still stowed on their backs. However, there are two clips on the handlebars so you can store their weapons more conveniently. Indeed, even some of the lesser articulated non-Turtles can ride it pretty well.


The Sewer Cruiser isn’t exactly loaded with play gimmicks. In fact the only one is the ability to fill the cooler with ooze and tip it over in order to slime pursuers. If you don’t have any ooze, the toy comes with three little plastic splotches of grey ooze, which look more like tiny metal shavings or possibly ravioli. Chances are I’ll just use the cooler to hold shuriken.

In the end, the Cruiser is a solid and fun toy at an amazing price. I’ve often remarked how the Nick Turtles are the best value in action figures hanging on the pegs, so it should follow that the vehicles are too. I mean, seriously… twelve bucks for a fun vehicle for your Turtles to ride? I think I paid more than that for my last 3 ¾” Marvel Universe figure and he had minimal new sculpting and didn’t come with any accessories. Like I said before, folks, Playmates loves you!

Feb 6 2013

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Anchovy Alley (Pop-Up Pizza Playset) by Playmates

I’ll admit it. I’m ashamed at my decision to not buy Playmates’ epic Secret Sewer Lair playset. I’m the first collector to go around pining for the good old days when toy companies made playsets, and when someone finally steps up and releases one, I abstain. I wanted it really bad. I still want it really bad. But I keep looking at it and realizing that I have nowhere to put it. And even if I could squeeze it in somewhere, it would take up what little space I have left for all the other things I’m going to want to buy this year. I was tempted to just buy it to show my support and keep it boxed, but even the box is huge. Plus, I know I’d have to open it as soon as I got it anyway because I have all the willpower of a crack addict. Fortunately, Playmates threw people like me a bone by releasing a more compact way to display my Turtles… behold Anchovy Alley, the Pop-Up Pizza Playset. It’s proof that Playmates may actually be a bunch of geniuses and have just been trolling us for the last couple of years.

The box has all the trappings of the TMNT Nickelodeon toy packages illustrated as if to be wrapped around what looks like a pizza box with a sketch of the Turtles on it. Holy shit, this is cool! It’s so cool that I wish it was designed in two layers so the wrap-around could come off and I could have the Turtle pizza box by itself. In typical Playmates fashion, the box has a ton of information printed on it. But rather than feel like overkill like on the old Star Trek cards, this box makes me think the designer of the package was genuinely excited about the toy and had way too much caffeine. But the best is yet to be seen.

Flip the box over and the back shows the toy in action with some of the best copy I’ve ever read on a toy box. It invites you to “serve up a fresh slice topped with furious ninja moves!” Plus it has a whole catalog of great pizza related puns that would make Arnold Schwarzenegger proud. “Table for one!” “Special delivery!” “Hand tossed!” “You got served!” The folks at Playmates are obviously having way too much fun with this line and it makes it all the more endearing. It’s like suddenly they get it and most other toy companies don’t. Even if my interest hadn’t already been peaked, there’s no way I could pick up this box in the toy aisle and not buy this thing. Oh yeah, it even opens like a real pizza box and it’s so heavy and dense that it feels like it contains a solid brick of plastic.

And that’s because in a sense it is. The playset comes folded into a plastic box that very nearly fills out the entire inside of the package. There’s just room for four corner protectors, an instruction sheet and a sticker sheet. This thing is designed so well that when it folds up there’s barely a square millimeter of space that isn’t used up. Because the playset is designed to unpack itself, there’s really no assembly required. There are, however, some very large and crucial stickers, which take a lot of care to put on. I gave it my all and I still had a couple of creases in mine.

So, when it’s all folded up, the set is designed to look like a plastic pizza box. It’s passable enough with the traditional red checker pattern running around the side. The illustration on the package is reproduced smaller as a green stamp on the upper right hand corner. I think Playmates should have just reproduced the pizza box on the cardboard package here, or at least printed PIZZA on it. You get the idea what it’s supposed to be, but they could have gone a little further with it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all good. This baby will spend most of its time deployed on my shelf and whenever it is collapsed down, I’ll likely put it right back in the box.

When I say this thing unpacks itself, I really mean it. Once you fold it out you’re 99%  good to go. The only thing left to do is take the pizza shooter and the pizzas off the outside wall and put it into one of the three available sockets. It’s a simple spring loaded disc launcher and while I’ll likely choose to display my set without it, it makes for a very cool added play feature for the kiddies.


