It has been just over 10 years since I last posted about a Lego set featuring The Simpsons. That last set, the Kwik-E-Mart, came out in 2015 and was preceded by the home of the Simpson family the year prior. Those sets along with two waves of mini figures seemed to sell pretty well, but for whatever reason Lego decided that was enough Springfield for now. I don’t know why they’re suddenly back ten years later with a new set, but I’m not complaining. I was hoping for at least one more set plus another wave of mini figures since we were missing so many iconic characters from the show: Principal Skinner, Superintendent Chalmers, Lenny, Carl, Barney, Jimbo, and many more. It was unlikely that we’d ever get every character we wanted, but it felt like a third wave would have really filled in the most crucial gaps.
That didn’t happen. Is a third wave now on the table since we have a new set to talk about? I don’t know, but for now we do have Krusty Burger. When I was left to ponder new sets for Lego, I’m a little surprised at myself for not having Krusty Burger pretty high on my list. If I had to make a wager on what was most likely, I was going to go with The Android’s Dungeon the local comic book store run by Jeff Albertson better known simply as Comic Book Guy. It’s small, has some nerd appeal, and works well with existing figures. Maybe it could have led to us getting a Lego Stan Lee? Instead, we have Krusty Burger, the local fast food establishment run by the clown of the same name. Many episodes (and even the movie) have scenes set at Krusty Burger and some are quite memorable. It’s a perfectly cromulent selection by Lego so let’s see how it turned out.
This set comes with a total of 7 mini figures, though some are repeat customers.
The Krusty Burger set contains 1,635 pieces and seven mini figures. Of the mini figures, four are repeat characters: Homer, Bart, Lisa, and Krusty. Bart and Lisa are exactly the same as some past releases. They have neutral expressions and Bart comes with a slingshot while Lisa has her saxophone. Homer also has a neutral expression, but he at least gets some grease stains added to his shirt. Krusty is all new and he’s in his farmer Krusty attire from the episode “Coming to Homerica” complete with hat. It’s a bit interesting to me because Jakks Pacific recently released a Krusty Burger in their toy line featuring a Krusty in the exact same outfit except theirs omitted the hat.
The character selections were made for their ties to the restaurant and Krusty and with some headswaps with old figures we can almost make Grandpa from his time at the restaurant (though he wore the old uniform in his time there).
The rest of the figures are of new characters. Working at the Krusty Burger is the squeaky-voiced teen. He is a teen of many names in the show and also many jobs. He’s in a green and gray uniform which is a color combo seen in more recent seasons of the show. In the old days the workers often had purple shirts. He looks the part and also has his hat on which is non-removable. Also there to enjoy a Krusty burger is officer Lou. I assume he’s included because of the scene from “22 Short Films About Springfield” where he discusses visiting a McDonald’s in Shelbyville which confuses fellow officers Wiggum and Eddie. We also already have a Chief Wiggum (two, actually) so he pairs well with him. Lastly, we have Sideshow Bob. He’s featured in a green shirt and blue pants which would appear to be the default style guide for Bob these days. He’s here I guess because of his connection to Krusty and he is a pretty big name character. He unfortunately doesn’t look the best as Lego really went conservative with his outlandish hair.
Homer’s Krusty-fied car turned out fine, but I wish we had a Homer as Krusty to go with it.
Just like the previous two Simpsons sets, The Krusty Burger also comes with a vehicle. This time it’s Homer’s sedan, but redone to match the episode “Homie the Clown” when Homer became a Krusty impersonator. It has the Krusty visage on the front and also comes complete with speed hole decals for the hood. The build is pretty much exactly the same as the standard version of Homer’s car which includes no roof. I guess this is so Marge could fit inside, but I really hate the no roof look. Why not give us an optional one? It also has exposed studs on the hood like the original which is also something I don’t care for. I would have preferred a smooth exterior there. And while I think this is a solid inclusion, it does make me wonder why we didn’t just get a Homer as Krusty mini figure? That obviously would have cost more money because they would need to cast a new head, but they could have made up for it by just having Krusty come with his default head instead of the one with the hat. Or drop Bart or Lisa from the set – I don’t know. I want a Homer as Krusty!
This little living room set that was a throw-in for people who ordered from Lego is a nice little item, especially for those unable to get the Simpson’s house.
If you ordered this set from Lego directly then you also get a mini set of the Simpson living room. It’s the couch, TV, and end table, and a lamp and it’s basically a cut-away. The TV is the same as the one included with the house only this one comes with a screen featuring a Krusty Burger commercial. A mini figure can easily fit on the couch if you want, but it’s not a couch that is to scale with the house. It can really only accommodate two figures so no family couch gag is happening here. Still, it’s a fun little throw-in and considering the Simpson house set is 11 years old there may be a lot of people buying this set who don’t already have it. This isn’t exactly a substitute for the whole house, but it’s better than nothing.
The Krusty Burger is by far the smallest Simpsons set from Lego so far.
As for the Krusty Burger itself, it’s the smallest of the three sets and by a noticeable margin. It’s pretty self-contained with nothing surrounding it aside from the buildable sign. The layout is a bit odd as the front door is right next to the drive-through window, but that’s how it’s depicted in modern episodes. The right side of the building has a lot of windows while the backside features a rear door and an overflowing grease container. It’s done well with translucent yellow bricks and feels like the sort of thing one would likely find behind an actual Krusty Burger. The left side of the building features the drive-through menu and intercom which pretty much matches the depiction of the same from “Lisa vs Malibu Stacy.” You get to see what everything costs which depicts this restaurant as frozen in time back to the early 90s. My one critique as a fan of the show is that it lists milkshakes on the menu. Krusty Burger doesn’t sell shakes, it sells partially gelatinated, non-dairy, gum-based beverages.
To access the interior, you have to first remove the roof. It just rests on top of the set and there’s a big fan on it that doubles as a handle. There’s also roof access for your mini figures via a little trap door. Once removed, one side of the building can open up which basically breaks the kitchen in half and isolates the dining room in the center. If facing this open set, the left part is the counter and kitchen. There’s a large menu over the counter and two registers. Behind the registers is a small area to fit a mini figure with a prep table behind it that contains some massive burgers. The burger build is creative, but does lead to comically large sandwiches. The deep fryer can be found here as well which has a removable fry basket. For the french fries, Lego is using Wolverine’s claws, but in gold. I’ve seen them do some funny stuff with their hot dog shape, but I wasn’t expecting Wolverine claws for fries here. Also back here you’ll find some storage and an ice cream machine that’s forever out of order. The contents are basically just water which is a nice touch.
It takes up considerable more space when opened to access the various rooms inside.
The center of the build contains the dining area. It’s pretty cramped as it contains one booth and two tables each of which has two stools. Tucked into the corner is Krusty’s Kidz Zone which is a small ball pit. It’s cute, though I would have probably preferred more seating to fit as many figures into this thing as I wanted. Having the Simpson family at one table and the cops at the other would have made sense. Some food is intended to go into this area including Krusty’s version of the Ribwich. It’s made with those tiny Lego cars which is pretty amusing. I had previously seen those in a Christmas tree set.
The right side of the build contains the bathroom and the rest of the kitchen. The bathroom is pretty small and walled-in. For the image on the box, Lego even removed the side wall to make it present better which you could also do if you chose to display the set open. The bathroom is in a pretty sorry state as the sink appears to be overflowing, the toilet is leaking, and there’s no toilet paper left on the roll. It’s what one would expect of a Krusty Burger. The part of the kitchen that’s behind it is the drive-through window. There’s a nice little in-joke on the order screen and there’s also a drink machine in this area.
There are a lot of references throughout the set which is what we’ve come to expect as Simpsons fans with basically anything like this. Lego did a good job with the past sets and they do an adequate job here. This set did begin life as a Lego Ideas design and the pitch was pretty similar to what we got. One of the main differences though was that it was going to come with Marge’s station wagon instead of Homer’s Krusty-fied sedan. It is surprising to me that we have now had three sets from Lego that all came with vehicles, but we still don’t have Marge’s car. And with this set in-hand, a Simpson fan is likely to immediately wonder what could be next? I’m not holding my breath, but now that we have a Krusty Burger I would so love a Skinner house so we could recreate the Steamed Hams sketch in Lego form. The house could be pretty small as we only need the dining room, kitchen, and then they can do whatever with the upstairs. Just having that setup would surely be unforgettable.
If you were curious, the answer is “Yes, you can fit both cops into the previously released cop car.”
The Krusty Burger is a pretty quick and enjoyable build. It’s not very big, but I’m also not surprised that it didn’t get the same love as the Kwik-E-Mart given that ten years have past and costs have changed. The set will set you back $210 making it the most expensive Simpsons set so far, especially per brick. Given the cost, I do wish there were more printed bricks and less stickers. This one came with two sticker sheets and if I have one major complaint with Lego it’s stickers. My Kwik-E-Mart’s stickers are curling on the front and it’s become an eyesore. I don’t have the same issue with other Lego sets that I have, but a lot of them also don’t have exterior stickers like that one. The Krusty Burger does though, and I hope it doesn’t end up in a similar state one day.
As a Simpsons fan, I almost can’t not recommend this Lego Krusty Burger. Sure, I would have packed in more references to the show, probably would have preferred some different characters for mini figures, and definitely would have done things differently with the car, but everything that’s here is still done pretty well. It looks good and there are certainly a lot of memorable scenes from the show one could stage here. It may be small, but it doesn’t look drastically out of place with the other sets. Hopefully, this isn’t the last we see of The Simpsons and Lego and hopefully the next collaboration isn’t ten years away. There’s a lot more Lego could do with Springfield even if there are aspects of it they’d never touch, and I am certainly ready for whatever comes next.
If you missed my other Lego Simpsons reviews or want to see what else is out there check below:
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The 2024 edition of The Christmas Spot has been a year in which we return to a show we haven’t talked about in a little while. Today’s subject is certainly one such show as we’re heading back to Arlen, TX for a Christmas episode of King of the Hill. Up to now, the only episode of the long-running Fox sitcom included on this countdown was covered back in 2020. This episode has been on my list ever since, if not longer, and is one of my favorite episodes from King of the Hill. It does take place at Christmas, though it’s perhaps not as full of the holiday as some other King of the Hill holiday episodes. What it lacks in Christmas cheer it certainly makes up for with a heaping helping of one Bill Dauterive (Stephen Root).
Bill is one of my favorite characters from the show even if he is one of the saddest. He’s a very depressed man and it all stems back to his divorce which took place before the events of the show. It took several episodes to figure out just how pathetic Bill is, but this episode is going to capture it well. When I think of Bill and the word “pathetic,” I think of him eating spaghetti off of his counter and taking a swig of sauce right from the jar to wash it down. Remember the show Step by Step and the Cody character who would pour milk in his mouth, squirt the chocolate syrup in after, then shake his head all about before swallowing? That was ridiculous and just stupid funny (to an eight year old, anyway), something TGIF featured a lot of. Bill’s spaghetti meal is similar in construction, but almost believably pathetic. I’m pretty sure I imitated the Cody milk trick as a kid, but it would never occur to me to do the same with Bill’s spaghetti.
Nothing sums up how pathetic a man Bill is than this right here.
“Pretty, Pretty Dresses” puts Bill’s mental health at the forefront. I suppose this one comes with a bit of a trigger warning as Bill is suicidal and it is played for laughs. It’s similar to how Moe would be portrayed on The Simpsons, only with Moe there was really no one caring about him to talk him down. Bill does have people who care about him. They don’t really take his suicidal actions with 100% seriousness as some of the actions by Bill are pretty, well, pathetic. That’s the word of the day, apparently. He probably lacks the conviction needed to go through it and it’s the classic “cry for help” we sometimes hear about. I’m also no psychologist and while I’ve had my share of bad days I’ve never gone to a place even remotely close to what one would call suicidal. In other words, this isn’t the sort of stuff that is likely to bother me, but it might bother you. It’s also just dawning on me that I have quite a few animated sitcoms in the countdown this year and just about all of them have a suicide joke. That’s admittedly a bit weird, but maybe not that surprising considering the darker side of Christmas. The most famous Christmas movie of all time even dabbles in suicide so maybe we should be blaming Frank Capra?
Bill is sad, and no one in his life is well-equipped to respond to that fact.
The episode begins with the usual suspects standing in the alley drinking a beer. Hank, Bill, Dale, and Boomhauer look as they do so often in the show, and then Bill just starts sobbing. As he cries, a very jolly, instrumental, rendition of “Sleigh Ride” comes in as Bill continues to sob and his friends continue to ignore him by just staring blankly straight-ahead. This smashes to the intro and when that ends we go right back to the alley. Bill gets ahold of himself and very plainly remarks, “I love Christmas.” Then he continues with the sobbing and we find out that it was at Christmas time his wife, Lenore, left him. He tries to convince himself it was the best thing that ever happened to him, but he just goes back to sobbing. Bill heads home leaving the others behind. Hank (Mike Judge), being the better friend of the three, remarks out loud that he’d like a cookie and can always count on Bill to have cookies in his house. This is his cover to go check on Bill because these men could never admit to one another that they care about each other.
One gets the impression that if Lenore was dead instead of just gone this would get even uglier.
Hank enters the house to a sad scene. There’s a very dead tree in the corner with Lenore’s stocking on it and a bunch of wrapped gifts with her name on them beneath it. Some must be old from when she left, but there also appears to be new ones as Bill was apparently in the middle of wrapping his toaster. Bill enters the room and is surprised to see Hank and starts hiding gifts and shoving the very dead tree in a closet. Hank awkwardly asks if these are all gifts for Lenore and Bill proudly admits that they are and he suspects that she’ll appreciate his saving them when she comes back. Hank then tries to level with his old friend, but he can barely get a word out before Bill starts to whimper. Hank can’t bring himself to do it and just remarks that stranger things have happened. Bill cheers up and thanks him before confirming with Hank that he’ll be attending dinner at their house through the holidays. This is apparently a thing the Hills do each year so that Bill isn’t alone.
Maybe having Bill over dinner every night won’t be so bad?
We are then treated to one of those dinners. Peggy (Kathy Najimy) is excited about a Christmas party they’re hosting and Bill decides to awkwardly steer that subject into a conversation about break-ups. He reminds Luanne (Brittany Murphy) about her dead boyfriend and how it can be hard to find someone else as he reckons there was only one person meant for her. This disarms Luanne and Peggy immediately tries to steer the conversation back to the party and asks Luanne to help out hosting it, but she’s still reeling from Bill. Bobby (Pamela Adlon) is happy to volunteer to host the party, so Bill brings up the girl who dumped him a few episodes prior and he too looks defeated. He then brings up a high school boyfriend of Peggy’s, Cecil, but she insists she didn’t even like him. Bill just reminds her matter-of-factly that she did, but he didn’t like her.
Oh Hank, this should be the least of your concerns when it comes to Bobby.
The next morning, Bobby is serving breakfast which Hank seems to be uncomfortable with (“Shouldn’t you be doing this, Peggy?”), but like a lot of things with his son, Hank is just going to have to roll with it. Peggy is just happy to have an appetite following last night’s dinner and makes a comment that suggests Bill is like that at every dinner. Bobby remarks that he could live without him, which Hank objects to. He takes the time to remind the two that he set Arlen High School’s single season rushing record in football and Bill was his lead blocker. A running back who forgets his frontline is the person Hank could live without, not Bill, and leaves the table without touching his bacon and eggs saying “Shame on you two.”
