2020 is nearly over, and what a year it's been huh? Certainly a wierd one.
I won't niavely assume 2021 will magically be any different come midnight on the 31st though, but still, we made it through another year just about so it's time for the annual roundup.
Spending an evening playing that while my parents partied upstairs (as they often did when I was growing up) cemented my love for the point and click adventure game genre and especially for Lucasarts.
In the following years my father would often gift me a new adventure game for my birthday or christmas and I remember the year I got Day of the Tentacle and once I finished the game playing the demo for the next game the company was doing.
DOTT had a playable demo for Sam and Max Hit the Road.
Now I had no idea who Sam and Max were prior to this (it was an indie comic illustrated by a staff member named Steve Purcell who now works for Disney) but i LOVED the demo and desperately wanted the game.
unfortunately this was 1993/4 in NZ, back then game stores weren't really a thing and the only place I knew of to buy games were department stores like Kmart.
But because they were department stores their video game sections were tiny and only stocked the absolute LATEST games. So finding a game that was released pretty much alongside DOTT and had left shelves months and months prior was not going to be an easy task.
my father threw himself into the challenge. He asked around and every week we purchased the Trade and Exchange, which for those born after the 90s was like Gumtree but in physical paper form. People would post their want ads, their sale ads and so on for a nominal fee.
it took months but FINALLY we stumbled upon someone selling a copy of Sam and Max, they were on the other side of the city but my dad was willing to drive to shut me up about this damn game.
And so I finally got my precious copy of Sam and Max hit the road and I played the hell out of it till I got horribly critically stuck (remember, this was 1994, long before the era of game walkthroughs) and then I lent it to a "friend" who never game me my disks back -_- jerk.
Anyway,
Sam and Max have always held a special place in my heart, like all the Lucasarts adventure titles really.
Many many years later I got a new copy of Hit The Road and then Telltale Games was born and 3 "series" of games happened which was awesome. They even helped republish the long out of print comic series which I enjoyed reading at last.
wierdly, i'd never seen the cartoon, it wasn't broadcast when I was growing up apparently. Wierd huh? I'd have watched the hell out of that.
Anyway,
for a long time i've pined after merch for these old games that meant so much to me growing up but unfortunately adventure games just don't get merch. *huff*
Till NOW baby.
Because last year Boss Fight studio annouced they were doing Sam and Max action figures!
HELL YEAH.
I preordered them back in June but covid delayed things... a lot.
they finally shipped in November and after being hit with a customs fee *grumble* I finally got my paws on em.
The package art was done by Steve Purcell and it's glorious.
So we have Max, the "rabbity thing" and Sam "Canus Shamus" in these chunky little boxes.
I don't know much about Boss Fight studio, they seem to make action figures that you can mix and match that appear to be fantasy themed? I'm not totally sure.
They also make Bucky O Hare action figures lol. random.
anyway...
The back of the boxes has some little comics, they're all one panel things stuck together and pretty much what you'd expect from Sam and Max. Chaotic and random.
here's a better look at them.
and yes, that coffee stain is part of the packaging design.
I like that the two boxes can be put together to finish the picture of the pair highway surfing hahah.
Being "deluxe" figures they come with extra hands and heads for mixing up as well as several accessories.
Max comes with 3 extra pairs of hands including a peace sign and pointing hand, fists and open grabby hands. He also has two extra heads, one with a closed grinning mouth and one with no mouth.
his accessories are a hammer, a luger (I think it's a luger), a rat and their phone.
The phone reciever can be removed and the cord is bendy which is neat. The little rotary dial doesn't turn though, which is a shame hahah.
Sam comes with two pairs of hands extra, fists and open hands as well as two heads, angry face and neutral. He also comes with his oversized revolver, a max paper bag puppet (which is a random segment from one of the comics and replicated in the manual for the lucasarts game) and a popsicle.
They weren't held into the box with anything but slot neatly into their little segments and say in place. So they were easy to get out of the packaging.
Sam's hat is a separate piece as are Max's ears so you can swivel them if you want to.
Sam is about 6-7 inches tall while Max is about 4 inches so they're in scale with most 6 inch action figures I believe. I'd have to find some around here hahaha.
It's amusing.
Getting the accessories into their gripping hands is a bit tricky as they are made of quite hard plastic, it took a bit of shoving to get Sam to hold his huge gun.
the figures are also nicely jointed with shoulder, elbow, wrist, neck, knee and hip articulation.
The rat is just a static statue but it's still fun.
Sams hat likes to fall off.