Once unpacked, Anchovy Alley stands 18-inches tall and has a similar set up to the Secret Sewer Lair in that part of the set is meant to be above ground and part below. The above ground is a colorful pizzeria with an awning, street lamp and opening doors. There’s only a small ledge to represent the street level, but it’s just enough to get a turtle to stand on it, even with their bulky shells. The streetlamp is spring loaded so you can attach a turtle to it, pull it back, and have him knock another figure right through the pizzeria doors. “Bahfangul! Wathca a-doin out there? Stop-a kicking da dirty foot clan into-a mia pizza parlor! Turtle Svacheems!”


The subterranean side is some kind of underground limbo that exists between the subways and the sewers. It offers up three levels of play, all connected with ladders, and includes a manhole cover that can launch figures into the air, and an opening sewer hatch on one of the walls. There are also some railings the figures can grab and swing on. The sculpted detail on the base is particularly impressive. You’ve got tires, dead fish, and all kinds of bottles and cans and other refuse. If I had the talent, patience and materials of a customizer, I would go to town painting the base of this thing.

The durability of the playset varies a bit. None of it feels cheap and when it’s unpacked it’s pretty solid. On the other hand, some of the rails feel really weak so I don’t know that I’ll have my figures gripping them that much. I could see them developing stress marks pretty easily.


The fact that Playmates actually named this thing, Anchovy Alley, rather than just Pop-Up Pizza Playset, makes me hope that they may do a few more. This formula is just too good to be a one-shot deal and other toy companies really should take notice. I’m not saying I want a pizza box that unfolds into a GI Joe playset, but Hasbro you could make it an ammo box or something. Use your goddamn imaginations because Playmates certainly is. Either way, this thing is proof that you can do a solid playset without taking up too much space on the retailer shelves… or setting too high a price tag. Anchovy Alley’s box takes up less space than most mid-range vehicles and only set me back $25. Whether you want to use it so your Turtles can mix it up you’re the Foot Clan or just want somewhere to display your figures, I can’t recommend this set enough. It’s awesome!

Tomorrow we’ll keep the Turtle goodness rolling with a look at the Sewer Cruiser.

Feb 2 2013

Star Trek Holodeck Series: “A Fistful of Datas” Collector Set by Playmates

You didn’t think you’d escape a week of Toy Closet Finds without some Playmates Star Trek loving, did you? DID YOU??  Truth is I can’t turn around in that damn closet without knocking over a towering skyscraper of Star Trek figures, so by doing just one feature this week, y’all are getting off way too easy. Besides, the last two Saturdays were Star Trek, so I’ll just keep the ball rolling. Oh yeah, while it wouldn’t be FigureFan without a stray cat hair in my photos (it’s practically my watermark!) things got a little out of hand today and I’d already had more than a few Jamesons before the shoot, which meant I didn’t notice until it was too late. Enjoy!


Hey, look! It’s the Holodeck Series! I haven’t done any of these before! But first, let’s wax nostalgic about the Holodeck for a moment. When I was a teenager, “The Next Generation” was destination television for me every week, and every time a Holodeck episode came up I would flip the hell out because I thought it was a waste of a slot and I’d have to wait another week and hope for something better. Now, in my old age, I’ve mellowed a lot on these episodes, and while some of them are still terrible, others are not so bad. Next to the Sherlock Holmes episodes, “A Fistful of Datas” is probably my favorite. It may have to do with my love for westerns; it may be because it tugged at my nostalgic love for the Classic Trek episode “Specter of the Gun;” but in the end I think it’s because it’s a fun episode that makes really good use of Worf and Troi it’s one of the few episodes with Alexander that I can stomach.

The set comes in a compact little window box and is branded under the general “Star Trek” line. The front window displays the three figures Worf, Alexander, and a Holographic recreation of Data (ok, so it’s really two and a half figures!) and each of the figures are held in a tray against an illustrated backdrop that shows part of the “Ancient West” town and part of the Holodeck grid. As always, there’s a foil sticker with an individual collector number. The back panel of the box has a blurb about the episode, a shot of the figures against the backdrop and shots of three other boxed sets available in the line. I’ll point out here that Sheriff Worf was available as a single-carded figure, but if you wanted the other two in this set, I’m pretty sure this was the only way to get them. Bastard points go to Playmates for forcing us to double dip!