The addition of a pet has only made things worse. Of course, it’s not helping that the pet is an iguana.
We cut to another dinner scene and Bill is playfully feeding someone off camera that the Hills seem to find…disturbing. When the camera centers on Bill we see that he’s brought an iguana to dinner which he has named Lenore, naturally. Hank carefully asks Bill if the store was all out of puppies, but Bill insists that iguanas are the new trendy pet. He’s trying to get the thing to eat what looks like a carrot and insists that he’s just shy (and it does sound like this is a male iguana that he’s named Lenore) and is probably nervous with all of the new faces. He looks to his right and stares at Luanne as he says this and she picks up on his social cue to ask if she should leave to which Bill responds simply, “Thank you.” He then opens up what looks like a pill bottle and dumps a cricket onto the table. The rest of the family is shocked, but Bill says “Don’t worry, it’s dead.” It then wriggles a bit and everyone gasps as Lenore jumps on the table and scarfs it down.
Dear God, someone might see Hank in his boxer shorts!
That night as Hank and Peggy get ready for bed, Peggy lets Hank know that this thing with Bill has gone far enough. She doesn’t want him at another meal of theirs, but Hank insists that he thinks Bill seemed happier so maybe things are getting better? Peggy just refers to the iguana (which she mispronounces) as a cry for help, but before their argument can go any further they’re interrupted by the door opening. Hank immediately cries out to Luanne to knock first, but it’s Bill. He apparently had a nightmare where Lenore returned and kidnapped Lenore and drove off with him while he chased after the car until his teeth fell out. He informs Peggy that she was there too then requests to sleep on their couch. I was ready for him to ask about sleeping at the foot of their bed. Hank just says “Yes, Bill,” and once the door is closed Peggy delivers an ultimatum, “I’m giving you twenty-four hours to get me out of that man’s dreams!”
Very normal behavior.
The next day, Hank and Bill are pounding beers in the alley with Lenore. Bill chucks an empty into his cooler, pats his belly, then turns to Hank and says “Shall we?” Hank awkwardly delivers the news that he’s not welcome at dinner tonight. Bill takes the news rather well, even adds that he prefers to eat alone, though he’s not exactly convincing anyone of that. The Hills have a nice dinner without Bill, while Bill eats his pathetic spaghetti meal off the counter I talked about earlier. He really chugs that meat sauce. We cut back to the Hills and Hank is apparently pitching a movie to his family about propane that would involve Clint Eastwood. He does a bad Eastwood impression then turns to the family for approval. Bobby, his ever reliably enthusiastic son, tells him it’s a great idea. They all laugh and we see Bill is watching sadly from the street.
Does this count as an attempt?
Bill takes a ladder out of Hank’s open garage, and as he walks off, it gets caught on some string lights and he inadvertently pulls them down. Or he always intended to leave a mark since this gets Hank’s attention from inside. He’s irritated to find his ten foot ladder missing and immediately accuses Dale, then Bill, then Dale again. He then takes his longer ladder (I guess a 12 footer) and heads up to the roof to fix the lights. From there, he sees Bill across the way on his own roof. He asks him what he’s doing and Bill just casually tells him he’s up there to kill himself. He then goes to jump, but instead awkwardly rolls off the side of the house grasping the gutter. He dangles a moment, then the gutter breaks and he falls to the ground below. It’s important to note that Bill’s house is a ranch. Even if he jumped, he’d be at almost zero risk of killing himself. Hank still cries out in horror when Bill falls though as he’s a good friend.
Nancy looks concerned, but it’s probably for show. Hank seems to be the only one who gives a damn about Bill.
The neighborhood is now gathered in front of Bill’s house to discuss what to do with him. In the background, we can see Bill on his own stoop with his arm in a sling so he apparently got hurt a little bit in his fall. Peggy acts like she’s going to say something mildly profound when she says “You know who I feel sorry for the most in all of this? Bill.” Yeah, no kidding, Peggy. She suggests he see a psychiatrist, but Hank snaps “He’s suicidal, Peggy, not crazy.” Hank seems to think they just need to keep a constant surveillance of Bill until he snaps out of it while Dale (Johnny Hardwick) thinks he’s too far gone and they should sit back and watch the bloodbath. Hank is not about to let that happen and lays out the Bill Suicide Watch schedule for all to hear and adhere to. And since it’s nighttime, Hank is up first.
It’s electric, Bill.
Hank leads Bill back into the house and suggests that Bill get to bed. Bill remarks that all he does is sleep and suggests that maybe he’s preparing himself for The Big Sleep. Hank shudders and goes into the kitchen for a beer. Bill declines one on account of beer being a depressant which causes Hank to angrily snap at him, “Don’t go blaming the beer!” As he goes into the fridge to get himself one, Bill comes in and sticks his head in the oven. Hank ignores him as he heads back into the living room then calls over his shoulder to remind Bill it’s an electric stove. When he says that it’s still pretty hot, Hank relents and yanks his head out of the oven and deposits him on his bed face first. Hank is trying to get him some pajamas and is surprised to find silk ones in Bill’s drawer. Bill refuses to go along with this so Hank is basically forced to dress him, then brush his teeth for him, and then he has to sit beside the bed while Bill sleeps. Only Bill isn’t sleeping! He’s just waiting for the right moment to resume his suicide attempts and when Hank nods off he does just that…by trying to slam his own head in the drawer of his nightstand. Hank wakes up with a “Damnit, Bill,” and is forced to take the drawers away while Bill tumbles out of bed.
Bill has lost all ability to function within society.
It’s the next day and we see Bill is on his couch. He goes to get up, but he’s soon ordered back down. It’s Dale’s watch, and he isn’t taking any chances as he sits in front of Bill with a shotgun. Bill just asks to go “tinkle,” but Dale informs him “Not on my watch.” The humor here is Dale is threatening a suicidal person with death so I suppose if the audience wasn’t convinced that Bill’s suicide attempts were lacking conviction they should be now. We then cut to Bill at a bar called Uglys because it’s now apparently Boomhauer’s (Judge) turn. He’s slow dancing with a woman while Bill looks on from the bar looking sad. He remarks to the bartender that he and Lenore used to come here and watch other couples dance indicating that they were never very much in love. He gets up real close on one couple who is making out at the bar, whimpers, then runs out crying. He runs straight into the road intending to have a tractor trailer truck be his end. It’s just careful editing though and when the camera zooms out we see the truck make a harmless left turn as it was more than a full block away from Bill. Boomhauer then appears to just angrily grab Bill by the arm and drag him back inside.
Dale isn’t about to wait and see what Bill left him in his will.
We next see Bill seated on his couch with his head down from a distance. The camera is in the kitchen and it pans to reveal that Hank, Dale, and Boomhauer are having a little conference about their friend. Dale insists he can’t keep doing this because it’s not in his nature to care about others while Boomhauer remarks it’s all “Work. Bill. Work. Bill,” and suggests that it’s making him want to put a bullet in his own head. Hank doesn’t really put forth any argument to try to keep them onboard with Operation Keep Bill Alive and instead says that he’ll take over all shifts, if he can clear it with his boss. He then calls out Dale for wearing Bill’s silk pajama top under his shirt, but Dale sees no harm in doing so since Bill’s as good as dead anyway.
If it’s any consolation, Hank, it’s the end of the year and Bud Strickland doesn’t seem like the sort of boss who lets his workers rollover vacation time year-to-year.
Now, we head to Strickland Propane, Hank’s place of employment, to see how his time off request goes. We find him in the office of his boss, Bud Strickland (Root), as he starts into his request. Bud thinks Hank is requesting time off to get ready for the party he’s hosting, and since he invited their whole client list, he seems to think it’s a good idea. Poor Hank can’t lie to his boss though, and clarifies it’s for a friend and even categorizes it as a matter of life and death. Strickland doesn’t care, and just tells Hank to have the secretary zero-out his vacation days which elicits another, “Damnit, Bill,” from Hank. We then cut to Hank and Peggy at their kitchen table where Hank is bemoaning his current state. He tells her that Bill tried to drown himself in the toilet earlier and then asks her if she can find him a date? Peggy starts into trying to make an excuse for why she can’t since she’d have to invite a woman over and not tell her anything about Bill and Hank just thinks this is Peggy outlining a plan. He thanks her and walks away in what is basically a repeat of the dinner scene between Bill and Luanne. It’s still funny though so I’ll allow it.
Pay no mind to the iguana piss on his uniform, ma’am.
And who did Peggy find to join them for dinner that night? Why that would be Mrs. Tobbis (Janet Waldo), perhaps the stuffiest looking woman character one could draw. She is visibly angry to be at dinner under false pretenses. To Bill’s credit, he put on his old military uniform and looks nicer than usual, but he still brought Lenore who is nestled on his shoulder. He informs Mrs. Tobbis that he isn’t allowed to have a knife at the table because he’s in the middle of killing himself. Tobbis doesn’t even comment on that and instead accuses Peggy of setting her up with this man against her will. Peggy tries to reason with her by saying Bill is a collector of exotic reptilia and she collects throw pillows – they’re practically the same! Tobbis admits to having a few pillows, but justifiably doesn’t see what that has to do with her being there. Bill then asks her if she likes iguanas and she informs him, in no uncertain terms, that she does not calling the thing filthy. Bill takes the criticism lightly and suggests they all could use a bath which is Lenore’s cue to pee all over his shoulder. Bill just dabs at it with a napkin and says “When it’s your own.”
The only thing Bill had left just ran out the window on him.
Mrs. Tobbis informs Bill that he is a gross man so Bill does the expected and proposes to her! Tobbis is rightfully aghast at the suggestion while Luanne shrieks with glee like she’s witnessing something truly romantic going on. Bill starts clinging to her and she demands someone get her coat – for the love of God! Ladybird then enters, the Hill family’s dog, and once Lenore and her lock eyes the iguana goes into flight mode. It scampers down the table and out an open window prompting Bill to cry, “Lenore! Don’t leave me!” As he goes out the window to chase down his pet, Peggy decides now is the right time to tell Mrs. Tobbis that she’s already given Bill her phone number. That poor, poor, woman.
This is the point where Hank runs out of patience with his old friend. Honestly, it took him longer than I would have expected.
Hank goes outside and observes Bill searching through his bushes and even his mailbox for the iguana. He then goes inside, I guess because he thinks the reptile might have went home, and once inside we see Dale emerge from behind the house carrying Bill’s television. Hank yells at him, but Dale insists that Bill would have wanted him to have it. When Hank points that Bill is still alive, Dale just returns with a “Nitpicking ain’t gonna bring him back.” We head inside the house to find Bill searching under couch cushions as Hank enters. Bill grabs onto his legs begging his friend to help him search for Lenore, but Hank has had enough. He gives Bill the dose of reality he declined to give him earlier in the episode. He tells him that it’s his fixation with Lenore that is his problem and she isn’t coming back. To emphasize this he also throws the presents at the wall and stomps on them. Thankfully, he didn’t find the toaster and they were all clothes so it’s not much of a mess. Bill cries out at first, but then just looks shell-shocked. Hank sees this change as an improvement and even thinks Bill is fine. His demeanor shifts and he’s quite happy as he tells Bill he was worried for a bit since he was acting so crazy. Bill can only say “Yes,” in a monotone fashion when asked if he’s all right as Hank leaves. Once out, Bill slumps against the wall and slides to the floor defeated.
Something isn’t right here…
The next morning, Hank is getting what looks like a leftover pork chop out of the fridge while proudly telling Peggy how tough he had to be with Bill. Peggy actually seems worried about Bill, but Hank is not since he asked him twice if he was okay. He then sees Lenore just hanging out on top of the fridge and, rather calmly, just notes it. He brings Lenore over to Bill’s house and lets himself in. As he walks into the kitchen he puts Lenore down for he spies a woman hanging clothes in Bill’s backyard. He angrily goes out the slider and demands to know what she’s doing in Bill’s backyard, but a very, bad, female voice returns “Why Hank? Don’t you recognize me? I’m Lenore!” She turns around and we see that it’s Bill in a long dress and woman’s hat. She (he?) adds that she’s just washing her dress for Hank’s big party which causes Hank to gasp, yet again.
If Hank was at the end of his rope with Bill the night before he is now well past it.
After an act break, we find Hank demanding Bill knock it off. Bill insists that he’s Lenore, though he has trouble keeping his voice high enough to produce his “Lenore” voice. “Lenore” insists that she’s returned because she loves Bill “sooo much!” Hank can’t wrap his head around this one and brings it back around to football. He points out how Bill blocked for him when he set the single season rushing record, but that he also had to help himself by hitting find the running lanes. He says he’s blocking for Bill now, but Bill isn’t even playing the same game. Feeling he needs a sport to complete the metaphor, he just suggests Bill is playing some sort of crazy tennis. As he storms off, “Lenore” just thanks him for coming by and says “See you at the party!” Hank spins around to tell Bill that no, he is not allowed at his party, before walking off. Lenore-Bill isn’t dismayed though and just smiles to herself and notes she was already invited. Technically, Bill was already invited, but not Lenore, though Bill isn’t really in a state where he can be reasoned with right now.
It’s a nice dress, and Bill did coordinate the shoes rather well.
Hank, Dale, and Boomhauer are drinking in their favorite alley, once again, when “Lenore” comes strolling in. She’s ditched the hat, but has a very nice yellow dress instead. Lenore asks if any of these gentlemen can spare a beer for a lady and you just know that Dale cannot go along with this. When Bill insists he’s Lenore, Dale challenges him to produce Bill. “Lenore” says that Bill is in the house and offers to go get him to which Dale responds, “I’m skeptical that you could, but yet intrigued that you may.” Lenore leaves to get Bill and Dale just turns to Hank to remark that Bill has been acting weird as if he thinks no one else has noticed. Hank doesn’t even dignify this observation with a response. Lenore then returns with a sweater and a beer and says that Bill was busy wrapping presents. Then she takes a sip of her beer and does the usual “Yep,” but in the high, Lenore voice. Hank can’t do this and walks off.
Now Hank, don’t go taking out your frustrations on the potatoes.
Hank is shown massacring a potato that he’s supposed to be peeling. Peggy remarks that he’s peeling in anger and Hank confirms as much. He’s pretty sore about blowing his vacation days on Bill and in the process reveals that he had to actually help bathe the guy. Peggy is sympathetic to Bill’s plight remarking that the only way he could get over Lenore was to become her, then adds it must be a psychological thing – a classic Peggy-ism. Luanne admits she isn’t qualified for such a determination, but suggests that what Bill needs is closure adding that’s what her dead boyfriend’s angel told her. No one seems willing to touch that, but Peggy loves the suggestion and decides to invite the real Lenore to the party! Hank seems skeptical while Luanne is just worried that the two might show up in the same dress which would just be a disaster.
This is sure to go over well.
