I left the Voltron sub alone.

Now, it’s time to subscribe again and I’ve decided against both the DC and Masters of the Universe clubs. My reasons are different for each club. Let’s handle the easy one first.

(...)
Read the rest of MattyCollector 2013 Subscriptions: Why I’m Out (UPDATED)

I’ll wait while you go read it and embarrass me.(...)
Read the rest of Divesting and Doubling Down

So, in the event we might have some other common ground, I’ll just leave this here and maybe we’ll have someplace else to have fun together, from time to time.

I’m still here. But now I’m there, too.

Hope that’s cool.

-J

Wait. Can we go back? I just… Crap. OK.

In a past post, I asked you to decide which of The Big Three is the all-time biggest non-licensed action figure property; G.I. Joe, Transformers, or Masters of the Universe. Opinion was typically divided, but no one disputed those three properties are, indeed, The Big Three. Joe, BotsnCons, and He-Man have been part of geek culture since the early 80s and, in one form or another, are as powerful and influential as ever.

In one form or another…hmmm…(...)
Read the rest of What the Hell Kind of Masters of the Universe Fan Are You?

When’s it going to stop?(...)
Read the rest of An Open Letter to My Friend George Lucas…(UPDATED)

I’ve wanted to do this for a while; take a fresh look at classic nerd movies with the perspectives of time and everything following them.

We’re going to start with a bit of a hybrid.  It’s not only a seminal movie for thirtysomething toy geeks, it’s also one of the lynchpins in the mythos of one of the greatest of action figure brands.  The year was 1986.  The occasion was my best friend’s 12th birthday.  We went to Movieland on Central Avenue in Yonkers, New York and saw…(...)
Read the rest of Transformers-The Movie: A JJJ Flashback Review

Michael Myers

Jason Vorhees

Freddy Krueger

Alice Hudson

No…?(...)
Read the rest of John Carpenter’s The Ward: The JJJ Review

That said, enjoy my latest addiction.

-JJJ

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ll answer any questions you have in the comments section.  Or, you can contact me directly, or follow me, on Twitter.

-JJJ

(...)
Read the rest of Masters of the Universe Classics: The Chronology (UPDATED to include Battle Ground Teela, Catra, Clawful, The Faceless One, Panthor, and Sy Klone!!!)

Not wanting to trail them through the collectors’ aisle, I swing round to Transformers/Star Wars.  Woman and child round at the far end and the kid sees something he wants.

"No.  You’re not getting that.  No guns."  Mom slips into a familiar declaration.  "We don’t have guns in OUR house."  

(...)
Read the rest of Slogans are not parenting

You win.

Conditionally.

I realized I allowed your continued ineptitude to drive me away from characters and a mythos I’ve loved for most of my life.  I realized the 200x is truly dead with glaring holes never to be filled.  I also realized for about $5.00 more a Classics figure, I could avoid you altogether and let other people put up with your nonsense for me.  That’s how I went about things.

Until Roboto.

It took five open browser windows to do it, and I had to cart him in one and pay in another, but I got Roboto on 15 October in about five minutes.  Not bad, Matty.  If I had any faith the next few months weren’t going to be a clusterMatty with several more-desired figures coming out, I’d breathe a bit easier.  But I don’t, so I won’t.

Will I manage to get Grizzlor, two sets of palace guards, and whatever else my love/hate relationship with the Masters of the Universe Classics line demands through you, Matty?  Or will I have to pay someone further Matty Frustration Fees to get what I want?

Either way, you’re going to hear about it.

Your Former and Current Friend,

Jasey

Two By The Ways…

First, to my fellow MOTUC nerds, I know what the problem represents, but the reversed shoulders on Roboto were a non-issue.  I know I would never have noticed them  if not for the torrential flow of Gotcha preceding the sale and I’d venture to guess 95% of you wouldn’t, either.  Some things are not worth an uproar.

Second, my re-dedication to the Classic line, and indeed to Masters of the Universe itself, lead me to take on a little project to share with my fellow fans.  I finished it about a week ago and will post it soon.  You may get a kick out of it, you may not, but it’s the type of nerd minutia I love and I really enjoyed putting it together.

