Doll-A-Day 2023 #301: Funko Gold Jimi Hendrix

   Today's doll is a figure belonging to AJ. (He probably wouldn't want me to say he owns a doll.) It's Jimi Hendrix.

You may have heard of, or seen the Funko Pop figures. You might have seen the custom ones I made of Emma and AJ. Less known are the Funko Gold figures. 

  Jimi is 5 inches tall.

  He's wearing the outfit he wore when he played the famous Woodstock music festival in 1969.

That includes the fringey  shirt and the red forerunner of the do rag, on his head.

And you can't have Jimi Hendrix without his guitar.

  That's the doll, (Sorry AJ.), for today. Tomorrow we head to Indiana to see Ivy. I'll see what I can do...

Doll-A-Day 2023 #282: Monster

   Well, we're coming up to Halloween soon. Emma and AJ have been watching what they are referring to as 'the modern horror classics', like "Halloween", "Nightmare on Elm Street", and "Friday the 13th'. Some they have thought are total crap, and some they have found to be better than they thought they'd be. As for me, I'll have none of that slasher stuff! Give me the old horror classics, like "Dracula", (The 1931 version, with Bela Lugosi. Even the  1974 "Bram Stoker's Dracula", with Jack Palance. But not the Christopher Lee ones. I saw some of those as a kid, and these days I just can't take it!), Frankenstein, and The Wolfman, (The original with Lon Chaney Jr.). Ken and I watched The Wolfman a few nights ago. (Although, I have to laugh often during it, as I wrote a parody of it years ago, and everything reminds me of my jokes. I kill me.) So since we're so close to Halloween, I found a figure amongst the 'sell stuff' a while back that goes along with the season. He might look familiar, but he isn't exactly who you might think he is.

I mean, it's pretty obvious who he is supposed to be. But the fact that the card only says 'monster', tells you that this is an unlicensed "Nightmare on Elm Street" 'Freddy Kruger' figure. (Note that the pink surrounding the package is some Barbie and Ken clothes underneath him, and not part of his packaging!)

 

  It has all the usual Freddy Kruger stuff, which even I know, and I haven't even seen any of the movies! That includes his fedora and scarred face, striped sweater, and bladed glove.

  This figure, which stands about 6 inches tall, was part of a whole line of rip off characters.

Some of the rip offs are a bit less direct than Freddy.

  There's no branding on the package, just 'Made in China'.

  I thought the casting for Freddy was weird when the movie first came out. Prior to being cast as Freddy Kruger, Robert Englund was best known for playing the gentle alien 'Willie' who sides with the Earthlings when his fellow aliens try to take over Earth and eat the inhabitants, in the original "V" television series. Willie would never kill anybody!

  The weirdest thing about the Freddy Kruger movies is that they were based on the actual true events of young men from Laos, Cambodia who died in their sleep. They died when their hearts gave out in their sleep, in what was referred to as Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome, or SUNDS. "Nightmare on Elm Street" creator Wes Craven read four articles about the occurrences of the deaths of  Cambodian refugees who had died in their sleep in very similar ways. One was a young boy who believed he would die if he fell asleep, by being killed by someone chasing him in his dreams. He would stay awake for days, fearing to go to sleep. One of the deaths was of a man who was found to have a coffee maker in his closet. Most of the deaths, including dozens in Cambodia, were young  men between 20 and 30, and 98% of the deaths were between 10PM and 8AM. You can read and article about the movie's basis HERE. Pretty weird, huh?

  See you tomorrow for a more traditional doll!

Doll-A-Day 2023 #266: Randy and Billy Balony

   Today I have been having a day off. I have been so tired lately, and my right foot has been swollen to  about the size of a Thanksgiving turkey for the last week. So today I have stayed off my feet, done nothing, and rested. Tomorrow I go for the results of my thyroid ultrasound, so we'll see if I have to go for another dreaded nodule biopsy. I'm hoping not, because having that long needle stuck in my throat 5 times is something I hate like you wouldn't believe. So today we're looking at some figures that Emma got me for Christmas last year. They're Randy and Billy Baloney, from Pee Wee's Playhouse.

