Toy Bender

In this bizarre story from the Washington Post we get to learn of a program called The U.S. Commander’s Emergency Response Program, which uses money as a weapon. They’ve spent at least 2.8 billion dollars on reconstruction in Iraq. Sounds okay right? Well the controversial part is that the money is spent outside of, “international redevelopment protocols or government purchasing rules.” But who cares about that right? You’re just here to read about toys. On the list of things the money was used to purchased are these two gems:

- $500,000 on action figures made to look like Iraqi Security Forces.
- $100,000 worth of dolls.

Now these dolls and action figures are obviously for a greater effort to win over hearts and minds, but damn if that isn’t a weird use of war money. However, I do think that you could make a good argument that these kinds of things work. There are a lot of guys that joined the military that can say so because they admired G.I. Joe growing up. Perhaps a few kids will be influenced to like us and won’t want to strap bombs to themselves when they grow up.

Yeah, yeah it’s been awhile. Frankly though, you can get overwhelmed with nerd questions, but they’re back finally. This round is kind of ho-hum, but there’s some interesting stuff in here if you’re into Star Wars or Indiana Jones toys. If not, read it anyway!

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Most everyone seems to think DC Infinite Heroes sucks, which is sad because A.) It’s a new 3 3/4th scale DC line, B.) Its got a wide variety of figures, and C.) DC’s 6″ line is flipping awesome. The big negatives that hold it back are the horrendously large hands on the male figures and the extremely limited articulation. Still, I’m sort of excited for a few of these figures. There were two that caught my attention in particular at the San Diego Comic Con.

Power Girl

Most people like Power Girl because of her enormous breasts. That’s definitly a plus, but I like her for the sheer fact that she’s kind of a Supergirl and I’m sure any regular Toy Bender reader would know I’m a Supergirl nut.

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While I couldn’t make it to the San Diego Comic Con this year (big sigh), I am following the goings on with much interest via the internet like the rest of you slobs… and I mean that in a nice way.* One item in particular that caught my eye was on Rebelscum.com. Rebelscum took some shots of a Star Wars playset. That’s right… a new playset! This one is based on the infamous Saarlac Pit scene in Return of the Jedi. Here’s a preview of a pic you can find on Rebelscum:

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With the world being in Batman fever, I’ve had a disturbing lack of Batman related posts. I plan on rectifying this immediately. There are a couple of ads that Mattel has put out recently cashing in on Batman: The Dark Knight with some good old role play accessories.

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For some reason there are people who feel compelled to keep coming back to the site, but for whatever reason I thank you. One of those who returns and often comments is a fellow named Monte. Recently while browsing Poe Ghostal’s delicious web site praying that someone left a comment on my Short Round post, I saw a link to a news article that was a piece all about him!

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It’s the birthday of the United States! On July 4th, 1543 Colubus signed some treaty with the native Americans or something. I suppose that I should know more about the history of my nation, so how about a little learning courtesy of School House Rock?

Okay, now that we all know a little something more about the founding of the U.S.A. let’s check out some real fireworks. There’s nothing else that says America like explosions… done by the British:

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I’d promised this before and here it is after a slight delay, a couple of the nerdy (and toy related) things having to do with my recent wedding for you to either think it’s cool or to use as fuel to mock me.

UPDATE: You can find wedding pics here. I’m always updating them, so if you are really interested in my life then check them out.

As you can see in the foreground there is a Grooms Cake that is being protected by an assortment of figures including a couple of clone troopers, Chewbacca, and C-3PO. The Grooms Cake was not crazy and shaped like R2-D2 or anything, but it was insanely delicious. This was because it was a German Chocolate cake, which we all know to be genetically superior to all other cakes.

And here’s the cake topper featuring Han Solo and Princess Leia:

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I got an email recently directing me to a internet based auction site that I hadn’t heard of before, Premier Collectible Auctions. What’s interesting about the site is that it is clearly an alternative to eBay for those looking to spend a lot of money on a rare item. I don’t see myself ever buying anything from the site, but it sure is fun to look at.

Some examples of draw dropping asking prices that I found on the site include a 1978 mint on card Darth Vader figure for 7,000 bucks. Even cooler than that though is the voodoo doll of Indiana Jones that was used on screen in The Temple of Doom. That will only set you back about 50,000 dollars. If you’re thinking about being frugal, there’s always the first 300 dollar Metroid game for the NES that’s factory sealed.

Sure you can find a lot of this kind of thing on eBay, but what’s fun about this site is that it has all the high end stuff in one place. You don’t have to wade through dozens of figures that just got dug out of someone’s old sandbox to find the gems. They’re all right here for you, tempting you to take out a second (or third) mortgage.

Since the entire world has stopped after the release of Grand Theft Auto IV except for those places where people have better things to do like starve to death, live under an oppressive dictatorship, or be lucky enough to experience both situations (I’m looking at you North Korea), toy news has seemingly ground to a halt. I haven’t seen a whole lot to report on and much worse I’m pretty apathetic, because I’ve got a vacation coming up so toys are the last thing on my mind. What better time then to share a YouTube video of cowboys fighting robots?

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I want to just put it out there that sometimes I have odd tastes in things that I think are funny, therefore this video is both funny and extremely entertaining to me. Since I don’t have much else going on this Sunday and I thought I’d share it if you are in the same boat:

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If you plan on attending the Philadelphia Wizard World convention and you dig toys (and why would you even be on this site if you didn’t like toys?), the first ever ToyFare Hall of Fame Awards will be held there. For the first year’s inductees include Randy Falk of NECA, Clayburn Moore, and the Four Horsemen. For details on who each of these folks are, I’ve included the press release below.

I think this is a cool idea, although I’d think for the Hall of Fame that there might be a few inductees who contributed to the toy industry less recently. Where’s the guy who invented G.I. Joe? Or the one guy that… okay I really don’t know much about the people that created the toys that we collect (or play with) today, but there’s got to be some figures from the past that could get a nice nod. I asked Adam Tracy, Creative Director Wizard World Conventions, if this is possible and he said that the Hall of Fame includes all of toy history, so chances are that past legends can be recognized. The recognition could even be given posthumously, so toy creators who are either zombies or have turned into vampires or werewolves are eligible. Not directly his quote, mind you.

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Word up, Peeps. Either toy news is almost non-existent or I’ve lost my passion for toys, which I find hard to believe. In order to keep up the best in free entertainment, I thought instead of not having any posts at all today, I’d share some link love with the rest of you. If you’re an interweb friend of mine and I missed you in this post, I’m sorry.

While this is just a bunch of links, you’ll really miss out if you don’t click on the more button!

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This is the coolest thing you’ll probably see… ever. It’s a fan made scene from Tron involving stop motion, cardboard, and a metric shit ton of awesome. No this is not related to toys, but I’d be doing a huge disperse by not sharing it with others. It’s like Christianity. I’ll go to nerd hell if I don’t force you all to check out what I know is sweet:

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The following post is brought to you by fellow blogger and part time friend (he’s part time because he never invites me to any of his fancy society parties in San Francisco), Great White Snark. I wrote a post over on his site, so go over there to read it, but only after you finish his post here and eat your meat. How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?

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