Starting off with Data, we get a Holodeck recreation of our favorite Starfleet android as a crazed gunslinger. The head sculpt is pretty good, and possibly better than my regular Data figure. He has the little added mustache and his hat is removable, which I was not expecting. As for the rest of the figure, the sculpt is very simple but it does hit all the right points. His black coat bellows up a bit behind him and reveals his holstered gun on his left hip. He’s an Ok figure, but he does seem a little lacking compared to Worf.

Yes, Worf is clearly the star of this set as Playmates put the most work into him. That probably has something to do with the fact that he was also a single-carded release. The head sculpt is excellent, and while the hat isn’t removable, that just means it doesn’t constantly fall off like Data’s does. Worf’s outfit consists of a detailed kerchief, a vest with buttons and his sheriff badge, and a buttoned shirt with the flap hanging down. The proportions are also a lot better than previous Worf figures. I love this figure!

Last up is Worf’s son, Alexander, which is just a static piece. I expected him to be a throw-away, but Playmates stepped up on the sculpt here. He’s wearing a miniature version of Worf’s outfit right down to the vest with the little deputy badge. I also get a chuckle out of the fact that he’s the only one in the set holding a gun and he looks like he’s ready to gleefully murder someone with it.

The paintwork on all three figures is quite excellent. I don’t know why, but I love the high gloss paint that Playmates uses. It makes them look so toyish and 90’s. Feeling nostalgic for the 90’s is a scary thing. The contrast between Data’s muted grey and black outfit and the brighter browns and reds of Worf and Alexander’s makes for an appealing set and I’m particularly impressed by the paintwork on the little Alexander figure. In terms of overall coloring and paint, this is some of Playmates best work on the Star Trek line.

The three figures in this set are like an illustration of the evolution of action figure articulation. Worf features most of the points we’ve come to expect from Playmates Trek figures. His arms rotate at the shoulders, swivel at the biceps and have hinged elbows. His legs swivel at the hips and have hinges in the knees. He can also swivel at the waist and his head turns. The only thing really missing here are the thigh swivels that began to appear late in the line. Data, on the other hand has the five basic points (neck, shoulders and hips) plus swivels in his biceps. He does have a waist swivel, but his coat prevents it from working, and it severely limits his hip articulation too. Last up is Alexander, which as I already mentioned is just a static figure. I don’t have a big problem with Alexander just being a display piece, but Data’s limited articulation really irks me. He should have at least had elbow and knee hinges.

The sad thing about this set is you get zero accessories. Granted, Playmates’ accessories usually suck, but if you want Worf’s accessories you need to buy the single-carded figure as well. Or you can buy Troi as Durango and give her stuff to Worf since she can’t hold any of it anyway. You do, however, get a display stand with an illustrated sticker to match the backdrop. The idea is you cut out the backdrop and stick it into the slot on the stand. If you’ve ever picked up any of Kenner/Hasbro’s Star Wars Cinema Scene sets than you already get the idea.

I have no idea how much this sold for originally, but I recall picking up mine at a Trek Convention for $10 and you can’t go wrong there. The lack of accessories is a downer and Data’s sculpt and articulation doesn’t jive with the work put into Worf, but all in all this is still a cool set representing a fun little episode.

And that’ll put this week of Toy Closet Finds in the bag. I’ve still got a bunch of unearthed treasures from my trip into Narnia, but the rest will have to wait, because I’ve also got a bunch of new receivings piling up and begging for attention. Next week I’ll be doubling up on some new Lego, new TMNT, and new Transformers. See y’all on Monday.

Jan 24 2013

Star Trek Starfleet Academy: Picard, Data, and Worf by Playmates

I’ve got some social obligations today, folks, which means that I can’t stay home and drink, I have to go out and drink. It’s jarring and unsettling, but people tell me that spending too much time at home drinking among crowds of fake plastic people is not good for my psyche. As a result, I was looking for something quick and dirty for today’s feature. I’m going to parse out three figures from a recent Lot of Playmates Star Trek that I recently bought on Ebay just because nobody was bidding on it and I wanted to give these guys a good home. It was basically a bag of about 20 loose figures with no accessories and a handful of stands, most of which didn’t even match the figures in the Lot. I don’t usually like to buy Playmates Trek loose because they’re so damn cheap when they’re new and carded, but then the ones we’re looking at today I would have probably never picked up any other way.

