We are getting oh so very close to assembling the original Manhattan Clan in action figure form! Disney’s take on gothic beasts originally included the following gargoyles: Goliath, Hudson, Bronx, Brooklyn, Broadway, and Lexington. The clan would grow from there, but those six are still the first that come to mind for me when I think Gargoyles, and with the release of Broadway we’re just one figure away from having the entire crew in place. Broadway arrives hot on the heels of Brooklyn, or in tandem, depending on where you got your figures. For me, it was basically simultaneous and the arrival of both was very much welcomed by me after only getting one Gargoyles release over the past calendar year. And like virtually all of the rest in this line, Broadway is pretty much as expected. That’s not to say it’s all good, but it is mostly good and I do think that today’s figure will be the favorite in the line for some folks out there.
Broadway arrives just like the others in an oversized NECA Ultimates five-panel box with new artwork by artist and sculptor of the figure Djordje Djokovic with paint by Emiliano Santalucia. I was a little critical of the design of Brooklyn’s box as I felt he didn’t mesh with the background, but for Broadway, it looks terrific and there’s even a little easter egg in the background. As nice as the box is though, I couldn’t care less as I’m interested in what’s inside the box. Broadway, in his neutral stance, is about 6.5″ tall give or take. It’s an inexact science considering the gargoyles always have their knees bent to some degree and that’s true of how I have Broadway. Like the other releases, there’s influences from the cartoon series present in Broadway’s design as well as some added realism. It looks fine in some respects, but maybe not so much in others. His headsculpt is pretty damn close to the show as he has his underbite and there’s a nice roundness to his features. The proportions look great to my eye between the size of his head his fin-like ears and the head is well-painted with some nice shading to help bring out his features.
Broadway is usually pretty cheerful, but he can get angry with the best of them.
Below the head, I have some issues. Broadway is the chubby one of the bunch as seemingly all 90s cartoons needed a fatty who loved food. I don’t recall many jokes at his expense in regards to his weight, and it’s just a feature of his character. NECA did include his rather rotund belly, but they also made Broadway look pretty well-defined when it comes to his muscles. In some ways, it reminds me of 90s Marvel cartoons where seemingly every male character was jacked, even the more portly ones. This wouldn’t bother me if NECA stopped at just the limbs, but it looks like they tried to sculpt some definition to his abs which is weird. And it’s made more weird by the shading along the sides of his belly and a random stripe across his pectorals. It strikes me as a case of just overdoing things. We love our chonky-boy Broadway, just let him be himself, NECA. Not every character needs to be absolutely shredded.
I’m not sure this guy needs weapons to look scary.
Beyond that, the figure does look pretty good. I may disagree with the approach subjectively, but objectively this is a well-sculpted figure. I also think NECA nailed the color of Broadway which is basically a pale teal. There’s more green to him than Demona and I like how his flesh blends with the more saturated blue of his loincloth. The inside of his wings has a lot more yellow applied to create a grassy looking green that’s shaded well. There’s a nice gradient to the membrane with the rear being a dark blue. Unlike Brooklyn, Broadway likely shares some parts with Goliath and Hudson, but it may only be limited to the hands and feet. If they are reused, it’s appropriate reuse and Broadway is going to make up for it with quite a few accessories to pick through.
“What is this?! Vegetables?!”
And those accessories include a bunch of hands, some weapons, food, and a secondary portrait. Broadway has a set of open hands, a set of fists, a tight gripping right hand with vertical hinge, and a loose gripping left hand. His secondary portrait features an aggressive, open-mouthed, pose with the eyes whited-out, which is what we’ve come to expect in a secondary portrait for the line. It looks good, but I always think of Broadway as the most light-hearted of the group so I doubt I’ll make much use of this head. For weapons, we get more Kenner homage stuff with an axe and a morning star. They’re styled and painted in a manner similar to Brooklyn’s lance and they also fit together to form one, long, super weapon. It’s a bit of a bummer that he doesn’t have two, tight, gripping hands to properly wield it with two-hands. Then again, sort of like with the head, I’m unlikely to pose him with random weapons when he comes with food! There’s a turkey leg with a big bite taken out of it that feels right at home with a comic-relief, food, monster. He also has this piece of green sludge, or moss, or algae, or whatever it is which is from the first episode of the show and was consumed by Broadway in the rookery. Best of all though, is the container of popcorn which is well-sculpted and lovingly painted. Yeah, that’s the one going into the display for me.
“Hey bro, let me have some of that popcorn.”
Articulation hasn’t really been a homerun for this line of figures and Broadway is basically more of the same. His more rounded proportions make him feel rather similar to Hudson in some ways, but since he lacks clothing he has a bit more freedom of movement. The head is on the customary double-ball peg which will allow for plenty of rotation and nuance posing. He can look down pretty well, but lacks much range going up as all of these figures seem to have their necks at a bit of an angle coming forward, and without any independent neck articulation they can’t really look up. Which is a shame considering the wings, which peg into the back and are hinged. They’re ratcheted, so you get a handful of positions and they do swivel, but are so damn big and cumbersome. They’re essentially flight wings, but the gargoyles always have to look at the ground since they can’t look forward when flying. Yeah, I’m as sick of complaining about the wings as you probably are reading said complaints, but it’s going to be out there until NECA comes up with a better solution.
“BACK OFF MAN I’M STARVING!”
At the shoulders, we have the usual ball-hinge setup that allows for full rotation while limiting Broadway to a less than horizontal position when trying to raise his arms out to the side. The biceps swivel works fine and the double-elbows will go past 90. At the wrists, we get swivels and hinges with at least one gripping hand having the preferred vertical hinge. In the torso, there’s what feels like a double-ball peg in the diaphragm. It really doesn’t offer much in the way of forward and back, but the figure can rotate there pretty easily and there’s some side-to-side tilt as well. At the waist, we get another twist. For the hips, good old ball and socket joints which allow Broadway to kick out to the side to a position quite close to a full split. Kicking forward works better than it did with Brooklyn, though like the rest in this line, his leg tends to want to go out to the side the further forward you push it, but it can get up to waist level and a little beyond. Kicking back works pretty well too, if you value that. The single-hinged knees bend about 90 degrees, though these monster types are intended to stand with knees bent, though it can go straight if you would rather that. They do swivel, and below that we get ankle and toe articulation where both feature a hinge and rocker. The ankle rocker works pretty nice, while the toe rocker forces you to fight it a bit due to the shape of the sculpt, but it works. At the tail, the usual hinged peg plus bendy wire provides for some freedom of movement. It’s nice and tight on my figure, better than it’s been with most of the rest, so it works like a third leg if needed. Funny enough, Broadway is probably the easiest for me to stand so far and I haven’t really needed to rely on the tail for much help.
Broadway is basically as expected for those who have been collecting the line. I think he’s a little better than average though as I like his sculpt, for the most part, and I think both portraits turned out well. He probably articulates the best out of all of the male gargoyles, understanding he still has his limitations. I do kind of wish he had an articulated jaw since he has lots of food accessories, but I do like how the neutral head turned out. Maybe they could have scrapped the extra weapons most will never use in favor of a third, eating, head. Where he could have been improved is with a softer approach to the torso and more focused shading. The sculpt preference is more subjective on my part, but the shading is a bit weird. And, of course, the wings remain an issue. Especially for Broadway who many are likely to pose snacking on their shelf. He doesn’t need his wings spread out in an aggressive posture when chowing down on popcorn. He, more than perhaps the rest, would have been better served with something more casual.
They look pretty good together, but damn these wings.
If you want to add Broadway to your Gargoyles collection he can be found in various places online and at local comic shops. He is likely to head to the big box retailers in the near future as well so if you primarily get your figures in those places just keep an eye out. He may also run a few dollars cheaper when that happens. MSRP appears to be about $37 or $38 with some retailers charging over $40. He’s a solid enough value at that price considering he does feature plenty of unique tooling and a solid assortment of accessories. I think this one is likely to be a favorite among those who collect this line, and if you are collecting it, well you have to have Broadway in your display.
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For the first time in a long time, we did not have a Turtle Tuesday post this week. We do, however, have a Warriors by Night Wednesday for you! It feels like NECA’s Gargoyles line is the most stop-and-start action figure line I’m into of late. The line has seen large gaps between releases and…
One of last year’s biggest announcements in the world of action figures was NECA’s acquisition of the Gargoyles license. It had been decades since Gargoyles figures occupied real estate at the toy and hobby shops of America and fans of the series were eager to see what NECA had cooking. It being 2021 though, collectors…
Well, here’s something different. Bronx, the good gargoyle dog, is NECA’s fourth entry in its relatively young line of action figures based on the beloved Disney Afternoon series Gargoyles. And not only is Bronx here all on his own, he’s also got something for his buddy Goliath that collectors of this line have been begging…
This past weekend, my daughter and I found ourselves with an afternoon together. This happens from time-to-time since kids often have their own social commitments necessitating one parent go with them and in this case it was my son and my wife going over to the home of one of his friends for a Memorial Day gathering. My daughter probably could have gone along, but she knew it meant that her and I would do something together. Last time this happened, we saw The Super Mario Bros.Movie (I didn’t review it, despite intending to, but it’s fine) so she wanted to go to the movies again. Despite having no interest after seeing the trailer, my daughter settled on the new version of Disney’s The Little Mermaid for a matinee viewing. I, personally, have not enjoyed any of the live-action remakes that Disney has made that I’ve seen so I wasn’t excited to see the film, but it wasn’t my choice to make. I went online, bought tickets, and…wait…this movie is two and half hours long?!?
I reviewed The Little Mermaid (1989) almost 10 years ago and it was a pretty positive review. Since then, I feel like my affection for that movie has only grown. It’s a tight story that’s wonderfully animated and has some really catchy musical numbers to put it over the top. It’s a delight and ranks rather high for me among the all-time Disney greats. Lately, Disney has found a lot of financial success with their live-action remakes of classic films. Critically, it seems few have been embraced, but movie-goers are apparently excited by them. I saw the first couple and found little to enjoy. These are almost all stories older than any of the folks working on them or seeing them, so retellings I am not against. It’s the act that they’re just remaking their movies, not reimagining them in any significant way. And since they are so similar to what came earlier, the only creative difference seems to be a desire to just add more. More backstory, more songs, more filler, which just makes them longer and more of a slog, so you can imagine my excitement when I saw how long this new remake was.
The new Flounder isn’t much to look at. With all of the wondrous creatures that exist under the sea, why not just make him something else entirely?
Disney choosing to remake these movies also has another unintended consequence in that they feel like replacements. 2D animation has been rapidly disappearing from the world over the past two decades and only recently has it started to make a comeback. And those comebacks are mostly relegated to television or streaming and are not done with ink and paint on celluloid. That’s never coming back, but at least we’re getting some variety today, though still not really when we go to the cinema. Those who love 2D animation done in a classical style feel threatened by these remakes, and it’s easy to see why. If the film is damn near perfect already, why do we need a remake? In truth, it’s not about erasure of any kind and it’s just capitalism. These movies are basically already scripted, there’s a screenplay to go off of, and they’re cheaper to make and seem to have a fantastic return on investment.
All of that being said, I watched the latest version of The Little Mermaid from Disney and it’s okay. To make this short, it’s not as good as the 1989 version and even if it was animated it still wouldn’t be nearly as good. The added length comes largely from the movie wanting to remove all subtlety from the original (and I use the term “original” loosely since the original Hans Christian Anderson tale is far older, but when I use the word I’m explicitly talking about the 1989 version). We now have to know that, yes, Ariel’s voice possesses a siren like charm, her mother was killed by humans, and Eric is essentially just like her. He’s basically imprisoned in his own castle and gets his own “I want” song so that we can see that they’re two sides of the same coin, young people yearning to find their place in the world.
The rock scene is just one example of how some things just don’t work as well in live-action.
Ariel is played by Halle Bailey, and maybe because someone noticed that The Little Mermaid features only a fraction of its running time with the main character a mermaid, there’s definitely more of that this time. This film is considered live-action, but much of the action under the sea is computer generated on a green screen. Bailey was motion-caped for these, but almost her entire body is computer generated. The same is true of her sisters with some looking more “CG’d” than others. Bailey has also been blessed with some natural curves to her physique and it looks like Disney may have even toned them down on her and her sisters. Perhaps someone got a little shy when they realized their lead would be mostly naked for large portions of the film. Other sources of criticism at the character design relies in the supporting cast with Sebastian (Daveed Diggs), Flounder (Jacob Tremblay), and Scuttle (Awkwafina) all boasting a more realistic appearance that lacks in charm. Sebastian seems to be getting the most backlash from what I’ve seen since it’s hard to make a crab look cute, though I found Flounder’s expressionless visage even less appealing.
The underwater segments mostly look fine, though they lack the color of the original. The appearance of the characters and the setting is inconsistent. The hair of mermaids all flows like its under water, while objects casually discarded by Ariel fly through the scene without any impediment. Ariel thumbs through a book that appears to be perfectly dry, which in fairness happened in the original film, but why repeat the same mistake? The mermaids also all seem to be designed as nude with their bodies only covered by scales where as King Triton (Javier Bardem) wears full armor now that just looks cold and impersonal. Ursula (Melissa McCarthy) is wearing this lacy dress for her top that looks out of place since it always looks dry. Aside from that critique, I think McCarthy’s Ursula looks the part well enough and she even got an upgrade to 8 tentacles over the 6 she had in the prior film.
The “Kiss the Girl” scene works very well and the chemistry between the leads is there, but strangely vanishes once Ariel gets her voice back.
The other half of the film takes place on land and is the domain of our prince, Eric (Jonah Hauer-King), who wants to restore the port of his island kingdom to its former glory. He’s the adopted son of the queen (Noma Dumezweni) and he came to be adopted as the result of a shipwreck. This gives the queen a distrust of the denizens of the sea while Ariel’s father conveniently hates humans. The kingdom they inhabit isn’t given a name (or I missed it), but it appears to be located somewhere in the Caribbean. It’s not particularly well-developed, but there is some effort to inject more culture into the scenery.
