When I was a kid, Freddy Krueger was the most badass thing at the school lunch table. I still recall a kid named Jeremy correcting me that his name was actually "Freddy Cougar" because of his iconic clawed glove. As an adult... Freddy hasn't aged very well. The movies are still fun, but pretty cheesy and definitely a relic of their time. Most of the 80's slasher movies were hair metal flavored, but none quite so much as A Nightmare on Elm Street. It's only appropriate that Funko gave him (and the other 80's slashers) the 'He-Man' treatment in their cool Savage World toy line. Savage World (or Primal Age for DC comics characters) was essentially five point five figures in the vein of Masters of the Universe or other similar type figures of the various licensed properties Funko has.
The designers got a little creative with Freddy. Taking his dream demon powers into account, he has a bit of a different appearance than you'd expect. His brown leather fedora is replaced with a leather hood, while his green and red stripped sweater is a raggedy sash. Combined with his pants and boots and Freddy looks like some weird Dungeons and Dragons villain. It's pretty creative and I love the imaginative design. Not to be outdone with his outfit, Freddy's trademark clawed glove gets the treatment as well. Not much of a reinvention, but more of a stylish re-imagining. Now it's a big gauntlet with some LARGE uneven claws. It's surprising just how well this works. Freddy really came out great in Savage World and blends right in with Skeletor's Evil Warriors. I should point out that I've gotten this far without calling him Fred Savage.
Happy Halloween! Rob’s back for another Halloween edition of the
podcast. Join in for talks of Kingdom and Botcon past. Then stay tuned
for Halloween Keshi and blind bags before Rob talks about a few favorite
costumes. Get a pumpkin spiced something and pull up a chair! We’re
going to talk trick or treating!
Another Toy Fair has come and gone, and with it, a lot of retweeted tweets of the same tweet. As I've admitted prior, I usualy get lost in the flury of news mid-Saturday. Which wasn't as bad this year as most of the news I saw was more info into the info put out earlier in the week. There's a lot I missed, but I saw enough to form some opinions. Actually, I spent all of Satuday stuck in a shut down innerstate on the way to visit my Mom. That was the first time I've even been diverted onto the opposite side of a highway after a bullzoer created a path. We got close enough to the wreck to witness something out of a disater movie. Yikes.
The Transformers talk I did last week got more insight at the show. I was already sold on new Earthrise and Cyberverse offerings, but the new Netflix series looks great and the Walmart exclusive toy tie ins look pretty great too. I'm reminded of when Hasbro released repaints of Beast Wars toys when the show got reran on Fox Kids. While these are repaints of Siege toys, they do have some new characters and show specific repaints. So, that's pretty dang neat. The picture I'm using at the top of the post is from this, and while the toy is a repaint of Refracktor, the character is a new guy named Scrapface. Who's seemingly a homage to the GIJOE character Scrap Iron. Neat!
Speaking of GIJOE, while a few more news bits about the new Classified line was spoken. Most interestingly to me was the news of Jada Toys releasing die cast toy of the various GIJOE vehicles in multiple scales. GIJOE has always had really cool vehicles and little die cast versions would be much more managable to keep up with as an adult. Not to mention, litle diecast toys are always awesome. I'm pretty excited for this new GIJOE relaunch and look forward to getting the figures. There's plenty of folks out there making flipant comments about it and I'm not one. Even if it fails, I'll be happy to see it back while it's here.
Jada's set of Nano Metal Power Rangers are showing at stores recently as I've been told. There was a bit of Power Rangers news at the show as well. Most exciting to me is a new version of the classic Megazord by Hasbro. Releasing in three different retail packs at $14.99 each, it's a fully transforming and combinable Megazord. Really happy for that and hope I don't have too much of an issue buying the entire thing. Hoping the Dragonzord follows as well as more Megazords. Ironically the second season of Beast Morphers premired Saturday as they announced it's succesor was announced to be based of the Ryusoulger Super Sentai series. I haven't watched much of it, but I have liked what I've seen of the designs. Hoping it's a good follow up.