See you back here soon.

-JJJ

It is because we’re such good friends I feel I can tell you the truth.

You are a drug dealer.  We are your addicts.

(...)
Read the rest of Another Open Letter to My Friend Matty (and to my breathren who enable him)

I’m in Walmart yesterday and, though they didn’t have what I went in there for, they did have the 2010 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers 4" Lord Zedd figure (and Star Trek: Voyager Season 1 for 20 bucks, but that item doesn’t figure in the story).  I went to what looked like the shortest line to pay…

…and the adventure began.

(...)
Read the rest of “I know he can get the job, but can he do the job?”

It’s not a call for amnesty.

It’s not advocacy of killing those opposed to (illegal) immigration.

Just stop it.

(...)
Read the rest of Machete: The JJJ Review

If you’ve read any of my previous reviews, you know how this works.  If you haven’t, this is how this works:

Non-SPOILER Review

Rating on the four-star scale (five-star scales are for noncommittal hacks)

We’re going to do away with the SPOILERy thoughts section of previous reviews.  Keeps things leaner and more professional.

OK, we’re off.

(...)
Read the rest of The Last Exorcism and Pirahna 3-D: The JJJ Reviews

How are you?

Cool.  I’m fine, bordering on good.

Feel like talking toys and stuff for a while?

Alright.  Let’s do it.

(...)
Read the rest of Let’s talk. It’s been a while. (Earth-Shattering UPDATE!!!)

Transformers Classics, and its sequels Universe 2.0, and the up coming Generations, is a resurgent passion, for me.  I’d been away from Transformers for a long time; can’t stand the movie stuff, but, recently, I’ve found myself back into the Classics and enjoying them more than I’ve enjoyed any Transformers since Generation 1 mesmerized me as a kid.

In addition to the coolness of the characters and figures themselves, I put my TransRenaissance down to two things.

They’re both fan passion. 

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Read the rest of Passionate fans are changing the hobby.

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Read the rest of Children of the 80s, let’s settle this once and for all. (UPDATED with the FINAL RESULTS)

You stopped getting my money last month, so this is for everyone who would still like to do business with you despite your best efforts.

People reported having Moss Man in their cart more than 10 minutes before the sale date.  The earliest instance I found was 11:48am EST.

Starting at 12:00pm EST, customers reported Moss Man as sold out.

At 12:05pm EST, your MattyCollector.com forum representative reported both versions of Moss Man were indeed sold out.

We all know the shopping cart mechanism on MattyCollector.com is meaningless.  You know it too; that’s why you posted a guarantee of FUBAR on 12 March.  So, that’s nothing new.  My questions to you for this month are:

Why were customers allowed to purchase figures prior to the 12:00pm EST on-sale date?

Why, regardless of when the figures are sold, are there so few Masters of the Universe Classics figures available to non-subscribers*?

Why, if there are as few figures available to non-subscribers as there appear to be, are individual customers allowed to order as many of 10 copies of a given figure?

Thank you very much for your attention.  I look forward to your answers below, or somewhere prominent on the Internet.

Your Friend,

Jasey

(...)
Read the rest of Another open letter to my friend Matty

We’ll look into "possibly" bringing them back, but for now we have no plans to do so. They were a bit of a one shot deal.  

The quotes around possibly are his, by the way.  I don’t know what they’re doing there, either.

As for the content of that statement, I don’t know where to start…

(...)
Read the rest of Matty’d Again…

And I am not alone.

I had two posts planned regarding Diamond Select Toys.  The first was going to be a fun Top 10 List (who doesn’t love those?) devoted to figures DST could make in order to increase the viability or their Star Trek line, specifically as relates to The Original Series.  

The second was going to be a frustrated, though reasoned, screed about how DST is butchering three beloved sci-fi television action figure lines: Battlestar Galactica, Stargate, and the aforementioned Star Trek.  

That was the plan.