It’s now the evening of the Christmas party we’ve been hearing so much about. The Hill house is hopping and Hank is ladling out punch to his boss. Bud informs Hank that all of their clients have showed up tonight describing them as big fish and little fish and tells Hank it’s his job to pull him out of any conversations with the little fish. Hank tells his boss they should treat all of their clients like big fish and Bud just tells him that’s a good thing to say to the little fish before walking off. Then Bill, as Lenore, enters and everything seems to stop. Bill is wearing a purple, shoulder-less, dress and hat and upon entering Bud demands to know “what that is.” Hank just says he ordered a Santa and that there must be some mistake as he goes over to order Bill to leave. Bill just does what he’s been doing lately and insists he’s Lenore, will not be leaving, and is here to mingle. She then goes over to a table and pours herself a glass of wine while her inner Bill causes her to pick up a beer as well.
If you were hoping to catch a glimpse of the real Lenore sadly this is as close as the episode gets.
Peggy answers the phone in the kitchen and it’s the real Lenore on the other end. She shouts to Bill that Lenore is on the phone and he looks shocked. We don’t hear anything Lenore says, just Peggy’s reaction to whatever it is she is telling her, and it becomes clear that Lenore isn’t coming. Desperate, Peggy asks Lenore if she could just speak to Bill and send her love, but that’s clearly a nonstarter. Lenore hangs up, and Bill hangs his head in sorrow. With tears streaming down his face and his hands trembling, Bill tries to top off his wine glass while the other party goers look on with actual venom in their eyes. Bill turns to face them with his tear-stained face and is told to go back to Hollywood and that this isn’t the Democratic National Convention.
Why Hank Hill, aren’t you just full of surprises?
Hank has left the room at this point seeming to abandon his old friend. When it looks like things are about to get real ugly, Hank reemerges. He’s wearing what I assume is one of Peggy’s dresses and tells everyone enthusiastically, “Yeah, it’s one of those kind of parties!” Dale is both hurt and confused because this wasn’t on his invitation and he asks Hank if he gave Bill a special invitation? Bill just screeches in as high a voice as he can probably go for everyone to stop it before storming out. Hank gives chase while Peggy tries to smooth things over by asking who is up for Boggle, but no one seems interested.
This is Bill having a breakthrough. You’re just going to have to trust me on that.
Hank catches up with Bill out in the alley and tries to play by his rules. He tells Bill that he’s Lenore and he doesn’t love him. Bill still tries to insist that it is he who is Lenore, but Hank just keeps laying into him. He tells him that he’s lazy and no good. Then he adds how they fight all day and all night and that even the neighbors can hear giving us some more insight into how terrible a marriage they had. Bill has not dropped his Lenore persona and is trying to reason with Hank, bargaining, really. Obviously it’s not working, so Bill instead gets angry. He’s pretty upset that he never even got a “Dear John” letter and turns things around by yelling at “Lenore” and insisting he’s worth more than that. He tells her to leave and Hank responds by removing the dress signifying that Lenore is gone.
Merry Christmas, Bill.
Bill says nothing, just removes the dress and shoes he’s been wearing. He must have been practicing to be able to walk so well in those heals. Standing in his shorts, Bill remarks to Hank that he hit rock-bottom there. Hank just confirms that he did and Bill responds that there’s no where else to go but up. Hank agrees and wishes his friend a “Merry Christmas” as the two turn to look at the stars. The camera repositions in front of the two who are just smiling as they look at the neighborhood all covered in Christmas lights. In the background, we see Dale emerge from his house in a purple dress. He sees that Hank and Bill have ditched their own and quickly turns around before the two spot him.
I think Bill looked better in a dress than Dale.
And so ends a Christmas special unlike any I can think of. It’s a pretty complex plot as we go from the uncomfortable reality that is supporting Bill around the holidays, to suicidal Bill, to Bill as Lenore, and ultimately a resolution. I said upfront that it wasn’t the most festive Christmas episode out there, but it never lets the holiday become irrelevant to the plot. It’s always there in the background and we even get to see some festive attire on the main cast during the party scene. I find it amusing that the first Christmas episode of King of Hill involved Hank losing his sight due to mental trauma and here in the second it’s Bill losing his sense of self and becoming his ex. That is, if you believe him. I think the show is pretty clear that Bill knows what he’s doing the whole time. He’s probably more in control than he lets on, but at the same time, he’s also out of answers and willing to try something drastic in order to cling to the memory of his wife.
Oh Bill, we love to watch your pain.
Bill is a very sad man, but one played for laughs. The show is very careful with his portrayal here so that I think we can feel bad for him while also laughing at him. He needs help, but as Hank observed, he also needs to help himself and he’s basically unwilling to do that. Maybe turning to a pet was actually a start, though naming the pet after his ex-wife undermined that. A huge amount of credit needs to go to Stephen Root who is so wonderful as Bill. It’s one of those voice performances where uninformed people are surprised to see who the actor is behind the role. He must be appreciated by Mike Judge given the role he played in Office Space, and like a lot of this cast, it would be hard to imagine anyone else playing Bill as well or as convincing as Root.
I think we witnessed Bill come real close to getting murdered.
What it comes down to with this episode of King of the Hill is are you able to find humor in suicide and depression? If you can’t that is understandable and you will want to avoid this episode of King of the Hill. I think it arguably gets a little darker during the party when it looks like Bill is about to get lynched for presenting as a woman. Transgender rights weren’t as forefront in 1998 as they are now, but this episode did air just over two months after the murder of Matthew Shepard. King of the Hill rarely shows the ugly side of Texas when it comes to such things. Usually, the show delights in playing against expectations, but in that scene they presented a gathering of people who almost all seemed united in wanting to inflict harm on a biological male who dared to identify as a woman. It reads a lot heavier than maybe the show intended.
Even so, I think this is a very funny episode of King of the Hill. I find Bill’s halfhearted attempts at ending his life harmless and the reactions of those around him are also pretty damn amusing. It’s not a typical holly, jolly, Christmas episode, but it does have a happy ending and no one is irreparably harmed. Well, maybe Mrs. Tobbis. It was a real dick move on the part of Peggy to offer up her phone number to Bill. If you want to catch this episode, it’s currently streaming on Hulu with the rest of the series or on Disney+ depending on your location or subscription. If physical media is more your thing then it’s also available with the rest of Season Three on DVD.
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
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When I first started doing this Christmas countdown, I had the very first Family Guy Christmas episode in my top 25. It has since been removed, though not because I dislike the episode now, I just feel there are specials out there that are better. I don’t always make it a point to check out what Family Guy is doing around Christmas, but this 2020 episode was one that I did view in its initial run and it remained in my memory because of how similar it is to the very first Family Guy Christmas episode. Any show that has been on for hundreds of episodes is bound to repeat itself, but it’s especially amusing when the subject matter is the same. In the very first Family Guy Christmas episode, Lois (Alex Borstein) does her best to make sure the family has a great Christmas only to be undermined at every turn by her useless, selfish, family. She snaps and goes on a rampage until the family can restore her Christmas spirit. In this episode, Lois is going to basically do the same thing, but the snap comes in the first act. Then we get to see the rest of the family try to have a merry Christmas without her.
A joke so good we’re going to do it twice!
The episode begins in standard fashion. No overlays of snow on the song and dance number, no dressing-up of the title. The episode begins with an exterior shot of the Griffin household sparsely covered in snow. Inside, the family is watching The Today Show which features an announcer pointing out that former host Matt Lauer is watching from outside their Times Square studio. The two hosts are shown reading off benign holiday stories while Lauer lightly bangs on the glass from outside and asks if they’re still mad at him. He was fired by the show for being a sex creep.
If they really wanted to torture Lois they would have shown her trying to get this box out of the attic. The hard part is already done.
Lois then comes down the stairs dragging a very heavy box of Christmas decorations. She’s clearly struggling with it as she swears between each movement. What she is saying is a mystery since it’s bleeped, even though I’m watching on Hulu (I guess since it’s not TV-MA they have to bleep it?). When she finally gets to the bottom of the stairs, Peter plainly remarks “That looks heavy,” but Lois just cheerfully announces that the sound of her dragging a really heavy box of Christmas decorations down the stairs can only mean one thing – Christmas! Peter corrects her and says he knew it was Christmas because the “O” in Pornhub changed into a wreath recently and son Chris (Seth Green) responds, “Same” and they share a fist-bump. Father and son bonding over their shared interest in pornography really puts one in the Christmas spirit. I feel the need to point out that Peter made a very similar observation in another Christmas episode, only it was with Instagram Porn Stars in Santa hats instead of Pornhub.
Oh man, Christmas chores? No way!
Lois then makes the announcement that she wants the family to help out with Christmas this year. Peter informs her that won’t be happening because they split everything 0 – 100, he being the zero contributor and she 100, like most couples (Peter’s words, not mine). Lois ignores him and continues to say she also wants a real Christmas present this year and not some clearance, misprint, shirt from Marshall’s. Peter then holds up a t-shirt and says, “But you love the Roling Stons,” and he has the defective merch to prove it. We’re doing a bit here. Lois again ignores him and instead hands out a list of chores for each member of the family. Peter’s rebuttal this time is he can’t do any chores because his trick elbow is acting up. He then turns to Chris and pushes a playing card out from between his forearm and bicep and asks, “Is this your card?” When Chris says it is not Peter quips “Oh no it’s worse than I thought!” Lois just keeps setting him up and Peter keeps…knocking them down?
A character getting their identity stolen from a fraudulent ATM could be the plot of a Christmas episode for some shows, but on Family Guy it can be a quick joke.
We cut to downtown Quahog which is tastefully decorated for the upcoming holiday. Peter and the kids pull into a strip mall to do their shopping. Brian (MacFarlane) asks why they’re doing their shopping here and Peter informs him it’s because the gas ran out here. Chris tells him he needs to get that gas gauge fixed, but Peter rhetorically asks him “Do you want the gas gauge fixed or a year of Quibi?” Chris, wisely, chooses the gas gauge. Remember Quibi? Crazy how dated an episode from 2020 can already feel. Meg (Mila Kunis) assures the family they can find everything on their mother’s list here, while Stewie decides this is the right moment for him to get a line in by saying this place better have Baby Yoda toys or else…he’ll probably just get something with Spider-Man on it. Peter then leads the group to a freestanding ATM and points out how dangerous and terrible an idea it is to use such things. It eats his card and he gets a phone call to which he answers “Peter Griffin. Oh, not anymore?”
One of those stock jokes that could appear in any episode. The only requirement is that Peter needs to at least mention H&R Block.
Peter leads the family into a greeting card store and announces that this is a place to look at cards while releasing tiny farts. The family does this, until Meg unleashes a more pronounced fart that the clerk (Chris Parnell” objects to announcing that this store is for tiny farts only and directs her to Lids for her big, juicy, farts. Peter then heads to an H&R Block to get what I suppose is a very early start on his taxes. He addresses the clerk (Mark Hentemann) and asks how much the H charges, then how much R charges, then inquires if R knows that H has a side thing going on with M? He then mentions the store H&M suggesting he is not entirely confident in his joke being understood. The clerk seems concerned and suggests he has no idea what Peter is talking about. Then a giant, letter, R (Rachael MacFarlane) with lipstick comes out of an office and asks if H is back yet? Then H (Ralph Garman) enters wearing a designer shirt purchased at a fraction of the price with lipstick on the collar. R accuses H of cheating on her and H suggests he wanted to get caught and we suddenly have a suicide joke as R blows her brains out. H drops to his knees wailing “Why? Why?” A letter Y then emerges from the bathroom and asks, “What’s up? I was just taking a pee” Then a letter P pops in and says, “Someone called?” Peter then looks at the camera and informs the audience that sometimes the writers let him write his own skits. It’s an attempt to save this half-cooked idea of a joke, but doesn’t exactly redeem it.
Never count out Peter Griffin!
We then return to the Griffin house and Lois is watching CBS This Morning with Charlie Rose lurking outside. It’s the exact same joke as the Lauer one, only now it’s Charlie Rose. The family enters the house noticeably empty-handed. Lois is pissed and starts listing off all of the stuff they were supposed to either purchase or put out. Peter assures her he has everything under control and then takes off. Time passes and it’s night time. The Griffin house is now covered in snow and the family is inside enjoying a quiet moment by a roaring fire. Peter then enters dramatically with a big tree at his side. Lois runs over and gives him a hug. As she tells him she loves him, the word “Peter” just keeps repeating. We dissolve to find it’s Lois calling his name while beating on the window of the family station wagon while Peter sleeps in the driver’s seat.
A chance to get some more characters some face-time.
Lois demands to know what’s going on as Peter wakes up. He explains he fell asleep after rubbing one out to Madonna’s “Santa Baby.” He then announces that tonight’s “Date Night” has been cancelled due to lack of interest. Lois storms back into the house irate that no one is stepping up and helping her out with Christmas like she wanted. She directs her anger at Brian claiming he’s supposed to be the smart one and punctuates it with a “Bad dog!” He whimpers on the floor like an actual dog – I do always find it amusing when Brian behaves like a dog would. Lois then demands to know who got candy cane all over the couch and Peter begins to mimic Brian by whimpering on the floor. Lois declares she’s had it and will be leaving the family for Christmas to spend it in Cabo with her cousins. Quagmire (MacFarlane) then cartoonishly just pops in thinking she’s leaving Peter, but she corrects him. Then Mort (Johnny Brennan) shows up in a manner identical to Quagmire thinking that Lois plans to ruin Christmas by covering over the town’s decorations. This excites him on account of him being Jewish. When Lois corrects him, a deaf woman (Marlee Matlin) pops in to inquire if she’s doing deaf jokes. Lois says no to the deaf jokes and the woman has to break the news to the classic character Greased-Up Deaf Guy (Mike Henry), who also just pops into the house unannounced. Peter then corrects them and says “I think we are doing deaf jokes, at this point.”
There’s a lot of anger in that boy.
We next find the Griffins seated on the couch in front of the TV without their matriarch. Lois has seemingly followed through on her threat to spend Christmas in Cabo with family so Peter decides that to get revenge they’ll delete all of her favorite programs from the DVR. Chris announces that he would like to be the one who gets to delete The Crown, claiming his mother never watched it and was just stockpiling all the episodes on the DVR preventing him from watching Modern Family. Again, crazy how dated something from just a couple of years ago can feel. When Chris tries to delete The Crown he’s just confronted with a never-ending assortment of prompts confirming that he actually wants to delete the very prestigious show. This eventually leads to a prompt that tells Chris that he actually can’t delete the program so he rips out the cable box and smashes it on the floor in a fit of rage. We then hear the television impossibly announce “We now return to The Crown,” even though television stopped doing that 30 years ago, if not more. Some unintelligible British voices filter out of the TV and Chris is forced to confess he kind of likes it. Peter says the same and adds “It’s because I’m trash and I love how fancy it is.”
Thank goodness the dog is here to prevent Peter from murdering his children.
Meg is the one who points out that none of this will help them save Christmas. The kids turn to their father for advice, but his only suggestion is for everyone to go kneel in front of the holes he dug for them suggesting a murder-suicide is on the table. Brian emerges removing a baseball bat from Peter’s hands and tries to convince everyone they can handle this. Peter just announces his Plan B, which is to take opiates and listen to records. We cut to him drooling in his lounge chair listening to some bad jazz or something. The camera zooms out to reveal Stewie and Brian standing next to him with Stewie announcing, “It’s been four days.”
Lois didn’t really go to Mexico, she just wants to punish her family with her absence and watch them unravel from a cheap motel. Fiendishly clever!
