Toy Talk
Volume XXVII
By Mark Patraw
Posted on 2/10/14
Just to mess with you, I'm going to start on the left this time and work my way right: First, we have a 2001 Disney/McDonald's The Book of Pooh Kessie plush (twenty-five cents "girls" grab bag on 12/5/13); standing to the left of her is a 2011 Mattel Target-exclusive Barbie Easter Chelsea (twenty-five cents on 2/6/14); down by Chelsea's feet is a Jada Toys Homies Mr. Pit & Chato figurine (twenty-five cents "boys" grab bag on 12/26/13); next to him on the left is a 1988 Hasbro Transformers Firecon Cindersaur (twenty-five cents on 2/6/14); and, finally, dwarfing everyone else, is a 2008 Spin Master/Sega Toys Bakugan: Battle Brawlers deluxe Reaper (one dollar on 2/6/14). I purchased everything from the Ishpeming St. Vincent de Paul Society thrift store on the dates noted above. If anyone reading this knows more information about any of these items, that I haven't already discussed below, and would like to share, or just chat about toys, feel free to e-mail me and let me know!
Kessie is a 3.9" (9.8 cm) tall plush figure from Disney's 2001 The Book of Pooh McDonald's assortment. In addition to Ms. Bluebird here, you could also get a Piglet marker, a Winnie the Pooh message pad (I imagine Pooh Bear's shopping list consists of nothing but the word "hunny" hastily scribbled over-and-over again), a Tigger pen (my favorite character from the franchise), an Owl ink stamp, and figures of Eeyore, Rabbit, and Winnie the Pooh (again). I don't care if he's the headliner, instead of doing the bear twice, they should have made Kanga and/or Roo! I do not remember this Kessie character at all, so, she's either a new addition to the cast, or I just have a horrible memory--the only bird from the 100 Acre Woods that I know of is the previously mentioned Owl. As for the toy itself, it looks great. Everything is well sewn and the fabric colors are vibrant. The tag is annoying, but that's just one of the necessary evils of plush toys. This figure has gripping wings (there's a clothespin-like armature inside her body), so, you can make her hang onto things like rulers and, um, Van Helsing Dracula's forearm. It's not the most groundbreaking feature in the world, but it works well and makes Kessie a little more interesting and versatile than she would have been if she were just a standard plush animal. Because I'm not familiar with her, Kessie doesn't give me any of the warm fuzzy feelings that the other Winner the Pooh characters from my childhood do, but, even so, this is a well made and attractive-looking fast food toy.
Easter is still a ways off yet, but this little lass insisted that we start the festivities early. Here we have a 2011 Mattel Target-exclusive Barbie Easter Chelsea doll (she's one of Barbie's younger siblings--the character was named Kelly for many years, but, for whatever reason, Mattel permanently changed her name to Chelsea in 2010). Collectors should take note that three different variations of this doll were produced: a blonde, a redhead, and this raven-haired one. While their outfits were similar in design, each sported different color schemes and patterns, so, all three look unique (for example, the blonde has lilac rabbit ears and the redhead has yellow ones). Excluding that headband, Chelsea is 5.6" (14.3 cm) tall, but she shoots up to 6.5" (16.5 cm) in height if you do include the bunny ears in your measurements.
As expected, Chelsea only has joints at the neck, shoulders, and hips. She can sit or stand unassisted, but you're not going to get any really dynamic poses out of her. Her pastel outfit consists of a rabbit-print shirt, with a bowtie attached to the collar, and pink plaid skirt (all sewn together as one piece, not separate garments) which opens and closes in the back via a velcro strip. Chelsea's pearlescent white tights are a permanent part of her body, as are her polka-dot panties, which even have her name sculpted, in raised relief, on the back, in case you ever forget who she is. I'm pretty sure that you're supposed to wear your tights over your panties, not under them, Chelsea! Her flexible yellow shoes are pretty basic in appearance, but they do have sculpted flowers on their fronts, and they pop on-and-off her feet without too much trouble. You could remove the rabbit ears headband if you wanted to, but, you'd have to snip the three pink threads holding it in place to do so. I don't have any intention of ever displaying her without them (the holiday motif is the primary reason I bought her after all), so I just left them like they are. Her ebony locks are fairly good quality, thickly rooted, and comb out well. She's got short bangs in the front and the longer hair has some wave/curl to it which looks nice. A complete sample should include a plastic Easter basket accessory (yellow for this version), which mine obviously lacks (I'm grateful that she even has her original outfit, shoes, and bunny ears, which, at a thrift store, is never a sure thing). If I get ambitious, I might make her a new basket one of these days, from scratch, to complete the ensemble.
Generally speaking, I'm not a big fan of Mattel's Kelly/Chelsea dolls, but, I really like this one, thanks in no small part to the cute holiday motif (the fact that she's got black hair also helped seal the deal, as all my other Kelly/Chelsea dolls are blondes, and I like variety in my collection). Even if you don't celebrate Easter, she's still an attractive looking doll--I imagine Chelsea would also make a nice White Rabbit in an Alice in Wonderland themed doll display.
