H is for Hoarded Hord of Halloween Horrors

Except none of them are remotely horrible, nor in any way horror inducing, which makes them all the more acceptable as fun figures/items you might use in gaming, or just chuck in the collection as box-ticking completers!

 

Indeed, if you want to hear something horribly frightening, or frighteningly horrible - I saw my first Christmas-lit house on Wednesday night, it's still October! And that's not including those few in our region, who have given-up taking their shite down every year, and just display a mawkish, illuminated-idea of a fantasy fairy-dell, 24-7-365!

 

I think we saw these a year or two ago, but I'm not sure if they went to eight colours last time? In The Works, and the only Halloween-related thing, of a figural nature I found there, worth a penny!

 

I shot these in Sainsbury's, but didn't buy them, as we did a whole bunch of these sets a few years ago, with various posts and comparisons between the contents, the differences between similar items, like the millipedes and such like, and I suspect these are re-issues of some of those, and I don't need them in the collection, nor the vast numbers in the bag, but I guess, for party 'scatter', they are good value. Credited here to a Rayland International.

 

But I did purchase this chap, about 6", so the top-end of the collection's range, and not very animated, he's a box ticker! The amount of safety information on the little card, for a single-piece moulding the length of a pencil-case ruler is daft, but that’s the times we live in!

 

TKMaxx gave-up this little gem of an eraser set, the ghost doesn't stand up, and could use a cotton-thread to hang him off something! In the Japanese, Iwako style, with multi-parts and ethylene inserts for eyes etc.

 

These are new, seen in The Range and too big a hole, for pencils, I wondered at the point of them, until I saw the boxes of glass straws! A sensible attempt to end the plastic straw problem, and invent a whole new genre of 'topper' at the same time.

 

The straws had year-round packaging, so I didn't shoot it - bad-enough I talked myself into buying straws I'd never use! - I thought, although I've since used one to get the juice out of the bottom of one of those prepared fruit-salads with separate compartments, so useful after-all, and luckily they also come with a useful straw-washing brush!

 

Also in The Range; figural 'pop-a-point' stacking coloured pencils, we saw a similar set earlier in the year, and there were others which were too big and or cartoony for the collection (similar in TKMaxx too), but these were figural fun in the smaller scale, or at least the ghosts are - box ticked!

 

Brian Berke sent these from New York, and they are definitely fun items from Forum Novelties, being those semi-sticky wall or window walkers, that jerkily shudder down flat surfaces!

 

I'd normally crop these sorts of images closer, but you can see pumpkin shaped treat-collection jars to their left, which are also quite fun, I've seen similar (in B&M I think?) but didn't shoot them.

 

I thought these were the same as the first item in the post, but bought them for the packaging variation, and the possibility there were colour variances too, only to find they were larger, but slightly less well-sculpted skeletons, in the style of, but all new mouldings. I guess the brand is Tell-a-Tale, but it's not clear, and I think I found them in a garden centre?

W is for White Buttons & White Ghosts

I shot the first of these in Sainsbury's a couple of weeks ago, found the second a few days later, and Brian Berke sent us the rest a few days ago, and they illustrate one of this year's Halloween trends - short, fat, stumpy white ghosts with cartoon faces!

 

The white button toys in Sainsbury's, among the only Bloggable novelties I found this year (there is another post's-worth), and technically, well, factually, they aren't white-button, they are pull-back & go, so I lied there!

 

I then found this Ghost candle (right) of similar size, both about 70mm high, in The Range, and this design of short (height-to-width ratio), fat ghosts with -  mostly - silly faces, is a real trend this year, with basically this design, found as soft toys of pillow-size, large ceramics of the TKMaxx decor-types, blow-ups and etc . . .

And these - branded to Daiso (of Japan) - are white-button's . . . I suspect, from the left, a jiggler or runner (the ghost), a jumper (the pumpkin) and, obviously, a walker Zombie? Not seen over here, maybe next year, or maybe in another region. And, we find the same basic design of the ghost, possibly with flappy arms? Thanks to Brian for the shots of this last trio.