We next head to the outskirts of town to check-in on Lois. She is not in Cabo as she threatened, but actually at a cheap motel that’s high enough in elevation that she can view her family through the window with binoculars. After remarking just how good her binoculars are, she spies Peter bringing in a very dead tree into the house and the family looking excited by it. She suspects that she’ll get a phone call any minute now from them begging her to come back and save Christmas. While she waits, she decides to relax on the bed and turns on the TV. A voiceover (John Viener, I think) coming from the TV welcomes her to the hotel and announces their stationary is the best in the industry for recording suicide notes. More suicide jokes – hooray! Lois announces her plan will work perfectly and intends to “Wait like a cobra.” This is the spot for a traditional Family Guy cutaway gag of a Cobra (Alec Sulkin) waiting for his table at the bar. A waitress (Rachael MacFarlane) asks if he would like her to bring his drink to his table for him and he replies that he would and points out his lack of hands. This might be the worst cut-away gag I’ve ever seen on this show.
Poor Peter. It’s so hard being a white man in 2020 New England.
Back at the house, everyone is outside putting up the decorations. Peter announces it’s time to put out the 2020 version of their decorations and then begins listing off the figurines he’s placing in a manger scene: ethnically accurate baby Jesus, Father Mary, Mother Josephine, the three genderless wise people on their scooters, Tig Notaro (for some reason), and the Little Drummer Them. He then adds, “Because, God forbid, we call a boy a boy.” Chris tries to confront his dad on his apparent transphobia and he erupts shouting “I don’t like what the world is! I’m white! When’s it going to be our turn?!” This does feel pretty authentic for the Peter character. Brian tries to calm him down, but Peter doesn’t see how that’s possible without “the woman who normally takes care of all of this.” He either doesn’t appreciate Lois to the point where he can’t remember her name, or he’s so mad at her that he doesn’t even want to address her by her name. Both seem plausible. Brian asks if he means Lois and he just refers to her as the redhead with the voice. He then starts tossing decorations over his shoulder as he goes through them remarking how she would put them up until one of the kids points out that he did it.
Now this is a true Christmas miracle!
The family turns to look at the house and the decorations are shown to have miraculously landed precisely where they were supposed to. Peter declares it perfect as the whole family basks in the festive glow of the holiday display. His cell phone then goes off and it’s Quagmire. He requests Peter dim the lights because he’s presently in bed “with a three and light isn’t doing her any favors.” We then cut to Lois in shock as she views the family’s accomplishment. She is then interrupted as the letter H from earlier mistakenly enters her room with his side piece, M. He sees Lois and then apologizes adding, “We’re excited because my wife just killed herself.” Why are we returning to this joke?
Just because it’s Christmas doesn’t mean the show is going lay off Meg.
It’s time for a holiday montage! Set to an instrumental version of “Deck the Halls” that’s heavy on saxophone, we find the Griffin family in their living room as Peter holds up a holiday movie: Christmas with the Kranks. He inserts it into the DVD player and we then see the family relaxing with the glow of a fire cast on them. We zoom out to see that Peter actually set the movie on fire. As someone who has seen the film, I approve. We then check out Peter hanging the stockings. The kids nod in approval before Peter hangs up the last one which is for “Dad’s gym friend Emilio who he goes to Greece with every summer.” Apparently, Peter is a closet homosexual who cheats on his wife – I suppose that explains his disinterest in her. We pan out and Emilio (presumably) is revealed to be standing behind Peter in just his boxer shorts. He gestures to Peter who playfully waves him off to the shock of his children. It’s now time for Christmas dinner and Peter is preparing to cut the ham. As the camera moves across the table it’s revealed that there is a live pig in one of the chairs. Peter reacts with surprise and runs to the oven only to find he mistakenly cooked Meg instead of the pig. Whoops!
The only thing Lois has accomplished is showing the family that it can thrive at Christmas without her.
Time to check-in on Lois once again. She is aghast to find the family having a snowball fight in the front yard. Tom Tucker (MacFarlane) and a news van are even onsite to document this. Lois then observes the family standing hand-in-hand while Peter says “I love you,” to his kids, but in slow-motion. Lois suggests the kids better not return the sentiment in slow-motion as well to emphasize her horror so of course they do. “That’s it,” she shouts as the camera zooms in on her rage with a rack focus technique so that she can inform us that she must stop Christmas! She’s interrupted by the sound of a fart from the room next to hers. She pounds on the wall and shouts “What do you think this is? A Lids?!” The logo for the store is superimposed over the screen while the announcer voice chimes in with “Lids: come get a camouflaged Knicks hat and let one rip!” The clerk from earlier told Meg to go fart in Lids. Did someone have a particularly bad experience in a Lids? I don’t get it. I don’t think I’m supposed to.
You just can’t take the “Mom” out of Lois, even when she’s trying to be bad.
Well, there is only one place for this story to go. Lois shows up at the house decked out in Grinch attire. Before she can get down to business, her cab driver (Viener) has to bid her farewell while sharing his unprompted racial stereotypes about people from Turkey. She enters through the chimney intent on ruining Christmas, but then spies all of the dirty dishes left out. Lois does the dishes and then tells herself she won’t even think about the grocery situation, but then of course she open the fridge to find it nearly empty. We cut to her coming through the back door with two bags of groceries, but now she’s dragged in mud so she has to mop the floor. Once finished with that she seems ready to resume (well, start) ruining Christmas, but then she tells herself not to think about checking the washer to see if they left the wet clothes in it without transferring to the dryer. Of course she checks and finds what she expected and remedies that situation like she did the others.
They’ll both never speak of this again, it would seem.
With the clothes properly sorted, we can finally go into the “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch” parody segment we all expected. It’s an instrumental version of the song and as it plays Lois creeps around miming the Grinch from the far more famous television special. There aren’t really any jokes as she just does exactly what the Grinch does, though she does pause to do a hideous version of the Grinch smile so there’s your joke. As she stuffs up the tree, she’s interrupted by a little girl asking “Santa Claus?” Well, actually, it’s Stewie and he’s dressed like little Cindy Lou Who from the special. He asks why Santa is taking the tree, but Lois just responds by asking why he’s in pigtails and a little girl’s nightgown. Stewie, realizing he’s in over his head, just suggests they both forget what they saw tonight and heads back up the stairs.
You know, this whole time I’ve definitely been asking myself, “What’s Quagmire doing at Christmas?”
We now head outside and the house looks to be in disarray now that Lois has effectively stolen Christmas. We see her creeping down the sidewalk with all of the Christmas stuff as the show decides that now is the right moment to check-in on Quagmire. He’s all alone in his house and remarks how he dislikes being alone on Christmas so he whips out his phone and calls someone named Joan. He asks if he has a payment due on his Discover card. Based on what follows, we can assume that Joan asked if he’s alone on Christmas and Quagmire denies it. He says he’s with his very large family, but she asks him for names. We don’t actually hear anything from Joan, just Quagmire’s responses, but he basically repeats all of her questions so we don’t have to guess. He lists off obvious fake names (Bloofus and Klunt) for his kids and when she doesn’t believe him he starts smashing stuff around his house and blaming the kids. She doesn’t buy it and Quagmire is forced to hastily retreat from the conversation and hang up. I’m guessing the episode came in a little short and Quagmire was called on to fill some time.
Is this the part where they join hands and sing?
The next morning, the family rises to find that Christmas has been stolen. They’re pretty shocked, but Peter has a solution: everyone kneel in front of daddy’s pre-dug hole. That’s his solution for everything! Brian then tells Peter this is all his fault for getting rid of the Ring camera. We jump back via cut-away to Lois entering the house wondering who crapped in front of their door. She pulls out her cell phone to check the Ring camera, but Peter slaps the phone out of her hand and smashes it. He tells her that whoever it was probably had no choice because their family was using all of the bathrooms.
Lois may have failed to inflict misery upon her family, but at least she taught them to appreciate her.
Lois is shown arriving via cab, and before she enters the house she puts on a sombrero and poncho to play up the ruse she was on vacation. The family is watching a Tony Bennett (RIP) Christmas special and we see Tony badly singing “Jingle Bells” and falling asleep mid song. The bit continues with an announcer saying to stay-tuned for a duet with Willie Nelson. We then cut to the two of them asleep. They wake up and start performing different songs. They’re both very old. Lois enters the home and Peter welcomes her back by pointing out he cleaned and bought groceries, but unfortunately Christmas was stolen. Lois has to feign shock, but then is really surprised when she finds out that not everything was stolen. It turns out, they got her a present, but since they didn’t think she’d be home for Christmas it was kept upstairs. The kids retrieve it and Lois is forced to read the card out loud. It’s played straight and thoughtful, but the gag is that it’s going to just go on and on. She has to read the inner card, the back, and even some stuff hidden by a black light while sad music from This is Us plays. I’ve never watched the show so I don’t know if the sad music is authentic, but whatever.
I bet you saw this coming.
Lois is moved to tears and finally opens the gift to find a misshapen bowl. Meg tells her they all took a pottery class and made it for her. Despite the bowl looking terrible, it affects Lois. This is the part where the narrator comes in to inform us that Lois’ heart grew three sizes that day complete with overlay as seen in The Grinch. We then smash cut to Lois unconscious in a hospital bed because your heart tripling in size is actually a bad thing. The doctor (MacFarlane) is there to tell us she’s lucky to be alive, and then soon leaves the scene allowing the family to all hug Lois while Peter declares it the best Christmas ever! The narrator returns to inform us that Lois is happy this medical emergency covered up her crimes. We’re told Lois never came clean and instead their Muslim neighbor was arrested for the crime and deported back to Turkey. Another voice chimes in, “See? What did I tell you? Always Turkey!” It’s the voice of Lois’ cab driver from earlier who shared his views on race unprompted with her.
This episode basically had to end with another double-up on a past joke. It’s clearly something the writers are fond of.
We’re not done yet! We return to the Griffin house and everyone is seated in the living room by a replaced Christmas tree. Peter says he’s glad to have Lois back so he doesn’t have to keep doing dishes and buying groceries, much to her annoyance since it was Lois who did those things. The family then challenges her on her alibi and asks her to come up with names for the cousins she was supposedly visiting the whole time. Predictably, she hastily comes up with the same names Quagmire did earlier: Bloofus and Klunt. She even says she thinks she hears them upstairs. She runs upstairs and we stay with the rest of the family as they listen in on Lois narrating the carnage being spread by Bloofus and Klunt. She smashes a diorama Meg made which was due the next day and also Stewie’s aquarium containing the fish you have to feed so damn much and they die anyway. Stewie is apparently buying this charade as he remarks, “Fricken’ Klunt, man.” She then gets to Peter and his discreet box of pills. He races upstairs, but can’t beat “Bloofus” to the toilet who flushes them away.
Lois just wanted some help around the holidays and is basically punished throughout the episode for that.
And that’s how Lois stole Christmas and got away with it! Well, she did get hospitalized as a result of her scheme and I bet the resulting medical debt was crippling to a family like the Griffins, but she still technically got away with it. I like this one as a companion to “A Very Special Family Guy Freakin’ Christmas” as it’s a 2020 take on that 2001 episode. The show and the depiction of the family has changed so much since then. They’re basically all worse people, though really only Peter and Lois are on display in this episode. The kids are mostly window dressing and Brian is still in his role of arbiter and moral compass. It’s still a familiar premise of underappreciated mother figure getting the shaft at Christmas. Only Lois tries to combat this with subterfuge and is basically punished for it. Just not all the way punished since her family is basically none the wiser. Though they do border on accusatory in that final scene, but then appear to accept Bloofus and Klunt.
There are some good jokes here and some not so good ones. Family Guy is a show that tries to overload its running time with as many jokes as possible. It’s quantity over quality. If I’m being honest, the strategy doesn’t work too well here as there’s a lot of groan-inducing jokes. And this particular episode apparently either didn’t know which ones were going to land, or felt that a bad joke could be improved by repetition. We return to the stupid joke with the personified letters as well as the discarded television show hosts. The observational humor the show tries for with the ATM machine is just okay, while Peter’s insecurity via the nativity scene was decent. The suicide jokes were numerous and even American Dad! loves those in their Christmas episodes so I guess it’s a MacFarlane thing? I liked the repeated gag of Peter’s suicide solution, but not so much the rest.
If they wanted to make an image creepier than the original then mission accomplished!
If you are a fan of Family Guy then I think this episode lands as “just okay.” The show has better Christmas episodes like its inaugural one and “The Road to the North Pole.” Those are the only two I watch each year and if it weren’t for “The Road…” being an hour long I’d have covered it in this space by now. Instead, I did the one that parodies The Grinch because I am a sucker for that. In terms of Grinch parodies though, this one isn’t that great because it just doesn’t use the opportunity to make a new joke. We just get a visual gag of Lois trying to smile like the Grinch and Stewie being confronted by his choice of evening wear. The Quagmire bit that followed was pure throw-away too, but I guess we needed it to setup the final scene.
If you would like to watch “The First No L” then the easiest way to do so is via Hulu or Disney+ depending on where you reside or subscription plan. Family Guy still airs in syndication as well for you cable subscribers and this episode is likely being shown somewhere this December. If you, however, only have room in your schedule for one Christmas episode with the Griffins, then you can probably do better than this one.
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
Today, we return to my best Christmas specials of all-time list with television’s first family: The Simpsons. The Simpsons are the brainchild of series creator Matt Groening who allegedly came up with the idea as a spur of the moment one when he needed something to pitch to the Fox Network. He essentially based The…
Alvin and the Chipmunks is one of the oldest, family-owned, pieces of intellectual property left in the world. And it might not be for much longer as the franchise is reportedly up-for-sale and has been since last year, but as-of this writing nothing has been agreed upon. The Chipmunks date back to the 1958 novelty…
For December 10, we are returning to the theme of this year which is to revisit the best of the best. When I originally ranked my favorite Christmas specials, I had the recently released It’s a SpongeBob Christmas! ranked at #19. The years have been kind to this throwback Christmas special as last year I…
Another company is taking a whack at The Simpsons.
I think it was early this year that we found out Super7’s line of ReAction and Ultimates! action figures based on The Simpsons was ending after just a couple of years. That meant Super7 was done after four waves of Ultimates! and four waves of ReAction figures. We had seen figures for a possible fifth wave and listings for another wave of ReAction figures, but they will never see the light of day. If you’re curious about my thoughts on that whole mess, check out my review of King Size Homer linked at the bottom of this entry. Safe to say, I was let down and really not surprised that Disney pulled the plug. Super7 took too long to bring figures to market and frustrated the fanbase with its character selection. And once the backlog was unleashed earlier this year, the quality took a nosedive as well which would have only further irritated Disney.
It is entirely my assumption that Disney ended the deal with Super7 largely over money in that they probably wanted more. They also apparently had another partner ready and willing to dive into The Simpsons in Jakks Pacific. Unlike Super7, Jakks is a company that specializes in low cost action figures and toys released at mass market retail. You have probably seen their figures based on various Super Mario Bros. licenses and Sonic the Hedgehog. The Simpsons is apparently their next mountain to climb and it’s possible that Jakks either wouldn’t do the deal with Disney or wasn’t willing to pay as much as Disney wanted without some kind of exclusivity over the license. For fans of the property, it basically just means we’ve swapped out one company for another. The approach of the two is very different and it remains to be seen what the finished product will look like for Jakks when it comes to selection, but for now we have a few figures we can look at and assess.
