Doll-A-Day 2017 #85:The Bookworm

  We've seen the goodies from the trade I did recently, and yesterday was Shrunken Saturday, where we look at tiny dolls. Ok. Now let's get back to my birthday presents! Today we're looking at The Bookworm.

The packaging isn't sealed,as such. There is a plastic tie with the company logo that fastens through the peg hole at the top. When it's removed the package can be opened...and your cat can lost the plastic thing because he likes playing with them.

The Bookworm is one of the lesser known villains from the Batman franchise.The character was featured in a two episode story arc of the Batman TV series in 1966.

The little plastic insert pops out and the figure is held in by three wires.

 The Bookworm,(or is it just 'Bookworm'?) also comes with his glasses and his book light, which attached to his hat.

Unfortunately there are problems with both of them. First of all, the glasses. They have silver detail on the legs, part of which flaked off before they were even out of the pack.

 Furthermore,they don't stay on very well. It's like they weren't actually made for this figure. They don't sit properly on his face,especially when his hat is put on.

His hat can't go down very far onto his head without causing this to happen.

If  his hat is put on high enough to not affect his glasses,it pops off.

Now to the book light.

It fits into a tiny hole in his hat.

There's also a hole in the ribbon hat band of course, so the book light can fit into the hole in the hat.

The problem here is, the hole in the hat is very tiny, and hard to line up with the hole in the hat band. On top of that, the hole in the hat isn't very deep, so the book light keeps popping out.

I give up.

This Bookworm is made by Figures Toy Co.

There's a whole line of batman figures by this company.

Including TWO out of three Cat Woman figures. Not to be insulting, but they left out the boring one,so it's ok.

The figures made by this company are meant to resemble the old Mego figures. They have the same articulation as Mego figures,with joints at the neck, shoulder,elbows,wrists,waist,hips, knees, and ankles.

In spite of the vinyl suit, (The Bookworm's suit was supposed to resemble vintage book bindings.),he can hold a pose.

Although he can't get his arm as high as his hat.

 I thought it was the jacket stopping his arm and his articulation might work better without the coat.

Not so much. But he can hail a cab.

And when his coat is opened his leg can do this.

Although I'm not sure why he'd need to.

His collar could do with being a bit shorter.

It helped a little when I realized that his shirt wasn't Velcroed shut all the way and I fixed it.
His tie is on a piece of elastic. Even with my glasses I didn't realize that the elastic was caught in the Velcro until I looked at these pictures.So that's why his tie wouldn't straighten!

The suit is removable in case you want to make your own custom figure.

His coat is tagged.

 But his gloves are painted on.

Plus there are glove wrinkles.

His boots are removable though.

Look at the zipper detail!

And the boots are soft enough that he can still flex his foot.

The Bookworm was originally played by Roddy McDowall, one of my favourite actors since I was 7 years old.

 

Not a bad resemblance,especially from some angles,but why did they make the eyes so small?

 

And his picture is featured on the packaging.

The character was created for the 60's TV series, and wasn't used again for decades, until he appeared in The Huntress comics in 1989. He was also mentioned by the Riddler, in 1989, in Secret Origins Special #1, as one of the  villains "you never see anymore".

The Bookworm later appeared in Batman '66,a comic based on the '60's TV series. For the most part the characters were drawn to resemble the actors who played them.

The Bookworm seems to be an exception.

Pretty much, yes, it is.

The Bookworm made a cameo as part of the group of villains escaping prison in the animated series,"Batman, The Brave and the Bold", where he looked like this:

Why do Batman villains get to wear part of their villain costume in prison?

See you again tomorrow for another doll.