Toy Bender

Thanks to Toy Bender’s official photographer Scott McEachen at San Diego Comic Con 2008, I’ve got a bunch of pictures of cool upcoming collector’s items. Yeah, you might have seen them elsewhere, but only I have the finest insight on the world of what’s cool in toys.*

The first few posts will cover the Star Wars figures seen at the con. While I’m certainly not as big into Star Wars as I used to be, Hasbro did manage to pull out some figures that will keep me at least semi-interested in Star Wars toys in the near future. Before we officially get started let’s put out the alert:

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On July 25th Toys R Us had a midnight madness sale on the new Star Wars: The Clone Wars toy release and Toy Bender (meaning me) was there. This is my report.

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Bloomberg.com is reporting that Hasbro is going to increase prices on our favorite toy lines for a second time this year to overcome the rising costs of production… just after announcing they’ve had huge increases in profits. Oh well, they’re a business and they’re in it to make money, so it’s up to toy collectors to tell them when enough is enough.

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It looks like McDonald’s got the license to put Star Wars Clone Wars toys in their Happy Meals. Here’s the picture of them that I found on Rebelscum.com:

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I must warn you that if you collect toys or are easily angered, then do not watch the following video. However if you want to see a total bag level up to a 70 level Super C, by all means watch the video.

I pray to Krom this video is a fake, because if I was on a jury I would consider this reason for justifiable homicide. What’s sad is that when someone does something like this, they never realize that it’s most likely providing the exact reason why the boyfriend hadn’t given her a ring in the first place. Someone who flagrantly destroys another person’s property like this isn’t going to be the most stable person to begin with. Here’s to hoping she got her ass dumped and taken to small claims court. At least the cost of losing an expensive figure would be less than a divorce.

Tim Goddard is a man who loves blowing my socks off with insanely cool Lego creations. I’m usually not that hot on microscale Lego work, but Goddard’s Imperial Base captures so much awesome into a tiny package, it reminds me of the Speedo I wear to the community swimming pool.

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With this site blasted away into nothing, it’s hard to tell what’s old news and what’s okay to post. Well, this YouTube clip was interesting enough to me to save for when ToyBender came back up. If you thought the pictures of the new Lego Death Star were cool, just check out this video highlighting it:

Just look at that thing; it’s hard to believe that they could pack so much action into one set. It’s too bad that that hunk of plastic is going to run for around four hundred bucks, because this is one set I’ll never be able to own. Do Lego fans have unlimited funds or something? I can’t imagine that there’s more than one person out there who can buy more than one of these huge expensive sets that Lego is putting out now. Anyway, it’s hard to believe that this set comes with so many mini-figs, but I guess with the price being so high anything less than half a dozen would be a slap in the face.

Here’s a cool Lego set on the horizon that I hadn’t even known existed until cruising the Brother’s Brick Lego themed blog the other day. Apparently, images of a new Lego Death Star was discovered by intrepid Lego fans (i.e. Bothans) browsing the image cache of Lego.com. This set is different than the previous Death Star set because this one is an awesome cross section of the feared planet killer:

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You ever play that game where you strategically place pants into lines of Star Wars dialogue? Lines like,” I find your lack of pants disturbing” are something that only a true Star Wars fan can know. Anyway, Here’s a picture of Hasbro’s 2008 Star Wars Comic Con Exclusive entitled: Disturbance in the Force (Click the link to make the image much larger).

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Hasbro has graciously answered tons of annoying questions and I’ve compiled some of the best/most interesting again. You know you want it! Don’t make me make you beg.

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If you’re looking forward to the big ass Star Wars vehicles coming out in a few months, then here’s a couple of videos to tease you until you see them on store shelves and turn to doing nasty things with strangers in order to afford them. In case you’ve been dead, Hasbro is releasing two big vehicles:

Clone Wars: AT-TE

The first is the AT-TE that’s motorized and fits a ton of clone troopers. It also just happens to retail for about a hundred and thirty dollars. This one is for the clone obsessed person in your life (me). I can’t believe how cool those motorized doors are. I guess I’m easy to please when it comes to clones and their rides.

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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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Star Wars Nerd Questions is back, baby! This time there’s not a lot of ultra nerdy questions, but there are a lot of valuable info dispensed by Hasbro about both the Star Wars and Indiana Jones toy lines. In fact with this round there was more Indiana Jones toy questions than usual, so those of you wondering why the sculpting on Indy sucks will get their answers. Enough with the jibba jabba though, let’s get on with it!

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The title pretty much explains the reason for this post, I’m out of interesting things so I’m trying my best here with some videos. I find these interesting, but I’m not sure how much anyone else will care. The first is a very short glimpse into the past. It’s part of a news clip talking about Star Wars toys and it shows people hard at work building toys in Kenner’s factory during the reign of Return of the Jedi.

Why is this only 8 seconds? I’d kill for more footage like this because I’m the kind of weirdo who could sit and watch factory workers in the 80s making Star Wars toys all day long. It’s beautiful, like a sunrise or a lap dance.

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It’s not often that toys that I like make it into the mainstream news. I guess there’s not a lot of interest out there with the general public when it comes to clone trooper variations. The BMF Millennium Falcon that had me geeking out a few weeks ago has broken through to some extent into the mainstream by hitting Wired magazine’s website in their playlist.

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