I don’t have any of the figures from Playmates, but I can show you how they scale with Super7 Ultimates!
The Jakks approach for The Simpsons is a lot like their video game figures in that there are basically two lines: a 2.5″ line and a 5″ line. I don’t actually know what the measurements of the smaller line are because I have yet to buy any. They are small though and minimally articulated. It looks like this line will be how Jakks gets play sets into market as there’s already a Homer and living room set. The 5″ line is the one I’m more interested in as it’s a more fully articulated line of figures. The 5″ scale also has the added benefit of fitting in with the old World of Springfield toy line from Playmates that existed in the early part of the century. There’s also a third tier, a deluxe line, that’s starting to come out. These figures will feature more paint and come with dioramas and special features. I’m not sure about that line at this time as the price is around $25 for those and I’m not seeing the value, but maybe I’ll change my mind. There’s also a talking Krusty doll (I have it, it’s great for what it is) and a roleplay item in the form of Moe’s telephone. I might have to get that too, but it’s very much a “toy” and something I don’t need (not like that ever stopped me).
And I can also show you how they scale with the Super7 ReAction line.
Wave One of the 5″ line contains four figures: Homer, Bart, Willie, and Otto. I have so far only managed to find the two Simpson boys, but I do hope to run into Willie and Otto at some point. The figures are sold in window boxes with the same licensing art across all of them. It’s fine and sturdy and if you’re an in-box collector the window is generous and provides for a good look at the figure inside. Each figure will retail for about $13 and it looks like the aim is to do a figure with at least one accessory. As a first wave, this seems like a solid approach to get two family members and two fairly prominent side characters. Otto was definitely more of a factor early in the show’s life, which I do kind of appreciate since it’s those long-time fans that are mostly likely to buy these. After Super7 failed to release any women in their main line though, I’m a little remiss that Jakks did the same. It looks like we won’t have to wait long though for such characters to arrive as Wave Two is set to include Lisa along with Krusty, Moe, and another Homer. I guess Marge will have to wait until the third wave.
The scale here is not great.
Homer and Bart follow a pretty similar approach. Homer is around 5″ tall while Bart is a tick under 4″. You will likely notice right away that the scale is pretty far off for the pair. Bart is way too big, but it’s basically the same scale as what Playmates did. Toy companies have a tendency to make the smallest characters in a property bigger than they should be while the largest characters tend to be smaller than they should be. In the case of Homer, I think his size is perfect. His proportions look pretty good and I really have no complaints there. Bart, in addition to being too big, also doesn’t look proportional to me. His head is huge relative to his body and his arms and legs are too long. The arms and legs I can excuse since it’s probably to help facilitate articulation, but he’s not a great looking figure. I pretty much bought him because he’s, well, Bart!
Homer actually scales pretty well with little Hugo here. I think I prefer the kids be just a little too small than too big.
Both figures feature minimal paint applications. There’s really almost none to speak of. On Homer, it’s possible the only paint is the black hair that zig zags around his head and the pupils of his eyes. His mouth and the white part of his eyes look like they may be separate pieces of colored plastic glued into place. It’s certainly the case with the eyes, while I’m less certain about the mouth. For Bart, his pupils are painted along with some of the parts of his shoes. And with the shoes, the only paint might actually be the white circles on the inside of his sneakers (something Super7 failed to paint) as the soles of his shoes are all white and there’s a little excess plastic around his socks which makes me think that too is a molded piece. It’s possible the blue is painted on and then the white circles over that.
Similarly, this new Bart doesn’t look too bad beside an Ultimates! Homer.
The lack of paint basically means these figures have a very glossy appearance. From a collector’s standpoint, it’s the thing that bothers me the most. Yes, I know, we’re talking about a very low price point here, but if just the heads were at least painted it would give these figures a much nicer aesthetic. The other issue that stands out for me are the portraits. Both characters have a hint of a smile that’s really only visible from the side or a 3/4 angle. From the front, there isn’t much personality to convey. The Simpsons are a pretty animated bunch and I would have liked some more personality. Something else that kind of bums me out is that the heads don’t feel like they’ll be easy to remove. If Jakks had planned it better, perhaps we could swap portraits with future Bart and Homer variants to create more expressive poses.
My favorite detail about Homer’s behavior at work is how he always just takes the box of donuts from the break room and heads into the bathroom.
This line is a fully articulated one and Homer and Bart probably have as much articulation as one would expect of a Simpsons line. It’s also the same setup for both. There’s a swivel head, ball-hinged shoulders, biceps swivel, single-jointed elbow, wrist swivel and hinge, ball-jointed waist, ball-socket hips, single-hinged knees, and ankle swivels. Bart’s thighs can also swivel where they meet his shorts, though it’s tight enough that I wonder if it’s intentional. I was also able to get his lower leg to rotate at the knee which I only did because his lower leg was inserted backwards out of the box. Again, I’m not sure if it’s supposed to do that, but it did. Homer’s elbow range is a little less than 90 degrees, while Bart’s is a little more. The waist joint is mostly a rotation point, but there’s a tiny bit of tilt all around on the ball joint there. It’s decent and probably enough for this brand. The arms are a little ugly since both characters are bare armed, but what are you going to do? I suppose a more collector focused line would do swappable arm parts instead of joints, but that clearly isn’t what Jakks is going for. The only joint that’s really worth criticizing is the lack of an ankle rocker. I suppose a simple ball joint for the head would also be superior to what we have.
Eating and skateboarding, that’s pretty much what both characters like to do most. Aside from maybe watch TV.
Both figures do feature a primary accessory. I suppose for Homer we technically have two. For Bart, it’s his skateboard which features a single peg at the rear of the board and purple wheels that really spin. The board itself is red plastic with stickers applied for the other colors. I always thought of Bart’s board as more orange than red, but it’s fine. Even though Bart’s right hand is a gripping hand, he doesn’t come with a slingshot or anything. For Homer, he has a pink box of donuts with an articulated lid. Inside the box, are eleven donuts which are non removable. There’s one missing because it’s separate and Homer can hold it. It has a big bite missing and it’s Homer’s favorite donut with the raspberry glaze. It too appears to be two pieces of different colored plastic glued together. That approach must be way cheaper than paint for Jakks to go through all of this trouble assembling tiny donuts.
Homer’s box of donuts turned out pretty well.
Overall, I would say these figures of Homer and Bart are pretty much as expected. They look cheap and they feel cheap because they are cheap. Now, they don’t feel fragile or anything and they have a nice weight to them, but they definitely don’t feel like a true “collectible.” I’m far more pleased with Homer than I am Bart and it has everything to do with the scale and proportions on Bart. I’m tempted to buy the 2.5″ Bart to see if I like how he fits with Homer and maybe making that my way of collecting the Springfield kids. I like how Homer looks with the ReAction Hugo so it gives me optimism that He’ll look good with the smaller Bart.
They might not be the figures we want, but maybe they’re what we deserve?
If you’re looking to start another collection of The Simpsons action figures, these are currently showing up at both Target and Walmart and have been for quite a few weeks now. It actually took me awhile to find a Bart that didn’t have misaligned pupils which is what took me so long to get to them. Amazon is also selling the first wave and they can be found at other online retailers. The figures should retail for about $13 so it’s definitely an affordable line, but you also get what you pay for. I’m largely interested in this line and I do plan to buy more, but I’m not excited about it. It’s mostly a feeling of acceptance that is driving me to buy these as more than anything they just remind me of what I want from the brand. And that’s 5″ scale figures with more paint and more accessories. Not so much accessories in the form of “stuff,” but just in extra expressions via portraits and hands. I can pose Homer with his donuts, but his mouth isn’t open to bite into one nor can he just drool over them. These figures are very sterile, but The Simpsons should be anything but.
If these figures from Jakks Pacific aren’t really doing it for you, maybe you’ll like the stuff Super7 did:
Well, we’ve done it. We’ve reached the last figure in Super7’s line of Ultimates! action figures based on The Simpsons. Did we save the best for last? No, not really, but I am happy to say today’s figure is definitely not the worst. And this fourth and final wave has featured multiple contenders for worst…
We are onto the third wave of Ultimates! from Super7 based on The Simpsons. Like past waves, plenty of questions abound when it comes to Super7’s character selection and they’re not unfounded. Perhaps the two most questionable inclusions in this third wave are the subject of today’s post: Kang and Kodos. These are two separate…
When I concluded my review of wave 1 of The Simpsons Ultimates! from Super7 I was thinking that I’d be back with more reviews later in the year. That was in February of 2023. We are now in April of 2024 and finally wave two has arrived (my original order was place January 5th, 2022).…
Well, we’ve done it. We’ve reached the last figure in Super7’s line of Ultimates! action figures based on The Simpsons. Did we save the best for last? No, not really, but I am happy to say today’s figure is definitely not the worst. And this fourth and final wave has featured multiple contenders for worst in the line. I don’t wish to beat a dead horse, but for whatever reason this fourth wave was pretty terrible. Even the figures that look fine, like last week’s Drederick Tatum, suffer from inexcusable levels of quality control. How hard is it to make sure an arm or a leg fits properly? I don’t know. A lot of toy companies seem to have no issues with such things, but Super7 has certainly made it look challenging with this line.
A much wider Homer than we’re used to.
King-Size Homer comes from the episode of the same name from the show’s seventh season. It is our second Homer Simpson in this short-lived line of action figures which normally wouldn’t seem like something that stood out, but here it does considering we never got a Marge or a Lisa in the line. The company that made it a point to include a female character in each wave of its Mighty Morphin Power Rangers line didn’t seem to find any value in doing the Simpson women before double-dipping on Homer. Cool. At least this Homer is a little more of a popular variant than wave one’s Deep Space Homer. Not that Homer going to space wasn’t a memorable episode, it’s just that there are a lot of Homer variants I would have gone with over that one. I still would have chosen several over this version as well, but I concede that of all the various Homer Simpson looks he’s had in the show, this is among the most memorable. And it’s way better than Dancing Homer or Homer the Vigilante, though it’s no Mr. Plow.
Oh look, he’s monologuing again.
King-Size Homer comes in the standard box with no slipcover, as has been true of every figure in this wave. If you’re unfamiliar with the episode, this gargantuan Homer is the result of him trying to gain a bunch of weight to be declared medically obese and thus eligible to work from home. As evidenced by his appearance here, Homer was pretty successful in packing on the pounds (thank you Play-Doh doughnut) and achieved his dream. Homer stands at right around the 7″ mark which is more or less in-line with the wave one figure, only now he possesses far more girth. He’s in his floral moo-moo and comes packaged with his “fat guy hat” and has an optional soft goods cape. Since this Homer is far bigger than the last, everything here is new sculpt and it looks pretty good. Homer has his much girthier neck and even his hands have been enlarged to match the show.
This sort of thing drives me nuts.
As for the paint, well it’s again another mixed bag. Unlike that first wave Homer, this one is done in yellow plastic and not painted over. There is a matte coat to cut down on the shininess of the plastic, but he has a cheaper look than that first Homer as a result, but it also puts him in-line with Devil Flanders, Burns, and Ralph. The strands of hair atop his head are done with soft plastic and with Homer it works far better than it does with Ralph. Unfortunately, he’s packaged wearing his hat and the default head on my figure has some warped hair as a result. It also has a blob of white paint on the back of the head too. The garment he’s wearing looks okay and the flowers are painted cleanly, but they did a thing that really annoys me. Since Homer has a cut for articulation in the torso, some of the floral pattern gets broken up and if you line-up one flower it doesn’t line up all of them. The cape looks nice at least and it’s well-tailored. It might be a tad on the small side, but it’s not as if it gets lost when he’s wearing it. It just slips over the head and it completes the look. The paint on the shoes and eyes is hit or miss. Some portraits look good, while others have a sloppy edge to the eyes. My Homer’s right shoe has a chunk of white missing around the sole.
Reaching broom included.
For accessories, Homer comes with various items from the episode that should look pretty familiar. For heads, we get one with a slight smile, a side-eyed angry expression, and one where he’s making his “Ooo” mouth. It’s basically the same expression that Deep Space Homer came with, which is one I like, but it feels a little redundant. For hands, Homer has fists and that’s really the only “set” he has as the rest are specialized hands. He has a gripping left hand which seems intended to work with his ice cream cone (Ooo, raspberry). The cone looks fine and comes close to matching Ralph’s alternate head which I suppose is nice for symmetry. There’s a different-shaped gripping right hand and that’s intended to work with Homer’s “reaching broom.” In the episode, Homer sits on the couch watching TV and utilizes the broom to just whack the keyboard of his work computer so it seems like he’s doing something. The broom-head has sculpted indentations for his fingers and thumb to slot into and he gets a pretty good grip on it. Sadly, his articulation is lacking so he can’t really use it as intended, but we’ll get to that. There’s also an open left hand and that one works well with the famous drinking bird. This is the bird Homer got from his brother Herb in the season three episode “Brother Can You Spare Two Dimes” and it’s a novelty toy. It returns as Homer’s assistant in the episode. The bird is articulated so you can simulate the pendulum effect it’s supposed to have. The sculpt and paint are fine, and this is an accessory Homer had to come with. Lastly, Homer has a pointing right hand and his medal which he is awarded at the end of the episode for using his ass to prevent the release of deadly, poison, gas.
At least they got this guy in.
It’s a solid spread of accessories and I think Super7 keyed in on the right objects from the episode to give Homer. They could have given him a computer, but as we saw with Ralph, without something to put the PC on it serves little purpose. I would have preferred an expression that could work with the ice cream cone, but I suspect that didn’t happen because he can’t reach his face. There is absolutely one thing missing though and it’s Homer’s sign from the episode that reads “Give Me Ride or Everybody Dies.” Really, that scene should have been priority for Super7. Cut the pointing hand and replace it with a hitchhiker’s thumb. Cut either alternate portrait and give us exasperated Homer with his hair limp. When you’re going to do these episode specific action figures you really need to hit on the episode’s best jokes and Super7 certainly whiffed on that one.
They’ve been staring at this bird for hours.
As for the articulation I’ve been teasing, what is there really to say? It’s terrible. Just look at this guy. It was going to be bad and it is as expected. He is basically a statue with arms that swivel. The head is the only aspect of the figure that has moderate range, because the rest does not. The elbows are poor, the diaphragm twist adds little, and the garment renders the leg articulation absolutely useless. They could have done absolutely nothing with his legs and the figure probably would not have suffered for it. I’m not going to kill Super7 for the articulation here because there isn’t much that can be done with a comically obese Homer Simpson. Maybe if they had done all of the clothes with soft goods it would have allowed for the legs to have some utility, but to do what, really? I guess it would be cool if he could sit down, but the line didn’t last long enough for Super7 to deliver a couch. The only thing that sucks is the lack of a vertical wrist hinge so he could properly wield his reaching broom. The cape at least has a wire, so you can add some dramatic flair to your Homer, but this is a figure that is just going to stand there.
You’re probably not getting that cone much closer to his face.