The plot follows the same general beats as the 1989 version. There are no vast changes to the story, and the only thing subtracted is the comical scene in the kitchen between Sebastian and the French chef. Maybe they felt it just wouldn’t work in live-action? Director Rob Marshall apparently didn’t see the wisdom in altering things further as some moments from the animated version just don’t play as well in live-action. In particular, Ariel’s iconic pose atop the rock when she declares her intentions to inhabit Eric’s world. It’s tremendously dramatic in animation, but in live-action looks about as convincing as your sister jumping out of the pool declaring the same. For me, musicals in general are harder for me to take-in when filmed in live-action. Eric’s song, in particular, was just too much for me and I would have cut the whole thing.
Which brings me to the songs. All of the classics are here, well excepting the kitchen scene, and they’re redone in a mostly faithful way. Some of the words to “Kiss the Girl” were altered for consent reasons, but the melody is still there and it’s a nothing sort of change. Ariel sings along to “Under the Sea” now, which doesn’t make a ton of sense narratively, but Bailey sounds nice alongside Daveed so I suppose that’s reason enough for it. There’s some additional songs added as well, such as Ariel singing inside her head when on land (they just couldn’t have their star say nothing for 45 minutes) and a song Scuttle gets to sing that felt forced. None of the new songs are going to hold a candle to the big four from the original, but the only one that tries is Eric’s song. Bailey is a very gifted singer, and while I still prefer Jodi Benson’s “Part of Your World” (and Benson is in this one, keep your eyes open), that’s not because Bailey’s is really inferior.
This one didn’t do much for me, but for a new generation this is the Ariel that’s going to bring them tremendous joy and pride and that’s okay.
I feel like I’m mostly complaining so let’s wrap this up. If you find yourself with a kid looking to see a movie this summer should you go see The Little Mermaid? Eh, you could do worse. The original is almost perfect, so this one was never going to be as good. The story is still there, and the actors perform well with what they’re given. The final battle has been criticized for being too dark, but I found it easy to follow. Maybe if I had never seen the original though I would have felt different. The songs will delight the young and old alike and at least the one benefit of the long running time is we get to spend more time getting to know these characters. Ariel is very likeable, and the rest of the cast performs well enough. Oddly, I felt Bailey and Hauer-King had great chemistry together when Ariel was stricken without a voice, but it all crumbled after it returned making the payoff of the film feel flat. At any rate, my daughter enjoyed it and I didn’t hate it. I’ll probably never watch it again as long as I have access to the 1989 version, but I’m not a young girl with brown skin. And considering all of the response I’ve seen from young girls (and older ones) fitting that description to Bailey’s Ariel then I think it’s safe to say that this live-action remake, more than most, has certainly justified its existence. That’s something that shouldn’t be ignored or taken away.
Come 1989, Disney was back on top both critically and financially as a movie studio. Oliver & Company, while not wowing many movie buffs, was a commercial success and one of Disney’s biggest in years while Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was able to secure near universal praise for its combination of animation and live-action. Even…
The Walt Disney Company has been producing animated features for 80 years now. In that time, the company has released 55 films with a 56th on the way later this year and others in development. I’m only talking about the animated ones, because if you add in live-action and all of the films released by…
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When it was announced that Mattel had wrested control of the Disney license from rival Hasbro, I felt it would be a good thing for my daughter who loves Barbie and also loves the Disney princess dolls. Now they’d be able to swap clothes easily and fit in all of the Barbie vehicles and playsets without issue. I did not stop to consider what it meant for my personal toy buying habits. If the new Disney 100 Minnie and Mickey set is an indication of what’s to come, then maybe I should be a little more excited for the Mattel era than previously thought.
I have made many posts on this blog under the “Toys” subcategory and almost all of them have been action figure related. None of them have been a Mattel product. As someone who just missed the He-Man hype in the 80s, Mattel was rarely on my radar. I can’t, off of the top of my head, even recall if I ever owned a Mattel action figure. I know I had the He-Man power sword from The New Adventures of He-Ma when I was a kid and I think I had at least one figure from that toy line too, though it never sunk its claws in me. In fact, when I role-played with that sword as a kid I would often pretend I was Link from The Legend of Zelda, not He-Man. The other big license Mattel has these days is WWE, but I don’t buy WWE action figures and thus I don’t have any experience there. Rumor has it, there may be a Masters of the Universe x TMNT on the horizon so maybe that will get me to purchase more from Mattel, but for now, this unexpected set is my first experience with a Mattel figure in a long time.
So these two ended up being quite a big bigger than expected. Here with two other Disney stars.
When Disney has some milestone coming up, the company always finds a way to flood the market with new merchandise. There was Disneyland’s 60th a few years back and the company just concluded a 50th anniversary celebration at Walt Disney World that lasted over a year (I managed to catch the start of that and the tail end despite my trips to Disney World being spread over 3 calendar years). The latest money-maker for the company is Disney 100 celebrating 100 years of the Walt Disney Company, or some variation on it. I honestly haven’t dug too deep into the company’s claim so I don’t know how fast and loose they’re playing here, but I always have some degree of skepticism with it considering they don’t even acknowledge the first Mickey Mouse cartoon as being the first Mickey Mouse cartoon. I thought this Disney 100 thing would only lead to new Lego minifigures for me, though that hunt has not gone very well thus far (I only have four), so imagine my surprise when this two figure set popped up on Amazon on a random Thursday. I had no idea it was coming, and it took me all of two seconds to hit “Check Out” on an order for myself. Less than 24 hours later it was in my possession. Say what you will about the practices Amazon engages in (and many are unpleasant), but it always blows my mind when I can order something online and have it on my doorstep just a day later.
These two aren’t going to scale well with your Super7 figures.
Minnie and Mickey come packaged in a nice window box adorned with sketch artwork of the pair and plenty of reminders that this is a Disney 100 tie-in. The first thing that jumped out at me was how big these two are. Minnie and Mickey stand at around 5.5″ to the top of their head stretching to 6.25″ to the tips of their ears. And it’s not just height, they’re just proportionately pretty big. They’re not going to fit in with your Super7 Disney Ultimates or the ReAction figures, but they may look all right mixed with Hero Cross and Beast Kingdom. The height is similar, but even still, the proportions are all together different with Minnie and Mickey having pretty large heads compared with the figures I have. They’re also modeled after their early appearances in the 1920s and 30s, but depicted in color. Mickey has his trademarked red shorts and yellow shoes while Minnie is sporting a light blue, polka-dotted, skirt with red hat and yellow heels. Both feature an all white face with large, black, ovals for their eyes which was the style at the time. My preferred Mickey has always been with a white face and black eyes so this style was right in my wheelhouse for the pair.
They can hang with the offerings from Hero Cross and Beast Kingdom though.
The figures themselves are mostly colored plastic. We have black for the bodies with the clothing being these soft, rubbery, overlays. The shoes and gloves are also a soft material and the paint is basically just reserved for the heads. There, Mattel had to paint on the black around the face as well as the details of the face itself. Their portraits are almost the same save for Minnie’s sculpted eyelashes. She has a dash of purple eyeliner as well. Even with just a little paint, it’s not super clean. The eyes look fine, but the black for Mickey’s widow’s peek doesn’t fill in the entire area it’s supposed to. The painted portion also has a slightly matte appearance compared with the shinier plastic, but it’s not particularly noticeable. The rest of the appearance is solid with the only oddity being there’s a different visual quality to the materials in use. The soft plastic bits have a muted look and it’s easy to tell from a distance that they’re made of a different material from the bodies. Minnie looks fine, but I would have liked a little more saturation out of Mickey’s shorts and shoes. Their proportions also strike me as just a bit off-model. The heads, as previously mentioned, are huge and they also have pretty long arms which is not uncommon for cartoon characters. Shrinking the heads maybe 5% and making them just a little less round might have turned out better, but as is, these fit the part well enough.
They definitely have more stuff than I expected.
A Minnie and Mickey figure set was a surprise, but so was the approach to the accessories. I wouldn’t have expected optional parts, but Mattel surprised me again. Mickey and Minnie can share hands and between the two of them they have a set of gripping hands, a set of gripping hands with the thumbs up, a set of wide open hands, another right gripping hand, and a relaxed left hand. I’m not sure why we got essentially three, right, gripping hands instead of a set of the relaxed hands, but so be it. They also don’t have anything to grip, unless you count Minnie’s hat which slots between her ears. We also get one extra portrait for each featuring the duo in a kissing pose. It’s cute, but I feel like it needs some paint around the mouth. If viewing it from the side, which I think is how it was intended, it’s not as noticeable. Lastly, we also have two display stands with multiple pegs on them to help you pose your figures in case you don’t just want them flat-footed. The stands are all black and say Disney 100. They’re nothing fancy, but can at least provide some piece of mind if you’re worried about shelf dives. There’s also a little card with a sketch of the pair on it that says Disney 100 on the reverse. The packaging also implies the insert (featured as a backdrop in my images) is an accessory, albeit a pretty lame one.
They even come with alternate heads for maximum adorableness.
Where I didn’t expect these two to impress is with articulation, and unlike the additional parts, my expectations were basically met. These two aren’t terrible when it comes to articulation, but they’re also not exactly robust. The heads just sit on a ball peg so they rotate and get a little play on that ball. The ears feel like they’re pegged in and there’s some play, but I’m not sure how much of that is intentional. It’s not enough to position the ears for a side profile pose that mimics the impossible ears of these two in animation. The shoulders rotate and there’s a single hinge for each elbow which also rotates. It can be hard to tell which way the elbow is supposed to bend, but since they have rubber hose arms it doesn’t really matter as the hinge will bend in either direction. It’s not going to give you a full 90 degrees though, and the shoulder hinge won’t raise the arms out all the way to the side either. There is a hinge at the wrist, but it sits pretty deep inside the gloves so it doesn’t do a whole lot. The hands can also rotate on the peg. There’s a waist twist at the shorts and skirt of Minnie and at the hips it’s basically another hinged ball peg so you can swivel the leg and then line the hinge up the way you want it to go. Mickey’s shorts get in the way a bit, though Minnie is less restricted. They’re a bit tight and I didn’t really test it too much. There’s no joint for the knee and instead we get another hinged peg at the ankle. Once again, Minnie gets more range here because of her shoe design while Mickey’s can’t do much. There’s no dedicated ankle rocker, though you can manipulate the hinge so it’s going off to the side if you wish. Lastly, we get another hinged ball-peg at the tail which works well enough.
They don’t do a ton, but it’s hard to argue with the price.
It’s not a ton of stuff, and one can see why some of the more premium imports skip some of these joints in favor of static arms that can be swapped in and out. For what this set is, I think it’s okay. I would have preferred something better at the hips, especially since the joints can be hidden relatively easily with the clothes, but the rest I’m fine with. I also wonder if Mattel would have been better off scrapping the wrist hinge and just doing another ball peg like they did for the head. You will be able to find some poses that look cute for this couple though, be they holding hands, waving, or smooching. The joints are all nice and tight, which is good since these two are a bit top heavy. It does mean there is some degree of trepidation that comes with posing them since the limbs are pretty thin. These figures don’t look or feel like premium items, so there is a cheapness to them in-hand, though I’d hesitate to say they look cheap.
“Ugh, get a room!”
The best thing this set has going for it is affordability. This pair only set me back $42. Basically, getting Mickey and Minnie from Mattel is about the same price as getting two ReAction Minnie and Mickey figures from Super7 and noticeably less than a single Super7 Ultimates release. It’s also less than half of what the Beast Kingdom Donald Duck set me back and I think I like these two more than that figure. There are better figures out there of Mickey, and maybe Minnie, but definitely not ones in this price range. While I think the amount of hands these two came with was probably unnecessary, there are still enough optional parts that make settling on a display quite enjoyable. And swapping parts is easy and I didn’t feel like I was at risk of breaking anything. If you’re interested in an affordable set of Minnie and Mickey figures, I think this will do nicely. Now I’m left hoping Mattel does Donald and Daisy.
Interested in more Disney collectibles? I’ve got you covered:
I have coveted the Donald Duck figure from Hero Cross for a few years now. If you’re not familiar with the company, Hero Cross is a toy manufacturer based in Hong Kong that specializes in hybrid figures that utilize both plastic and metal. Their main line is called the Hybrid Metal Figuration series, or HMF…
It was just over a week ago I made a post wondering what happened to the Lego/Disney relationship. Sure, there have been some Duplo sets and the Lego Friends brand has featured some princess characters, but nothing major followed the 2016 release of mini figures and Cinderella’s Castle (based on the structure in Walt Disney…
Few brands are as immensely popular as Disney, which is why it’s a bit surprising that the company’s presence in the world of action figures has always felt a little lacking. It’s thought (and maybe even confirmed by the company) that Disney’s interest in properties like Marvel and Star Wars stemmed from them being unable…
There’s a part of me that wants to just call him “Firebrand” whenever I see him.
For the first time in a long time, we did not have a Turtle Tuesday post this week. We do, however, have a Warriors by Night Wednesday for you! It feels like NECA’s Gargoyles line is the most stop-and-start action figure line I’m into of late. The line has seen large gaps between releases and we’re basically on a 2-1-2 release schedule with gaps of 6+ months in between. Today’s figure I think went up for preorder with an estimated ship date of last September or October, but here we are in May and it’s just now arrived, but with another figure! Are these supply chain delayed figures or is it merely NECA having to prioritize other releases to either hit a certain window with them or are events like Haulathon mucking things up for our beloved warriors of the night? I’m not sure, but the release calendar for Gargoyles is looking uncharacteristically crowded for 2023 and I’m curious to see how much product eventually sees release this year. As for today, we’re taking a look at the latest member of the Manhattan Clan and his name is Brooklyn.
Scream for me, Brooklyn!