Mattel showed upcoming Masters of The Universe product with looks at upcoming Orgins and MegaConstrux figures. The toys look really great and while I'm more looking forward to the Megaconstrux figures, I'm definitely buying my share of Origins toys. It's a little hard to beleive so much cool He-Man stuff will be at my local Walmart soon.
There was more talk of the upcoming Ghostbusters toys from Hasbro which includes reissues of The Real Ghostbusters toys. If I'm understanding right, the first wave will be exclusive to Walmart. Honestly I wouldn't mind if the entire line is Walmart exclusive. While others may not like such a thing, I have two really good Walmart stores within 20 minutes of each other. Not to mention I like the limitation of only one store carrying something, so I don't have to look everywhere. Really looking forward to the Ghost Gushers and Fright Features figures still as well. This looks like a lot of fun that's right up my alley.
There's still a ton of news I haven't sorted through yet. Like I've said, it's literally a ton of news that's hard to keep up with. Here's a good catch all for most of the information though. I'll definitely be sorting though it over the next few days as I play catch up. I somehow missed news of a cool Godzilla board game from Funo that will definitely be bought on sight. Due to my situation of being stuck in a one hell of a car wreck most of the day Saturday, the news was read mostly after getting back to my town and eating a western burger at Ihop. I did pre-oreder the Hasbro Selects cassette pack. How could I not? I'm still heartbroken from not finding the last wave of Siege Micromasters including those tape molds. That was a really good burger too.
The AWESOME DC Primal Age figures by Funko are hitting stores as we speak and it's pretty hard not to love the barbarian take on the classic heroes. Taking a cue from Funko's Savage World figures, Primal Age ups the ante by going in whole hog with the DC comics characters and turning things up to 11. I've been really appreciating the design aesthetics going into the figures. Not just simply making the figures buff and look kinda/sorta He-Man, but really taking time to design the classic characters into the theme. Masters of the Universe has that perfect fantasy recipe. Mixing swords and sorcery with sci fi flair and just that right amount of kitsch. Funko teaming up with He-Man's parent company (Mattel) has recreated that wonderfully and I hope this keeps being great.
I was just admiring the Mortal Kombat Savage World figures at Target this past weekend and today pics of Funko's newest Savage World series hit the internet! Savage World is Funko's action figure line that pays homage to fantasy figures of the 80's and utilizes that certain beefy barbarian (a He-Man like physique you might say) look in the most amazing way. These classic horror characters really work well in the style and I can't begin to tell you how excited for them I became when I saw them. Let's just say my neighbors were mad. Horror is the perfect base for this type of figure as I've often noted the play sets for those old toys often looked like re-purposed Halloween decorations. Not to mention the art was straight off an 80's heavy metal album cover (which I've already explained my association with Halloween). Just like the horror ReAction figures, I'm finding myself thinking up all sorts of play sets and stuff to add to the fun. I could really see little rubber versions of kids in Silver Shamrock masks, Jason as a child, or other assorted monsters to partner with the characters like Blackstar had.
Some cool new Funk MMPR products are coming soon according to Tokunation and they look pretty great. Ironically I was just admiring the super sized Scrooge McDuck Pop at my local Target yesterday and thought it was super cool. I'm definitely going to grab this awesome Ultrazord. I mean, look at that thing! Also of note is some more Hero Factory figures, which I also was noting yesterday that I need to grab that 5 pack of the main five Rangers before it disappears (I have both Tommy sets). All I saw was a Lord Zedd and Goldar set, but I'm hoping for some more baddies. Those hero factory guys are neat. Just stylized figurines that don't look too bad. I think what gets me more than anything is the Gamestop exclusive Pumpkin Rapper. I plan on stalking my local Gamestop for this guy. Considering it's next door to our local Yankee Candle I doubt I'll have a hard time doing so. I know he's not intended to be a Halloween decoration, but he's going to be. Aside from my TF and PR Christmas tree decorations, I don't infuse too much of my silly nonsense into our holiday decorations. Though considering that he's from a Halloween episode and well... a jack o lantern... he's going on the mantel.
