Weekly Update: 5/16/22

 

I had a pretty good weekend. Saturday the Mrs and I had just a few things to do. It was time to upgrade my trusty S10 after two and a half years of service. I'm going to miss it, but this is the way of mobile devices. I now have a shiny new S22+ for the next few years and thanks to device share, it's got all my old stuff still. Though it's definitely an upgrade. We then made a quick stop at the nearby Best Buy for a new case. Got to take care of my investment and personal electronic companion!

We visited the the PopShelf store that recently opened near us. It's actually in the former location of Spirit Halloween, so we're well acquainted how to get there. Don't worry, Spirit moved a few buildings up last year due to this being constructed. PopShelf is a pretty neat little store. It's owned by Dollar General and a new chain of household stuff at fair prices. Think of it as a hybrid of Five Below and a general store. It's actually pretty nice inside and almost feels like something fancy.

They had a great little toy section full of blind bags. I got a Beyblade micro, a BotBot (haven't opened those yet), a little wind up ghost, and a Legend of Zelda Four Swords capsule. I did open my Zelda capsule and got a green Link! The series is by Tomy and each capsule has one of the four Links from Four Swords games. The figures are pretty nice and articulated mini figures with the gimmick that where you turn Links head, his eyes look that way. He has a sword and shield as well. There's so much personality in this little guy. I also got a G.I.JOE Snowcat building block set. My favorite JOE vehicle.

We then went to Walmart where I picked up Legacy Bulkhead. Friday the Mrs had grabbed me a Legacy Arcee. Here's hoping this one came with everything after the last one didn't. Thursday I had picked up Legacy Skids after a doctors appointment. Just a good few days for Transformers! The Sandstorm and Nightprowler I pre-ordered should be arriving this week. I decided to take my chances with finding Buzzsaw at retail. So I hope my luck continues next weekend. 

We ordered from Johnny's Pizza for dinner. I enjoyed a salad and two slices of pizza. I had mapped out my sodium intake all day and somehow ate two giant slices of pizza within my daily allotment. The Mrs fell asleep on the couch soon after leading me to watching Voltes V. She woke up near the end. It's pretty funny watching her reactions to my shows. She still doesn't believe Masterforce is Transformers and couldn't believe the name of what I was watching was called Voltes V. She swears I made the name up and asked why Voltron was fighting the devil. 

Sunday was a relaxing day of watching Ghost Adventures, napping, and playing Kirby on my Switch. Mom came over for dinner and we were going to cook out. However a sudden rainstorm led to cooking on the Foreman grill instead. It was still delicious and next Sunday there's a Squishmallow event at Five Below to prepare for. Looks like I'll be bringing home some more Bakugan!

I'm watching Haunt TV and drinking a Melon Ramune as I write this. I like to have a bottle of Ramune on the weekend. It's a silly tradition, but a good one. I don't drink  alcohol anymore and always have liked Ramune. Somehow that weekend beer became a weekend Ramune and I think I like it better that way. Of all the millions of Ramune bottles I've tossed, I've never saved the marble. Wonder if I should start? Thank you for continuing to support Zone Base. I've got a fun week planned and as always I ask that you please share with your friends! 

Keeper Your Trapper Shut

A Trapper Keeper is a pretty great thing to have. If you're a student it's a great way to organize all of your subjects in one place. As an adult it's a great way to organize various paperwork related to your career or other important aspects of life.

Technically it's just a binder to hold portfolios and notebooks together. Speaking about daily life here on Planet Zone, it's a good way to keep track of checklists included with various blind bag figures. Tracking down BotBots? Keep a list right here, it's exhilarating to mark off that final one.

It's a great way to keep track of all those handmade notes and maps you made while playing Metroid last weekend. When it's time to refer back to them, there they are. Back to school stuff has been filtering into my local stores and with it opportunities to really step up your Trapper Keeper game. Like puppy stickers.

Mini-Puft Figure Mania

Because Ghostbusters: Afterlife dropped an awesome bomb on the world, it was revealed that Hasbro would be selling new blind packed mini figures of the new Mini-Pufts this fall! They'll be blind packed in containers of Stay Puft marshmallow cream (trying making a fluffernutter with this goo). The little guys will be hidden inside the 'goopy marshmallow-like compound'.

Hopefully the 'compound' won't be as sticky as the ectoplasm in the slime tubes from 2019. Combining these with the new Ecto-Plasm and Ecto-Plasm Ghost Gushers and I've got a lot of slime to dig through soon. I'm not complaining though, it's gonna be great! Hope I don't get any on the carpet.

Robotic Treasure

After what seemed like forever, I finally completed the Hershey's Treasure Surprise Transformers toys. I had been steadily putting two on each weeks grocery list. Sometimes they were out, sometimes they weren't. There's a visceral joy after bringing your grocery delivery inside and opening the little blue treasure chests. Though after many, many, many repeats of Starscream and Optimus Prime... it does get a little tedious. A random trip to CVS last Sunday lead to an entire brand new case and I grabbed one on a whim. This finally gave me a Bumblebee completing the set. I have no clue how Bumblebee was the impossible one to find.