Brooklyn arrives in the same Ultimates styled box as the rest of the figures in the line boasting original artwork by Djordje Djokovic and Emiliano Santalucia. It seems to appropriately place Brooklyn at the bridge from which he took his name, though it almost looks like that was a thought that came after the image of Brooklyn himself was conceived since he’s hovering in a crouched pose which is a bit odd. Djokovic is the sculptor as well for this release with paint by Geoffrey Trapp and Jon Wardell. Brooklyn is unmistakably based on the character from the animated series, but like the other figures in the line, the realism is dialed up a notch with him. He’s very lean and very cut, and unlike the other humanoid gargoyles we’ve seen so far, he has a visage that’s very much animalistic in form as opposed to the more human features of a Goliath or Hudson. That’s Brooklyn’s defining trait for me, his rather large beak, as well as the red hue his skin features. It’s a muted crimson and he boasts simplified wings that are more like large kites than bat wings. He also has the claw like tips on his wings similar to Demona. And despite being another male character, he does feel a bit like Demona due to his more slight appearance.
He comes with a lance, like the old Kenner toy, in case you feel like he needs one.
Brooklyn in his neutral stance, which does involve some bent legs, stands at around 6.25″ to the top of his head and a great deal taller if you factor in his horns. He seems to scale well with Goliath and the others and he certainly fits in stylistically. His default portrait is pretty similar to his animated appearance, but with an added paint wash over the flesh that makes his eyes stand out a bit more. He translates rather well and so far I think Goliath has been the one to look the least like his animated counterpart. Of course, the added detail of the muscles here really sets this version of Brooklyn apart from the show. He does not look bad by any means, but the musculature does feel a bit overdone. He must have less than 1% body fat as he is absurdly cut. His entire body is cast in the same red plastic, which reminds me of a red crayon that’s melted in the sun, but also hit with a topcoat of paint for some added definition. The claws look like they’ve been hit with a red-brown shade of paint, though it’s not evenly applied. The toes look great, but the right, open, hand he comes packaged with on my figure almost has no paint on the claws. The interior of the wings look like they’ve been hit with a wash in a similar shade that oh so slightly darkens that area from the bone structure of the outer wings while the backside is far darker. They’re almost purple, and the light shines off of them and creates a more vibrant range of colors like a soap bubble might do. The hair appears to be sculpted in white, but with a pearl coating and some light blue to give it a nice luster. He’s also sporting the typical loincloth the gargoyles all seem to be fond of and it’s a pale blue which contrasts nicely with all of the red. This is an overall strong looking figure that compares favorably to the others released so far. He’s not knocking Hudson off the top of my personal list of best in the line, but I think he’s ahead of Goliath.
The clan so far. Yes, obviously, there is a fifth on the way that may already be here, just off to the side.
Brooklyn has a fairly typical arsenal of accessories for this line, but with some surprises. For hands, he comes with two open hands in the box plus a set of fist hands and a set of gripping hands. The width of the grip on each hand is different so one is a bit tighter than the other. The tighter of the two works best with his included lance weapon. I don’t recall a lance in the show which makes me think it’s a tribute to the old Kenner figure which all featured weapons. It looks pretty cool though and is painted with a gun metal finish and I suspect many will display Brooklyn utilizing it. He also has some show accessories in the form of a pair of sunglasses that can fit over his eyes reasonably well and a page torn from Demona’s grimoire, something the sorceress would like to get her claws on in the future. It’s not an amazing accessory by itself, but it’s a fun inclusion since Demona’s grimoire was sculpted with the page torn out so it pairs well. It’s also very well done for what it is boasting more paint than your typical Marvel Legends action figure. Lastly, we have a second portrait which features the jaw permanently open and the eyes whited-out. The hair sculpt looks to be exactly the same, but it looks nice and it will work if you want your Brooklyn ready for battle on your shelf, or hanging from your ceiling, or wherever you ultimately place him.
“Looking for something, Demona?”
Brooklyn’s articulation should also feel familiar as he basically follows in the same footsteps as the other figures in the line. He’s very similar to Goliath, but with a little extra range by virtue of his more slender build. His head is on a double ball peg, but his movement is pretty well restricted by his hair. He can only look so far in either direction and has basically no range looking up. He does have some tilt and can look down. I should add, I’m rating the articulation with his wings on. They do come off, but he’s a gargoyle and they’re a part of his body that he can’t actually remove. If you were to take them off, you’d get a little more range out his head, but why would you display a gargoyle with no wings? He does have an articulated jaw on his standard portrait and that works just fine. He does have a joint at the base of the neck, but it doesn’t really do anything. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to, or if it just exists as a way to connect a neck there and allow for some future reuse down the road. It seems like a missed opportunity though since the cut is already there. The shoulders are the standard ball-hinges and Brooklyn can raise his arms out to the side to a horizontal position. They will rotate as far as the wings will allow, though they do rub a bit on his pectorals which stick out a bit. They’re the same color, so there’s not a lot of danger here, but it’s something to be considerate of. He has a biceps swivel which works fine and double-jointed elbows that will bend past 90 degrees. The wrists swivel and hinge and the tight, gripping, hand has a vertical hinge which is much appreciated.
In case you wanted to try reading it for yourself.
In the torso, we have a ball joint at the diaphragm that mostly exists to allow the character to rotate there. There’s some forward and back and a little tilt to either side, but it also feels a little on the loose side which worries me a bit going forward. So far, it seems fine. There is a waist twist below that which feels like it’s just a twist instead of a ball joint which would have added some more forward and back, but oh well. The thighs are connected via ball and socket joints and Brooklyn can rotate there. His loincloth rides up and over his left thigh, but covers more of his right thigh, so the left has more rotation than the right. The left one also has some paint rub on the thigh which is unfortunate, and the loincloth restricts Brooklyn’s ability to kick forward to about 45 degrees, which is disappointing. He can kick back pretty far though, if that’s something you value. The knees are single-hinged and can bend to about 90 degrees. They also swivel. The ankles are hinged and have okay range and they also feature an ankle rocker. The toes hinge and rock as well as these creatures are designed to essentially stand on their toes. They’re nice and tight which is needed for their normal stance. The tail is affixed via a hinged peg and it’s also bendy. It works fine and the hinge is tight enough that it can act as a support limb for stances, though it could be tighter. The wings connect via the same mechanism and can be adjusted up and down as well as in and out. The hinges are very tight and like the other figures in the line make horrible clicking noises that will have you thinking you’re about to break the figure. So far, I have had no such breakage from any of the Gargoyles figures and Brooklyn’s are nice and stable, unlike Demona’s which were way too loose.
“Check out the shades, bro.”
Brooklyn’s articulation is basically in-line with the rest: good, but not great. The range at the head is an issue for him as NECA declined to include any articulation in the hair. This means you have these big, open, wings for flight, but Brooklyn can’t look forward in a flying pose, something that was an issue for Goliath as well (and really, all of them so far). The range in the torso and hips is also not suitable for crouched poses which is a bummer since these are gargoyles, after all, which typically are crouched when in stone form. I wish we could get these guys into a three-point stance, but it’s just not possible with or without the wings. And then there’s those wings, those gigantic, rigid, wings. You would think we’d be used to them by now, but it seems they just become more of a nuisance with each successive release. They’re really only good for very dramatic posing which doesn’t lend itself well to the more neutral portraits each figure comes with. Brooklyn’s wings are also just plain huge as his wingspan is about 22.5″. I always thought of him as one of the smaller gargoyles, but evidently I was wrong. He’s the first release in the line that I just can’t fit onto my shelf, which already includes Goliath with the caped wings. It’s a problem for this line and NECA’s solution of packing caped wings with the non-winged characters isn’t the best solution. What we really need are relaxed wings, and at this point I think NECA just needs to suck it up and offer a wing set on their website or something. And just package future figures with options. If it raises the price, then so be it, because it’s a consistent complaint I see online about this line.
Brooklyn must be the “cool” one.
In short, Brooklyn is very much as expected. If you’ve been happy with the releases in this line so far then you’ll be happy with him. If you have been displeased, or annoyed by the wing options, then expect the same. I want to love this line, and the paint and sculpt work have been very good. It’s clear that NECA has done its homework given the episode specific accessories we’ve seen so far, but something has to be done about those wings. Then again, it’s an issue that hasn’t stopped me from buying these so maybe that’s all that matters to NECA, but I’m actually seeing people sharing images of their collection and they’ve just taken the wings off which is insane to me. They just aren’t gargoyles without wings, so I’m continuing to try and find a way to work these things into my collection, which now will require a second, dedicated, shelf. If you’re interested in adding Brooklyn to your collection, he’s currently available online and can be found at specialty shops. He should also arrive at Target any day now where you’re likely to find the lowest price available (around $36, if I’m not mistaken). If you’re in on this line, then you probably need him. If you’re out because of the wings, well he’s not going to change your mind. Hopefully, relief is on the way.
It was nearly 6 months ago that NECA unveiled one of its newest licenses for 2021: Gargoyles! I was incredibly pumped at the time to see that NECA had acquired Gargoyles because the license had so much potential. The show was basically a cult hit in the 90s often characterized as Disney’s answer to Batman:…
Happy Boxing Day! It’s been a minute, but we’re back with another figure in NECA’s line of action figures based on the 90s cartoon/property Gargoyles – Hudson! Hudson, who was wonderfully brought to life by the late Ed Asner, was always my favorite character in the show. He’s basically the old veteran of the group.…
When NECA launched it’s line of action figures based on Disney’s Gargoyles, it seemed to imply that Demona would be figure number 2. She was not. That honor went to Thailog, the Goliath clone, and that might have had something to do with the many factory delays and shipping woes that were impacting the entire…
Robin Hood is after you and he’s not in a joking mood!
When Super7 announced it was taking Disney into its world of Ultimates! line of action figures, they really seemed to confuse the Disney fans unfamiliar with their business model when the first wave consisted of Sorcerer Mickey, Pinocchio, and Prince John from Robin Hood. Where was Robin Hood?! Well, he was coming, just in Wave 2. The company was apparently going to slow burn the movies in Disney’s very famous film library, but persistent confusion and outcry (which Super7 felt was coming from the Disney collector, and not necessarily the Super7 collector) caused them to change lanes. Wave 4 of Disney Ultimates! was solicited a couple of months ago and all three figures are based on The Nightmare Before Christmas. That will apparently be the model going forward, but given that there’s a significant lag between solicitation and delivery, we’re still talking about Wave 2 which just dropped in the past month and included that much sought after Robin Hood.
Robin and PJ together at last!
Robin Hood is the lone figure from the film of the same name in Super7’s Wave Two. He comes in the standard window box with slipcover and I got mine direct from Super7 for the not so lovely price of $55. Back when the figure first went up, I really wanted to support Super7 in their journey into Disney so I placed my order direct with them. I also thought that meant I’d get it before other retailers, but Big Bad Toy Store has been shipping these for about a month now so that obviously didn’t work. And after being all-in on Wave One largely on principle, I just couldn’t do it for Wave Two which also featured Alice from Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter from the same, and Hyacinth Hippo from Fantasia. I just could not muster up any appetite for those three figures as I don’t really like either movie. The hippo looked the most impressive out of all four figures in the wave, but since I had Prince John I did want to pair him with someone. And Robin Hood was a film I liked a lot as a kid and it holds up pretty well today.
So what do we think? Accurate enough for you?
When the solicitation did go up, I wasn’t that impressed, but I also wasn’t for Wave One and those were refined along the way and turned out better than the render. Unfortunately, the same isn’t true of Wave Two. Robin Hood looks as solicited which is to say he’s a bit off-model. The head shape seems all wrong to me, the proportions are off, and there’s nothing in the paint or sculpt that attempts to capture that scratchy look of the lines from the film. It’s like they had someone sculpt the character from memory, or maybe there’s some modern, licensing, art out there designed to make the character look cuter? There could also be another factor contributing to the aesthetic that we’ll get to. First glance though is that he doesn’t look right. There’s clearly no commitment to make the character look like he just jumped out of the film which is the approach I want to see, but maybe that’s not what Super7 wants?
Who has two thumbs and an arrow through the head?
It doesn’t get much better with the figure in hand. Robin Hood is very plain looking. There’s almost no paint on this figure past the neck. It’s a very “plastic” looking release similar to Prince John. Unlike Prince John, there are no soft goods present on the base figure. And I should talk about this like it’s two figures. I’m fine with that though as a soft goods tunic would probably look terrible. Unfortunately, the figure just looks cheap and it feels just as cheap. The tail in particular looks too soft and feels worse because it’s hollow. I don’t disagree with making it hollow as a heavier tail affects balance (and he already balances poorly), but there’s nothing really on it. No attempt to make it appear furry. It’s just not good.
This pose is easy enough to pull off, once you heat the hand to fit the bow anyway.
Accessories can help liven up a dull experience, but with this figure, your mileage may vary. Robin Hood has gipping hands in the box and a second set of hands with a tighter grip and a thumb up. They appear to be intended for use with the bow and arrow. The bow looks fine and has a real string, but it doesn’t fit either hand well. The standard gripping hand is too loose and the secondary one is too tight. At least with the too tight option some heat can make it pliable to get the bow in there. The included arrow fits fine into the other tighter hand as it slides between the index and middle finger so he can string it. There’s also a quiver and to get that onto the figure you will want to remove the head because there’s almost no give in the strap. The quiver is also solid plastic and the arrows don’t come out which is a bit of a bummer, but not the end of the world as long as you don’t lose the one, lone, arrow. His other accessory is a second head which features a startled expression and an arrow through his hat. The arrow is warped and looks ridiculous and I doubt I ever would use this head anyway. There’s also an unsightly seem line on the lower jaw that takes away from the presentation. All of the other accessories are for the stork disguise, which we’ll discuss separately, which really makes the base offering feel light. The default gripping hands are essentially useless as they don’t work with the bow and arrow and he has nothing else to hold. No sword, really? And how about a legitimate second head that maybe has a cocky grin or a more determined face instead of this gag head? You basically can pose with the bow and arrow or with nothing which is pretty poor for options.