Then I read this in the latest DST Q&A…

"…TRU has decided to cancel their orders for the latest TOS wave of figures. They are not selling enough to support the space but we have agreed to review the line at each of our future meetings to see if they can be brought in again."

…which was followed shortly by this…

"…the chances are the traditional action figure line is on hold for Trek in 2010"

If you know DST, even at all, you know within that statement lie the death of their Star Trek action figure line.

(...)
Read the rest of Chuck You: Why I’ve Had It With Diamond Select Toys

On behalf of myself, and everyone else boned today:

Do something….about something.

You’re embarrassing yourself and us.

Thank you.

Your Friend,

Jasey

More very soon.

-JJJ 

I have never loved any geekery more than Star Trek: The Original Series and its accompanying movies.

I am a stickler for and lover of continuity in sagas/universes/stories.

I am generally a great fan of J.J. Abrams’s work.

I hated some of the things I heard Abrams say about his attitude toward original Trek and his intent to re-imagine it.

(...)
Read the rest of Star Trek: The JJJ Review

As a collector, I think that’s the best thing you can hope for.

 -JJJ

It was 1981 and I was six.  My mother took me to this new toy castle, this oasis, called Toys R Us, built not ten minutes from us.  Huge into Star Wars and the associated action figures, I was excited to see what I could find. 

My father suggested I get a microscope.

(...)
Read the rest of I’m buyin teh lien!!!1!!1!

Ahem…

On the heels of yesterday’s post about my newfound Doctor Who obsession, I thought I’d touch on the one aspect of Who fandom I glossed over, the toys.  Since the beginning of the 2005 series, Character Options has produced an ever-expanding, ever-deepening roster of aliens, monsters, heroes, and villains from the Doctor Who universe.  CO’s commitment to sculpt and paint is obvious in every figure they make and their willingness to make figures of secondary, tertiary, and even a few blink-and-you’ll-miss’em characters rivals the diversity of lines like Playmates Star Trek, Toy Biz Lord of the Rings, and even Hasbro Star Wars.

(...)
Read the rest of Across the Whoniverse…

From late 1992 to early 1996, in what seems like several lifetimes ago now, I worked at Tower Video.  It was intended as a summer job (my first) to fill my days between the last day of high school and the first day of collage.  But, when my major at collage slipped from Literature to Sleeping In My Car In The Parking Lot (which is a story for another post), I left higher education behind and worked full-time at my "summer job" for most of the next five years.

I don’t regret it.

(...)
Read the rest of You’re never too old for a new obsession.

(...)
Read the rest of As proof just about anything looks cool in an animated style…

I love game shows. 

(...)
Read the rest of Survey says the password is blank. (UPDATED)

(...)
Read the rest of The sexiest action figure ever…

(...)
Read the rest of Holy Grails, SDCC, and linking collections past and future.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Hee Hee, "computing."

-JJJ 

3 comments ]]> http://www.actionfigureinsider.com/blog/jjjason/so-im-reading-william-shatners-latest-autobiography/feed/ 3 http://www.actionfigureinsider.com/blog/jjjason/my-favorite-big-summer-movie-so-far-this-year-is/ http://www.actionfigureinsider.com/blog/jjjason/my-favorite-big-summer-movie-so-far-this-year-is/#comments Tue, 27 May 2008 04:47:48 +0000 JJJason http://www.actionfigureinsider.com/blog/?p=275

Yep, it certainly is.

(...)
Read the rest of My favorite Big Summer Movie so far this year IS…

I love that word.  It’s one of my favorites.  I think it’s one of the most inclusive, evocative words we have and hearing it makes me happy.

Tonight, we’re going to talk about adventure as combined with another of my favorite words, hero.  Specifically, we’re going to talk about when the two words, along with two others, look like this… 

(...)
Read the rest of Indiana Jones Adventure Heroes Mega-Post (UPDATED for KOTCS)

This is where we "hiked"…

(...)
Read the rest of He Called it Hiking…

The Target closest to my house is usually a disaster area by 5PM, but it doesn’t seem to be quite as strip-mined as some other stores in my sphere of collecting, so I’ve had some luck there.  Last week, I checked there for DCUC 2 a few times.  No dice. 

