Toy Bender

The title of this post is a bit of misnomer. I don’t mean, “Why aren’t Joes 12 inches tall again with Kung Fu bears?”, but why isn’t G.I. Joe more popular than it is right now? I can’t seem to grasp why the figures are almost impossible to find and fans are on the whole pleased with the new Joes, yet G.I. Joe doesn’t seem to be very big. Every toy collector undoubtedly knows about the Joes and is either buying them or not, but what about in the mainstream? Chances are, unless your average parent just happens to be in a toy aisle and sees some Joes in stock then they might not even know that G.I. Joe is back in any significance.

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It’s a little disappointing that most of the people that find Toy Bender are through an image search knowing that a good portion of them just ending up using me as a free image host instead of enjoying the site that my army of dedicated fans… ah hem. However there is still a good amount of traffic that comes through run of the mill keyword searches. When looking through these searches that have brought random visitors here I thought, “What in God’s holy name is wrong with these people?” I’ve also wondered if they have found what they are looking for. Well, if they didn’t here are some of the weirdest of my searches and I’ll attempt to give those who typed them what they are looking for:

1) “Mr. Bucket Corrupts Children”

Wow. Out of all the things that corrupt children from Dungeons and Dragons to rap music, I’ve never considered the possibility that Mr. Bucket might have an evil influence on the youth of the world. I’d like to assure that the only corrupting influence that Mr. Bucket has on children is that they may develop an unhealthy obsession with balls.

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I rarely ever point at a fellow collector and laugh, criticize, or otherwise look upon them negatively. That’s why I’m going to host a few videos here without judgment… Okay, I can’t do it. I tried for a minute there but I couldn’t get past the first draft of this post. There is no way I can be impartial in this matter and respect myself as an opinionated blogger blogician, so if I hurt any feelings I apologize ahead of time.

The following videos were made by a fellow I’ve alluded to before in my post “Collecting: When is it Too Much?“. I’m sure he’s a nice person, but the sheer size of the collection and the fact that it’s all over the internet makes it impossible to ignore without comment. If he didn’t want the world seeing his stuff and talking about it, he’d never have joined every forum in existence with the intent on posting images of his collection for everyone to see, much less putting videos of his collection on YouTube.

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It’s raping time!

While I was on a business trip this last week the toy world exploded with news of a killer Chinese toy… again. This time the deadly stalking death wasn’t brought about by lead paint, instead it was brought to us by the lovely world of ingested chemicals. In one of the most bizarre twists in toy history ever, some Aqua Dots contained a chemical that would basically turn it into a date rape drug inside the human body. Why didn’t I know this? I could have saved a fortune on black market date rape drugs.

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Sideshow toys released some images of the upcoming 12 inch Shaun of the Dead figures that should get the boxers wet of a few of you out there. They have both Shaun and Ed available for pre-order. Check them out:

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If you follow mainstream news coverage of toys, it’s a bleak world of Communist toys murdering red blooded American children. There’s even more death and disaster, this time tainting Marvel and one of my favorite monkeys of all time, Curious George. According to the L.A. Times, an activist group sent a letter of complaint to Marvel due to a Curious George toy supposedly containing dangerous levels of lead paint.

This all fine and dandy (aside from the fact I had no idea Marvel had anything to do with Curious George), except that the group is, “…brandishing California’s Proposition 65 environmental law in its drive to get lead out of the toy chest.” Let me tell you something about California. Aside from the ungodly high cost of living and the fear of a brutal power raping looming over me, it’s a pretty neat place. I came from a rural environment, so having like, actual stuff around me is pretty cool. One of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen since moving here, coming from a normal society, is these dumb signs that are in almost every store warning you of various cancerous dangers that basically are ignored by everyone. Even if you did get concerned when you see a sign like this there’s no other information than you could die from something mysterious in the area. I’m sure you could ask or do some research in order to identify what fatal chemical may mutate you like the Toxic Avenger or cause you to bleed profusely from the anus (there has to be a Game Fuel joke in there somewhere). You might as well label all containers that contain liquid with the words, “May Drown You” and be just as effective.