This is not, though it’s hardly convincing anyway. If I let this figure rest like this either the bow or the arrow would eventually give out and go flinging off somewhere. The arrow should be able to peg into the bow, or knock, for added stability.
Which brings us to articulation. Never the strong suit for Super7, I’m afraid it’s worse than usual here. Super7 went with a ball-hinge for the head, which is different from the usual big ball peg for this line and also different from the double-ball I see in the TMNT line. The only thing the hinge does is let the figure look down, but not really any more than the previous setup. There’s no up rotation and no nuance posing. He can rotate, but that’s basically it. The hinge just gets in the way when swapping heads making for a frustrating experience. The shoulders can raise out to the side and rotate all around while the elbows are single-hinged with a swivel. The biceps also swivel at the sleeve. The arms are very thin and gummy feeling, but at least the elbows bend past 90 degrees. The wrists also swivel and hinge and all of the hinges are horizontal hinges which is not optimal for the bow and arrow. There’s a diaphragm joint that does almost nothing. No forward, no back, just a little rotation. The waist also can rotate. At the hips, we just go forward and back. There’s no out to the side and the knees are a single hinge and swivel point. The swivel does more harm than good as it’s hard to figure out what the neutral position is supposed to be. The hinge does very little and I think his knees are supposed to always be pointing out from his body, but it’s frustrating to pose. Worse are the ankles which, like the knees, just swivel and hinge. There’s no ankle rocker. And what’s more annoying is trying to get the hinge pointed where you want it is a pain because it swivels above and below the hinge so if you grip the foot to rotate that piece it will just spin with the shoe. It’s maddening. Thankfully, he does have that ugly tail because it makes getting him to stand much easier than it would be without and that thing swivels and has a hinge. No ankle rocker is an awful choice. It’s usually the one joint Super7 does well and here they declined to try it for some reason (probably for the disguise). The only saving grace for this figure, articulation wise, is he can do a bow stringing pose, but that’s pretty much it.
Hey! It’s some stork guy!
And now that takes us to basically the other figure: Stork Robin Hood. During the film, Robin Hood disguises himself as a stork to enter an archery contest and Super7 decided to make that a focus for this release. I don’t know that I agree with the call, but it’s what they decided. Personally, I consider his beggar persona more iconic, but admit the stork has a fun look in the film. To do that, the figure separates at the waist and Super7 included a second lower half. It’s just the legs in a squat pose and the only articulation is found at the ankles which is the same hinge piece the other lower half possesses. Basically, we’re just cutting out the knee joints. For the that, there are new “feet” which are Robin’s feet on stilts that peg into the ankle joints. They feature no additional articulation, not even a swivel at the boot. I’m guessing this is why they abandoned the ankle rocker to make the connection point simpler, but why not just make the stilts peg into the standard feet? Were the knees that much of a problem? And if they were, just make the stilts already attached to the second torso – why separate them? The left leg also isn’t straight and I don’t know if that is by design or not. There are three sets of winged hands that peg into the arms where the hands go plus there’s a quiver, bow, and arrow to match the ones he used in the film plus the golden arrow trophy on a pillow. Lastly, we have a new head to complete the ensemble.
Robin is considerably taller in this getup. Note how I picked he wrong bow and failed to secure the quiver before putting on the head.
Assembling the figure isn’t what I would describe as a fun experience. The hands are tight, but they came off without damage and the winged ones go on fine. Before doing that though, you will want to slip the soft goods tunic over the torso. The head is a bit of a pain to get off and on, but doable. The torso pegs together easy enough as do the feet and once assembled Robin stands over 8″ tall. It’s once the whole thing is together that the frustration sets in. The hinges where the feet peg in are way too loose. It makes his legs want to go all over the place when trying to stand him. And since there’s no articulation at the boots on the stilts, you have few tools to work with when trying to balance the guy. I watched it fall over and over before finally getting him to stand still in a semi decent arrow-knocking pose. And once I did, I realized I forgot to put the quiver on. That thing has no give in the strap so getting it on is way harder than it should be. And then once it’s on, trying to get the head without disturbing it is even harder. My quiver now has purple paint on it from it riding up under the hat while trying to get the head on. Plus at some point he fell and one of the false arrows in the quiver snapped off. And if you need to do anything to this guy once posed, expect it to all fall apart. The waist isn’t held on by much, though I suppose it’s better that it separate easily than not. Having him actually draw the bow is pretty tough too as the arrow doesn’t have a notch in it. I hooked the string onto a finger and then just tried to balance the arrow in a convincing manner, but it doesn’t work too well.
He can at least handle the bow in a slightly more convincing fashion than the base figure.
Once standing it’s the type of figure that you don’t dare mess with. Or at least, I wouldn’t if I intended for him to stay this way. I will say, the stork head looks great. It’s easily the best sculpted part of the set and also the best painted. One of the legs features some chipped paint which stinks though. The whole costume really looks much better than the base figure, provided you can stand him. I just don’t know why so much of the budget was put into making this costume the way it is. He has a set of open hands, a set of gripping hands, and a set of bow and arrow hands. Why so many when the regular Robin Hood gets just two? What purpose do the regular gripping hands serve that the arrow hands can’t do? The direction and decision making on this one is just baffling and to top it off there are no peg holes in the feet. For a figure that struggles to stand, why not at least put some holes in there? He really should just come with a stand, or a second torso. Or the damn legs should just be static so he stays standing. It’s not like they can do anything. They could have included a second, unarticulated, torso then at least you would get a second display piece out of this. The money spent to tool more hands would have been better served on that. They wouldn’t even have to paint it or anything since it’s hidden by the soft goods. Instead, it feels like an inordinate amount of the budget went towards this disguise that most people will never use. I’m slightly tempted to display it by virtue of the fact that it looks better than the standard Robin Hood, but I have zero confidence in it staying upright on my shelf and I’m not sinking more money into this thing to add a stand. I think the proportions and articulation of the base figure were compromised to make this stork version look more on-model and that makes no sense. Someone just fell in love with the concept of making Robin Hood “transform” into this stork persona and never stopped to question if it was really a good idea to move forward with.
PJ seems to think he smells. He’s not wrong.
The final verdict is that Super7 delivered an off-model and compromised figure of Robin Hood that can pull off a convincing stork disguise in theory, though in practice the results are far more mixed. Is that what people wanted? I know I didn’t. To make matters worse, the figure looks and feels cheap, the articulation is poor, and the display options boil down to two, three if you’re in love with the arrow through the hat expression. And it costs 55 bucks! This thing is way overpriced relative to what you’re getting. At this price point, this thing needs to “wow.” It needs to feel like a premium collector item, but it looks like a toy from the 90s. The look of it really reminds me of the Lion King action figures from when that film came out. The plastic look of the figure makes me think of Happy Meal toys. That’s not a good thing for a $55 action figure. This is the worst Super7 figure I own and I’m out. No way am I paying upfront for any of the figures in this line again. Had I ordered this from another retailer I would have cancelled it. It’s that bad. If it were 25 bucks and didn’t feature the stork I still don’t think I’d buy it because it just doesn’t look that good. Why spend money on something that doesn’t look good whether its 10, 20, or 50 bucks? And I didn’t even mention the shipping so I’m actually in for closer to $70 on this thing. That’s pretty bad. I’m also really second guessing the preorder I have for Wave 3’s Big Bad Wolf. I want to see Super7 go into the classic shorts for this line so I preordered that partly as a show of support for that move, but after getting this and looking at the anatomy of the character in the solicitations I’m left feeling the experience will be similar. Unlike with Robin Hood, there’s still time for me to cancel that one and I’m thinking that’s probably a good idea.
We’ll end on a shelf shot, since that’s probably what matters most for many would-be buyers.
It probably goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, that I do not recommend this figure at all. If you love the stork version or are not bothered by how Robin Hood looks then maybe take a swing when it inevitably hits clearance. This thing will not stay at $55 and I bet it’s around $38 before long. Hold out even longer and you may do better. Seriously, Entertainment Earth has had some wild sales on Super7 stuff of late so at this time next year it wouldn’t shock me to see this sold for less than $30. I still wouldn’t buy it at that price, but it’s a lot better than $55.
Our third and final figure of the inaugural wave of Disney Ultimates! from Super7 is the most surprising of the bunch: Prince John, the phony King of England! Super7 often surprises with its deep cuts, and Prince John certainly fits the bill. While it’s hard to argue much from Disney could be considered a true…
The first figure from this line of Super7 action figures based on characters from Disney’s treasure trove of animated characters was Pinocchio. In that review, I mentioned how Disney wanted to outdo itself with Pinocchio and sunk a lot of money into that film’s production. Well, the only other film from that era that might…
It seems I keep setting personal records this year for longest duration of a preorder and the new champion is Super7’s first wave of Disney Ultimates! These figures went up for preorder in August of 2020 likely closing sometime in September. At the time, the expected release was somewhere around June 2021, but a lot…
When it comes to doing these write-ups, I naturally trend towards older Christmas specials. The name of the blog is The Nostalgia Spot, after all, so it would only make sense for me to favor stuff that’s at least a decade old, if not more. The fact of the matter is, there’s really not enough content out there to only focus on the old, and besides, sometimes it’s fun to be a bit topical. In 2022, Marvel unleashed Moon Knight on the masses via Disney+. Since I am a subscriber to Disney+ and a casual Marvel fan, I watched it because it was there and I like feeling like I’m getting the most bang for my buck. It was a fine show and I especially enjoyed the performance of Oscar Isaac in the lead role. I believe it was mostly well-received, though I know there were some out there disappointed at the lack of Moon Knight in a show called Moon Knight which is understandable. I’m sure we’ll see more of him though because this is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, after all, and it’s always building towards something.
Prior to watching the show, my only knowledge of Moon Knight was that he was some superhero with a cool looking costume. I have an old ToyBiz Marvel Legends figure of the same, but I’ve honestly never picked up a Moon Knight comic. He always had the reputation of being a Batman knock-off, and to some extent I guess that’s true. In the hands of an unskilled writer, I could easily see his books turning into a Batman-like story. In the show, he was far more interesting though so I don’t think such criticism is warranted in that case, but what about in other media?
I guess the show had a different title in its final season? It’s just listed as Ultimate Spider-Man every where.
In 2012, Disney began airing a show called Ultimate Spider-Man. Despite the name, this show was not an adaptation of the comic book series of the same name. Like many post 2000 Spider-Man shows, it borrows from that comic, but also basically every other form of Spider-Man to create one big hodgepodge of what are hopefully the best traits of the various Spider-Men over the years. I never paid any attention to the show while it was airing, but it hung around to total over 100 episodes with the series ending in 2017. One of the last episodes of the show happens to be a Christmas one, and it also features Moon Knight, and it’s also presently the “knight” before Christmas, so now feels like the right time to take a look at this one.
Ultimate Spider-Man is a Film Roman production that was overseen by Alex Soto. It’s a 2D animated cartoon series with a pretty straight-forward approach to the character designs and scenery, unlike a more stylized series and prior Christmas spot entrant Spectacular Spider-Man. The show stars Drake Bell as Spider-Man/Peter Parker and when it begins he has already been Spider-Man for about a year, until attracting the attention of Nick Fury. This is a young Spider-Man still feeling his way around things and it seems an emphasis of the show was to feature lots of team-ups with other familiar faces from the Marvel Universe. The show was able to assemble a rather impressive writing team which included Brian Michael Bendis, the creative behind the comic of the same name, and Paul Dini, perhaps the most celebrated writer in superhero animation (this particular episode is by Elliot Casey). It would seem there’s a lot to like about this one on paper and it also looks like some money was spent making the show look good so it’s a bit of a surprise on my behalf that I’ve basically ignored the series for as long as I have.
This show loves playing with the size of Spider-Man’s eye lenses.
The show begins without any sort of opening title sequence, I’m guessing that’s to come. We find Spider-Man (Bell) decorating a…tree of some kind and talking to himself. He seems to be trying to psyche himself up to have a terrific Christmas because he needs to. He’s actually house-sitting this Christmas for Dr. Strange (Liam O’Brien) in his Sanctum Sanctorum while the good doctor is off saving reality, or something. It would seem this is Spidey’s first Christmas away from his Aunt May and he’s just trying to make the best of it. Unfortunately, this bizarre, monster, tree that Dr. Strange keeps in his home is sentient and not up for being decorated like a Christmas tree. It also doesn’t seem to appreciate Spider-Man’s sass and takes a swipe at him forcing the web-slinger to retreat into another room. Oh, and this is a show that seems to break the fourth wall via its protagonist. A lot.
It also seems to like this story device as we’ll see it again.
After running from the grinchy monster plant, Spider-Man finds himself in a fancy looking armory. It’s apparently a room he’s not supposed to enter and as he tries to recall what Dr. Strange told him about the room an apparition of the doctor appears above him. A very young looking Doctor Strange is recalled just telling him to stay out of the room because of all of the dangerous weapons and artifacts present. Spidey then sheepishly scratches the back of his head as an “Oops, my bad,” kind of thing since he’s already broken his promise to Strange. I’m getting the impression this Spider-Man is a bit of a goof.
That’s a pretty bad ass way to introduce Moon Knight.
A scream from outside gets Spider-Man’s attention. He’s supposed to look after Strange’s home, but he can’t ignore what sounds like a girl in distress! Spidey races outside to find a young girl being harassed by a strangely dressed man. That man is Moon Knight (Diedrich Bader), and it would seem that Spider-Man has never encountered this soldier of the moon before. His entrance is pretty cool though as Spidey looks up at the moon and we see the alleged hero reflected in the lens of his mask. Spidey deftly avoids him and grabs the young girl in the process before staring down his new foe. Moon Knight introduces himself, and Spider-Man makes a lame crack about him not being Santa Claus as we smash cut to the opening title. Apparently this era of the show is called Ultimate Spider-Man vs The Sinister Six as that’s what the title card says. I guess it would have helped if I had watched some of this show before jumping into one of the final 3 episodes.