The last two times I was there, I noticed there were Stormhawks Deluxe figures on the DCUC pegs.  I let it slide the first time, putting it down to the usual messiness of the story but, when no one moved them and I saw them there again, I moved the Stormhawks to their proper pegs, as much by way of experimentation as anything else.

Sure enough, when I returned to that Target this past Monday, who was on the DCUC pegs but…. 

(...)
Read the rest of Is it really that easy? Really?

Just finished watching the 60 wonderful cartoons in Warner Bros. Popeye The Sailor Volume 1 and it’s an instant Most Cherished Possession.  From the packaging, to the menus, to the restoration, to the extras, to the glory of the cartoons themselves, everything about this set is first class and I can’t wait until Volume 2 is released in June. 

(...)
Read the rest of I have few personal heroes, but two of them are Teddy Roosevelt…

Black Manta: There never needs to be another Black Manta figure.

Superman Blue: There never needs to be another Superman Blue figure.

The End

I don’t even like Superman Blue as a concept (who does?); I bought him because I want Gorilla Grodd, but it’s an awesome figure.  If you’re going to sculpt a Superman Blue figure, this was the way to do it.

I didn’t buy Superman Red, though.  Sorry Mattel, we all have our limits.

So, two down, three to go.

And now comes New York Comic-Con. 

(...)
Read the rest of Super Powers, what’s that…?

(...)
Read the rest of Doin’ me bit.

This past Tuesday night, WWE installed former American Gladiators host Mike Adamle as the new lead announcer for their ECW brand.  It did not go well…

(...)
Read the rest of The first day on the job is (hopefully) the toughest.

It happened this way…

Hasbro just posted a poll in which fans can vote for essentially the Best Of the new 3 3/4" Joe line to be released in special packaging with special decos next year.  Number 58 of the 62 figures on the eligible list is "Specialist Trakker", a figure no one’s seen.  However, the Intranets work swiftly and someone over at the RTM ToyBuzz juxtaposed this information with a recent listing in Wal-Mart’s computer stating a figure called "Mask" would be included in G.I. Joe 25th Anniversary Series 11.

This is ALL UNCONFIRMED, though a mysterious poster on RTM implied it is tentatively the case. 

So, we may have the beginnings of a M.A.S.K. resurgence on our hands.  Perhaps we’ll know more after New York Comic-Com.  Perhaps not. 

(...)
Read the rest of It seems I like M.A.S.K. more than I thought I did.

When I got home, there were three people in the lobby waiting for the elevator: an elderly man, an older woman, both of whom I recognize by face, and a younger woman I don’t know at all.  As soon as he saw me, the old man said, "I know he’s going to the thirteenth floor."

"That’s right," I said, believing he was just flashing some information he possessed.

"Well," the old man said to the older of the women, "maybe he’ll take me." 

(...)
Read the rest of Perspective

In our history, there have been athletes who have crossed over into celebrity, and sometimes even superhero, status.  Babe Ruth was probably the first, but guys like Joe Namath, Michael Jordan, and, today, Tiger Woods (though, let’s be honest, golf is a game, not a sport) have become part of the American pantheon of cultural heroes. 

But they’re not who I’m talking about. 

I’m talking about the folks who are, by definition, sort of, but not really, but kinda, superheroes. 

I’ve been a pro wrestling fan since I was nine.  If you’ve read The Mighty TOWBAH for a while, you might remember that.  What you don’t know, what I’m not sure I want anyone to know, is in my time I’ve also loved other sorta-sports like the mid-80s roller derby update Roller Games (and its early aughts cousin, RollerJam) and, yes, the original American Gladiators.

I’ve also always had a fascination with daredevils and fitness heroes.  The first of these was man-turned-brand Charles Atlas, whose 97lb. weakling got sand kicked in his face on the backs of comic books for decades.  The man born Angelo Siciliano died in in 1972 at the age of 80, but the company that bears his name continues, under different ownership, to this day. 