 

Daiso/Seria seem to be a chain of 100-yen stores, like pound- or dime-stores, but a different value point, in Japan, and also operating to similar values in the local currencies of South Korea and Singapore.

N is for The Nightmare Before Christmas

Mentioned a couple of times in recent weeks this particular Phidal Busy Book is more up our street, being the movie-related set of Tim Burton's mad creations from the film I still haven't seen, but A) keep meaning to and B) feel I have, because of the amount of merchandise and/or clips I've seen over the 32 years, since it hit the theatres!

Cover; this was actually in a supermarket, as part of the Christmas stock/promotion, with the kids' annuals in a card display stand, between isles, Sainsbury's, I think? And must be a new title in the range. Scale/size is a bit meaningless with this one, but they are fun figures nevertheless.

 

The properly bad guys - Oogie Boogie, the rambling bag of bugs! Lock (a poorly disguised Loki doppelgänger), Shock and Barrel (geddit - lock stock & barrel), Oogie's trick-or-treating sidekicks.

 

 

The barely good guys - Zero the dog, Jack Skellington (American spelling!) and his love interest Sally the witch, a creation of Dr. Finkelstein's - another poorly disguised doppelgänger; for Dr. Frankinstien!

 

The rest - the aforementioned and evil, Dr. Finkelstein, a rather dodgy Santa Clause, known to the locals of Halloween Town as 'Sandy Claws' and the two-faced Mayor. I forgot to shoot them from the rear, and that's your Nightmare Before Christmas characters from Phidal!

 

A year ago this wasn't in the Tag list, now it's got three Tags and about five mentions, so there's a definite attempt to re-boost it somewhere, for some [commercial] reason - expect a sequel, a streaming thing or a director's-cut!

L is for Loose Ends

The last of the Christmas figurals, and it'll be back to more normal output, if equally occasional at the moment, but that's life! A mixed bunch and some of them from last year . . . 

 

Hobbycraft were clearly selling the end of the line we've seen over the last year or two, as they only had a few, back in November, and once they were gone, they weren't replaced, not even with a similar line? I managed to grab this deer family, as one day, a cake-decoration deer page is on the cards; there are loads and loads of them! Poured resin and about 40mm?

 

I also picked up this snowman, which reminded me that while we looked at the line two or three years ago, last year's post went to archive when I ran out of time, inclination or whatever else contributed to quite a lot going off to the long queue. It meant I could get this year's out as last year's is still in his [net] bag, along with the Santa' in a poly' bag.

 

The Mushrooms were from The Works, a bit of fun for a possible future project (fantasy secenry), and this year I saw them or similar assortments in several places including The Range and possibly either B&M or Home Bargains?

Can't remember where I saw this, but I think it might have been the aforementioned Home Bargains, along with The Nightmare Before Christmas, I saw a lot of Grinch 'Merch' as it's called these days - by a dying civilisation which insists on abbreviating everything - JLO, LOL!

 

I mentioned that I thought there might be a sequel to Nightmare in the offing when I started to see that everywhere, back in, sort of, Oct./Nov., but I think with both, it's just the inexorable commercialisation of Christmas, particularly by the toy and home-furnishing industries off the back of Holywood? But it was a very inexpensive white-button walker, which is a slowly-growing side-collection, in main-part thanks to robots and Halloween!

 

I think we did look at the Malteezer deer last year, this year's edibles included this Santa Clause from Marks & Spencer, which was illustrated as being like an Aero inside, but was actually the more solid and disappointing texture of a Wispa - which I've hated from the day they were launched!

I forgot to properly check out the edible cake decorations, this year, but managed to find this in Sainsbury's a day or two before the big day, we looked at all the ranges/brands a year or two ago, but this was a new colourway of one of the Santa's from Cake Decor.