This rescue isn’t going very well so far.
After the very brief title card is “webbed away,” we get to see Spider-Man vs The Moon Knight! Moon Knight is impeccably voiced by Diedrich Bader in what feels like a preview of the somewhat aloof Batman (in contrast with the straight-forward Batman he has played elsewhere) he will play in the future on Harley Quinn. He’s an unintentionally humorous character (as-in, the character isn’t trying to be funny in-universe, but he’s definitely written to be comical to the viewer) as he constantly keeps referring to the moon, talking about the moon, and even converses with the moon. I’m having flashbacks to the Mooninites from Aqua Teen Hunger Force here because this guy loves the moon as much as they do. Spider-Man seems annoyed with him, and Moon Knight doesn’t really seem to have a high opinion of Spider-Man for that matter and even calls him a demon. It never dawns on Spider-Man though that maybe this guy is attacking this young girl for a reason, so he decides to retreat into the safety of Strange’s townhouse, but not before whipping Moon Knight by his cape into some snow (“And that is why I don’t wear a cape!”). Unfortunately, the building has a protective spell placed on it that requires a magical command to allow additional people through and Spidey is drawing a blank on what those words are. While he stands safely behind the magical shield, the girl he’s trying to save is in harm’s way. Worry not though, for Spider-Man is able to recall those words just before Moon Knight nails her.
And now we have some wholesome, Christmas, entertainment!
As Spidey bids Moon Knight a good night, the vigilante tries pounding on the forcefield and cries out that Spider-Man is giving this girl exactly what she wants, but he’s not listening. Inside, Spider-Man and the girl get acquainted. Her name is Francine (Mary Kate Wiles) and she tells Spider-Man she’s an orphan. A recently made orphan as she lost her father not too long ago. Spidey acts like he’s going to cry hearing her sad story and welcomes her to spend Christmas with him in this lonely old house. We then go into a montage hosted by Spidey Claus! The two make gingerbread cookies that literally get up and walk away, which they have a laugh at. We then see a sequence of polaroid photos of the two making silly faces and eating candy canes. Spidey is laying in front of the fire looking at said pictures when the brief montage ends, while Francine seems interested in looking around. She soon finds the door to the forbidden room, and like most kids, immediately wants to go in once she hears it’s forbidden. Spidey tells her he’s not going to break his promise to Doctor Strange and let her in, but as he lectures her he doesn’t really pay attention and she just slips right past him.
I’m guessing this thing is important.
Francine enters the room and is immediately drawn to a crystal ball. Spidey comes over and realizes he’s seen that ball before. It belonged to the villain Mysterio, and we see a flashback of him doing crimes and battling Spider-Man. Apparently, he fell off the Brooklyn Bridge at the end of one of their encounters and Spider-Man was unable to save him. The ball is his helmet and it was magically enhanced so that it could make Mysterio’s many illusions turn real. Pretty sweet! After Mysterio fell into the river below, Spider-Man recovered the helmet, but no body. He gave it to Strange and is surprised the sorcerer didn’t simply destroy it.
It’s a lot harder to hurt someone when you can’t touch them.
A crashing sound from upstairs gets Spider-Man’s attention and ends his little story time. He hands the helmet to Francine and tells her to stay put while he investigates. He heads upstairs into what looks like a library only to find Moon Knight inside! He’s pretty surprised to see him since Strange put that spell up to keep out the unwanted, but he’ll have to figure that out later. Spider-Man attempts to web Moon Knight, but he turns intangible and the web line goes right through him. Spidey then tries to attack in a more conventional manner, but continues to encounter difficulties. Moon Knight explains that he is but a reflection in the moonlight, which is poetic, but still confusing. Spider-Man then hears a sound coming from outside and looks up to see Moon Knight on the other side of a skylight. Two Moon Knights?!
It turns out she’s the bad guy. Try to act surprised.
Spider-Man noticing another Moon Knight outside seemed to be enough for this Moon Knight to call it quits. It disappears in a blue light and Spider-Man realizes he was just an illusion. Saying the word “illusion” out loud is enough for him to figure out what’s going on. He heads back to the forbidden room and somewhat nervously pops his head in to check on Francine. He finds the girl holding the orb and she too is surrounded by a cold, blue, light. When it fades we see she’s a grown woman, and wearing Mysterio’s old costume too. She then thanks Spider-Man, and introduces herself as Frances Beck, daughter of Mysterio! It would seem she holds a grudge against Spider-Man for her father’s apparent death and retrieving his magical helmet is exactly what she needs to exact sweet, festive, revenge. This is going to be the best Christmas ever!
Just the first of Mysterio’s holiday themed not-illusions. You have to appreciate a villain that gets in on the theme of the episode.
Lucky for Spider-Man, the New Mysterio is quite new to this whole villain thing and Spidey just takes the helmet away from her via a simple web-line. He tells her she can’t handle this thing and suggests she’s not the real deal, but she assures him she is. She lifts her arms up and opens a portal in the ceiling and a horde of vicious looking elves drop in! Spidey is able to escape to the ceiling though as they’re rather short, and he and New Mysterio do the whole “You killed my father!” “No, I didn’t!” routine before Spidey bails into another room.
Dr. Strange is here to save the day! Though Spider-Man is fighting a master illusionist that has already tricked him once…
Spidey’s webs can only hold off the elves for so long as they are vicious little bastards, so he retreats back up to the library. There he finds Moon Knight, still just chilling out on the roof outside the window, before he’s visited by an unexpected guest. Or should I say homeowner? Because Dr. Strange can’t be a guest in his own home! He appears before Spider-Man and seems quite ticked off with old web-head. He let people into his home, entered the forbidden room, and has removed a powerful item from said room! Spidey tries to apologize, while Moon Knight bangs on the window shouting “Not strange!” This confuses Spider-Man more as he very much disagrees with Moon Knight and reminds him that this night has actually been very strange! He then finally realizes what Moon Knight is saying, and it’s probably helped by Dr. Strange lunging for the helmet and failing this whole thing, that he means Strange, not strange. Which, I mean, come on Spider-Man! I know you’re not a detective like Batman, but you’re facing an illusionist here and she’s already fooled you once!
More holiday monsters – I love this stuff!
The illusion of Strange then vanishes and is replaced by Mysterio. She makes a crack at Spider-Man referring to him as a joke to which he responds with “To be fair, I think everything’s a joke.” She also does some magic finger snap that just makes the helmet appear in her hands. She finally puts it on and uses the power of the helmet to summon a giant gingerbread man! Spidey points out that this is very much a joke as he dodges the massive candy cane the beast swings in his direction. I must say, I do admire Mysterio’s commitment to the season with her various summonings. Come to think of it, how did she summon the non-illusion elves without the helmet? Maybe it was the magic of the season? I guess it’s best not to think about these things.
Here comes Moony!
Spider-Man does what he seemingly does best: flees to higher ground. Up on the ceiling, he’s able to watch the Christmas abominations lay waste to what are likely some very old and likely priceless objects in Doctor Strange’s library and also regroup. He tries to recall the advice Dr. Strange gave him in the past, but all he can do is recall generic advice like wearing a hat when it’s cold outside. He then remembers something about Strange advising him to make allies out of the enemies of his enemies. Naturally, this means Moon Knight who is still banging away outside because he is one persistent fellow. Spider-Man shouts out the magic words to release the barrier and Moon Knight is finally able to smash in that very expensive looking window and join the battle!
Seems there’s a downside to all of this power, who could have foreseen that?
Moon Knight comes in wielding his baton and smashes some ginger foes! He’s ready to rumble, and it allows Spidey to attempt to appeal to Francine. She corrects him when he addresses her by that name and refers to herself as Frances Beck! She is not going to be swayed, but before she can really get into her villain speech she collapses to her knees in pain. Reaching for the fishbowl on her head, it would seem the orb is a bit more than she can handle. Spidey tries to help her, rather lamely though by putting an arm around her when he could have just yanked the thing off. She recoils from his touch and uses her power to open a portal that she and her gingerbread minions are able to escape through.
Look out world, Moon Knight has a wand!
With Frances gone, Moon Knight and Spider-Man are able to have a little heart-to-heart. Only, Moon Knight doesn’t seem interested in sharing any of his knowledge with Spider-Man, probably because he’s pretty much responsible for this mess they’re in. Their conversation is interrupted though by the moon. Yes, Moon Knight takes his orders from the moon and it’s played rather comically since Moon Knight can hear the moon, but no one else can including the viewer. It would seem the moon has decided that Spider-Man’s help is needed and Moon Knight is commanded to reveal all. He basically just relays that the moon warned him about Beck and that she intended to wake a dormant evil that lurked in this place, which must be the fish bowl. It also told him how to stop it: a magic wand! Yes, some wand has the power to make the helmet collapse in on itself, and it just so happens to be in this house too! Spidey is forced to break his promise, again, to Strange and admit Moon Knight into the forbidden room. There he finds the wand they need and the two set out to stop Beck.
I’ve seen this guy before.
As the two walk out the front door, Spidey asks Moon Knight (he calls him Moony – adorable!) if this wand will destroy the wearer of the helmet. He only responds with “The moon shall have its vengeance,” which is interesting because I never thought of the moon as the vengeful type. Spider-Man points out that isn’t really an answer and tells Moon Knight if his aim is to kill Francine then he doesn’t want his help. He doesn’t offer a reply as the two head outside and find Mysterio floating high above the city doing super villain stuff. She uses her new powers to summon a giant snowman monster than looks curiously like Marshmallow from Frozen.
Now Santa is getting in on this – is nothing sacred?!
Upon coming face to face with this monster, Spidey is suddenly more interested in Moon Knight’s help and willing to accept any conditions. Of course, when he looks over to the vigilante for help, he’s busy chatting it up with the moon. This guy! It would seem he’s also trying to convince his…boss…that Spider-Man is a liability, which Spidey takes offense to. The two then turn their attention to the task at hand and Spider-Man observes the Moon Knight method of dodging. Which is to say, he does no such thing. He takes a punch from the beast and explains to Spider-Man that he’d rather take the hit than waste time avoiding it, which Spidey is forced to admit is pretty badass (my words, not his). While Moon Knight tangles with Marshmallow, Spidey tries reasoning with Frances, but she just responds by turning an inflatable Santa sentient which goes on the attack. Lucky for him, Moon Knight’s aversion to dodging gets him knocked into Santa and solves that problem for him!
Hey! Quit laying around! There’s a city to save!
Spidey takes to the sky to try to get away from the monster, but ends up getting swatted instead. He crashes through a building and finds himself in a department store. A giant, novelty, present broke his fall. Moon Knight soon follows and lands on top of another novelty present and Spidey is forced to make a crack about the bad holiday décor. Moon Knight ignores Spider-Man’s joke and informs him of the dire situation they find themselves in. He also adds that the moon demands this situation be rectified by any means necessary. The duo are soon set upon by an army of nutcrackers and toy airplanes. The two leap into the scaffolding smashing toys along the way until the big snowman comes bashing in with Mysterio right behind.
I’m very surprised Spider-Man didn’t make a crack about a splitting headache here.
As Spider-Man dodges their attacks, he sees Moon Knight go for Mysterio. He calls out for him to wait, but Moon Knight leaps through the air and plunges the wand through the glass dome. Frances collapses to her knees and appears to be in a trance of some kind. Moon Knight suggests the spell is taking over and will soon end all of this, but Spidey isn’t willing to give up on Frances. He realizes that the only way to get Moon Knight to help him is to trick him. Sounds deceitful, but if this plan works then Moon Knight only has himself to blame for Spidey pretends to hear the moon. Moon Knight is perplexed, but also a bit impressed, as Spider-Man acts as if the moon is commanding him to save Frances. Moon Knight may be a badass, but he’s definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer as he falls for it. He agrees to hold off the monstrous snowman, while Spider-Man attempts a rescue.
We all talk to the moon all the time. You’re not special, Moon Knight!
Spidey doesn’t really know what to do, so he instinctively grabs the wand. That seemed like the logical place to start, only the unexpected happens and Spider-Man gets sucked inside the helmet! He finds himself in a dreary setting, but a farm house comes into view and Spider-Man figures it must be the farm house that Frances told him about. He approaches a window and spies Francine inside seated at a dinner table with her father, Quentin Beck (Paul Scheer). They appear to be having Christmas dinner, and the decorations in the background would indicate as much. As Spidey gets closer, he finds himself transported into the house and seated at the table. There, he tries reasoning with Frances by telling her this is all an illusion and they need to get out. She insists it’s real though, that her father is real, but Spidey tells her if it was real then he’d tell her what happened that night between them. So he does!
Well, since you’re here, you might as well stick around for Christmas dinner, Spidey.
It turns out, Frances was right and this is the real Quentin Beck. He describes how he made a deal with the demon Dormammu for the power to make his illusions real, and this is the price he paid. He tells his daughter that Spider-Man did try to save him, but he refused the hero’s aid. When he fell off of the bridge, he was pulled into the helmet where he’s to remain. This also explains why Doctor Strange didn’t destroy it since doing so would have destroyed Beck. Unfortunately for the Becks, this world starts to collapse upon itself. A vortex opens above them and it’s pretty clear they need to get out. Frances pleads for her dad to come with them, but he knows he’s trapped in this prison. Or is he? Spider-Man doesn’t think so, but soon the ground opens up below them and Frances is sent falling into the void!
No daughter, I think I would prefer to remain here in Armageddon than join you for Christmas.
She stops though, bathed in a green light, lifted up by her father. He’s holding all three of them with his magic, I guess, suspended in the air. Beck then uses his powers and a green light envelops all three of them. Outside the helmet, Moon Knight is having a rough go of things. He’s being attacked by the snow monster, nutcrackers, and some nasty looking teddy bears. As he sees the helmet pulsate, he assumes that he has failed and apologizes to the moon. Then, his enemies drop dead and Spider-Man appears with the Becks and Moon Knight is forced to correct himself.