The figures are roughly an inch and are cast in their primary colors with a small touch of paint for details. They're a stiff plastic, not soft and rubbery as you'd think looking at them. The sculpting is pretty good with some than others. Optimus and Bumblebee have more simpler sculpts than the others. Megatron and Grimlock are pretty impressive and probably my favorite of the bunch. Starscream is good, probably a the mid point of the series. Despite the frustration of getting a lot of repeats, I did like chasing after them. I'd like to see another series. This kind of thing is my specific thing.

Smashing Dinosaurs From Their Icy Tombs

Blind assorted, tiny rubber keshi toys are pretty easy to get. I buy plenty (like a ton), but I've been wanting to find a new line to really get behind. Not that I'm ignoring the others ones I buy, but without Grossery Gang, there's been an empty spot. An Instagram friend has been posting quite a bit of the Zuru Smashers lately and they've been catching my interest.

The Smashers line by Zuru is a neat keshi line blind packed in collapsible plastic capsules that you 'smash' to open. Series 1 passed me right by. I don't think I ever saw it. I did buy a few from series 2. Fun, but I just didn't see them often. That brings us to series 3 which kinda snuck in under my radar. This was the 'Dino' series, which as the name implies was a dinosaur themed set. I really wish I would have gotten in on these guys earlier as the dinosaurs rang from standard, to mutants, to robots, and even skeletons. Really awesome stuff.

Fortunately I began seeing these at the same time as I discovered series 4, which is the 'Dino Ice Age' set. So there's still plenty to go around. Actually I see more series 3, so no problem there. I don't think I have to tell you, but series 4 is an ice age expansion of series 3. The toys are available in a range of prices, but I usually see the 8 pack at my local stores for around $9. 

You get 8 toys on a card, 6 in smash-able capsules (egg shaped for the dinos) with 2 visible on the card and a random slime pack. There's also larger eggs that have larger figures inside... but I'm focusing on the little rubber dudes here. Part of the reason I didn't notice them is my stores tend to just put them wherever. You might have to really look if you'd like to pick up a pack, and they could be anywhere. The figures are pleasantly rubbery with wacky sculpts. So far I've been really enjoying these little prehistoric freaks. I think Zuru just makes blind packed dinosaurs I like.

Eternia Minis Series 2

There's a problem with Eternia Minis, and that problem is that you have to strike when the iron is hot. They don't languish on the shelves. When news of series two already hitting Walmart shelves, I mobilized. Thanks to the help of an patient wife, I managed to track down the entire batch last Saturday across two different Walmarts.

Something I wish I had done with the last series, I did this time. I took the display box home. Just look at it. It's majestic. Before any of you get the wrong idea, I just got one of each figure. I left the rest behind on the shelf. 

One of the more cool things about this line is the castle themed capsules each figure comes blind in. Series one was Castle Greyskull. Series two, Snake Mountain. These little capsules are perfect little recreations of the original castles. I've been seeing folks get creative and give them paint jobs that look great. They also make a good stand for the figure.

As you could expect with the Snake Mountain theme, this is a villain heavy set of toys. There's two repeats from last time here. Regular He-Man and Skeletor, it's safe to say variations of the main two will appear in each batch. This time it's almost double as you get Faker and Golden Armor Skeletor is the set as well. Faker is a different character, but still basically He-Man and Golden Armor Skeletor is a straight repaint. If repaints bother you, there's only two molds that haven't been released already in this series. You also get First Appearance Trap Jaw and Snake Armor Man At Arms which are straight repaints from the last set. For me funky colored recolors are part of the fun in stuff like this.

Trap Jaw appeared in a slightly different color set in his mini comic debut and that's fully represented here. Snake Armor Man At Arms is a throwback to the snake armor variations of the Heroic Warriors from the 2002 MOTU line. The two new molds are Beastman and Stinkor. Stinkor is one of my favorite classic MOTU characters so having a little one of him here is awesome. No signature stinky smell unfortunately. Can you imagine opening that little capsule and getting a face full of skunk funk? I think about it all the time. You can probably tell by the picture mine got a little over spray on his face. I may take a sharpie and fix that eye later. The original Stinkor was a Merman repaint with Mekanecks armor. These are solid body molds with parts swapped, so I'm guessing both Merman and Mekaneck are on the way.

Beastman looks great. I've always liked his armor and everything just comes together perfectly here. I'm pretty surprised he wasn't in the first series as he's one of those main guys you expect in a first batch. I wonder how many repaints his mold will get as the upper body is pure Beastman. The original mold reused parts to make Stratos and flocked without armor to make Mossman. These solid body parts throw a wrench in that old method, so we'll have to see where the parts end up. I kinda hope they make Grizzlor and later use his head on this mold to make a movie Beastman figure. 

