H is for Horde of Homies

Not really a 'horde' but quite a few and the A-Z trope has been hacked to death now . . . although I'm not sure what a 'horde' consists of; a horde of guns might be less than a dozen, but a horde of enemy warriors tends toward thousands as a minimum!

Mr Berke sent us these just as we all went into lockdown . . .

All new poses with seven homie's and three babe's hanging around the 'hood and three more 'doing something'! I like the Ice Cream trolley and the guy in his bathers seems to be accidentally advertising Macky-D's while the chap in blue reminded me of a figure already in the collection, so before I'd looked to check, I eMailed Brian to say I thought I might have some really early Homies in the storage-section of the stash . . .

. . . but it's not a Homie (bottom middle, blue jacket with the red stripe), he's marked Hasbro or Mattel (I can't remember and I've put him away now! and dated 2002 I think?) on his back but he fits in beautifully and looks like a teenage BA Baracus - Wha'da'yer mean FOOL; I aint gow'in no 'plane! He's been posed with all the front-branded Homies-shirt wearers, from both the donation samples.

While top left we have "But officer; all me'Homies have a pet lizard?" and top right is "OK, so it's Ma' Buggin's Doughnut's on the corner of 7th and 33rd and I tell 'em you sent me, cheers pal; I owe yah one!"

There's a good potted history of the line here, and there's a useful checklist here, they now do Homies big-head deforms and bobble-heads, but I prefer the original gum-ball machine toys!

And many thanks, again, to Brian for another bunch of these charming figures.

N is for Ninja and New Game

Brian B (Terranova) sent me a bunch of images the other day and I thought; "Ooh, I know what they are, I'll dig mine out and put them together in a post", however, when I dug mine out . . . they were different! Hey Ho! So we will see Terra's later today, after first looking at what would appear to be the donor-sculpts!

These are they. This commercial image is from an old Amazon sales site which I tried to take advantage of, only to find they didn't ship outside the 'States; which makes you wonder A) what's the point of an 'Internet' if it's not actually integrated? And B) what's the point of all these clever algorithms if they can't tell when not to show an ad' or search-result in a zone where it's invalid?

Anyway; as I remember it - it was a year or three ago now - they were basically selling a gum-ball restock bag of them (about 25/30 or maybe 50/60 I can't recall?) or shop-stock box (the packaging wasn't shown) as 'party favours', bulk, for less than the price of a coffee at Starbucks! Lesson - if it's too good to be true - it usually is!

They are more commonly found associated with importer's A&A Global International who import rack toys and supply vendors with gum-ball machine refills.

My 'current sample' (as at January 2016) is not the largest, I'm missing the guy with the short sword and have a limited colour-set - I hope I have a few more in storage (I think, or I should have - they may be too modern?) with some of the other colours &etc.

There are six poses in total and they come in a wide range of colours, in what seems to have been at least two major production tranches, the above two images are the most recent issue and may still be current in a party or joke shop near you . . . or your local gum-ball capsule machine!

Quick comparison shot - Redbox on the left and an unknown probably also a capsule/gum-ball 'thingy' in the middle (similar to but not Panosh; possibly carried - undecorated - by Toy Smith?), with one of the A&A Global's on the right.

These - heavily cropped images from feebleBay - are from gum-ball machine insert/window cards and are all marked A&A Global. In the middle you can see the earlier tranche was in more 'girly' or pastel colour-ways. However - recently, they have been copied in a size better suited to large scale collectors, and it is those Brian sent to the Blog and which I will post this afternoon, with other Ninja-related stuff.

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I have a new time-wasting game! Two of the above images were loaded on the blog two years ago (in the big January 'up-at-the-library' posting I mentioned at the time) and I never got round to editing the text, needing to find them on the dongles to sort this post out I searched for them and it turns out the camera recycles the four figures codes; well, it would have to with a four-digit limit, wouldn't it! But it's not something I'd ever needed to give any thought to! And it appears I have taken (or 'kept' - around 2/3rds of every photo-shoot get deleted) no less than four 7012's!

And - random as they are - they manage to cover almost everything plastic;

Large and small scale; ethylene, polystyrene and PVC; civilian and military; figures and vehicles; historical, modern, and sports; big toys, rack toys, capsule toys and cake decorations; friction-motorised; painted, unpainted and transfers; branded and unbranded, there's even a hint of accessory/scenery with the goal posts . . . but weirdly - they are all Hong Kong/China!

A Number picked at random - New Game!

G is for Gift Eggs and Capsule Toys - Part II - Current or Recent

This would have been 'the last three weeks if I hadn't just lost two weeks to real life crap AND tonsillitis? At fifty-effing-one...what's that all about? The UN's 2011-declared planet-wide carcinogenic atmosphere, that's what!

Anyway penicillin's kicked-in and these are from late May-early June now, so all still findable!

£1 gum-ball machines (no chocolate!) at the moment, from Tarco International and of the choice, I got the one I'd have most wanted, first shot! It's (robots don't have a sex...not even sex-robots!) around 54mm compatible so I might try and get another for a UNIT dio/vignette with some Deetail or Airfix para's, although; with only 6 in the set it would be worth trying to get the set, I don't know how the maths works out on a random pull, but it'll be maybe as few as 11 purchases?

The others look to be more 30mm size wise, and the Tardis would join a growing collection of small-scale police telephone boxes! From the fact that the K-9 is 'exclusive' suggests the other five have been available previously or elsewhere, it's a very nice little model anyway.

Mimi is slowly collecting these and the first 6 had no duplicates (a baby Rottweiler has been added since the photo-shoot), they are also in sans-chocolate £1 machines, but it states they are series III and I haven't noticed series's one and two anywhere?

Imported by Idea Vending, an outfit called A&A Global Industries seems to be the master behind the throne, and they go quite well with the current Schleich puppies, size-wise.

Back to Zàini and chocolate; these are available about the place (One-stop convenience-store for this actual one) and again I was lucky to get one of the more useful figures, as again there are half-heads looped as charms and some less useful figures!

I feel this is my reward for getting through a Christmas day round my Brother's where small relatives had a doll which played the Frozen theme on an eight-second loop endlessly...and if you tried to sabotage the thing it switched to Spanish until the little ones used tech-magic to 'reduce' the torture back to English!

We looked at the Fravend Alien in a new production round-up a while ago, and I've since found a traditional yellow 'smiley' and this blue one and stuck them in the archive without testing them to destruction like the first green one!

And from the same machines we have that old 1960's perennial; Trolls, the licence is held by Russ Berrie, I suspect these via Brabo-CBG of Belgium are not sending many royalties back to East Rutherford, Nujoisey! Both these are in 40p machines (definitely no chocolate!), or were they 20p? I'll check next time I do the rounds!