Oh look, it all turned out well in the end. That tends to happen at Christmas in TV shows.
While father and daughter have a reunion, Spider-Man remarks how Moon Knight really trashed the place. He reminds Spider-Man this isn’t the only place that’s been damaged this evening and Spidey lets out an “Oh no!” We cut to Dr. Strange finding his home in shambles. As a book crumbles to dust in his hands, he curses Spider-Man to the heavens! We then are taken to F.E.A.S.T. where Aunt May volunteers to help the less fortunate. Spider-Man, Moon Knight, and the Becks are shown enjoying a meal together and there’s laughter and happy, holiday, cheer. We then head to the roof, where Spider-Man is attempting to wrap things up for us, only he’s distracted by Moon Knight’s persistent conversation with the moon. He makes fun of him for it, but Moon Knight turns the tables since Spider-Man can’t even explain who he’s addressing. Moon Knight calls him a weirdo, and Spidey is apparently content to leave things there as he wishes us all a “Happy Holidays,” and we exit with an iris shot.
I suppose it didn’t turn out all that well for Strange. Don’t worry about him though, he can magic that glass back together or something.
That was how Spider-Man spent a Christmas. And it was a rather eventful one. I have to confess, I wasn’t much at all interested in the story of the Becks. We barely got to know Francine so it wasn’t as if I felt hurt by her betrayal of Spider-Man like he seemed to be. I also wasn’t attached to her, but I guess it’s good that Spidey wasn’t willing to take the easy way out and let the magic wand kill her. I also never saw the episodes with Mysterio so I didn’t have that to fall back on. What hurt things further though was the performance of Paul Scheer as Quentin Beck. He is so wooden in the role and the scenes with him are terrible. Was he just mailing this one in? I’m surprised they would stick with this casting because it did not work at all. Perhaps the direction for him was poor as when the vortex is swallowing them he sounds bored, like maybe he didn’t really know what was happening to his character? I also don’t understand how his powers work. I thought he just did illusions and the helmet contained the magic? Did he learn how to utilize the helmet’s magic from within it? Could he have “magicked” himself out of that thing this whole time? It’s messy.
Even Moon Knight joined them for Christmas dinner.
What did work though was Diedrich Bader as Moon Knight. He steals the show and when he’s not on the screen I was definitely looking for him. He gets to be a badass with a personality as he comes across as aloof due to his constant conversing with the moon and Spider-Man is a natural foil for such a character. He takes himself very seriously, and Spider-Man could certainly be described as the opposite. As for old web-head, he manages to be charming and charismatic, but also annoying. It’s a unique quality that Spider-Man sometimes possesses. This particular iteration pushes things at times and he’s definitely upstaged in the funny remarks category by Moon Knight and his deadpan delivery, but I’m guessing that doesn’t happen in most episodes. As for Christmas, it’s here in spirit and Mysterio does her part to make sure of that. We don’t really see much of the reunion at the end so we never get a big dose of those Christmas feels, but given my distaste for the performance of Scheer, it’s probably a good thing that we ended things where we did.
After watching this episode I just have one question: where’s my Spider-Man and Moon Knight spin-off?!
If you like Spider-Man and want to see him at Christmas, this is fine. There’s some lore here to work around, but nothing that should feel too difficult for a casual Spidey fan. The animation is solid and I like how this thing looks. It did take me a bit to warm up to Spidey’s constant eye posing, but I could definitely watch more of this. I don’t know that I will, but maybe. This episode and the rest of the show is streaming on Disney+ and I would not expect to see it shown on television, especially this late in the game. This is also the show’s second Christmas episode, but the blurb on the first one made it sound like an It’s a Wonderful Life parody and I didn’t want to bark up that tree. If I’m mistaken and you think I should check it out, let me know. For now, I feel fine leaving it at this. Plus, that one doesn’t have Moon Knight!
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
2021 marked an important anniversary in animation: Shrek turned 20. The animated film from DreamWorks is credited as really helping to launch the company as a viable competitor to Disney’s Pixar. Prior to Shrek, DreamWorks had found success at the box office with Antz and Chicken Run, but Shrek was the first to really explode…
When I listed out the best Christmas specials over a week ago, I included the stop-motion A SpongeBob Christmas. And I stand by that as that special is pretty great. Before there was A SpongeBob Christmas, there was The SpongeBob Christmas Special. Confused? Well, there are only so many ways to title a Christmas special.…
We have reached a day of great, holiday, release – Christmas Eve. And what better way to mark the occasion than with a holiday short titled The Night Before Christmas. A lot of cartoons have made use of this title, but today’s subject is the Silly Symphony short that falls under that heading. It felt…
Back in 1929 Walt Disney launched the Silly Symphonies series of cartoon shorts. Unlike the Mickey Mouse shorts that were growing popular at the time, Silly Symphonies did not center on just one character or even a group of characters, but rather were fairly self-contained. Some shorts that became popular, like The Three Little Pigs, would receive sequels, but mostly the series was designed to be a testing ground for the animators working for Disney in the 1930s. Techniques with sound and color were first tested in Silly Symphonies as was the famed multiplane camera.
Despite the name, there often wasn’t a ton of “silly” to be found in a given Silly Symphony. Not that it stopped them from being popular or critically acclaimed for a large amount of Disney’s Academy Award wins came from the series. And had the series not been a success we probably wouldn’t have Looney Tunes, which is basically a synonym for Silly Symphony. Warner Bros. Studios would be better at incorporating the “looney” into their Looney Tunes and today those shorts are more fondly recalled and often more celebrated while many associate the Silly Symphonies with noodle-armed characters that just smile and dance around. Not that there aren’t some that are genuinely funny or even scary, and Donald Duck famously debuted in a Silly Symphony short, but the vast majority tend to be more whimsical than anything.
The subject of today’s Christmas post is one of those more gentle and whimsical shorts. Santa’s Workshop was released in December of 1932 and depicts what the famed workshop might look like on Christmas Eve. Understandably, there’s a lot of work to be done and Santa has to rely on his elves to get the bulk of it completed in time for his big flight. The short was directed by Wilfred Jackson and was just the fourth Silly Symphony to utilize Technicolor while also serving as a testing ground for a new audio synchronization technique crafted by RCA. A couple of years ago, we actually looked at the short’s sequel The Night Before Christmas. At the time, I was trying my best not to duplicate specials and shorts already covered by the unaffiliated website, A Cartoon Christmas, but that blog has since gone dormant and most of the old posts are no long accessible so I no longer feel such an obligation.
These must be the guys who empty the mailboxes at Macy’s.
The short begins with an original song by Frank Churchill. I couldn’t find a credit for the song’s name, but the words are “In the North North Pole in a distant land lives Santa Claus with a merry band of jolly elves who sing and dance making toys for girls and boys.” It’s sung with a choir and it just brings us into the picture which begins with an exterior shot of Santa’s Workshop and an elf can be seen hauling a sack of mail in its direction. In the background are more elves with more sacks as there’s apparently a lot of late arrivals this year.
Always important to get that establishing shot or line letting the viewer know how close to Christmas we are.
We then see a group of four elves working on Santa’s sleigh. One is scrubbing, one dusting, one touching up the paint and the fourth is shining the runners. They pause in their work to continue singing to the same melody telling us they’re “Merry, merry, men of the midnight sun,” which makes them sound a lot more intriguing than they really are. The painter elf punctuates their little song in a baritone that tomorrow is Christmas Day, implying they have some urgency in their work despite having time to stop and sing.
The guy on the right definitely has the worst job of the four.
We then cut to another group of four elves taking care of one of Santa’s reindeer. In the background we can see the name Prancer above a stall so I suppose this one is indeed Prancer. Prancer looks like an actual reindeer so I applaud Disney for its attempt at realism since many cartoons seems to model the reindeer after white tail deer and not actual reindeer. The elves in this shot are taking care of Prancer by brushing the fur, polishing the hooves and antlers, and the fourth unlucky elf gets to clean the deer’s butthole. He literally lifts up Prancer’s tail and wipes the deer’s ass with a brush. He seems happy to be doing it though as they’re all whistling to the same melody. We then cut to another elf brushing Donner’s teeth and yet another giving Dancer a rub down before the scene shifts to an interior shot.
That’s a lot of last minute letters or the big man has been slacking this year.
Here we get our first look at the big man himself, Santa Claus (Allan Watson), as he sits among a mountain of letters and goes through each one with a smile on his face. He reads them aloud and as he does his secretary to his left (Pinto Colvig) consults a ledger and lets Santa know if the kid has been good or not. Little Molly asks Santa for a dolly (everyone is going to speak in rhyme so the requests from the kids need to rhyme too) and his secretary informs him that Molly is okay because she eats her spinach every day. Santa gives a belly laugh in response and tells another elf to get her a doll. The next kid, little Billy, wants a whole bunch of stuff including various animals which prompts Santa to laugh to himself as he suggests he just get the kid Noah’s Ark. We then find out little Billy hasn’t washed behind his ears in seven years, but Santa just instructs an elf to toss in a cake of soap and resumes his laughter. The helper elf says, “Okay, a cake of soap!” and he’s clearly voiced by Walt Disney since he sounds almost exactly like Mickey Mouse from that era.
I know it says “Factory,” but every time I see this shot I read it as “Fartory” and wonder what a “Fartory” would look like. I’m pretty sure I know what it would smell like.
The little elf runs off with Billy’s massive list into another room and we get to see the actual workshop in action. The elves are banging away at all manner of toys and we get to see how they build a rocking horse. First is a shot of a massive log getting cut to size so an elf can shove a horse head onto it. We then see an assembly line of elves inserting the runners into the bottom via hammer. Then we get to see an elf very cheerfully drill holes into the backside of each horse which moves along to the tail elf who grabs a tuft of straw, or fur, dabs it in glue and then tosses into the newly drilled hole. Lastly, we see the elf who applies some black spots to each side of the horse. Pretty conventional stuff here which leaves me wondering, “Where’s the gag?”
The secret to perfect curls is terror.
Now that we know how to assemble a rocking horse we move on to see a group of painter elves coloring up some blocks and doll heads. It’s at this point it feels like we’re seeing a lot of this just so Disney can show off its Technicolor exclusive license it held at the time. The next elf is painting checkerboards and the gag here is he has checkered paint that does all of the work for him since it goes on as a checkerboard. It’s a gag that I’ve seen used a fair amount in cartoons over the years, though for all I know, this was its origin (but probably not). We then see some elves sewing doll clothes before moving onto an assembly line for doll hair. A shaggy looking doll comes down the conveyor belt and an elf dangles a spider in front of its face. This frightens the doll so its hair stands up on end and a bunch of curlers fall from the ceiling to do its hair up nice and pretty. A second doll comes through and there’s a quick animation error as the color of its dress changes from blue to pink as the gag with the hair is repeated.
No, it very much is not okay.
We then rejoin Santa Claus and it’s here we have ourselves a bit of controversy. If you’re watching this short on Disney+, Santa will appear to just be fiddling with a toy airplane which amuses him greatly. He comes off as a goof who is just playing with the toys while the elves do all of the work. If you’re watching the uncensored version though, then you know he’s actually testing the products. A doll comes down a chute and he asks her to say “Mama.” She says “Mom,” at first and Santa has to correct her until she says it right, then laughing heartily once more, he stamps an “OK” on her backside. As the doll walks off another one comes down the chute and this is the offensive one. We’re talking about a 1930s cartoon so you can probably imagine what the doll looks like, but in case you can’t it’s a blackface doll. It pops up on its two feet and in a raspy voice says “Mammy!” which makes Santa laugh. It does a “butt stomp” on Santa’s stamp and struts off and Santa doesn’t stop it so he apparently approves of this racist doll. After that, the airplane comes down the chute and the edited version picks up with Santa testing that one out. Should Disney have cut it? Eh, I don’t know. It’s been released so many times by the company uncut that it feels like it’s trying to hide something by not putting it on their service. They already have a disclaimer before the short, so might as well leave it, I guess. Or just put both up. The gag is definitely dated and doesn’t exactly add much, I just don’t like how it’s edited because the new version doesn’t make it obvious that Santa is testing product and actually doing something.
The is the only way to get him to stop laughing.
Anyway, with Santa laughing at the airplane the thing flies into his mouth and he pulls it out and sends it off into the workshop where it just starts knocking a bunch of toys off various shelves (see why the edit makes him look like an unhelpful boob?). The toys land on the floor properly arranged and we basically go into a parade of toys segment. Here we get more racist depictions of toys, these ones are left in the Disney+ cut, as a blackface marching band leads some white toy soldiers in a march. They’re followed by some penguins, a clown, an elephant, and a donkey. Behind the donkey comes some “China dolls” that look at the camera and have their hair shoot up for some reason. Is it racist? Maybe, they definitely shouldn’t be given the benefit of the doubt. Behind those dolls comes a Charlie Chaplin inspired toy with a police officer chasing after him. I’m guessing that was a pretty big hit in 1932.
This job really doesn’t look that hard.
The toys all march into Santa’s sack while their overlord/creator looks on approvingly. The racist band is slightly less racist now since the red lips have been removed basically leaving them looking like Bosko. We cut to another Bosko-like toy steering a carriage pulled by a donkey towards Santa’s sack and the donkey pauses to kick the carriage every few seconds to bounce the black-face toy into the air. Some wooden ducks go by in the background and we then see Billy’s Noah’s Ark go “sailing” past on wheels with various animals poking their heads out. More mechanical toys continue their march which include some flamingo-like birds, a rolling teddy bear, and some wind-up pigs. Santa stands the now overflowing sack up and the last toy to jump in is a Jack-in-the-Box because every Christmas cartoon from this era requires one be present. Santa laughs and then lets his elves do all of the work in carrying the sack outside to place in his sleigh.