Sam's jacket and tie are made of soft squishy vinylly stuff while everything else is hard plastic
They even sculpted teeny toe beans on Max! How cute is that!?
though i'm not sure it's wise to call a psycho holding a hammer "cute" ahem...
Max was right, he IS cute and marketable.
Getting his head off was really hard though, the little peg came off with the head and I had to yank it free and shove it back into the body!
a bit scary.
It goes back in fine but I had a moment of "oh no i've broken it!"
I didn't want to risk it with Sam so I left his extra heads alone. I might need to heat things up before I can get those off, I dunno.
Still, i'm delighted to have these two in my collection. I admit I never really thought we'd see a day where we got readily available merch of these guys.
but wait, there's more!
more you say? MORE?
well let Mr Purcell tell you:
 |
| https://www.facebook.com/SamandMaxFunhouse/ |
Yes, MAX PLUSHIE!
Technically the Max Plushie was released a few years ago but I never heard about it till long after it was sold out. Well people petitioned to have the company do another run and finally it happened. I had honestly forgotten i'd even signed up to be notified about restock it was that long ago so I was like "wait what?" when I got an email out of the blue telling me Max was back.
He's SOOO SOFT!!!!
And made by a company called Hashtag collectables/Uncute.
Look at the toe beans!
His tag says "uncute" because it's the name of the company/shop and isn't a comment on Max's gigantic grinning noggin.
His ears have a stiff pink inner that keeps them erect. Heh.
And his little bunny tail!
It's a really nicely sewn plushie, very cuddly and middle son keeps trying to steal him.
Sindy for size scale. Max is a pretty damn good cuddle size, not too big, not too small.
His teeth are a flap of fabric which is an... interesting choice. Personally I think it's a shame he hasn't got a partially open mouth because I think that'd be cuter but it'd also be more complicated to sew.
As it stands, the flapped teeth give the look of his artwork so it's fine.
Max wasn't cheap, unfortunately shipping was about as expensive as the plush himself and then I got hit with customs but I finally have a plush Max in my life and that is, in my mind, priceless.
I'm so happy they came back into stock.
2020 has been a rough year but it's also provided two different Sam and Max pieces of merch AND new Sindy so...
silver lining?
I'm pretty sure my new plushie won't try to gnaw my toes while I sleep right? r... right?
Back in July 2019 when new Sindy dolls were teased at Dollycon I admit, I like many others were skeptical. We'd had so many years of being told "new sindy" was happening and it being a lie.
Sindy was SUPPOSED to get a relaunch for her 50th back in 2012-3, artwork was teased but that never happened and instead all we got was some bed sheets released only in Turkey (of all places)
I mean.. wtf?
So when we were told "2020 we'll do collector line sindy dolls!" I and many others thought "yeah yeah, we've heard this one before, play a new tune will ya?"
I don't know, i'm sick man.
But I did order some stuff which is arriving in dribs and drabs.
Of the incoming stash I have some action figures I ordered back in JUNE (yes, june), the reproduction Sindy dolls which are due to ship at the end of the month/beginning of next month and a bjd order that won't likely be here till dec/jan sort of time at the earliest.
And of course, waiting for stuff makes me itch for more stuff even harder.
also feeling sorry for myself makes me want to buy stuff.
funny how that happens.
So anyway, here's a brief little update of the few things i've purchased recently. There's not much because Sindy repros kinda blew most of my doll budget and dolls are getting priiiiceeeey.
but let's just do this thing.
It's finally here! It's enormous! it's heavy! It's gonna take fucking forever to open but it's the LOL Remix super surprise 8 pack!
Yet another "I bought some stuff but didn't think it was enough for a whole devoted review" post.
As always Ebay is a cruel temptress and I have poor impulse control.
Lately this has resulted in me buying several things on a complete whim lol.
Anyway,
As anyone knows about me, big bundles of vintage dolls are one of my ultimate weaknesses. I freaking love em.
Anyway,
this bundle was sold as"good condition" but you know, I always expect that to be a bit of an exageration when I buy a large bundle of clearly filthy dolls.
Still
a fair few were in a worse state than I anticipated.
Let's take a look
FINALLY the Rainbow High dolls hit the UK. It's a frustrating reminder of the bad ol' days of a decade ago where you'd wait months for new things to hit the UK after being in the US for ages and everyone and their damn dog having them already. -_-
Honestly there's no excuse these days not to manage a global release. It's just annoying.
Anyway,
I got 2, but Amazon being Amazon cocked up my preorder again and are still trying to source stock of the other one. *sigh*
So i've only got one to review.