Yes, the Starfleet Academy line! Somehow Playmates thought that even after scraping the bottom of the barrel for questionable releases like Vedek Bareil (DS9) and that smug Benzite dickhead from “A Matter of Honor” (TNG) they still just weren’t making enough Star Trek figures and so they had to think outside the box and create this kind of Expanded Universe sub-line featuring our favorite Next Gen crewmembers as Academy Cadets. Jim Henson’s Trek Babies? The packages boasted “All new Starfleet Crew Members as young cadets!” C’mon, Playmates, it was hard enough to get kids to play with Star Trek figures without exposing them to this terrible idea. I’m the biggest Star Trek whore ever and even I didn’t want to buy these. Anyway, some of these figures came on a “Starfleet Academy” cardback with a CD-ROM game and the typical crappy Playmates accessories, none of which came with mine. Cadet Data was released a couple of years later (along with Cadets Troi and Crusher) as part of the generic “Warp Factor” series. I did get a single figure stand from the series, which is actually kind of cool because it’s made to look like the Academy badge complete with the Golden Gate Bridge. Too bad it’s molded in purple plastic with yellow paints. Oh, Playmates.

Let’s start out with this guy. I swear I thought this was Riker, but a little research tells me he’s actually “John” Picard. I’m not going to quibble about the likeness, but it is somewhat of a novelty to have a Picard figure with hair. He’s wearing a “Standard Starfleet Issue Flight Training Suit” which I have to reluctantly admit is kind of cool. It’s grey and has the same black shoulders and collar as the regular uniforms, which makes it a little Starfleety. There are also holes near the belt and arm, which I presume was for tubes or something.

Next up is Cadet Worf and ain’t he just adorable? I’ll actually concede that Playmates did a pretty good job sculpting his likeness as a younger Worf, even though he still has the beard. Unfortunately, Worf is wearing what Playmates calls “Starfleet Night Recon Gear” which makes this figure all kinds of stupid. What the hell kind of night recon gear involves wearing the brightest white gloves and boots I’ve ever seen? Even the bulk of the outfit is light grey and the only thing appropriately dark is the belt and cross strap. I’m guessing that Worf was the victim of a lot of hazing, with him being the only Klingon at Starfleet Academy, and some of his peers thought it would be funny to give him arctic gear and tell them it was for night recon ops. I’m also guessing that those pranksters were later found behind one of the lecture halls with their spines removed.

And last up is Cadet Data. I understand that it’s canon that Data graduated from Starfleet Academy, but I honestly can’t imagine how that worked since he was constructed to be super strong and remember every piece of information that he was exposed to. Maybe the idea was to have him spend time interacting with other cadets rather than just download every course into his neural net and get his commission. Anyway, since Data doesn’t age, he looks pretty much the same as his other figures. I might even go so far as to say this figure’s head sculpt is better than my regular Data. I have no idea what his outfit is supposed to be, but I have to say, this is my favorite figure of the three and the fact that his gear doesn’t have a Starfleet insignia anywhere on it means that I can use him as Lore or even B4. YES!

And there you have it. I doubt I’ll ever circle back to pick up complete versions of these three figures, but being the nutter that I am, I won’t discount the possibility that the other cadet figures won’t show up here at some point in time. Looking at incomplete figures really aggravates my OCD, but there are a bunch of figures in this Lot so chances are I’ll pick out another handful of them to check out next week.

Jan 18 2013

Star Trek Classic Series: General Chang by Playmates

Since tomorrow we’ll be looking at Diamond Select’s take on Chang’s ship, I thought it would only be fitting to end this Trek Trifecta by spending some time on the General himself. Now, I have a real love-hate relationship with Star Trek VI. I won’t bother to point out it was better than Star Trek V because, well what isn’t? But, what I loved most about “The Undiscovered Country” was the Klingons. Not to knock Christopher Lloyd and his fun performance as Commander Kruge in “Search for Spock,” but Star Trek VI was released in an entirely different context. Sure it took place before The Next Generation, but for the first time Original Trek was able to take advantage of the rich characterization that Next Gen wove around the Klingon people and it really showed in this movie, not to mention the great casting. Christopher Plummer as Chang was awesome! David Warner as Gorkon… awesome!! Even William Morgan Sheppard as the Warden of Rura Penthe… awesome!!! The rest of the movie has some real cringe worthy stuff, like the whole Scooby Doo style mystery or any scene with Kim Cattrall. But seeing a great actor like Plummer don Klingon makeup for a Star Trek film really blew me away. And since neither Gorkon nor any of the other “Undiscovered Country” Klingons got figures, we’ll be content to look at Chang.