King-Size Homer isn’t exactly a homerun Homer, but he’s a cromulent one. The look, aside from my nitpick with the floral pattern, is on-model and while I bemoan the lack of yellow paint at least the finish is a matte one. The accessories are also pretty solid and the figure looks good with or without the costume accessories in the form of the hat and cape. I’d be a lot higher on the figure if Super7 had nailed the “Give Me Ride or Everybody Dies” scene and if this figure carried the standard MSRP of $55. It does not and instead will set you back $65. I guess because there is a minor uptick in plastic versus some of the other figures? Hell if I know why it’s more money since one would assume Homer is going to sell the best out of all of the figures in the wave. I can kind of see charging more for an obscure character like Drederick Tatum, but a popular version of Homer? The pricing is absurd, but is functionally moot since this line is dead. This figure is all but guaranteed to hit the clearance rack before long so you need only wait it out if you want a better deal.
The only award this line will ever receive.
And that’s a wrap on Super7’s journey with The Simpsons. It got off to an odd start given the confusing character selection and long wait for wave one. Plus the thing with Moe’s apron wasn’t great, but remedied in a fairly painless fashion. I felt the quality of the first two waves was pretty damn good though and the figures were about as good as I think could be expected of Super7. The issues with those figures were just the choice of characters and I suppose disagreements over accessories. Starting with the third wave though, the quality took a hit in particular with Burns and Ralph and this fourth wave was practically a disaster. King-Size Homer is the only figure in the wave without blatantly obvious quality control issues. I suppose the only good thing for Super7 is that waves 2, 3, and 4 basically all arrived at the same time so the line didn’t experience a gradual decline, it just went off a cliff.
“Way to lower the quality of the line, Flanders!”
It leaves me wondering what will be the legacy of Super7’s take on The Simpsons? I’m guessing it will be viewed as a failure considering a great many fans were unhappy about the character selection and we know the intent was to pivot away from this approach with the canceled fifth wave. It should have a “missed opportunity” vibe, but did we really miss out on much? If the fourth wave is any indication then no, because it can be assumed the fifth would have sucked just as hard. The majority of this line was just flat-out not worth the money and yet the price kept going up while the figures were getting worse. That’s a pretty bad combination. The figures also lack an attention to detail that would have made it feel like truly hardcore Simpsons fans were in charge at Super7. Lacking that charm, there’s no pull. I don’t see these figures appreciating in value and becoming something fans who missed out on chase down ten years from now. Maybe they will the ReAction figures which were actually pretty well done. Perhaps I should make a post on them because they were certainly more deserving of your money than the Ultimates! line and they actually form a cohesive display, premature death and all. In the end, The Simpsons and Super7 is just a thing that happened. If the line has any sort of lasting ramifications it may be something we look back on as the beginning of the end for Super7’s Ultimates! because the company’s reputation certainly didn’t get better by producing this line.
Here it is, for better or worse, the entire assortment of Simpsons Ultimates! by Super7.
We have looked at 15 figures from Super7’s line of Ultimates! action figures based on The Simpsons and we’re about to look at the 16th. What I’m wondering at this stage is do I need to keep talking about the baffling character selection? Yes, yes I do. Drederick Tatum is today’s figure, the show’s Mike…
Last week, we started on our journey through the fourth and final wave of Ultimates! from Super7 based on The Simpsons. It did not start well. Devil Flanders represented a new low point for the line and maybe for Super7 as a whole. I know I certainly do not own a worse Super7 figure than…
Last week, we concluded our look at the third wave of Super7’s line of figures based on The Simpsons and now we embark on the fourth and final wave. That’s right, Disney pulled the rug out from under Super7 and handed The Simpsons license over to Jakks. Their products will start rolling out this fall.…
We have looked at 15 figures from Super7’s line of Ultimates! action figures based on The Simpsons and we’re about to look at the 16th. What I’m wondering at this stage is do I need to keep talking about the baffling character selection? Yes, yes I do. Drederick Tatum is today’s figure, the show’s Mike Tyson parody, and he’s about as warranted as last week’s figure, Radioactive Man. I don’t know that any, named, character on The Simpsons who has spoken lines could be called a deep cut or anything, but there’s tons of minor characters in the show who show up for a joke here and there and then fade away. Sometimes for years at a time. Tatum isn’t unique in that sense, and yeah, those minor characters are certainly part of the charm of The Simpsons, but I don’t think I’m alone in saying that fans would prefer dozens of characters ahead of Drederick Tatum. Characters like Principal Skinner, Edna Krabapple, or how about freakin’ Marge Simpson?!
“I do not appreciate the way you are looking at me, Homer.”
We all know the case against Drederick Tatum, but what’s the argument for the character getting immortalized in plastic? I don’t think he had a figure in the Playmates line back in the day so that’s one. That line actually was super expansive and probably should have done a Tatum, but maybe they were afraid of a lawsuit? He is a minority character in a line that’s been all yellow dudes and the occasional alien, dog, or robot. And he has a pretty unique build in the show relative to the existing characters so it’s a different sort of figure.
“D’oh!”
The existence of this figure is probably pleasing to some. I know at least one person who is a Mike Tyson fan that is getting just this figure from the line. And that’s good for him since this figure won’t pair with anything else in the line. I don’t think it changes the fact that it’s still a bizarre choice in a line rife with them. Perhaps more concerning though would be is the figure any good? I have not had a very good time with the fourth wave of this line. It’s featured sloppy paint, a low accessory count, and limbs that just fall off. The bad news is those were the “cheap” figures of the wave at $55. The last two figures come with an inflated MSRP of $65 and that includes Mr. Tatum. What about this figure warranted the extra ten bucks? I have no idea. Maybe Super7 expected lower orders for this character and thus decided to tack on an extra Hamilton. Sure, he’s bigger than Flanders and Radioactive Man, but not to the degree one would think warranted more money. There’s not a ton of paint here and the accessory count is just okay. Basically every figure in this line has been all unique tooling and most have featured soft goods. What separates him from Krusty or Duffman? Again, I have no idea.
Duffman seems to be the figure most similar to Tatum.
This figure has to impress a bit more as a result of that price, and at least at first glance, it’s off to a solid start. Tatum stands around 7.5″ to the top of his head. This sets him a little taller than he probably should be if we’re going off of his appearance in “The Homer They Fall” as he was really no taller than Homer there. He’s a chunky figure with a good feel in-hand as there’s some heft to him, not the overly hollow, plastic, feel some of the other figures possess. He has a very neutral expression, but that’s suitable for the character. The paint on the face is okay. The top of the eyebrows aren’t painted and if you get in close the black lines around his stubble aren’t perfect. The eyes look nice and it’s amusing how this character has such small eyes compared with the usual Simpsons design.
“Don’t make me hurt you, Duffman.”
The body of the figure requires far less detail. He’s a boxer so he’s just a guy in trunks and boots. The body is molded in brown plastic and has a nice, matte, finish. The forearms appear to be molded in white plastic and painted brown, but they match the rest of the arms perfectly. Why? Because Super7 painted brown over brown! They had started to do that with the second wave in places, but abandoned the practice with the third wave. It looks so much better and it’s basically what NECA does with all of its toon figures. The trunks are just plastic though, as are the boots. They’re a really dark, almost black, navy and the exposed portions of the legs are painted brown and look fine.
This right shoulder just has no room to really move properly and leads to scuffing.
The paint is not perfect, but few figures can claim to have a perfect paint app. The brown paint doesn’t quite reach the white cuffs where the boxing gloves begin and there is some chipping around the elbow of the right arm of my figure which leaves behind white marks. What is more the fault of the figure and Super7 is how tight the shoulders are. Clearly, they’re not used to painting this much of their figures because the shoulders were close to stuck out of the box. The left arm was easier to free than the right and it’s fine, but the right arm is all chewed up on the underside of the shoulder joint. That sucks, and the elbows are also very hard to work with and I think it’s a combination of paint and how far recessed the hinge is in the arm. I basically have to take the hands off to work the elbows otherwise they’ll just pop off. They, and the heads, come off easily. Maybe too easily for the hands, but they’re not falling out so I’m not bothered by that. I am, once again, bothered by the hips though. Just like Radioactive Man, the right leg loves to come off when posing the figure. The left is a little better, but I even had that pop off on me when I was setting up for pictures.
Good luck getting him into any sort of “boxing” pose.
The rest of the articulation is pretty mediocre. The shoulders suck and so do the elbows. He has a diaphragm joint that pivots and can go back a bit, but not much forward. The waist twist doesn’t want to work on mine. It moves, but snaps right back into a neutral position so I think plastic is bending as opposed to rotating. The hips have good range, but the knees do not. Ankles are fine, but this is a design with stubby legs and small feet relative to the body so posing options are going to be pretty limited. He can’t really get into a “ready” position for a boxing match, but he can sort of deliver a punch at least. He, like most of the figures in this line, is best equipped to just stand on your shelf in a fairly neutral pose. And as a blunt, understated, sort of tough guy in the show, that’s at least a look that works better with Tatum than others.
Not enough is made of his nickname in the show.
Tatum does have some accessories to speak of, most notably the soft goods “Mr. Armageddon” robe. It’s very well done and looks nice. There’s no wire this time, but this isn’t the sort of garment calling for one. It looks so good though that I doubt many will display the figure with it off. For alternate heads we have a teeth gritting expression which is meaner than the normal one and an eyes closed one with a smile. They’re painted well enough, though I can’t see myself ever using the smiling portrait. Since Tatum wears boxing gloves, there isn’t much need for alternate hands, but we do get one extra set. They’re open hands with peg holes in them and they’re to be used with his championship belt. The belt is really thick and done on a rubbery plastic. It has pegs on the reverse side so he can hold the belt over his head. It does not fit around his waist nor does it look good draped over a shoulder because it’s just too thick to hang naturally. Completing the look is a white, preposed, towel to be draped over Tatum’s shoulders and it looks good whether he’s robed or not. The last accessory is his “butt-ugly shoe” which is from the episode “Large Marge.” Tatum was paid to endorse them, but wasn’t up to the task. Or just too honest for his own good.
“Please purchase this shoddy action figure butt-ugly shoe which I have been paid millions of dollars to endorse.”
Drederick Tatum is another somewhat subpar release for this line. He looks better than some of the other figures in the line, but the quality control isn’t up to par. Especially for the money Super7 is charging. It’s still hard to shake the feeling that the company blew off a lot of the review process in order to get these out faster (it was rumored that Super7’s slow release pace was a problem for Disney) because it’s very basic, tolerance, checks that these figures are failing at. The hips are still an issue and so are the shoulders. They both required more fine-tuning, which is indicative of a rush job since that fine-tuning may have been scrapped. Super7’s Brian Flynn acknowledged the issues with Devil Flanders, but said nothing of the rest of the wave other than to sell it as “So good,” like it’s a tragedy the line is ending. And to be clear, Devil Flanders is the lone figure I think was absolutely not fit for release in its present state. The rest are more flawed than outright disasters.
The champion of Wave 4?
Even with its problems, the Drederick Tatum figure is the best of The Simpsons Ultimates! Wave Four. That’s an admittedly low bar since one figure wasn’t fit for release while the other had plenty of issues on its own. The real question is does this figure do anything to warrant the price tag? No, not really. I mean, if you want a figure of Drederick Tatum this at least looks good. It’s going to satisfy that need, it’s just overpriced at $65. It’s possible not a ton of these figures were produced so waiting for a discount might come back to haunt the person who needs this figure to complete their collection, but I still have a hard time seeing this guy sell out at the current price. If you’re asking me it’s probably worth the gamble, but perhaps be ready to pounce if it drops below 40 bucks. Next week, we’ll see if this line’s final figure can redeem this awful wave or if the line is fated to end like Homer’s attempt at jumping the gorge.
Want to see more from Super7’s take on The Simpsons (you masochist):
Last week, we started on our journey through the fourth and final wave of Ultimates! from Super7 based on The Simpsons. It did not start well. Devil Flanders represented a new low point for the line and maybe for Super7 as a whole. I know I certainly do not own a worse Super7 figure than…
Last week, we concluded our look at the third wave of Super7’s line of figures based on The Simpsons and now we embark on the fourth and final wave. That’s right, Disney pulled the rug out from under Super7 and handed The Simpsons license over to Jakks. Their products will start rolling out this fall.…
We wrap-up our look at Wave 3 of Super7’s Ultimates! line of action figures based on The Simpsons today with the main villain of the series: Charles Montgomery Burns. Mr. Burns has been around since the beginning and, like Ralph, is a worthy inclusion in the line at this stage and it’s only odd that…
He’s not just Springfield’s hero, he’s America’s hero.
Last week, we started on our journey through the fourth and final wave of Ultimates! from Super7 based on The Simpsons. It did not start well. Devil Flanders represented a new low point for the line and maybe for Super7 as a whole. I know I certainly do not own a worse Super7 figure than that one. This week, we’re going to rely on a man, a radioactive man, to right the ship.
Pardon some of the poor quality, but here we have the three Radioactive Men from left to right: comics, Richter, Wolfcastle. This figure seems to clearly be of Richter, though it’s not perfect. Note, the comic Radioactive Man usually has his nose uncovered unlike how he’s depicted here.
Radioactive Man is, and stop me if you’ve heard me say this already, a curious choice for a toy line’s fourth wave. He’s recognizable to fans of The Simpsons, but likely not high on anyone’s list of wants that would warrant inclusion at this stage. And it’s even more perplexing because, in the show, there are basically three versions of Radioactive Man. There’s the comic book hero whom we’re lightly introduced to in the show’s second episode. His proper introduction occurs in “Three Men and a Comic Book” which we talked about before since it’s the main inspiration for the Bartman figure from the second wave. Comic book Radioactive Man is a comic book superhero like any other. He’s big and musclebound and wears a cape and cowl. The second Radioactive Man is portrayed on TV by the late actor Dirk Richter. The show, in the world of The Simpsons, is a lot like the 60’s Batman show (even though that existed as well in the show’s canon). It’s campy, and Richter doesn’t exactly feature a body with “heroic” proportions. The final Radioactive Man is played by Springfield regular Rainier Wolfcastle for the Radioactive Man movie which was the subject of one episode. He is basically like the comic book version, but with a different profile.
“Is that supposed to be me?”
So which Radioactive Man did Super7 produce? I don’t know. This figure references the comic book hero on the box and the accessories seem to indicate that, but he doesn’t look like the heroic Radioactive Man from the show. He looks more like Richter’s Radioactive Man, at least his body, with a comic book head. I can definitely say this is not the Wolfcastle version, and even though that’s only from one episode, I would argue that version is the most memorable. This Radioactive Man is rather frumpy in appearance. There’s no muscle definition to the sculpt. The arms and legs are sculpted in such a way as to make the costume appear baggy. The hands and feet are fairly large like a hero might possess, but that’s it. It’s cosplay Radioactive Man.
It’s a guy in red and yellow pajamas – isn’t that what you wanted?
The approach is unfortunate because the figure just looks very bland. It’s mostly yellow and red plastic with just a touch of paint here and there. The paint applications are just okay to mediocre. There’s a little bleeding around the muzzle of my angry portrait while the eyes feature the same on the stern face. The atomic logo on the stern face is also off-center and there are little, red, blemishes on the yellow, plastic, gloves. The red is at least coated with a matte spray and looks pretty good. It’s probably on the yellow as well, but it doesn’t do much to take-away from the cheap look it has. The lower legs are sculpted to appear baggy, which I don’t care for and it makes for a bit of an ugly knee joint. The thing I dislike most though is how they did the cape. It features a big, cavernous, carve-out for the head and that’s because the cape needs to loop over the ball-joint inside. It takes away from the figure’s neck and makes the cape look like it’s just emerging from inside the chest? I wish they had done it the same way they did Duffman’s cape, which is how the licensing art on the box does it as well, because this just doesn’t look good.