The second that sleigh takes off these elves are busting out the eggnog.
All of the elves are waiting for them outside and they cheer at the sight of Santa Claus. He takes a stand in the sleigh and a rare, serious expression, is painted on his face. If you look closely, an off-model Mickey Mouse toy is present in the sack of toys. Santa then bobs and sways as he sings “Goodbye, my merry little gnomes,” and the elves respond in kind with “Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye!” Santa then boasts that he’s bringing joy to a million homes and after the elves respond with their goodbye cheer once again he sits down and cracks his whip over Dasher’s rear. The reindeer are lined up single-file in front of the sleigh and there are actually 9 of them. They take off to thunderous applause and we get to see Santa and his sleigh pass in front of the screen a few times before they head off towards a really creepy moon. It’s our first moon shot of 2022, and it’s certainly memorable and might haunt your dreams later.
They were even doing hidden Mickeys back in ’32.
That’s all she wrote as this one is a tidy 6:40, and even shorter if you’re watching on Disney+ due to the removed content. This one is a fairly conventional Silly Symphony as it’s all set to music and there’s basically no conflict. It’s just a bunch of characters cheerfully doing stuff, in this scenario making toys and getting ready for Christmas. It’s fine, and I do like this very jolly depiction of Santa as a guy who is just tickled by his profession. He does come across as a bit of an overlord since we don’t see him do much. He’s basically king of the elves and they just do his bidding, but the song makes sure to tells us that they’re very happy with their lot in life. Does that make it better? No, not really, but whatever.
There it is, the first animated “Moon Shot” to appear in color. Many have followed and many have been less unsettling. Where’s Piccolo when you need him?
Obviously, the censorship present provides for some talking points and it might be the most interesting aspect about the short. That type of racial depiction was unfortunately very common during this time period. It’s so common that I’m actually surprised when one of these “parade of toys” cartoons doesn’t include some type of blackface gag. Apparently white audiences just loved that stuff in the 30s. It’s unfortunate, but it is what it is. If not for that, this would just be a fairly benign Christmas cartoon that’s also forgettable. It doesn’t really add anything to the Santa lore and the gags are fairly pedestrian. Still, of all of the shorts that are like this, I might like this one the most? I don’t love it, but the music isn’t tiresome and the visuals are pretty nice. The elves are a bit more noodle-armed than I like, but the character designs are pleasant and I really like this rounded Santa.
Being that this one is on Disney+, Santa’s Workshop should be a fairly easy cartoon to find if you wish to view it this year. It’s been released on Christmas DVDs and was included in the Walt Disney Treasures line of DVD releases that are now long out of print and quite expensive. I actually don’t have that set as I really couldn’t see myself sitting down to watch a marathon of Silly Symphony shorts, but if you fancy yourself a cartoon historian then it might be worth tracking down. And if you don’t have access to any of those things there’s always YouTube which is where you’re most likely to encounter the uncut version. Disney is a pretty litigious company when it comes to protecting its brand, but when it comes to the old shorts it’s surprisingly lax with YouTube.
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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There is a lot of debate over who the greatest cartoon star of all time is, but there isn’t much debate about who the first real star was. That title belongs to Mickey Mouse who entered into the world of cinema in 1928 and remained a star into the 1950s. Since then, Mickey’s presence on the big screen has been severely reduced. Between 1953 and 1983, there were no Mickey Mouse shorts. That drought was put out with the release of Mickey’s Christmas Carol, but that short subject has always felt like a cheat. Most Mickey Mouse shorts were around 8 minutes or so, that one was 26 and that’s likely because Disney always had plans to put it on television as a holiday special. Following that short, Mickey would come back with a cameo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? followed by another long-form short in The Prince and the Pauper in 1990. Again, not really a short in the classic sense. The true drought was finally laid to waste in 1995 with a brand new bonafide short that would go on to be nominated for an Academy Award, but Disney would rather you forget about that these days.
Since it is October, the spookiest month of the year, I wanted to recognize the spirit of the month in some fashion which is why we’re to talk about the much unloved Mickey Mouse comeback Runaway Brain. The short was conceived by animator Chris Bailey with backing from executive Jeffrey Katzenberg. In the 90s, Mickey Mouse was a frequent subject in the halls of Disney’s animation wing as the company wanted to restore the character to prominence. The problem was, after decades of being a corporate mascot, Mickey was hard to pin down. As characters like Goofy and Donald Duck gained popularity back in the 30s, Mickey was pushed into more of a straight man role. He really didn’t do much, just played off of others. The 1990 short was attached to The Rescuers Down Under, one of the only animated films of the Disney Renaissance that failed to make a splash. Was that Mickey’s fault? No, probably not, but he apparently didn’t help to elevate that release.
Runaway Brain sees Mickey Mouse firmly as a 90s man.
Bailey wanted to do something different with Mickey and it’s said that Katzenberg was onboard with doing a “90’s Mickey.” The original pitch for a short was a duo picture between Mickey and Donald where a jealous Donald would actually try to kill Mickey. That wasn’t going to fly and it was unsurprisingly nixed by Disney executives Peter Schneider and Thomas Schumacher. Rather than rework that pitch, Bailey did something all-together different coming up with a pseudo-Frankenstein for Mickey that saw the mouse turned into a monster. It was a bold take from a design standpoint as it involved creating a new, monstrous, version of Mickey Mouse which could upset Disney fans young and old. Katzenberg liked it though, and since Disney had a newly acquired team of animators just sitting on their hands in France, the storyboard actually went into production.
Unfortunately, between the start of production and the eventual end, Jeffrey Katzenberg was fired. Or let go, however he chooses to spin it these days. At any rate, one of the supporters high up in the company was gone and in his place were Schumacher and Schneider who seemed to have a much lower opinion of Bailey’s short subject. Despite having a terrific team of animators onboard including Andreas Deja who animated Mickey in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the executives demanded the short be chopped up and hacked apart to remove effects and change scenes around entirely, including the ending. Michael Eisner was said to have liked the short when it was screened for he and the other executives, but either Bailey and team were cut off from appealing to him, or he just left it all to Schumacher and Schneider and put all of his trust in their decisions.
The end result is that a severely compromised version of Runaway Brain was sent to theaters in 1995 playing in front of the dud A Kid in King Arthur’s Court. I suppose the optimist might say that the powers that be paired Mickey up with the forgettable picture to help bring in additional patrons, but Bailey saw it as a slight. It would air with A Goofy Movie and The Hunchback of Notre Dame in other territories, two films that make more sense to pair it with (A Goofy Movie especially), but plans to screen it in 1996 with the Glenn Close starring 101 Dalmatians re-make were nixed at the 11th hour. And since then, the film has only been released on physical media once as part of the Mickey Mouse: In Living Color Volume 2 set and digitally with Walt Disney Animation Studios Short Films Collection. And that digital release could be considered a surprise, though it says a lot about the studio’s attitude toward the film that it wasn’t part of the actual, physical, release of the set.
Does Runaway Brain deserve this kind of treatment from the studio? Of course not! While it’s not Mickey’s greatest role or anything, it’s a fun little film and should be on Disney+ at least. Granted, a lot of Mickey shorts are not on the service, but as the only true short from the 1990s, why not that one? Plus it would fit nicely into the Halloween collection. At any rate, lets take a scene-by-scene look at this short so we can see what we’re being deprived of. I am viewing the short via the DVD of the previously mentioned Mickey compilation which is a pretty great set if you like physical media (and it seems to have actually come down in price over the years).
Not the kind of intro we’re accustomed to seeing for a Mickey cartoon.
The film begins with a big Mickey Mouse title card and some rather upbeat, fairly typical, Mickey type music. It’s interrupted with a monstrous version of Mickey’s gloved hand which slaps down on the card and then slashes across it replacing it with the Runaway Brain title. The font looks like its molten lava or something and it’s a solid juxtaposition to what was originally presented.
Maybe Disney just doesn’t want kids to see how Mickey really lives?
We then find Mickey (Wayne Allwine) at his home. It’s dark and rainy and he’s shouting from inside like he’s being attacked. He’s not, and is actually just playing a video game. He’s really into into it though and so is Pluto (Bill Farmer) who’s bouncing around and barking up a storm. We get a look at the game and it’s a fighter pitting Dopey against the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The gamepad he’s using does slightly resemble a Genesis one, though it’s clearly designed to be something generic.
Geez Minnie, you’re worse than my mom! Can’t you tell by the row of tombstones that Mickey is on his last life?!
Minnie Mouse (Russi Taylor) then enters all excited to see her man. She walks in between Mickey and the TV and you can probably imagine how that goes over with the mouse. Mickey even remarks, “Are you trying to get me killed?” and Minnie responds with a “Maybe,” as she feels Mickey has forgotten about an important day. She has to remind him she’s referring to the anniversary of their first date and Mickey is forced to scramble. He puts down the game and tells Minnie he has big plans. Grabbing a newspaper which features an add for miniature golf, he waves it in her face remarking how they can have some fun in the sun. Unfortunately, Mickey didn’t notice an ad for a Hawaiian cruise just below the mini golf one and that’s what Minnie thinks he’s referring to. She gives him a big hug while Mickey stares at the ad and recoils at the thousand dollar price tag. Minnie plants a kiss on his lips before departing to go swimsuit shopping leaving Mickey to try to figure out a way out of this mess.
You can tell this is 90s Mickey instead of 2000s Mickey by his lack of an ass.
Man’s, or mouse’s, best friend seems to have the answer as he flops the want ads in front of his master. Mickey’s attention is drawn to an ad promising pay for an afternoon of mindless work – what could go wrong? Mickey sets out to investigate and arrives at the home of Dr. Frankenollie, a portmanteau of Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, two of the famous 9 old men of Disney animating legend. His home happens to be located at 1313 Lobotomy Lane which doesn’t seem at all like a bad omen. Mickey seems unphased though as he tosses on a blue tie, and there’s a very brief animation flourish of it choking him as he secures it, before knocking on the door.
Mickey can’t help himself – he’s jealous.
When he does so, the ground opens up below Mickey and swallows him whole! He travels down a steel pipe and drops into a crude looking chair that immediately shackles him in place. He cracks, “Talk about your ironclad contracts,” which was one of the many revisions the Disney executives made with this one as he was originally supposed to say, “I think I’m in trouble.” Such a needless revision. We’re then introduced to the doc (Kelsey Grammer), who as an ape, basically climbs all over Mickey. He’s a skinny ape in a white lab coat with a lightbulb in his head. As he examines Mickey he asks him questions such as “Here for the job?” Mickey tries answering his questions in various ways, basically trying to tell him what he doesn’t want to hear and sometimes what he does, just to see if there is a way out. It’s clear his responses mean nothing to the doctor as he has what he wants and Mickey is going no where.
He may be named Julius, but that’s Pete like you’ve never seen him before! He even has his peg leg back in this one!
Dr. Frankenollie then introduces Mickey to his partner: Julius. Julius (Jim Cummings) rises from a contraption in the ground and is basically a massive version of Pete crossed with Frankenstein’s monster. He eagerly confirms for Mickey that he intends to swap their brains, and when he does we get a fun X-Ray shot of Mickey’s head which depicts his brain in 3 parts: his head and each ear. Despite protests from the mouse, the doctor activate his machine. Electricity surges out of a contraption in the ceiling and blasts both Mickey and Julius with electricity. For Mickey, it looks quite painful, but for Julius it looks almost therapeutic.
It doesn’t look like the doctor will be helping you, Mickey.
When the experiment is over and the dust settles, the lab looks absolutely trashed. A closeup of Mickey’s eyes and a part of his nose is accompanied with a voice over of him seemingly thinking all is well. It’s not, and as the camera zooms out we see the experiment worked and Mickey is in the body of the giant monster! Mickey, panicked, runs over to Doctor Frankenollie begging him to undo what happened only the doctor is unresponsive. Mickey picks him up and he’s stiff as board. Then his flesh turns to dust leaving behind only a skeleton, which too turns to dust. It would seem the doctor didn’t get to live to see the culmination of his life’s work – such a shame.
Looks like they didn’t have to edit out all of the drool!
We’re then introduced to the monstrous Mickey! Julius comes jumping out of the debris and he’s basically a feral version of Mickey. He walks mostly on all fours, his hands are curled into claws, his ears are furry and jagged, and his eyes rimmed with dark circles and bloodshot. He was supposed to feature lots of drool too, but that was another element the Disney executives had edited out. Mickey tries to reason with Julius and in doing so mentions Minnie. He tells Julius to look in his wallet and when he does he finds a picture of Minnie and Mickey (and we get a brief shot of Mickey from Steamboat Willie) and seems to salivate over Minnie. Mickey grabs the wallet, but it’s too late. Despite formerly being a cat monster, Julius is pretty infatuated with Minnie Mouse and starts grunting her name as he climbs up and out of the ceiling of the lab forcing Mickey to give chase.
Aww, he’s cute!
Julius emerges on the roof and starts gnawing on the ledge before something catches his eye. It’s Minnie and she’s entering a shop named The Wet Rat (eww). She’s looking at bathing suits, bikinis to be exact, which look quite tiny and a bit risqué, but one look at the size of Minnie’s body and they actually seem reasonably sized. And since a bikini includes a top, it actually covers more than we’re used to seeing with Minnie. Julius comes running in and Minnie tries to hide what she’s looking at since she doesn’t want him to see it until they’re on the boat. She doesn’t notice that her man is looking a bit more feral than usual, and with her back turned toward him, the real Mickey comes bursting in.
I think he likes it, Minnie.
Mickey cries out a warning that she’s in the presence of a monster, but she only hears the warning. When she turns around, she sees Mickey, in the monster’s body, grabbing the Julius-Mickey and assumes the monster is the, er, monster. I realize that sounds confusing, but she throws stuff at Mickey and frees Julius and the two of them run out the door. As they run down the street, Minnie is holding Julius by the hand who basically hops behind her and it’s rather fun looking. Mickey, in the body of the monster, smashes through the store and chases after them.