On the plus side, because of Amazon's preorder price guarentee I ended up getting both dolls for £25 each rather than the £28-30 they're retailing for.
So yay?
Anyway, let's delve in.
The box is really large but it's very deluxe looking. It has a shimmery effect on the outside and it's made up of two segments. One for the doll and one that displays her secondary outfit and shoes.
I love that this line comes with a second outfit, that's a nice touch.
I chose Poppy for one reason and one reason alone. Monarch butterflies! She's got them on both hairs of shoes and in her hair and I have a real fondness for Monarchs. When I was a kid my grandmother bought me a swan plant specifically so I could attract them and raise them. So I spent several years raising monarchs and I loved them all so damn much.
So yeah, Monarch butterflies remind me of my nana and my childhood so they're special to me.
Anyway, back to the box. I find that "series 1" stamp a bit suspect because it looks an awful lot like the "toy award" stamps from a distance. I wonder if that was intentional to make the doll seem all that bit more deluxey.
I am also kinda bewildered by the names. I mean, most of them have an obvious colour name for their first name but Poppy's are usually red. Sure you CAN get orange ones but they're not exactly a flower KNOWN for being orange. That'd be like.. Marigolds or something wouldn't it? (I looked it up, California poppys ARE orange so maybe it's something that just doesn't translate so well outside the US as european poppys are typically red and associated with veterans)
Rowan berries are also orange.
But I mean, i assumed all the surnames would have the same colour association. Jade Hunter are both shades of green for example, but several of the dolls surnames don't fit that obvious trend so i'm left wondering what the inspiration for those names WAS.
Like.. did they just pull names out of a hat or was there a process? Is there a subtle meaning to them?
While the display of the second outfit is nice and all it does feel a bit wasteful in terms of excess packaging you know? The whole lot COULD have fit into the section with the doll.
The back of the box is shimmery with the 6 characters in rainbow order (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. )
The writing is gold and metallic.
Husband pointed out "what is up with MGA's OBSESSION with fashion school?" and he has a point. Bratz in the reboot had a whole fashion school thing going on, Bratzillaz attended a school of fashion and magic as well. It's kinda random.
I admit that I was really wary of opening the box because MGA boxes are notoriously difficult to open.
As it was, getting Poppy out wasn't TOO bad. She has double plastic ties around her waist and you need to remove her damn hands to get her out of the packaging but i've had substantially worse deboxing experiences (i'm looking at you Fail Fix). Her second outfit was a BITCH to get out though as the little boxes are GLUED to the fucking backing card and it's very very strong glue.
Behind them is the stand.
poppy has a big ol' flat head that reminds me a bit of things like Pullip or Blythe in how big and flat profiled it is.
It's beautifully painted though with these detailed shimmery lips, a spattering of freckles and a pink and brown eyeshadow with the tiniest subtlest splash of glitter.
Her whole face is shimmery with some sort of spray on pearlescence which makes her look a bit sweaty in photos but in natural light she's fairly matte. So go figure.
Her eyes are inset with painted irises behind some sort of plastic. They are blue with a little segment of purple and four white "sparkles"
They're forward facing so can give her a little bit of a dead eyed stare.
Flat ol' face heh.
Her hair is absolutely caked in produce at the front, they packaged her so that the two front pieces of hair were saturated in product and formed into two hard crunchy as shit ringlets. The rest of the hair is soft and seems to be free of product so it's bewildering why they had to do that.
Her primary outfit is nicely made, as i'd expect from MGA. It features a short peachy coloured dress with a mesh overlay, an orange vinyl/faux leather top thing and a thick puffy jacket made from some sort of plasticky feeling material.
Her boots have an abstract butterfly wing motif.
And she has two butterflies in her hair.
Interestingly her hair isn't purely orange. It's actually at least three different colours. A bright tango orange, a duller peachy orange and pink. Her hair reminds me of tutti fruiti or rubarb and custard sweets hah.
Her hair smells WIERD. Kinda.. chemically? It's not unpleasant or strong but it's wierd. Maybe it's the product in there?
Her body is... interesting.
Honestly it's really bizarre and overengineered.
She's got a fabulous pear shaped torso and she's pretty hefty which I appreciate. Her joints feel pretty strong too, though her upper leg joints were stuck and needed to be manipulated fairly firmly to convince them to move.
But the thing is, for all those complicated cut pieces, she really cannot pose well at all.
her arms for example have a totally separate elbow piece which serves no purpose as it's only able to bend on one side anyway, the result is that this is as far as the arms can bend and it's the same level of articulation their two part arms on other dolls have so WHY bother with a third piece at all?
likewise her knees SHOULD be a double jointed piece but because her lower leg hasn't got a cutout to accomidate that she cannot use the joint properly and this is as far as the leg bends.