Chang was issued on Playmates’ “Classic Star Trek Movie Series” card. It’s an attractive card, but the inclusion of the Original Series Enterprise and font is pretty confusing and doesn’t really capture what this line is all about. I can’t recall the movie Enterprise appearing on any of Playmates’ artwork, which is rather a pity because it’s my favorite incarnation of the ship. Anyway, the Classic Movie Series was a scattershot sub-line that seemed to meander around and only offer collectors’ a frustrating cross section of figures from the various films. Case in point: Besides Chang, the only other figure released from “Undiscovered Country” was the shapeshifter Marta. I still find it amazing and insane that we got the entire bridge crew in their Original Motion Picture uniforms, but we never got a full set of the bridge crew in the uniforms they wore throughout the next five movies! Oh, Playmates!


And there is General Chang in all his Playmates glory. He isn’t exactly your typical looking Klingon as he’s bald and has pretty subdued ridges on his head. In fact, he’s easily the most human looking Klingon that we’ve seen since The Original Series. Still, you have to respect the eye patch… that thing is bolted right onto his face and that’s hardcore. The likeness is pretty good for a Playmates 4.5” figure, and the paintwork on the head is solid work.

Star Trek III taught us that Klingons in The Next Gen era wear the same battle armor as Klingons from the Classic Movie time, and yet “Undiscovered Country” went with a costume redesign. The new look is somewhat similar to the more familiar armor, but instead of being metallic, it’s more like quilted leather. Either way, Chang’s outfit is faithfully recreated on the figure right down to his ornately sculpted baldric and horned boots. I should also note that I’m extremely pleased with the proportions on this figure. Playmates didn’t go all wonky and give him a huge head or giant arms. He doesn’t look stylized at all, and there are no pre-posed shenanigans going on either as he features a pretty neutral stance.

Chang features fairly good articulation for the line. The arms rotate at the shoulders, swivel at the biceps and have hinged elbows. The legs have hip movement, which is unfortunately rendered inert by his sculpted tunic, and hinged knees. There’s no waist swivel, but Chang can turn his head.


No Klingon general is complete without accessories, and Playmates packed in a real mixed bag all molded in gold plastic. Hey, gold is better than neon purple, so I’ll take what I can get. Chang has his trusty disrupter pistol, which he can hold ok in his left hand. It’s actually the same mold that we got with Commander Kruge only without the cool add-on stock. Chang also has a communicator and a drinking glass, which no doubt contains Romulan Ale. The most puzzling piece in the assortment is Chancellor Gorkon’s walking stick. Maybe it’s a mantle of office for the Chancellor, but I never saw Chang with it after Gorkon died. It’s only purpose seems to be to mock me, as it will be the closest I ever get to a 4.5” David Warner figure (seriously, Playmates, I would have even settled for a St. John Talbot with a tiny cigarette). Lastly, you also get the very cool figure stand that comes with all the Movie Series figures.

I tend to think the “Classic Movie Series” features some of Playmates’ best efforts in their Trek line and General Chang keeps that tradition rolling along. The likeness is good and the paintwork is solid. In the end, he makes me long for more figures based on the Klingons from this movie and possibly even an assassin in Starfleet Spacesuit. When you think of some of the questionable one-shot figures that made it into the Next Gen figure line, it’s a crying shame that they didn’t treat the Classic Movies to a wider range of releases. But enough lamenting about what could have been, tomorrow we’ll end this marathon of Trek madness and take a look at General Chang’s Bird of Prey.

Extra Bonus: FigureFan Reads His Review Drunk. Wherein I drink, test a new microphone, scold my cat for trying to cough up a hairball, and offer some barely coherent commentary on Star Trek and my own review. This was never meant to see the light of day, but how often do I get a chance to add rare uncovered archival content? Enjoy!