 

While I think this lead flat is similar to the set we looked at a while ago, this one possibly coming from Chris or Adrain last year sometime (2023), and also held over, I brought it forward with the Hobbycraft images! I think a similar sculpt can be seen at the back of the upper set's image in this post, which, it turned-out, are Hafer, but this one has a different base and will be from another set, how many were there!

 

Finally, while the above are mostly in some sort of chronological order of when they acme in or were shot, (or make narrative sense to me!), this was an early purchase which them hung around, unshot, and uneaten until the other night, when I managed both! Hence, the fogging of the chocolate, I think?

A departure for Kinder I think, I don't remember seeing them before, but they may be a year or two old as a concept, the prizes are meant to be tree-hangers, and obviously it's a Christmas-specific thing, being a merry festive snowman!

L is for London Loot - 1 Rack Toys

I had a day 'up the Smoke', the other week, sort of annual thing, and managed to come home with a pile of stuff to short and photograph, for adding to the pile and sharing with you, this post is all the 'new' purchases.

I spotted this in a corner shop as we (Mr Evans of Plastic Warrior magazine and I) were passing, and while it's another BJ Toys one, it's not one I've seen round here, and I've checked out many convenience stores in three counties, around and about, so well pleased to find it. It is what it is, and won't be seen again until I tackle the sea life more seriously, at some point in the middle distance, or get BJ's A-Z Page entry done!

Peter took me to one of his favourite rack-toy haunts, and we'd almost given-up looking and were about to leave the shop, when we saw a bunch in a darker corner and this was one (SM Imports) which left with me, more of the thin-walled, hollow types, clipped together from two polyethylene parts, I love the treatment of the curls on the sheep in pink pad-printing!

 

The other find was this set, again larger sized animals, I never used to track down, but over the years the need to ID or annotate everything that might come in loose, has slowly extended the parameters of the collection, and, while for now it'll stay in the bag, I dare say at some point they'll come out and get a better photo-sesh! Branded to an SHC (Shing Hing Corp.?) in China and imported by LTC (London Top Choice).

 

I also visited the Party Shop at Clapham Junction, as always, and picked up a few pieces, among which were these, I think we've seen the make - Symex - before (from the same retail source), but I hope they are new assortments of what will be Iwako knock-offs!

 

These (Fiestas Guirca) were fun, and there were quite a selection, I chose the two simplest probably, to add to the insect pile, with earthworms and glow in the dark centipedes, while the Sainsbury's glow set obviously turned-up in some warehouse clear-out, and got wholesaled as clearance as they were both cheap, and very old stock which we have seen here before, each bag had different contents and not remembering what was in the previous find (charity shop I think?), I tried to get the one with the more eclectic mix!

 

Henbrandt, we may have seen them before, but if we have, I can debag one lot for proper shots and keep a set pristine. Also erasers; and into the mini-car oeuvre, we've already looked at today!

E is for Easter Bunnies - The Half-Sensible Bit!

Well, it was a bit of fun, and not as expensive as I thought it might be, some of them were only a quid or two, but I have got about 20-quids worth of chocolate rabbits to eat, just as I was sliming-down down that middle-age spread, having gone back to work, at something semi-physical!

 

But I didn't purchase every bunny I found, just a cross-section of the more normal ones, I regret the grinning Kinder Bunny, as it's really in the class I avoided, but I console myself with the fact that at least I know what it will taste like!

 

Aldi's had a plethora of Bunnies, including a colour variant of the one I obtained (left), which was the 'specially selected' hazelnut one, and a more colourful range of both upright and squatting milk-chocolate ones . . . maybe next year! The Aldi Rabbit also won several of the online taste-tests, so I'm saving it till last!

 

I seem to recall touching on the Rabbit Wars, a few years ago, when Lindt finally had to admit the basic shape predated their Rabbit by decades, allowing Aldi, Lidl and others to turn-on the taps which have led to today's choice. Since when there has been the Caterpillar Cake War, and regular flare-ups!

