R is for Rack Toy Round-Up - North America - One of . . . Several!

Brian Berke, roving reporter on the other side of the pond, sent some rack toys the other week, which were in the queue, then he sent a few more, then, today, he sent a shed-load! And with me committing to the Gygax stuff in the early-hours of this morning, I've now got my work cut-out to get everything up here before Sunday!

 

So, blurb light, with the pictures speaking for themselves, here's what's hanging on the racks in Queens, New York,  right now!

 

 

 

 

These are actually in the long-queue, but seem to have been reduced even more in the States, originally movie-related and pricey, the failure of the movie to live up to expectations left them sitting, and you can still find them on offer about the place, the Entertainer here, cleared theirs a year or two ago, just before Christmas.

  

Brian thought these were the best of the bunch, and they do look cool!

 

 

There's a bunch of these in the queue too, but different, smaller sculpts.

I is for Image Dump!

Getretro is a wholesaler of old stock, cancelled toys and other end-of-line clearance stuff, so the fact that I didn't get around to posting these, from the London Show back in 2023 makes sense as this had all, already, been out there somewhere, and those who needed to know about such things would already have found them!

 

 

Retro, Risk, Revell & Role Play!

 

Eaglemoss Dr's Who, Who, Who & Who . . . Who, Who, Who, Who and Who, a bunch of companions, Daleks, Cybermen and someone called War?

 

Lionel, now a trademark for shifting big-box sets from China.

That's it really, just to get them up here and out of the way, as it were! Website;

https://www.getretro.co.uk/

S is for Shelfies - B&M, July

I was over in Basingrad for something the other week, which it seems was actually a couple of months ago (I don't know, but it goes somewhere?), and I popped into B&M for a five-pack of Ruffle Bars (nom-nom-nomnivore!), and managed to shoot a bunch of figural shelfies, and, I think, made a further purchase for the Blog's future, but anyway, here are the shelfies with a few notes.

An egg-full of dinosaurs, one or two larger and several medium-sized critters, with the usual assortment of scenic accessories, consisting in the main of palm trees, but there may have been some 'rocks' in there too? Basically a generic, it's branded-up to B&M themselves.

Also branded to them, but sourced from someone/somewhere else, it this which we may have seen before, but I think the design of 'carry case' has changed from dino' to truck, to this robo-dino' over the years? And helps ID a couple of the mini dinosaur models. Found not in the toy section, but as part of the big-box Christmas gift shelf above the food aisles!

 

Paint your own vinyl Harry Potter figureines and locomotive

 

Stumble Guys from Diramix . . . I had to google it; "Stumble Guys is a multiplayer battle royal obstacle course game where players race to become the last one standing", so that's them then, vinyl solids though, so while I'm not buying them, they will come-in via future bags of shite from Charity Shops!

 

I can't say I know much about this Stich chap either, indeed for a while I got Lilo & Stich confused with Itchy & Scratchy (cartoon characters within a cartoon), my following the developments of neither! I now know the difference, but if you don't, you're probably better-off remaining in ignorance, this stuff goes around and comes around, there's nothing new under the sun, and they, too, are vinyl solids.

 

More of the same from Bandai, and I think we all know who Sonic is now? Mixed assortments, with duplicates between sets, is almost as annoying as blind-bags! But you obviously need to buy both sets to get the four hidden figures to complete the sixteen!

The Sonic figures also come in smaller assortments, and I left the Joker figure in the crop, as while he's not the sort of thing I 'do', I know a lot of the guys & gals on Brian Heiler's platforms will be interested.

 

"100 Years of Furry Friendships", it says, well, if you've looked into 'furry's', you'll know how disturbing that sentence could be seen to be? Not only that, but more disturbing is the fact that these mostly recognisable Disney characters, have been remodelled in a Japanese anime style . . . why? Just why? Horrid!