As with series one, these are great figures. So far I love collecting them even though it can be a headache. I hope after the Walmart exclusivity ends they'll be easier to get. Something like this has Walgreens or Five Below all over it and I'd be all over that. There's a pretty easy code system of letters printed on the bottom of the capsule. You can either go by the list I've got for you here or just keep count of A-H.

A: Faker

B: Golden Armor Skeletor

C: First Appearance Trap Jaw

D: Snake Armor Man At Arms

E: Beastman

F: Stinkor

G: He-Man

H: Skeletor

By The Power Of Mini Grayskull

Mini Figures and Blind Bag/Box toys are some of the building blocks of this site. I'd point out it's named after a Micromaster base after all again, but ... I guess I just did. I've been looking forward to the Eternia Minis for quite some time now. Like I said in the posted link, I missed out on the initial version of these guys and don't plan on making that mistake twice.

I've been excitedly awaiting the MOTU Origins line for what seems like forever and now that it's here, of course the first thing I bought was the entire first series of Eternia Minis. My focus is mainly on the Mega Construx and Minis with cherry picking the regular line. Seeing as people have been buying everything they see at the store with the new MOTU, I decided to complete series 1 of these little guys ASAP.

The little Castle Grayskull capsules really add to the experience. If you'll notice the pegs in the above picture, the capsules can serve as a base for displaying your Mini's. They also can be linked together like a fence when opened to form a Grayskull fence. What's the point of that? Well, you can put it behind the figures when you display them. I wouldn't have thought about it if not for the picture of said fence option on the tag. Future capsules will be based on Snake Mountain and The Slime Pit. I doubt I have to explain just how cool mini He-Man castles are. You could have Eternia's landscape on your desk and still have room for a fancy post-it dispenser.

The figures themselves are pretty great. About two inches tall with stylized looks. They have a little bit of articulation and individual accessories. Mattel showed off upcoming vehicles and other neat stuff at Power Con this past weekend. It's really cool to see so much attention into a side novelty line. For weirdos like myself, it's a treat to have extra silly things like this. My mind has been racing to all the various things they could include into it. Imagine a tiny Eternia playset. Would they call it Eternia Mini or Mini Eternia?

Oh hey, the codes are located on the bottom of each capsule. It's a simple A-H.

A – He-Man

B – Skeletor

C – Man At Arms

D – Trap-Jaw

E – Ram Man

F – Jitsu

G – Buzz-Off

H – Slime Pit He-Man

Monogram Your Bag With Optimus Prime

So Monogram has these cool Transformers blind bag clips coming in September. I've been a fan of Monogram's blind bag bag clip figures for a little while now. From the Godzilla to Masters of the Universe, they're a fun thing to collect. Even my wife has enjoyed the Mandalorian series. So of course I'd be happy to pick some of these up at Target, which these days has a pretty good blind bag selection these days.

I see myself wanting all of them. Though one thing about Monogram is they wrap the figures in a piece of card inside the bag, making it hard to bag feel the figures. So multiples are probably likely without codes. Really like Wheeljack and Soundwave. Grimlock and Bumblebee too. Barricade looks great, I really like the "G1" version of Police car Barricade. Barricade was in G1 already, but the Police car from the movies really stuck and this more traditional one just works man.

Beast Morphers, Unleash The Wacky Wall Beast

Hey, know how I was at the Dollar Tree the other day? Well, I also got some more Wall Walkers. I had been getting the Transformers variety and if I liked current WWE performers (I don't) I'd probably grab some of those. They're a silly fun blind bag toy for a buck each. I didn't expect to see Beast Morphers in the selection and the surprise of it made me shit my pants. Not literally, I'm joking. You gave to spell things out for people sometimes.

I grabbed four packs. These aren't the kind of blind bag I go crazy over and try to complete the set. These are the kind I'll grab a couple of and hope I don't get too many doubles. Speaking off, I'm like 4 ghosts away from completing the Scooby-Doo Playmobil series and each new shelf box has new codes... it's pretty frustrating. Dammit. Just like the others in the Wall Walker toys at Dollar Tree, the Beast Morpher versions are colored plastic with decals to distinguish each character. The body shape of the walker doesn't look too silly on the Power Rangers as they're people in spandex normally. In fact they make for pretty good representations.

I got two Blaze's, one Roxy, and one Blue Ranger. Not bad. If I were to get two of a Beast Morpher, I'd rather it be Blaze. I like him the most out of the characters. His bat armor looks cool. Just like the Transformers versions, I'll be grabbing a few of these on trips in the Dollar Tree. I've really liked Beast Morphers, it's in it's mid-season break of it's last season. I'm sure I'll enjoy Dino Fury next year, but currently I'm just not as excited for it as I've been for Beast Morphers. Guess I'll just have to throw it to the wall and see if it sticks.

Transform Squadron 19- I've Got All The Hand Sanitizer

Listen Now!

This month Rob discusses Playmobil Scooby Doo blind bag figures and the OTFCC Alpha and Omega Spears. Well that and he drifts on and off subject like a million times. Things happen.