  These small carded figures fit perfectly with the Pee Wee's Playhouse from 1988. That was made by Matchbox, as were the figures that went with it. These new figures are by ReAction. The card they come on even looks very similar to the Matchbox toys' cards.

  There was a Randy figure made by Matchbox, that came as a carded figure with Globey. He was different though. That figure had a raised right arm, an open mouth, painted black inside, and A LOT more freckles. There hadn't been a figure of Billy Baloney before. 

  The Randy character visited Pee Wee's Playhouse occasionally, said some obnoxious stuff, and then had to leave in a hurry as Pee Wee yelled at him. The character was a marionette. Billy Baloney was a ventriloquist dummy operated by Pee Wee, with no attempt to hide his lips moving. Although there hadn't previously been a Playhouse sized action figure of him before the ReAction figure, there had been a full sized dummy of him sold in 1988. The dummy was about 18 inches tall, and had moving eyes and mouth, and could be operated as a ventriloquist dummy by a rod in his back, just like the one on the show. That doll was made by Matchbox too, and bore a great resemblance to the original from the TV show. Fuzz used to sleep with mine, until Billy's head got bumped against the wall behind the bed so often he was starting to get blue and green paint marks on his blonde hair from the ocean I had painted on Fuzz's wall. 

  That ocean is gone now, and the wall with it. I found a piece of plaster with recognizable ocean painted on it in one of the bags of rubble from the room, and I kept it in Fuzz's stuff that I saved. I found a lot of pieces of ocean wall in those bags, but most of them were irretrievably blackened. Somewhere in that ocean there was a dolphin in the water, and a huge section of wall was a pirate ship. I had made a crow's nest for the mast out of half of a slatted basket, and we printed a picture of Fuzz and Fuzzy the Doll, in their pirate costumes from one Halloween, which I cut out to stand in it. I found the picture amongst Fuzz's photo albums. The covers had burned, but the pictures, although wet, were savable. I removed them all from the albums and dried them out. Didn't lose one of them. 

  Well, that was a bit of a detour, wasn't it? Anyway, as you might have guessed, I love Pee Wee Herman. I was really sad to hear of Paul Ruebens' death recently. One of these days I'll bring the Playhouse down from the attic and do a post on it, and all the figures. Emma used to love playing with it when she was little. And we had a cat who loved to steal Miss Yvonne. That cat loved to steal dolls with big hair and run off with them. She stole Kelly dolls too.  

  Those are the dolls for today. Thanks for letting me have a day off to rest and unpuff my foot. See you tomorrow.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #201: The Ultimate Chucky Figure

   Okay. Take a close look at this one, because it's something I'm sure you'll never see from me again: a doll from a horror movie! 

I don't do this type of horror movie normally. My taste in horror movies generally runs to your old classics, like 1945's "Dead of Night", 1941's "The Wolfman", and 1931's "Dracula",  (And don't get me started on how much I love "Mark of the Vampire" until that ending screws things up.), with the random modern movie like 1978's "Magic" and 1983's "Something Wicked This Way Comes" thrown in. I only occasionally stray into more gory territory for special things like the original  "An American Werewolf in London". (It was scary, and funny.) I don't do slasher movies. (Although I do love a good Jack the Ripper book or movie, like 1979's "Murder by Decree".) I'm sure most of you will agree that the last thing you want to be thinking about as you go to bed, in a house full of dolls, is an evil, murderous doll. (But I do love the 1975 TV movie "Trilogy of Terror", and the list of my favourites, above, includes two, count 'em, TWO movies about 'live' ventriloquist dummies.) 

  But "Child's Play", a horror movie from 1988, about a murderous doll, possessed by the spirit of a serial killer, was always too much for me. I actually tried to watch it once. I had to keep flipping channels when it got too scary, and coming back. I'm not sure I finished it. Fuzz was always scared of Chucky, the possessed doll, without ever seeing the movie. That's one reason I ever looked at today's doll in the first place. While shopping once I pulled the package off the shelf and joked to Ken. "I'm going to get this for Fuzz for Christmas." But then I opened the flap and actually looked at the doll. He was cute! 

He is four inches tall, and I joked to Ken that he was just the right size to be a friend for Fuzzy the Doll. 