We may have seen Lady Bug and Cat Noir, or they may be in the queue, Peter Evans gave some to the Blog I think, but anyway, their French TV series is called Miraculous, and these blind-box sets are from Playmates, but obviously in the style of super-deforms or the dreaded Funko-pops, it's not good, unless it's your thing! All of which is a lot more than I knew about them in August when we saw them in a B&M shelfie post!

 

All currently sat in B&M for Christmas shoppers!

G is for Guardians of the Galaxy

Really it's a bit of a follow-up to Jada and some recent developments in their range of Nano Metalfigs 40mm, die-cast figures. Namely, that one range has been cleared though Poundland, and another is now in that annoying vehicle; the blind bag!

I found these back in June, in the aforementioned Poundland, on each occasion there was only the one sculpt, in multiples, which I took to be a clue that it was wholesaler stock being cleared, but at a quid each they were pretty much half-price on the supermarket stuff we've looked at previously, so I grabbed one of each.

 

Close-ups of the two generations of Groot (a portmanteau word from 'Guardian' and 'Root'?) in the opposite order to how we were introduced to them! As you may have discerned, I'm not a great fan of the Marvel/DC universes, all far too formulaic, repetitive and convenient for me, but I love Guardians of the Galaxy, because it is a stand-alone sci-fi movie, with the tongue-in-cheek humour of Star Wars or the Good-Bad-Ugly trilogy, and while I have now got both sequels on DVD I haven't watched them yet, so I don't know if there are any crossover appearances from other Marvel characters, but I hope not?

 

Keeping my eye out for them after the initial finds I picked up two more, Rocket racoon (my favourite!) and Thanos, branded-up to The Avengers, who IS a crossover-character seen in the Galaxy movie, but so long as none of the spandex-clad, flying, transforming, super-powered loons' turn-up, I can bear his being in the background driving the plot!

 

The 'promotion' seems to have ended, I haven't seen any in Poundland for a couple of months now, so if I ever get the need to finish the set, it'll be me off to evilBay, or keeping my eye out at Sandown Park (where the Poundland-visiting scalpers will be wanting 4 or 5-quid each for them, I have no doubt!), but as a sample they'll do for now!

Meanwhile, on my recent trip to London, Peter Evans gave me this pair for the Blog, we have seen the Jada take on the Harry Potter franchise before with contributions from Brian Berke and show-reports/catalogue images, but as you can see they are now being sold somewhere in blind-bags, a most annoying trend!

T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - Hornby - Harry Potter

After one got over the lack of catalogues on Hornby's stand this year, one's eyes were drawn to a larger diorama they had in one half of the stand, which had a little train going round-and-round!

They had to go with a rival's fort because they've never strayed far from the trackside (a few cows and a set of pylons maybe!), I don't recognise it offhand, with my Walther's' in front of me maybe, but they've mucked the walls about to fit it in the corner!

There was a flying car (Ford Anglia?) which gives a clue as to the theme! Probably also bought-in, possibly Oxford Die-cast? The train - obviously - is the Hogwarts Express, leaving from platform something-&-a-half (thirteen?), I've never read the books, never seen the filums and only heard the first section of the first book read by Steven Fry (which was very good, I was laughing out loud as the letters spilled from the chimney-breast) on Radio 4 years ago!

Round and round and round it goes, where it stops; everyone knows . . . Hogwarts academy of geeky weirdoes!

Hornby still have a lot of support for the franchise, but how long that will last is anyone's guess as I think it's fair to say the popularity of Harry Potter is on the wane, and while I understand it's kept alive with stage-plays, 'Extraordinary Beasts' and DVD boxed-sets, that will only carry it (the franchise) so far?

The Hornby Group's subsidiary brand of Corgi also have Harry Potter stuff, I don't know if it fits in with the OO-gauge compatibility of the Hornby sets, but assume it looks the part, although I'm guessing the gauge on the Corgi locomotive is 'carpet-gauge' not a scale 4 feet 1½-inches (13.17mm to 1 metre) or an actual 16.5mm between wheels? It certainly won't be powered.