Figures Cinema Forgot by Guest Blogger Jay of the Sexy Armpit
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| Banner by: Jay of TheSexyArmpit |
Chad from Horror Movie BBQ is a good dude and he asked me if I wanted in on a post team-up he was thinking about. The topic was crucial and my decision depended on it because if it was a subject that I'm not a connoisseur on, I would've had my reservations about doing it, but I was absolutely in for FIGURES CINEMA FORGOT! At first I didn't think I could come up with more than one or two at most, but I came up with 8 which was way over the limit!
You know how it is, after you see a movie that you really dug, lots of times, it makes you feel like a kid again and the first thing you want to do is go to Toys R Us or Target to see if they have the action figures from the film. Collecting the figures is just the logical next step.
It would seem that any movie featuring characters that are even the slightest bit marketable and appealing to children get an action figure line, but unfortunately that isn't always the case. There's been a ton of movies that either didn't get an accompanying action figure line, or they had action figure lines but for some reason there was one or two damn characters everyone adored that never got immortalized as a figure. Other times the character was made into a plush or a Happy Meal toy, but never an actual standard action figure.
This is the epidemic that has lead us to devise our own TOP 8 Movie characters that never got an official action figure. Read along and please feel free to list your own in the comments or on Twitter! @sexyarmpit @horrormoviebbq
8) King Terak from Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. I really don't know why he made it on here. Because when I think about it, I don't even know what I'd do with him. He'd most likely get ignored by me in favor of ANY OTHER FIGURE. Let's just pretend that this entry didn't actually happen.
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| (Chad's Note: Seek this out. Immediately. It's worth watching and owning) |
7) Zygon, the main villain from Starchaser: The Legend of Orin, the first 3D full length animated movie. I'd like to keep him on this list even though he'd be pretty lonely since amongst my other collection since there were never any Starchaser figures made. He'd have no one to fight or grab and intergalactic IPA with.
6) STATION! Kenner's Bill and Ted figures didn't come out until summer of '91 to coincide with the release of the sequel, Bogus Journey, but the figure line was actually based off of the original 1989 film. They did throw in a Grim Reaper figure from Bogus Journey for good measure, so there was no good reason why we never saw a STATION figure/figures other than Kenner being too cheap to design a completely new sculpt. NOT EXCELLENT!
5) WHEELERS
4) MOMBI from Return to Oz. Ok so I've broken the rules once again by cramming 2 entries into one, so, whatcha gonna do brothers? One of my favorite movies EVER only got the figure treatment in Japan with the super rare and pricey Tik-Tok, Scarecrow, Tin Woodsmen, and Jack Pumpkinhead, but no reason to BEWARE THE WHEELERS because there were no damn Wheelers to beware of. No freaking Mombi either! What an outrage. How badass would it have been if we had a MOMBI figure with alternate heads? Someone listen to me dammit, this is good stuff.
3) The Horned King. I saw Return to Oz AND The Black Cauldron at Radio City Music Hall when they came out and of course, the Wheelers scared the shit out of me like you wouldn't believe. Although, another quaint little character who scared the bejesus out of me was the always stylish and metrosexual, Horned King from The Black Cauldron.
The Wheelers, Mombi, and The Horned King were my certified nightmare fuel when I was a kid. I have to admit, I've never once written the phrase "Nightmare Fuel," but since it's such a hot trend nowadays I figured I'd do it at least once. It's most likely never going to happen again so enjoy this moment. Anyway, both of these films were contained scary and outlandish visions for small children whose parents thought they were taking their kids to typical happy go lucky Disney movies. I loved every second of them and I appreciate that my parents didn't micromanage the movies I saw.
Wrestling accounts for slots 2 and 1. We're in a period of time where all kinds of wrestling figures are getting made, right down to a specific night that a wrestler wore a certain t-shirt or specially designed trunks to go along with a pay per view. Still, there are so many looks and renditions of wrestlers that we haven't yet seen in action figure form.
2) Rip, Hulk Hogan's character from the 1989 movie No Holds Barred. I've seen a few bootlegs based off both Hasbro and LJN WWF action figure lines, but there was never any official release and there's not much of shot that we'll see on in the near future. Like many wrestling fans from the '80s, my Dad took me to see No Holds Barred when it was in theaters and I loved every second of it, so, a true official Rip figure (blue outfit/white title belt) would be a superb addition to my collection. They made Zeus, so let's get a Rip figure!
1) Randy "The Ram" Robinson. The Wrestler is one of my all time favorite movies and since there was never even a promotional figure getting passed around by collectors during the films release, I settled on getting a Hasbro style bootleg from a seller on eBay, but I'd prefer owning the actual figure that Randy kept on his dashboard in the movie.
Who would be on your list of Figures Cinema Forgot? Let us know in the comments section or on Twitter: @sexyarmpit
Thanks to Chad from HorrorMovieBBQ for inviting me to do this.
Much thanks to Jay of the Sexy Armpit for contributing to this. You can find his wild adventures at his blog, the Facebook Page and on his Twitter page!
-Chad