What's the point then?
I also cannot figure out what the hell the hip cups do, they seem to add nothing.
The upper leg cuts allow the whole leg to rotate which does leg her sit cross legged, or... would... if her KNEES could bend properly.
It's wierd because she's simultaniously over and under engineered and I don't get it. like.. wtf?
Also her head CANNOT tilt at all. it's stuck only able to move side to side which is massively disappointing. Head tilt adds so much personality to doll poses.
Poppy is shorter than a barbie and taller than mga's other line OMG.
The made to move curvy Barbie has properly constructed knee and elbow joints though, so can pose substantially better than poor Poppy.
of course I was curious about who could wear what.
As it turns out, a regular Barbie struggles with Rainbow High stuff because their upper body is a lot wider and their torso substantially longer.
Likewise Rainbow High can't easily wear barbie tops because they gape at the shoulder and don't fit the torso correctly.
Bottoms may be more compatable though as the hips are a close enough size.
Sparkle girls clothes had similar issues to Barbie clothes with the torso length. Shoulder and waist is a lot shorter on the Rainbow high dolls and means clothing gapes at the shoulder and doesn't sit on the hip properly.
and the very wide hips mean the clothes won't fasten at the back anyway.
I did find that DC superhero girl shirts fit okay and Barbie skirts fitted, so at least there's those options.
Moxie Girl skirts kinda fitted as well but were pretty tight. tops would NOT.
Liv clothing looked kinda cute from the front.
but couldn't do up around the hips.
Given their unusual size it's extra helpful these dolls come with additional clothes because honestly finding things to fit them was a challenge for me, even with my boxes and boxes of various doll clothes.
Poppy's second outfit is a cute cropped hoody in peachy pink and a vinyl effect skirt in the same orange as the vinyl effect top from her primary outfit.
She also gets some ornate butterfly heels and gold socks.
The pieces all mix and match which I always love. Her hands pop off for easier dressing and pop back on easily which is nice.
The butterfly heels are a bit of a pain to get on and off because they have an ankle strap you need to squeeze her large foot through.
Inside the baggy with the stand were two coat hangers which is interesting. Now the regular one is pretty standard for a doll coat hanger, but the other one is a skirt hanger with little clips. I've NEVER seen a doll scale skirt hanger! that's super wierd and unique.
I'm not sure where you're supposed to hang these though, are they supposed to hang on the rail that comes with the not yet released closet set?
Still, an interesting touch to include hangers for the secondary outfit pieces.
I mean, is the waist clip SUPPOSED to jut out that much? It's like she has freaking arms to her stand. What the hell?
It looks wierd.
Thing is, her feet are large enough that she can pretty much stand up wearing her boots anyway. She's not that stable sure, but few dolls are without a stand.
She also came with a matching glittery comb but it's pretty fucking useless so I threw it in a box.
Overall, she's a pretty nice doll and her clothes are really damn nice and everything i've come to expect from MGA in terms of teeny tailoring.
However, she's not without flaws.
Her hair needs a lot of crap rinsed out of it in order to not feel crispy and gross. Her hair also smells wierd.
Her head cannot tilt and her head is stuck at this slight cocked position that cannot be changed. Her articulation is fucking useless despite looking so impressive because they cocked up their engineering.
Her second pair of shoes are going to break with repeated use too which is disappointing.
Her stand looks ridiculous.
She is however sturdily constructed, hefty and has quite an attractively shaped body. Her eyes are pretty and her face is attractive so long as you don't look at it from the side (lol, poor pancake head) and her hair is fabulously vividly coloured.
I'm informed by people who know more about doll hair than I do that it's probably Kiwi Nylon which comes in bright colours and is fairly soft and pleasant to handle.
Compared to MGA's other lines of similar price (lol omg being the main one) i'd say Rainbow High are probably rather more bang for your buck. You get an equally as detailed outfit but you also get a SECOND outfit and shoes as well as inset eyes and some jointing in the knees which OMG don't have.
I do have to say though that pretty though Poppy is, I do find she's a little "soulless", her forward facing eyes and pancake head coupled with the inability to pose her head in any useful way mean she's kinda lacking in any personality, if that makes sense?
I like her clothes but her limited ability to pose properly and her thousand yard stare don't really inspire me to take photos of her the same way i'd do with some of my other dolls.
I do however appreciate the shit out of an orange doll because orange is a colour I really like and is SO often not used for "girl toys".