Beware of stuck joints that strip away paint.
The look of the figure may be a bit more on the subjective end, but the quality is definitely more objective. Like Flanders, this is a figure that doesn’t have a premium look or feel to it despite the $55 asking price. The shoulders are really tight and the red paint on them chips and flakes off with relative ease. I have a large, yellow, blemish, behind the right shoulder on mine. I’m afraid to move him much as a result because I don’t want any more paint to chip-away. The head appears to be misshapen when it comes to the socket. It’s extremely wide at the base, and then deeper in the head where the ball should snap-in which is quite narrow. The end result is that the stern head just barely pops on while the angry one fits a little better. It takes minimal effort to knock it off and will likely drive anyone nuts who is trying to pose this thing. The hips, like Flanders, are also unnaturally loose. They’re not as bad as Devil Flanders as they will mostly stay where you position them, but while moving and posing the figure expect them to fall off unintentionally. In particular, the right leg on mine is prone to coming off.
Not the best logo placement on the right.
This is about as good a flying pose as the articulation will allow. Granted, I’m using a pretty bad flight stand here.
I suppose the head and hips are less of an issue with a figure that you either won’t want to pose or really just can’t pose well. Like many figures in this line, Radioactive Man does not prioritize articulation. He’s just going to stand on your shelf, desk, whatever in a pretty neutral pose. His head doesn’t look up well enough for a head-on flying pose as seen on the cover of Radioactive Man #1, and the range of the arms and such aren’t going to lend to anything dynamic. The shoulders are super tight and can’t reach a horizontal position anyway and elbows and knees won’t reach 90 degrees. The hip range is quite good at least while the waist twist is surprisingly limited. The cape is wired and I will say that while I may have not always liked the soft goods in this line, at least the capes have always been wired which is a good thing.
“Hey, ma! It happened again!” I don’t know why he’s talking like Cletus.
If you’re hoping for the accessories to help sell this one, well, you may be let down. This is a very light release as we get just the two portraits and a small assortment of hands: fists, a single gripping right hand, a pointing left hand, a relaxed right hand, and a thumb’s up left. It’s weird to have only one gripping hand. It’s also weird we get the one relaxed hand as two of them would make for okay flying hands, but since he can’t look forward anyway I suppose it’s not necessary. For his gripping hand, he has an American flag. It looks pretty good, it’s not accurate to an actual flag, but I’m guessing that’s on purpose. For the relaxed hand, he has a comic book that can slot between the thumb and index finger. It’s Radioactive Man introducing Neutrino. Not a particularly memorable sight gag from the show. It’s also very flimsy and warped out of the box, but the printing is nice and sharp.
He’s got a comic. Cool?
He’s just a big Hacksaw fan.
That is all though. It seems like a very uninspired set of accessories. Maybe they wanted to do a gag smoking head and hands accessory, but after the Krusty issue it had to be cut? If this is indeed Dirk Richter, why not include some punching effects to really drive that home? The flag is about as sterile as it gets. I get it that Radioactive Man is sort of like the show’s Superman in imagery, but it doesn’t really make for a fun, or funny, release. This is a comedy series, after all, but I’m left wondering where’s the comedy? If they had gone with Wolfcastle, we could have had a goggles portrait which is really the character’s most iconic moment from the show. And if it had been a more comic look for the body, a Wolfcastle alternate head would have worked just fine. Anything referencing the show within a show could have been funny, but instead I’ve got this frumpy looking Radioactive Man in a Hacksaw Jim Duggan pose. Neat?
I guess these guys go together?
When it comes to Radioactive Man I just don’t see what reason Super7 is putting forth for Simpsons fans to buy this. It really is a figure for the completists or for that one hardcore Radioactive Man fan out there, but then again, the odd approach might annoy that person more than me. I don’t know who this figure is for and I don’t see anything here that is making a strong argument for your money. What is becoming an all too common refrain with this line is the recommendation to not buy it, but wait it out. It’s unlikely to sell out and will probably be heavily discounted as soon as this summer. Perhaps next week we’ll look at a figure that can turn things around for Simpsons Wave Four, otherwise this line is going to go out with a whimper.
Here’s a look at more stuff from Super7’s take on the World of Springfield:
Last week, we concluded our look at the third wave of Super7’s line of figures based on The Simpsons and now we embark on the fourth and final wave. That’s right, Disney pulled the rug out from under Super7 and handed The Simpsons license over to Jakks. Their products will start rolling out this fall.…
We wrap-up our look at Wave 3 of Super7’s Ultimates! line of action figures based on The Simpsons today with the main villain of the series: Charles Montgomery Burns. Mr. Burns has been around since the beginning and, like Ralph, is a worthy inclusion in the line at this stage and it’s only odd that…
Last week, we talked about two out of left field choices by Super7 for its line of action figures based on The Simpsons. This week, we’re discussing a fan favorite character that belongs and his inclusion is only perplexing given that there is no member of the Simpson family in the wave. Ralph Wiggum was…
It’s a bit odd seeing Burns just standing there all alone with no Smithers at his side.
We wrap-up our look at Wave 3 of Super7’s Ultimates! line of action figures based on The Simpsons today with the main villain of the series: Charles Montgomery Burns. Mr. Burns has been around since the beginning and, like Ralph, is a worthy inclusion in the line at this stage and it’s only odd that he’s arriving before the likes of Marge and Lisa. Burns is a Springfield regular as owner of the town’s nuclear power plant and boss to Homer Simpson. He starts off as just a mostly horrible boss type, but soon morphs into an almost cartoonishly evil character. He’s also a joke machine for old world references owing to the fact that he’s 109 years old. He’s a horrible man, but a powerful one, and all his power rests with his bank account. Take that away and he’s a pathetically weak old man who couldn’t even wrestle a lollipop from a baby.
He’s taller than a child, but not as tall as the show’s more classically trained super villain.
Burns has the usual Ultimates! packaging with slipcover which is soon to be the old style as you’ll see when we get to Wave 4. One thing I have not mentioned yet with this third wave is how terrible the plastic bubble that holds the figures in place has been. I don’t know what happened, but this is usually something Super7 does well and I should sing the praises of it more since they tend to package their figures in plastic bubbles with few tie-downs. I enjoy buying NECA figures, but I hate unboxing them because of those damn things. With this wave, some of the figures have been a real bastard to get out. It’s too tight, especially around the extra heads. I had to cut both Ralph and Burns’ heads out of the thing because I could not get them out. It sucks because I like to keep these boxes and store the accessories in them so I’d rather not mangle them, but oh well.
Look! He’s crowning!
Burns stands at approximately 6.75″ to the top of his head. He is famously of poor posture and if he was capable of standing fully upright he’d be a little taller. He’s sporting a dark green business suit with white undershirt and black tie. Right away, we have a problem. Modern Simpsons reference art places Burns in a green suit, but it’s very much a blue green while this figure has more of a forest green to his suit. Much of the classic era of the show would put Burns in a blue suit and I’m not sure how Super7 settled on this particular shade of green. The solicitation images have a more blue-green tone to the suit so I think this is just a case of the factory not producing the proper color. Did Super7 approve it? Probably.
At least they got the posture right.
“You there! How dare you make me look bad with that painted, yellow, head of yours!”
Continuing with the trend of the third wave, Burns does not feature much paint. He’s matte, but the head isn’t painted yellow like the figures that came before it. The body is pretty much all green and the white and black parts are painted over. The left side of my figure’s shirt is painted horribly with a ton of green showing through. The exposed portions of his white socks are also painted, but the ankle hinges are cast in a pale white. The paint will flake off when moving them, but that comes with the territory of painted hinges. What stinks is there’s a lot of transfer from the green plastic to these hinges and the paint that flakes off around the hinge will expose green plastic as well. For a $55 figure with what should be a simple paint application it doesn’t look great.
Burns has a right to be pissed given the shoddy nature of this paint job.
Aside from that, the overall sculpt is acceptable. His shoes have a funny shape to them, but it’s not necessarily wrong, just more noticeable in 3D. The portrait looks good which features the standard Burns look with exaggerated overbite, though I would have preferred a hint of an evil smile. The spots near his left temple are sculpted on, but not outlined so they look a bit weird. The nose appears to be a separate piece that had to be glued on which created an unnatural seam line. It’s not awful, but a little surprising that it was deemed necessary. The figure looks okay, but plain and the lack of paint on his head gives off a cheap appearance. He almost more resembles his character model from a PlayStation 2 era Simpsons game because of this lack of detail.
I guess it’s good he comes with this accessory since I do feel like he owes me money. Maybe not a trillion, but something.
The articulation on Mr. Burns is pretty limited and in some ways downright poor. He has good range at the neck, but that’s pretty much it. The shoulders are pretty standard and the elbows lack the ability to hit a 90 degree bend. This is more problematic with Burns as his default posture in the show features his elbows bent at 90 degrees and hands hanging like a T-Rex or something. He can’t quite do this, but does get probably close enough for most. His waist is ball jointed which is situated deep inside the torso because of his long coat. It’s basically just a pivot point as the coat is hard plastic. He can’t kick forward really at all, but it’s actually not because of the coat, the joint is just terrible as I pulled him apart to check it out. Knee range is terrible while the ankle hinges work fine. He has an ankle rocker, but it too is pretty limited.
Bobo is along for the ride, but should look way grosser.
There’s a lot of character packed into this evil laughing head, but I can’t see myself every displaying it.
This line is definitely not striving for articulation and instead prioritizing the sculpt and accessories to bring these characters to life. While Burns fares better than Ralph Wiggum from last week, he’s still not as well-thought out as he could be. Burns has his “hooked” hands by default, but he also has a set of relaxed hands, “Excellent” hands, and a set of gripping hands where his right hand is much wider than the left. He also has the more usual two alternate portraits: an evil laugh with side-eye, and an eyes closed contented face. The evil laugh, which also doubles as an angry yell, is pretty self-explanatory and capable of adding a dash dynamism to your display while the contented expression is pretty much only useful for when he’s holding his teddy bear Bobo. Bobo is displayed as he was post being frozen, though not with the same level of detail as he was in the show. This is rather perplexing since it’s far harder to capture detail in animation than it is on a 3D model, but it’s true of Bobo. He has one dangling eye and stuffing popping out, but there’s no texture. Bobo looks so gross and sponge-like in places in the show so this depiction feels very underwhelming. Burns can at least clutch him to his bosom fairly easily.
Good old Blinky.
Did anybody want this?
Burns also comes with a serving tray featuring Blinky, the famous three-eyed fish who debuted in Season Two and resurfaces on occasion. Like Bobo, there’s not much texture to the fish and the paint on his fins where the body meets the lettuce he’s being served on is not applied very well. It’s also a missed opportunity that the lid to the serving tray Kodos comes with doesn’t also fit over Blinky. Burns also has an issue of Burns Weekly. It’s a soft piece of red plastic with an image of Burns printed on it. It’s very flimsy and there’s no attempt at sculpting on the edges to make it resemble an actual magazine. Very lazy, and also not really welcomed. I’d much prefer a copy of Burns’ autobiography Will There Ever Be a Rainbow? Lastly, we also get Burns’ trillion dollar bill which is on another piece of soft plastic with printing on both side. It looks fine, but it’s unnaturally thick for a bill. I guess it’s fine though since it makes it easier for the figure to hold and more durable. He basically only has one hand that can hold it, the left “Excellent” hand has the thumb positioned under the palm so the bill (or magazine) can be slotted in between effectively enough.
Well, at least Mr. Burns got what he wanted.
Burns is only slightly better than Ralph and it comes on the strength of more accessories and overall a better sculpt, but in comparison to the first two waves of the line he’s pretty underwhelming. I’m assuming the paint on the front of mine is unique to my copy and not a reflection of every Burns figure Super7 puts out, but the paint apps have been spotty in general so who can say how uncommon it is? It definitely doesn’t look and feel like a premium collectible so it’s impossible to recommend at $55. Plus, without a Smithers to pair him with the figure feels almost incomplete, because what is Burns without his sycophantic righthand man? Only get this if you absolutely have to have a Mr. Burns figure in this scale, and even then you should probably wait for the eventual discounted price that is almost sure to come before the year is through. Next up is wave four of this line and if you thought wave 3 was a little disappointing, then you haven’t seen nothing yet.
Join me as I journey through Super7’s take on The Simpsons:
Last week, we talked about two out of left field choices by Super7 for its line of action figures based on The Simpsons. This week, we’re discussing a fan favorite character that belongs and his inclusion is only perplexing given that there is no member of the Simpson family in the wave. Ralph Wiggum was…
We are onto the third wave of Ultimates! from Super7 based on The Simpsons. Like past waves, plenty of questions abound when it comes to Super7’s character selection and they’re not unfounded. Perhaps the two most questionable inclusions in this third wave are the subject of today’s post: Kang and Kodos. These are two separate…
If you’ve been following along with my reviews on the second wave of Super7’s The Simpsons Ultimates!, then you will have noted that I’ve had a bit of a love/hate relationship with this wave. For the most part, the sculpts and deco have been on point, it’s some of the little things that have been…
This is the story about a boy who just wanted to be loved.
Last week, we talked about two out of left field choices by Super7 for its line of action figures based on The Simpsons. This week, we’re discussing a fan favorite character that belongs and his inclusion is only perplexing given that there is no member of the Simpson family in the wave. Ralph Wiggum was featured in the very first episode of The Simpsons, but as a character, he wasn’t really developed until Season Four’s “I Love Lisa.” Up until that point, he was just some kid who was a little heavy-set, but made little impression. “I Love Lisa” made Ralph the character he is today. He’s more than a little slow, but genuine, and very impressionable. Unfortunately, he gets bad advice from his dad, the chief of police, which basically sets him up to have his heart broken by Lisa, but it all turns out well in the end. It’s not my favorite episode of The Simpsons, but it is one I adore and there are few episodes I’ve watched more than that one.
He wants to be loved, but not touched.
As an action figure, Ralph is a bit of a hard sell. The character is certainly beloved and not particularly difficult to translate to 3D, but it’s not one that presents a lot of opportunity for articulation or flashy paints. And since Super7’s Ultimates! line carries a base price of $55, Ralph is especially tough to value as he’s the same price as Homer, Moe, Krusty, and up to this point basically everyone except the massive Kang and Kodos. Super7 is one of those companies that has no problems asking its consumers to pay more for bigger characters, but never do they charge less for the small. And with Ralph, it’s hard to argue that Super7 has done much of anything to alleviate that.
The height of Ralph seems fine when compared with Bartman, but the rest? Eh, no.
Ralph stands at approximately 4.25″, probably a tick under. He’s just a little shorter than Bartman, which is proper for true scale, though his larger proportions make him look odd beside Bart. Ralph’s height is fine, but the rest isn’t really in scale. Unfortunately for Super7, there’s an entire episode about Bart and Ralph being paired up so there’s no shortage of reference images. Ralph’s hands and feet are gargantuan in comparison to Bart’s and the two do not look good side-by-side. I think this is a case of Super7 just not wanting to go smaller on Ralph than they did because then the asking price would look even more foolish. A lot of action figure lines tend to add a little to the smallest characters, and take a little from the largest to try to find a happy medium and I do think that’s true here. How much it bothers collectors is likely to vary from person-to-person, it’s just a shame the line ended up being a brief one because there’s really no one to pair Ralph with on the shelf if not Bartman. I guess he always was a bit of a loner.