Most of my fellow geeks might cite Arnold Schwarzenegger or Lou Ferrigno, but my favorite fitness hero has always been Jack LaLanne.  Seriously, have you ever done some research on this guy?  He’s performed some amazing things physically, and his philosophies on health, fitness, and longevity are sublime in their simplicity.  And, as Jack is 93 and still literally going strong, they’re apparently quite useful.  I would not be at all surprised to learn Jack has been a secret super agent for the U.S.A. against everyone from the Nazis to al-Quaeda over the last century.  He’s that awesome.

Speaking of awesome, Evel Knievel passed away recently; he was another of my favorite pseudo-sports culture heroes, especially when I was little in the late 70s.  Evel was exactly what happens when you simply don’t believe you can’t do it.  I think he’ll always be worth remembering for that, if nothing else.

We don’t really have people like Evel or Jack LaLanne in the culture anymore.  Today, it’s all about image and celebrity, usually by media coronation if not outright self-declaration.  There isn’t a premium placed on doing anymore.  You don’t have to be famous for a reason, you just have to be famous.

But I digress.  Back to bombastic almost-sports.

American Gladiators is back and I love it!  It started as a guilty pleasure, where I imagine it stays for most people, but I’ve come to really love the show.  It’s faster, slicker, more intense, and just more fun than the original (especially in HD) and I can’t get enough.  I especially like the producers’ efforts to allow the Gladiators individual personalities, rather than just names.   

Also, some of the female Gladiators are something to look at this time around rather than just something to fear and feel sort of feminine by comparison to.  For example, look at Crush up there, she’s adorable AND she’ll bash your head in with a giant Q-Tip.  It gets no better.

 Then there’s Captain America and Sabretoo…er, I mean Titan and Wolf.  I don’t know about you, but I’d love to see these guys go at it on the big screen over the fate of the world.  Even better, how about a movie where only the combined might of the Gladiators can save us from certain destruction at the hands of an asteroid?  Or Xenu?  Or an even bigger Q-Tip?

A movie is a long-shot, I know that.  But that’s not even what I really want.  As an action figure geek of the first order, I want American Gladiator toys.  And I know who I want them from.  

One of the hosts of the new American Gladiators is WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan.  Original Gladiators host Mike Adamle just started work on WWE Raw.  These are but little omens indicating what we all know has to happen.  Jakks Pacific, who provide ravenous collectors with a new set of WWE action figures every month, MUST acquire the American Gladiators license and make me some figures in the Deluxe Aggression format, starting with the three bundles of awesome pictured above. 

Want attract more kids to the line?  Simple, make figures in the new Build ‘N Brawl scale too and pack them with parts to assemble one of the show’s event with each series.  There.  Done.

They may not be the inspiration Jack LaLanne is, or routinely need to be extinguished like Evel did, but the new American Gladiators are a powerful, shiny team of super (sorta) sports heroes equally at home in the arena stomping lowly Contender spleen or on display in your office.

What could be more action-figure friendly than that?

 -JJJ

In our history, there have been athletes who have crossed over into celebrity, and sometimes even superhero, status. Babe Ruth was probably the first, but guys like Joe Namath, Michael Jordan, and, today, Tiger Woods (though, let’s be honest, golf is a game, not a sport) have become part of the American pantheon of cultural heroes.

But they’re not who I’m talking about.

I’m talking about the folks who are, by definition, sort of, but not really, but kinda, superheroes.

I’ve been a pro wrestling fan since I was nine. If you’ve read The Mighty TOWBAH for a while, you might remember that. What you don’t know, what I’m not sure I want anyone to know, is in my time I’ve also loved other sorta-sports like the mid-80s roller derby update Roller Games (and its early aughts cousin, RollerJam) and, yes, the original American Gladiators.

(...)
Read the rest of Is the Collector…READY?!?!

But, if the chips were down (or the house was on fire) and I’m being completely honest, I think I love these guys… 

 …even more.

We’ll talk more about the greatest action figure line ever wasted on pre-schoolers sometime soon.

 -JJJ