  I discovered I wouldn't really have minded owning the good version of Chucky included in the set. But I didn't want the other heads, and I definitely wouldn't have paid the $30plus for it. 

  The set is made by Neca, which does some really good figures.

 

It's recommended for ages 17 & up, just like a movie.

There were some really well made miniature accessories in the set, but while I wouldn't have minded the little hammer, or the yard stick, or maybe even the miniature version of the clear front box the doll came in in the movie, I don't need a bunch of tiny murder weapons. This set originally also came with several knives, a gun, a straight razor, and a baseball bat.

Just like it says on the box.

Okay. So why do I have this Chucky then? Because I found this box at the bin store on $1 day, and thought it was some of the accessories advertised on the sides of the box. I thought, those will be neat little miniatures. I didn't know that the sides of the box are just reproductions of the sides of the doll box from the movie. 

Those sets aren't really available. 

  The back of the box shows what the back of the movie doll's box looked like, and a bunch of gross pictures of the doll inside this box.

After toting the box around in my cart for ages while I shopped, I finally opened the front flap and found that it was actually the doll I had seen at Target, the cute little guy. 

So I was pleased. For $1, I'd get him. But he did come with an extra head I didn't want.

Even if it is well made.

Because the doll originally came with four heads in all. This one has longer, straggly hair, because, according to what I read, the voo doo spell the killer used to put himself in the doll's body would, over time, cause the doll to become more human, thus the doll got a receding hairline, etc, like the real guy had.

 

The regular head has a sort of side part bowl cut.

His heads pop on and off easily, but hold tightly.

 It's a ball joint, so he can turn his head, and tilt it.

  I can't speak as well of his hand joints. He came with 3 extra hands too, but I only got the two on the body, and I found that his hands didn't stay on as well as his head. 

They kept falling off.

But then, I guess your head is more important.

He's very  jointed.

And he can stand well on his own.

Officially he's supposed to have 'over 20 points of articulation', but I'm only counting 13. What am I missing here?

One thing he can't do very well, is sit down.

That seems to be at least partially due to his overalls. They're a rubber overlay piece and the crotch ends in that point. It seems to be in the way of his legs pulling up any further so he can sit down all the way. I guess horror movie villains don't spend a lot of time relaxing.

  His overalls have all the pictures printed on them, just like the ones in the movie.

They even have tiny 'buttons'.

  He also has red tennis shoes.

And they look just like My Buddy shoes! Read on.

  And let me say this one more time: Chucky was NOT based on That Kid! Chucky's look was (very obviously) suggested by the My Buddy doll. The screenwriter of the first movie, Don Mancini claimed that his inspiration for the movie was 1980's consumerism, and marketing directed at children. He also named the early 80's Cabbage Patch craze, Freddy Kruger from "Nightmare on Elm Street", and the movies "Poltergiest", "Magic", and "Trilogy of Terror", along with the Talky Tina episode of  The Twilight Zone! (Umm...yes I did mention two of those movies...) He also said he was left wanting to make a movie about a killer doll after reading "The Dollhouse Murders" by Betty Ren Wright! I do still have to do that one for the Doll Book of the Month Club.

  That's it for today. Sorry if I creeped anyone out. See you tomorrow for something less horrific!

Doll-A-Day 2023 #127: Saitama, One-Punch Man

   Today's doll...okay It's a 'figure'. Anyway, it's One-Punch Man.

One-Punch Man is a Japanese superhero named Saitama. He originally appeared in a manga by ONE in 2009. The TV series aired on HULU, but can also be rented on Amazon Prime and YouTube.  

  He  decided to become a super hero. Apparently it only took three years of training to perfect his one punch talent. His super power is that he can defeat any opponent with one punch. Unfortunately, he finds this very boring and becomes depressed.

The gimmick to this figure, (which  was made by MacFarlane in 2019), is that he comes with an extra face, and an extra pair of hands.

  He has what is called Ultra Articulation, with 22 moving parts. I count a jointed neck and upper body, along with his shoulders, upper arms, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, ankles and toes. I don't know where the rest are.

  The figure itself is about 7 inches tall.

    One Punch Man belongs to Emma's fiancée. I bought it for him for Christmas a couple of years ago.

    So that's all for today. See you again tomorrow.