Even with the adults his proportions just seem too big. His feet are bigger than Moe’s.
Aside from the scale, the sculpt on Ralph is fine. He has his almost blank expression where he’s smiling and it’s captured. He has his blue shirt and brown pants and basically the only paint is reserved for the eyes, shirt, and belt. His head does not appear to be painted yellow and instead Super7 just went with a matte coat. It’s a step back from the paint jobs we saw in the second wave of the line and I’m curious if these final two waves (which shipped at the same time and only a few weeks after the second) were rushed or had cuts made to them since Disney was pulling the license. The paint on the blue shirt is applied all right, but there are some blemishes. It also chips and flakes around where the arms plug into the shoulders leaving behind ugly, yellow, spots. By far though, my least favorite thing about the presentation of the figure is how Super7 did Ralph’s hair. Ralph has this very thin, wispy, hair in the show and Super7 opted to sculpt it in soft, black, plastic and glue it to his head. The end result is it’s just far too thick and he almost looks like he has dreadlocks. I think the proper way to do the hair would have been to sculpt it into his head and just paint it. Or do it with with something thinner, like the bristles you might find on a brush. This choice doesn’t work very well. You can especially see it in the reference art on the box how the diameter of his hair should be smaller than his pupils, but with the figure it’s the opposite.
At least it covers up the awful hair.
There isn’t much to say about Ralph’s articulation. It’s terrible. He’s barely better than a ReAction figure. The head just rotates and so do the shoulders. His elbows have little range as do the hinges in his hands. He has a waist twist, and everything below that is essentially useless. I don’t know what they were trying to do with the ankles as there’s basically a brown post that goes into his feet. There is a hinge, but it does almost nothing. There’s a gap between the end of his pants and shoes as a result and it looks bad. Ralph was never going to have terrific range at these joints, but it’s like they didn’t even try.
The only accessory you need?
A little statue like Ralph is relying on accessories to create value. I often get the sense with Super7 that they start at the $55 price and then try to add enough stuff to hit their cost target. With Ralph, I don’t really get that sense and instead this figure feels like a cost-saving one. The most popular character in the line that will probably sell the best so let’s produce it cheaply and maximize profit! Ralph has no extra hands and one extra head. That head is exactly the same as the default one, except it has a melted ice cream cone glued to the forehead. That’s it. The heads are really hard to swap too and I can’t see myself ever wanting to use this reference from a later episode that’s also a dated joke that hasn’t aged well. Why no toothy grin? Or better yet, a grin with red crayon all over the teeth? This is just bad.
“Go banana!”
Ralph’s other accessories include a banana, jar of paste, Valentine, sign, and computer. The banana and jar of paste have hands sculpted to them which I guess is fine. The jar has a removable top with paste at the end of a brush inside it, but Ralph’s range of motion is so terrible he can’t hold it with the top on. The Valentine is what you would expect and features the “I Choo-Choo-Choose You” remark and there’s a picture of a train. It’s great for what it is and if it wasn’t included there would be riots. There is a “WARNING DO NOT HUG” sign that can be hung around Ralph’s neck which, again, is from a much later episode. I would have preferred his Idaho costume instead. The sign is all plastic so it doesn’t even hang properly and looks stupid. The computer is an old, boxy, design and Ralph is practicing spelling “CAT” on it and there’s a picture of a cat. It too is from a post golden age episode, but at least it’s the Super Nintendo Chalmers scene so I’ll allow it, but there isn’t really anything for Ralph to do with it. He can’t hold it and he doesn’t have a desk to put it on. It just sits there.
“Miss Hoover! I’m all out of ice cream!”
For such an iconic character, Ralph’s accessories are severely underwhelming. And considering how small he is and that he has just one alternate head, he should have more. Where is his key to the town? Where’s the leprechaun that tells him to start fires? He could have had soft goods and another head to recreate his George Washington costume. He could have had his TV dinner he needs someone to microwave for him or his box of Star Wars collectibles. What about the cat he likes talking about so much? A box of crayons with a missing red crayon? There’s just so much! Obviously, Super7 could not have given us everything, but it’s like they tried to impress us with deeper cuts from later in the show’s life when they would have been better served to just focus on “I Love Lisa” and deliver as much from that episode as possible like a facial expression from the exact moment his heart rips in two.
If you’re a fan of The Simpsons and collecting this line, should you get Ralph Wiggum? I mean, as a character, of course. He’s probably the most popular character in the wave. As an action figure that costs $55? Absolutely not. Super7 did not earn your money with this release. The paint is mediocre, the sculpt is too large, the articulation is practically non-existent and the accessories uninspired. This is a dud of a release. Yeah, mixed in on your shelf with the rest of the line (provided he’s not next to Bartman) Ralph will look okay, but no one is likely to see it and go “Oh wow! I love that Ralph!” If I wasn’t going all-in on this line as a show of support so it would go on for awhile (oops), I would have passed or at least cancelled my preorder when Super7 figures started routinely hitting the discount rack. I suggest anyone who does have an interest in Ralph to just wait for such an event.
We are onto the third wave of Ultimates! from Super7 based on The Simpsons. Like past waves, plenty of questions abound when it comes to Super7’s character selection and they’re not unfounded. Perhaps the two most questionable inclusions in this third wave are the subject of today’s post: Kang and Kodos. These are two separate…
If you’ve been following along with my reviews on the second wave of Super7’s The Simpsons Ultimates!, then you will have noted that I’ve had a bit of a love/hate relationship with this wave. For the most part, the sculpts and deco have been on point, it’s some of the little things that have been…
If you’re going to market action figures to a fanbase as venerable as The Simpsons, you should probably go after what they love most. Simpsons fans love to make references to their favorite episodes and characters and one of the top episodes from the show is “You Only Move Twice” from the show’s seventh season.…
We are onto the third wave of Ultimates! from Super7 based on The Simpsons. Like past waves, plenty of questions abound when it comes to Super7’s character selection and they’re not unfounded. Perhaps the two most questionable inclusions in this third wave are the subject of today’s post: Kang and Kodos. These are two separate releases, but since the figures are practically the same it makes sense to review the two at the same time. These aliens could be described as fan favorite characters and they owe much of that status to their close ties to the annual Halloween celebration that is Treehouse of Horror. For awhile, these two aliens could be counted on to make at least a cameo appearance, but the show seems to have mostly dropped that. They’ve probably appeared in more than they’ve missed, and their debut occurred in the very first installment of the Halloween tradition. Still, they take up two slots of a wave that includes four figures and not one of them is an actual member of the Simpson family (though one does make it into this wave as an accessory) which is more than a little bizarre. Why not save the pair for a Treehouse-themed wave? Devil Flanders is in the fourth wave, so they’re only one figure short. Oh well, Super7’s poor planning is not the fault of these figures so let’s just see if they can stand on their own merits.
Robot Scratchy has been overthrown.
The aliens of The Simpsons are green, octopus-like creatures with one eye and a massive maw that is constantly overflowing with saliva. The aliens apparently need a very specific type of mix to the air they breath so they are most often seen in a large glass helmet that covers their head, but still allows for their tentacles to be free. I had never paid much attention to how many tentacles each alien has, but if Super7 can be assumed to have done its homework then the answer is five. Kang and Kodos are siblings and in one episode Kang refers to Kodos as his sister, though I think they refer to the character as a “he” in later episodes. Since they are largely from the Treehouse of Horror anthology episodes, their appearances are basically non-canon anyway so their circumstances change to suit the jokes and situations each plot presents. They did have one non-Treehouse appearance, but it’s an episode most consider to be pretty terrible and I have no idea if it’s considered canon or not by the show’s writers. Regardless, as action figures these two present an obvious challenge since there isn’t a whole lot to articulate. They’re also massive and come at an inflated price of $75 each. That was too rich for me initially, though once the line was cancelled I felt better about extending myself to make sure I had a full collection. Plus, I took advantage of an influencer discount at Entertainment Earth (Preternia, if you’re curious, since that guy is always alerting me to great action figure deals) and free shipping was just enough to get me to bite now rather than hold out for a possible discount later. These two arrived in a massive box which was honestly pretty exciting.
“We find your lack of mass amusing.”
The packaging for Kang and Kodos is consistent with the first two waves so slipcovers are included. The cardstock in use for their oversized boxes is thicker than usual and both actually got a little beat up in transit. They’re too big to save anyways so I tossed them, but they’re definitely two of the bigger Ultimates! boxes I’ve encountered. I think both the Power Rangers T-Rex and Dragonzord were wider, but these were deeper and taller. They’re also held in place with lots of tie-downs and twist-ties which is annoying, but they did seem to keep everything in place.
Everything about this pair is big.
Kang and Kodos are exactly the same size. Their “heads” are a little over 7″ alone and once you put the dome on their bodies you’re talking about something that’s over 11″ tall. They are big and impressive to look at, but I stress the “look at” part. In-hand, they feel shockingly cheap. Shockingly because they don’t look how one would expect them to feel. The heads are hollow so they’re very light. Some parts of the heads appear to be painted and some appear to be colored plastic made to fit in place. The mouth area is all painted well, but the green spots on the tops of the heads can be iffy. Kodos, in particular, has some bad paint up there where some of the spots are unfinished. Worse though are these domes. They’re plastic and are manufactured in two halves and then glued together. I think, because they don’t want to separate. Both were pretty scuffed up right out of the box and since they were packaged well I’m assuming they went into the box in this condition. Once again, it’s Kodos that gets the worst of it as their dome has a pretty nice scrape on it near the top and also a random black dot. Unfortunately, both eyesores are on different sides so one is always visible and the seams around the whole thing do limit the display options. Oddly, Kang’s was packaged differently and included a soft, plastic, hose around the tip of the dome though the tip on Kodos’ dome arrived fine without it. Kang also had more plastic wrapped around his head for some reason. Kodos has what appears to be some tape stuck over the left side of the eye that I’m having a hard time getting off too.
It doesn’t photograph well, but the domes are scuffed up on mine. Hopefully it’s an isolated issue.
The domes and badly painted spots are my only gripes about the presentation with these two because they have the size to earn their spot on a shelf. If they can fit, that is. I’ve been displaying my collection on the Arcade 1-Up editions of The Simpsons arcade game and these two aren’t going to fit. If I was determined to pull it off I probably could, but I doubt I’d be able to add any others. Instead, they’re going on a stand beside the cabinet and I’ll probably stick Devil Flanders with them as well.
They basically pose just enough to use their accessories.
For articulation, there’s not a lot to speak of. The heads rotate on the base and the eye is articulated as well. It’s basically a marble that can be moved around which is a nice touch. The two front and one rear tentacle are connected with hinged pegs so they can move a bit, but the range for the hinge is pretty minimal. The two side tentacles function as the arms and are connected to the body in the same manner, but they’re skinnier so the range is better. They’re also segmented and each features an “elbow” and a “wrist” for additional posing. All of the joints are the same hinged peg and they don’t do a ton. I’m not sure if a ball joint would have been better. There would likely be better range, but the sculpt would likely be broken up even more. You’re basically just going to pick your favorite accessories and pose them accordingly.
There are quite a few food-based accessories.
And for accessories, we get a lot of stuff just pulled from the show. Kodos features two tentacle ends that come to a soft point which can be swapped with a tentacle holding a salt shaker, ray gun, serving tray, or the big book on how to cook for forty humans. The ray gun is a really fun design and well painted. The tentacle piece holding onto it is kind of like a “trigger” tentacle and it pegs into the handle of the gun and can be removed. Without the gun, it sort of looks like a thumb’s up gesture. The other items have the tentacle molded to them. The serving tray or dish is a domed one and the dome does come off, though Super7 didn’t provide anything to place in it. I guess they can serve potato chips or a cream pie if you have Homer and Krusty. The other portrait for Kodos is a laughing expression and it’s a nice complement to the more menacing, default, portrait. It’s a bit more visually engaging and I feel drawn to it over the standard look.
Ladies and gentlemen, the only Simpson of wave 3.
At least she scales reasonably well.
For Kang, he has a cheeky grin by default and his alternate portrait is the same as the one included with Kodos except his eye is closed. It’s kind of lame as a result because the moveable eye is the best piece of articulation the two have. If you want the two laughing on your shelf then I guess it’s fine. Kang also comes with his hitchhiking sign that says “Earth Capital.” His default right tentacle ends in a hook shape which can hold it in place if you wish, or it has a peg hole and can be affixed to the gun-holding tentacle end, which Kang also comes with. His other parts are tentacles holding a knife and fork so you can pair the two up for a dinner scene. Kang’s best accessory though is his daughter, Maggie, following the loss of her baby legs. Maggie looks pretty vicious as she has a wide grin with visible sharp tooth. Her pacifier is on one of her tentacles and her head can rotate. She’s painted well and is the only Simpson included in wave three. Since she is in variant form, I guess it makes sense given that was the case for Homer and Bart. If you want to place her with them, she does scale pretty well.
“Go ahead and eat me. At least I’ll be able to die saying I had dinner plans.”
These two look pretty damn good and the accessories included are fine. I would have preferred a better secondary portrait for Kang, perhaps an angry one that pairs with the angry one included with Kodos, but otherwise I’m pretty satisfied with what’s included. I just wish the domes turned out cleaner. They display all right, but look pretty bad up close and for seventy-five bucks it’s inexcusable. That’s the big hindrance with these two as that asking price is crazy. I don’t know what they cost to manufacturer and ship obviously, but when Super7 asks for a premium on these larger figures, but still charges $55 for Bartman and Ralph it definitely makes the consumer feel as if they’re not getting a great value. The cheap in-hand feel of this pair doesn’t help as they don’t feel like $75 figures. I’m left wondering if it would have been better to just do them as soft vinyl figures outside of the Ultimates! line. They would have sacrificed articulation, but that would have been no great loss and looked and felt a whole lot better. They also probably would have been $200 a piece considering Super7’s Super Size vinyl figures are $300 and in some cases are not much bigger. This is what we got though so if you want a Kang and Kodos in this scale better ready that wallet or hope for a clearance event down the road. These two may not have been ordered in the quantities other figures were so it’s hard to know if it will happen, but I’d say it’s more likely than not. Just watch out for a run on them as Halloween approaches.
We have plenty more from the world of Springfield and Super7:
If you’ve been following along with my reviews on the second wave of Super7’s The Simpsons Ultimates!, then you will have noted that I’ve had a bit of a love/hate relationship with this wave. For the most part, the sculpts and deco have been on point, it’s some of the little things that have been…
When I concluded my review of wave 1 of The Simpsons Ultimates! from Super7 I was thinking that I’d be back with more reviews later in the year. That was in February of 2023. We are now in April of 2024 and finally wave two has arrived (my original order was place January 5th, 2022).…
If you’re going to market action figures to a fanbase as venerable as The Simpsons, you should probably go after what they love most. Simpsons fans love to make references to their favorite episodes and characters and one of the top episodes from the show is “You Only Move Twice” from the show’s seventh season.…
The Nostalgia Spot 