Homies are unarticulated mini figures, made by Jada Toys, Inc., that reflect an urban lifestyle. Some of the characters are little more than accessories that came with larger cars, while others were stand-alone figures, which I believe is the case here. This particular one is a 2.6" (6.7 cm) tall Mr. Pit, permanently accompanied by his faithful pitbull, Chato, who, in comparison to his master's grim expression, looks quite excited. The sculpts are fairly simple and cartoony, but executed well. Mr. Pit is an intimidating looking dude; I certainly wouldn't want to cross him, or his pet! They're both mounted on a circular grey base, which is pretty plain, but it does have their names sculpted on it, in raised relief (something I didn't even notice until after I spent a considerable amount of time on Google identifying the toy--I don't know how I managed to miss that). I imagine the fluid spilling from the canine's mouth is supposed to be saliva, but, given the greenish hue, my first impression was, and remains, vomit (it's amazing what a difference paint color can make in one's perceptions). In my opinion, there are two ways that you can look at this figure: One, Chato is just freaking out, and Mr. Pit is trying to restrain the dog from getting loose and causing any mischief, or, two, they're about to take part in the illegal sport of pitbull fighting. As I certainly don't approve of the latter, I'm going to assume it's the former. This is a nice enough piece, but, while I don't have anything against pitbulls, I'm also not particularly fond of canines in general, so, this item has limited appeal to me.
"Crash and burn . . . and burn . . . and burn." That quote comes right from this 1988 Hasbro Generation 1 (G1) Transformers Firecon Cindersaur figure's Tech Specs. In a nutshell, Cindersaur is slow and stupid, but he loves torching things. Indeed, this mechanical pyromaniac is so unintelligent that the only way that he can even find his way back to the Decepticon's base is to follow the trail of burnt carnage that he always leaves behind (maybe that's what Hansel and Gretel should have tried instead of bread crumbs?) How much does Cindersaur love high temperatures? Well, his file card goes on to say that he relaxes by taking flame baths and drinking volcanic lava. The gimmick with the Firecons (as well as their Autobot counterparts, the Sparkabots) was that they emitted sparks when you rolled them across the floor. In the case of the Decepticon trio (Cindersaur's buddies Flamefeather and Sparkstalker round out the group), which all changed into monsters, the fireworks erupt from their mouths. On the other hand, with the Autobot Sparkabots (Fizzle, Guzzle, and Sizzle), which all changed into vehicles, the light show emanated from their tailpipes instead. Even after more than two decades, the sparking function still works very well on my Cindersaur sample.
Transforming this figure from monster-to-robot, and back again, is incredibly simple. The character's monstrous mode, which, from nose horn to tail tip, is about 3.8" (9.6 cm) in length, looks decent. It sports a nice scaly texture, horns/spikes, and the purple/yellow color scheme, while garish, works. In this shape, the arms and legs rotate and the head pivots up-and-down. In order to facilitate the sparking feature, when you roll the wheel on his chest across the floor, you need to put Cindersaur in a prone position so that the limbs don't get in the way. Cindersaur's robot form (and it's a stretch to even call it that in my opinion), on the other hand, which stands 3" (7.5 cm) tall, is pretty bad. He's boxy and there's tons of poorly integrated creature kibble--it's painfully obvious that this toy was designed as a monster first and the robot form was a distant secondary concern at best. I particularly dislike that the tail looks like a huge erect phallus when you view the figure from the back--apparently this Decepticon finds pyrotechnics a little too stimulating. In this shape, you can rotate the legs and swivel the arms in/out, but, other than that, he's pretty much an immobile brick. The silver paint on the tip of the nose horn is rubbing off on mine, but, according to Mark Bellomo's 2007 Transformers Identification & Price Guide, that's a pretty common occurrence with loose samples of this character.
Cindersaur has what is arguably one of the worst looking G1 Transformers robot modes ever made (I'm definitely keeping him in creature form for display purposes), but, I love monsters, the sparking function is somewhat novel, and I got him for a steal (twenty-five cents + sales tax), so, at the end of the day, I'm satisfied with my purchase. Bellomo's book says that he's worth $10-12 loose, like this, and $40 mint-on-card (MOC), but, unless you really need him, I wouldn't recommend paying anywhere near those prices for Cindersaur; as a toy, he's just not worth that kind of money.
This is a 2008 Spin Master/Sega Toys' Bakugan: Battle Brawlers deluxe Reaper figure. In the Bakugan fiction, Reaper hails from the Darkus world of Vestroia (the Bakugan creatures' home dimension). Masquerade (who was actually the villainous masculine alter-ego of the kind 14-year-old girl Alice Gehabich) employed Reaper as his Guardian Bakugan for a time, but, eventually exiled him to the Doom Dimension so that Masquerade could draw upon Reaper's power to strengthen his replacement, Hydranoid.
True to Japanese anime aesthetics, Reaper's sculpt is fairly cartoon-ish, so, there's a lot of smooth surfaces and not much fine detail work, but he still comes off as suitably sinister. His head and striped horns strike me as more stag beetle-ish than demonic, but maybe that's just me. Due to the weight of his wings, and his limited leg articulation, getting Reaper to stand can be a bit tricky--you've got to hunch him over a bit and really spread his legs to get him to remain erect. I measured Reaper at 8.5" (21.6 cm) in height, at the tips of his horns, but, because of his wide-legged stance, that's shortchanging him a bit, as he'd be taller than that if he could actually stand straight. All together, he's got pin-and-post ball-joints at the neck, shoulders, and hips and rotating cut joints at the wrists, waist, and knees. Reaper's overall poseability is so-so; the addition of ball or pin joints in the elbows, knees and ankles would have done a lot to improve his mobility. A complete Reaper sample should include a large purple and gray scythe accessory, which mine obviously lacks. I don't think that you're supposed to take them off, but his wings are also removable if you want to do so (I'm probably lucky that my secondhand sample even has wings).
Even if you have no interest in Bakugan I think Reaper makes a great generic demon or devil villain for your other toys to battle. I wish that his poseability was a bit better, but, all-in-all, he's a pretty cool-looking toy. Several months ago, I saw a similar deluxe Bakugan Gorem figure, for $2.09, at the local Goodwill store, but, as I didn't know who, or what, he was at the time, I left him there--now that I have Reaper, I kind of wish that I had bought that Gorem, but, such is hindsight.
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