L is for Lost . . . Kitties!

I'm going to try and tackle the backlog of capsule toy and bland-bag stuff, popping one between each pair of donation posts, and it seems fitting to start with another contribution! Brian Berke found these back in the autumn of last year, and from the date given and the price, we can assume clearance of an unsuccessful line, so good luck finding any, but someone will be selling full sets on evilBay at some point, almost certainly for a premium they don't merit!

 

But, it's cats! And we like cats here, even daft, multicoloured, cartoon cats, and this is how they come, a quite substantial 'blind box', like a small milk-carton of the 1980's. Not Lost Kitties, just hidden, by Hasbro!

 

The material seems to be a wheat-chaff sand, titled "moulding compound", so a bit like Play-Doh maybe, but with more texture on the fingers? It looks like peanut butter, and one suspects the warning on the packaging wasn't enough to prevent some juveniles helping themselves to a portion!

 

Obverse of the flyer, should enlarge to the point where you can get a good idea of the whole set, which probably never went to a second wave, despite the urging to buy before early 2019, suggesting a limited shelf-life, as things like Shopkins and Lego minifig sets have, to make way for the next tranche/issue?

 

It's looking even more like peanut butter, once Brian started digging in it, I'm actually going to have a soft roll with PB, as soon as I finish editing this, as it's making me hungry, just looking at it!

 

Well, I didn't make it to the end of the editing, I finished the line and made myself a quick Warburton's soft white with Sunpat smooth . . . Much better now!

 

It says three items, but I suspect that's a sticker in the bag, for a four count, emergency-green, contortionist 'Cubbie' cat, basket, calculator (as '80's as a folded, waxed, milk carton!) and sticker. For the right age-group/target market, I can see these being a lot of fun, but with the wrong marketing, or the wrong promotional budget, many of these concepts fail within months, remember the Horrible Histories figures?

 

We don't see him so often these days, only due to circumstance, but the very useful Crescent sniper, size comparison shot, says these are quite large compared to some of the other blind-bag toys out there. Many thanks to Brian for spotting this, and sending us so many images.

R is for Rack Toy Round-Up - North America - Six, That's It!

The last of the Stateside shelfies sent to the Blog by Brian Berke, from New York, and I think this is the last of the stuff from the Queens' novelty stores or touristy speciality stores?

 

Buzz!

 

Big Truck!

 

Batman!

 

Not my scale, but an interesting line-up of unusual - to me - figures, from all these new movies I haven't seen, I guess! A dearth of accessories, though, so larger sets needed first? Or are they hidden behind the card/paper inserts?

 

There are so many Disney Princesses now, including lots of 'solids' who have come into the collection, in mixed lots, especially those from Charity Shops, that an ID page may be a future project? The early ones are seared into our brains, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty with their distinctive dresses, but in the last 20/30 years, they have been joined by dozens of new ones, some of whom are known for more than one outfit!

 

There is another glider/hand-powered 'plane post in the long-queue, and as classic rack-toys go, you can't beat flying stuff! The upper one though seems to be a sort of mini Nerf gun!

 

Couple of 'UFO' or 'Space Disc' launchers, ubiquitous when I was a kid! Many thanks to Brian for getting all these shelfies to us in time for Rack Toy Month, and I seem to have got back in the habit of posting, so I'll try to carry the momentum into September!

R is for Rack Toy Round-Up - North America - Four is for More

Back to Queens, New York, for the last few posts of Brian's rack-toy shots, an eclectic lot, but more figures and animals;

 

 

Modern Transformers!

Bumble Bee, Optimus Prime and Barricade. 

Mario, his box seems - from the illustration

- to fold into an overcomplicated display stand?

I think we've seen these Goo Jit Zu super-deforms, from Moose, here, I've certainly seen them in B&M, but might not have shelfied them, a sort of soft foam stretchy, which is also a squidgee!

 

The classic 'suck your drink through your glasses' novelty!

 

Probably similar mechanism to the rockets we saw the other day?

Sealed unit, movement activated, LED's?

 

Bubble-guns!

 

These Power ranger knock-offs were everywhere, here, about ten years ago, but seem to have disappeared now, over here they tended to come with five mini-figures, in the same colours, which we have seen here, passim. There are colour variations over time/batches, and I think I'm right in saying some issues have a gold figure?

 

Pull back and go!

 

Horses

 

A duplicate horse, so while the contents are otherwise very different and the cards seem to be branded differently (well; Ucok for the horse set, the mixed-farm more generic), the source would appear to be the same. Glued vinyl, there's a lot of this larger animal stuff around at the moment, as well as wild animals and dinosaurs, genres which remain healthy for the pre-teens, and something which will need ID'ing one day; thanks to Brian we have the cards!

R is for Rack Toy Round-Up - North America - Two of . . . a Few!

Continuing to look at the stuff Brian B has sent to the blog in the last few weeks, these were all shot in a Target Store in Connecticut I believe, and mostly TV/Movie related licensed characters.

 

My Little Fawn?

 

There is, somewhere in Picasa, a multipart 'miniseries' which never got published (it will, one day!), which Brian contributed to, on the subject of those figurines you see in the windows of game-swap shops, which are interactive, electronic playing pieces, for/from several modern gaming systems, these seem to be similar, but are more music oriented I think? Can't knock The Muppets!

 

Superstuff!

 

Also a bit big for my parameters, but I know from the Plaid Stallions crew, that there's a massive fan-base for GI Joe, Stateside, with the guys telling each other where certain figures have popped-up! Same with the 'new' Mego's!

 

Even dog-food is promoting the new movie! It launched with much hype as the summer's big movie, and a sort of reset for the brand, but it's gone quiet now, so I don't know if it's good, OK, or a bit duff . . . Has anyone seen it?

 

The two boats are halfway between the rockets and the rubber-boats we saw yesterday from B&M, and it looks like the two boats are wind-up workers.

 

Plastic flat, gravity floaters?

Thanks again to Mr Berke for going out and finding these.

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.