What was I talking about again? I think the cancer fumes in my apartment are getting to me.

toy, toy collecting, action figure, Hasbro, Indiana Jones

It’s been awhile since I’ve covered anything Battlestar Galactica, but to be honest I haven’t liked a lot of the toy offerings. I’m not a big Minimates guy, and I’m not a huge fan of the highly non-posable figures due out from Diamond Select. I also feel that Battlestar Galactica as a series went completely off the rails during season three so I’m a little less than apt to report on BSG toy news. Who knows, maybe Razor will bring me back to the BSG fold. Anyway, I recently ran across an ad in Previews for these new figures that I found quite disturbing:

That Cylon in the middle looks great, but what the frak is up with Starbuck on the left?

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I hope you put your diapers on, because Toy Bender is one year old as of today. Mind blowing, hey? From it’s humble beginnings to it’s not as humble state today it’s been a non-stop thrill ride of excitement and internet domination. My how time flies.

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Comic books and toys go together like peanut butter and jelly, or boobs and my computer screen. The most obvious connection is that both hobbies are pursued by similar types of nerds, so the crossover between the hobbies is quite expansive. I’m not as big of a comic fan as I am of toys, but it’s definitely in my nerd stable, as evidenced by my Toy Ads that Time Forgot posts featuring ads found in comic books. One of my favorite comic book blogs is Chris’s Invincible Super Blog, a blog that I’ve brought up several times before in the hopes that I might appear as a tiny blip on the radar of my personal comic book collecting hero Chris Sims. Chris has taken up the banner of an issue that hits me very close to home, the not so small matter of ROM The Spaceknight’s exile.

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Since my regular readers (and therefore the best ones) will leave comments 99% of the time, I don’t get a lot of toy related emails from this site. However I’ve gotten a nice, if not modest, collection of mails to share with you again (click here for the first installment). Now get your laughing hat on, it’s go time.

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When I wrote my last post about G4’s Halo offerings, I hadn’t realized that it was a massive release of Halo toy images, so sorry about the multiple posts. This time IGN got some of the exclusive Halo toy action. Be sure to visit them to see the rest of the pics. (Make the pics larger by clicking on them, duh)

Here’s the Ghost:

Looks sweet, but too bad there’s no dudes to put in it… yet.

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A “victim support” group in Australia is calling for a ban of Naruto toys. Why? Because the toys have punching and stabbing motions. Now, I hate Naruto more than a normal person should, but I hate stupid people even more.

The spokesperson for the group, Homicide Survivors Association, Peter Rolfe stated:

“I think there’s a link between playing with these toys and violent behaviour later.

Think?

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I often say that I love my readers, and believe me, I do. You’re like my precious baby chicks and I’m your mama bird vomiting awesome in your fuzzy faces. Sometimes though, I get mails that are either ambiguous or a complete waste of my time. I’m going to share three types of emails that I get once in awhile just to share a bit of the magic that goes on behind the scenes here. Don’t worry, if you sent the mails I’ve generalized them so you’ll be protected from any kind of public shame.

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DC Direct is making some cool superheroes in armor, because everyone knows that sometimes having crazy cool super powers just isn’t enough to take down the bad ass super villains. Regular Toy Bender readers know my obsession with Supergirl, so it won’t be a surprise that these figures jumped out at me:

These armored up hotties are none other than Supergirl and Powergirl (who I also have an obsession for) in their superhero disguises from the Supergirl comics where they were freedom fighters in Candor. Normally I’d totally think that these were awesome, but in this case Supergirl abandoned everyone in Candor to an oppressive and tyrannical government just so she could figure out her past. Not her finest hour by any means, and one that I really don’t need to remember in toy form.

Source: Toy News International

toy, toy collecting, action figure, DC Comics, DC Direct, Comic Book, Powergirl, Supergirl

Last week it was announced that there will be a Keith Richard’s toy made from the upcoming film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. One of the reasons why you might have not seen pirate Keith yet in any of the Pirate’s toy lines is that this figure is coming through courtesy of NECA, who has personal relationships with those in the music business. I guess that answers why they have so many figures of musicians then.

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