 

The Lindt, though, remains a nicely smooth 'European' chocolate, and comes in about six sizes, of which the larger ones tend to have more limited availability, and I only got the smallest three, having half a mind how the posts would develop!

 

I didn't see Lidl's Lindt clone, but they got too confident after the previous round of Rabbit Wars, and made one so similar (in packaging) they had to destroy tons of them a couple of years ago! But their upright did run to two colours, of which I took the blue, naturally, but pink was there!

 

Rejected uprights included the three licensed or 'product placed' Rabbits from Smarties, Milkybar and M&M's, all stupid looking, and while OK for kids, a further example of how a few corporations have literally turned us into consumer-sheep in a few decades, nasty!

 

And don't get me wrong, many years ago I asked for a Smarties egg, and still have the mug, it's one of my favourite mugs, but firstly, that was when A) an egg in a mug was as good as it got, and B) Smarties still tasted nice, and of chocolate, the last few times I've bought smarties I've regretted it, they're flowery-chalky pap now!

 

The three uprights I did end-up with included the Cadbury's Peter, because it was Peter, not because I like their chocolate, I don't! The Lidl Favorina and the Kinder, if I'd been thinking straighter, I'd have got the Thornton's and shot the Kinder, but given the amount of Kinder on the blog, and the fact there may be a toy worth a post in its belly, means it happened the way it happened!

 

Bare chocolate Rabbits were around, and while the Thornton's was expensive for what is now no more than another shelf-brand, I think most of their shops have gone now, just a few dozen franchise 'boutiques' mostly shared with other brands, like Ferrero (Kinder), while the Favorina (Lidl) was too daft-looking, another one for the kids!

 

While this one wasn't as big as its message gives the impression it was, to the casual observer, rejected for being daft-looking! I think I shot it in Aldi?

 

These three all seem to have used the same contractor, or the same commercially available 'off the shelf' mould-tool? From the left we have Tesco's, Morrisons' and Asda's, with only the wrapping being different, I will eat these in sequence, to see if the taste differs? Follow-up in twelve-months? Possibly!

 

The Tesco came in four different pastel wraps, I chose the green, while the Asda also came as a white-chocolate Bunny with a suitably pale artwork and polka-dots! Interestingly though, the online artwork for 'my' Asda Bunny shows a much darker-brown colourway, which may be last year's version, still being used for publicity shots?

 

Another upright and more animated, smaller, filled Rabbits from Nomo, these were in Morrison's, but I think I did see them elsewhere, and I was tempted by the upright, he would have improved the group-shot above, but my several experiences of gluten-free pies have not been good (the pastry is like cardboard), so I stopped myself, and will never know how good or bad they might have been!

 

I can't remember if I shot these in Morrison's or Sainsbury's, the latter, I think, but again too cartoony for me, and more eggy than Rabbity, so pretty much off the parameter list, before I saw them, but Belgian chocolate is never bad?

 

Speaking of Sainsbury's, theirs was by far the prettiest of the wrappings, with a rich greenish-gold that gave Lindt a run for their money, without aping the Swiss one so close as to risk a court-case, design was the closest too, but it wouldn't stand-up, having a bowed base, and needs to be propped!

A comparison with the Aldi and one of the similar trio, to compare with the previous shot.

 

If you go ordering Chocolate Bunnies online, you find lots of smaller, regional or bespoke brands offering similar fayre, of which I was rather taken by the semi-realistic wrap on this one from the Candy Store, but I wouldn't trust chocolate hollow-Rabbits or eggs ordered online to arrive in one piece! And with those ears it might be a Hare!

 

With the many types out there, the alternate wraps, and the regular changes in artwork, one hopes somebody, somewhere, is annotating them all, as I'm too busy with toy figures to disappear down a Chocolate Rabbit hole!

E is for Easter Bunnies - Breaking! Murder in Rabbit Town!

 

"They've killed Kenny!"