He can change his ears at will, but apparently not the rest of his body.
Mickey catches up to the pair and is able to snatch Minnie. He’s finally able to get her to notice it’s him speaking to her, and this short does do the cheat where the characters retain their usual voice despite the body swap. As he says “It’s me, Mickey!” his ears morph into traditional Mickey-shaped ears which is rather clever. Minnie doesn’t ask questions and believes him now, but feral Mickey has grabbed onto a car and is speeding towards them. Mickey swings via some construction equipment to the top of a skyscraper where he deposits Minnie for safe keeping. He then swings back down to ground level and is able to grab Julius. As they swing up into the air once more, Julius opens the bucket Mickey is swinging from which dumps some construction waste onto his head (steel girders and such) which causes him to let go. They land on some power lines which shocks their brains back into the proper body, then slingshots them towards the building Minnie is on. They smash through a billboard, coincidentally for the Hawaiian cruise that started all of this, with the character heads comically inserted into the image.
Mickey might miss having all of that extra room for his brain.
Mickey comes to and realizes he’s back in his old body. Unfortunately, he’s also in the grip of Julius and so is Minnie! Julius is still lusting over the mouse and Mickey has to bite his finger in order for the monster to drop him. Julius swats him off of the building and then makes a kissy face in Minnie’s direction who promptly slaps him. He’s pretty ticked off now, but before he can do anything to Minnie, Mickey returns! He’s armed with some rope and what appears to be a window squeegee which he cocks like a shotgun. He gets Julius’ attention and then charges at the monster!
Disney wouldn’t let Mickey wield a toy gun for the video game scene, so they had to make do with this.
Mickey uses his squeegee like a pole-vault and launches himself over Julius and onto a mechanical arm attached to a hula dancer on the billboard they previously smashed through. The arms goes up and and down, but largely is horizontal with the rooftop so Mickey is able to run across it. He lassos Julius who lets go of Minnie, but Mickey is able to lasso her as well. Swinging down and back to the rooftop with his girl in his arms, Mickey and Minnie share an embrace while a wrapped up Julius teeters via his peg leg on the ledge. Minnie takes a step back after her embrace with Mickey ends and she accidentally bumps Julius off of the building. Worry not for the monster, for as he falls the mechanical arm of the billboard pulls him back up like a yo-yo. The camera zooms out for a full look at the gag which provides for our first real look at the contraption in action.
That is one powerful motor in that billboard.
We then cut to Minnie, in her little, green, bikini, and Mickey with their toes in the water. They look like they’re on a float indicating Mickey was able to come up with the money to make their vacation dreams come true. Or not. We zoom out as Minnie plants a nice, wet, one on her man to see they’re on an inner tube being pulled by Julius. He’s swimming them to Hawaii with the picture from Mickey’s wallet dangling in front of his face. This was originally meant to be a crude effigy of Minnie fashioned out of pillows, but for some reason the executives didn’t like that. I don’t think either is necessarily more funny than the other, it just sucks to make people re-animate something for nothing. Plus, in order for this to work now Mickey’s wallet has to be Julius-sized which makes little sense.
Mickey and Minnie may have received a happy ending, but Runaway Brain has not.
That’s it though. Runaway Brain is far more infamous than it rightly deserves to be. The cartoon is fine and I enjoy the look of the characters in it. Mickey and Minnie have a nice flow to their animation and I love how they’re just constantly in motion. Their character models are just ever so slightly redesigned here to make them feel unique to the picture. They both seem a little taller and more narrow than usual, but they still maintain their signature look. I love Dr. Frankenollie, who we really only see briefly. The animators have a lot of fun with the fact that he’s an ape as he doesn’t just stand in front of Mickey, he climbs all over him and all over his own equipment. Julius is positively huge which makes his design a great deal of fun, though he’s still plainly in the realm of a Frankenstein. The feral Mickey is the most memorable part of the short and it’s because it’s just fun to see a monstrous take on a classic character like Mickey Mouse. His arms are usually bent so he has some sharp angles in his posture which is quite different from the rubber-hosed Mickey and his fur is ruff and exaggerated, which again, is very different from traditional Mickey who looks more black-skinned than furry. I’m having a hard time thinking of a scene that makes Mickey look like a fur-covered being and coming up empty.
It is thought that the design of the feral Mickey is the leading reason why this short is so shunned by the company. He’s unsettling and a bit scary and it would seem a lot of people associated with Disney do not like seeing such descriptors attached to Mickey Mouse. Sitting here in 2022 and watching it, it really feels like much ado about nothing. This feral Mickey is not particularly gross, which he certainly could have been given this was made in the 90s, and he’s only vaguely monstrous. We’ve seen Mickey look far worse now on the Paul Rudish shorts, but perhaps those are allowed to get away with more because they have their own style which is very different from classic Mickey? I’m not sure, but in terms of ugly depictions of Mickey, we’ve moved way past feral Mickey in the 27 years since the release of Runaway Brain.
It’s a shame that Disney just leaves this one hanging when it’s a film that deserves to be seen by millions.
At this point, the black sheep status Runaway Brain seems to embody is nothing short of peculiar. It’s such an inoffensive cartoon. There’s an energy to it that is unmistakably 90s, and the animation puts it square in that era too which is a good thing. It’s nice to have a 90s looking Mickey since he had few shorts and wasn’t allowed to grace television sets as part of the Disney Afternoon like Donald and Goofy. He even gets to act heroic in this one and save his beloved Minnie who also is able to stick up for herself and avoid being a total damsel in distress. It brings back Mickey’s troubles with money, a common trait in his classic shorts, and it’s all together perfectly fine. It’s not some remarkable piece of animation and probably not even top 10 for a Mickey Mouse short, but it is fun. According to some within the company, there’s really no conspiracy or grand design to keep Runaway Brain out of the public eye, it’s just not popular and gets overlooked as a result. Others maintain the opposite though and indicate that many at Disney don’t like it and would rather see it buried. It’s rarely merchandized, and as we covered before, has only been made available on two occasions since leaving theaters. Which is silly, because I think the feral Mickey design could be popular if given the chance as a Halloween tie-in. Sell furry Mickey ears at the parks, put him on keychains, or corny motivational posters about having a bad hair day. Make feral Mickey plushes – I’d buy one! A video game where the player controls a Mickey that turns into the feral Mickey at night like a werewolf could even be fun! Or it would be like that terrible Sonic game. Either way, Runaway Brain deserves to be seen and should be a Halloween treat year in and year out and most certainly should be treated a lot better than it currently is.
Few brands are as immensely popular as Disney, which is why it’s a bit surprising that the company’s presence in the world of action figures has always felt a little lacking. It’s thought (and maybe even confirmed by the company) that Disney’s interest in properties like Marvel and Star Wars stemmed from them being unable to internally develop IPs that better aligned with what boys enjoy. Disney has never had trouble selling princess dolls to little girls, but action figures? It’s always been a tougher sell. They’ve tried and managed to craft a wonderful IP in Gargoyles, but apparently it didn’t have the sort of commercial success that Disney was looking for. Even so, it’s a shame their classic characters haven’t always been well-represented in plastic. Maybe they just think kids don’t want a Mickey figure? With the collector market amongst adults really exploding over the last decade or so I suppose it’s no surprise that we’re finally seeing some change in this area.
Donald comes in a heavy cardstock box that reminds me of a board game. The left is the outer lid, and the right is the inner box with the insert over it.
It was a little over a year ago that I took a look at the Hero Cross HMF Donald Duck. At the time, that figure was one of the few collector grade figures of Donald Duck out there. Since then, we’ve seen other companies show interest in Disney figures like Super7, McFarlane, and now Beast Kingdom. Beast Kingdom has actually been at it for a little while doing some collectible statues and also dipping its toe into the action figure game with it’s line Dynamic 8ction Heroes. The first figure I saw from Beast Kingdom and had interest in was a Jack Skellington. Since there isn’t a review of that figure on this blog I obviously didn’t buy it, but I sure was tempted. Beast Kingdom has since released a Mickey, Darkwing Duck, and Scrooge McDuck, but it was Donald Duck that I decided would be my entry point into the world of Beast Kingdom. And today, on Donald Duck’s 88th birthday, I’m going to tell you all about it!
And there’s our boy and all of his “parts.”
Donald Duck has long been one of, if not my absolute, favorite cartoon characters so when a new product featuring him comes along I immediately take notice. I liked the figure from Hero Cross last year, but the cost of that line left me content to just make Donald my one and only. Beast Kingdom has a similar issue in that these figures are not cheap. And like everything the past year, the price seems to only be going up. I paid just over 70 bucks for this guy at Big Bad Toy Store and that’s certainly a lot for an action figure. It’s a hard price to live up to, but if I was going to have any interest in adding to my collection beyond Donald, I needed this figure to win me over.
Such a nice looking, well-mannered duck.
Donald Duck arrives in a pretty hefty package. It’s a square box and the top slides off like the box to a board game would. There’s an insert featuring Donald’s shirt pattern over a plastic tray which contains the actual figure. There’s a transparent plastic overlay on that tray, but otherwise everything is loose with no tie-downs or anything. It’s also worth pointing out that this seems designed for internet sales because you can’t see the figure at all without opening the box which is taped closed. There are some product renders on the rear of the box, none of which showcase the entire figure’s body. It’s a bit odd, but again, this isn’t the type of product destined to sit on a shelf at a brick and mortar location.
I’ll just give you the comparison you want right out of the gate.
Donald stands at approximately 6.3″ per Beast Kingdom’s product solicitation. He’s quite big and might catch some folks off-guard as a result. He’s bigger than even the Hero Cross Donald and if there’s a scale to this line I’m not sure what it is. Donald obviously doesn’t exist in the real world, but when animated into live-action he looks like he could be around 3.5′ tall which would make this something close to 1/6th scale. Either way, he’s likely not going to scale with anything else out there except for other Beast Kingdom figures from this line. And by “line” I mean the Disney ducks, and maybe Mickey, because the Jack figure from Beast Kingdom is 8″ tall. As I said before though, I don’t have any other figures from this line to compare him to, but I’m assuming he shares some parts with the likes of Scrooge and Darkwing and they’re probably all comparable in size.
We should probably compare duck butts too. One thing Hero Cross has over this one is no seem for the faceplates on the head.
Donald is presented in his licensing art attire. That means he has a light blue hat and shirt with yellow trim on the shirt and a red bowtie. It’s not my preferred Donald, but it’s not unexpected. Since Beast Kingdom lists him as “Classic” Donald maybe they intend to do other versions later. Out of the box, Donald has a fairly neutral expression with gripping hands. The white areas of his body are appropriately white and the only other color really is the orange of his bill and legs. There’s very little paint on this guy, especially because his eyes are a separate piece of very light blue plastic. The only paint you’ll find on him really are the black pupils of his eyes, which are printed I’m guessing, and his inner mouth on the alternate portrait. The white plastic has a nice matte appearance, while the orange is a bit more glossy and “plasticy” in nature. It stands in contrast to the more saturated and richer presentation of the Hero Cross figure and I wish they had painted those parts. This is a figure meant to represent a classic cartoon character and that saturated look would serve it better in replicating the ink and paint origins. The bill looks okay, but the feet have a cheap look to them as a result that I wish wasn’t present in a $70 figure.
Behold the horror that is faceless Donald! The tab for the eyes slides into that open slow and you can see the magnet at the top of the head which doesn’t appear prone to falling out.
And those eye plates will allow the figure to do things like look up…
…and put some movies on Daisy, if there ever is a Daisy.
Also contributing to the figure’s appearance is the use of soft goods for the shirt. It’s a design choice by Beast Kingdom probably to differentiate their product from others out there, and as far as I can tell, all of the figures in this line come with soft goods attire. The quality of the shirt seems okay. It has the thickness of a Barbie shirt and the printing of the yellow parts looks nice. I like how the rear “flap” is sewn into the collar and the bowtie is also handled well. The issues I have it with though are that mine is fairly wrinkled out of the box and I’m not sure there’s much I can do about that. I wouldn’t dare iron it, and if I wanted to I’d have to figure out how to get it off to do so which would likely require me to remove the figure’s arms. I suppose I could hit it with some wrinkle release spray and see if that helps. I also find the fit of the shirt just looks a little off. It sits very high on Donald’s shoulders and basically erases his neck. I find myself tugging on it a lot to try to bring it as low as possible, even though it isn’t accomplishing much. I think there’s just not enough weight to the material which is often the issue of soft goods and why some people hate them. I don’t think it looks terrible by any means, but it’s easy to see why Hero Cross went with a vinyl body instead of soft goods.
Posing won’t be this figure’s strongest point, but at least he can guard Optimus in a game of one-on-one.
Beast Kingdom includes a stand if you want to attempt more dramatic poses, but I have found the figure just works best in simple ones.
Beast Kingdom does refer to this line as its Dynamic 8tion line. Why they use an “8” I don’t know, but nitpick aside you would expect some dynamic posing out of a line with such a name. That’s going to be a challenge for a duck, but Beast Kingdom does list 12 points of articulation for this figure. Donald’s head sits on a double ball-peg with another ball-peg at the base of the neck. This means he has no trouble looking in basically all directions. The shoulders are on standard ball-hinges and he gets good rotation there even with the soft goods shirt. At the elbow is a single hinge with a swivel and the sleeve of the shirt slides up past the elbow pretty effortlessly to facilitate movement of the joint. The wrists are on ball-hinges so he gets a full range of motion at that point as well. In the torso, we have what feels like a ball joint of some kind. It mostly allows Donald to rotate as trying to use it as an ab crunch causes the figure to just snap back into place when released. The legs are where things are most limited as he has a ball and socket joint at the hips and ball joints at the ankle. There’s no knee joint which is odd so Donald’s knees are permanently bent. His shape being what it is, there isn’t a lot one can do with the legs and the plastic for them is too light to handle one-legged poses and some walking positions, but I suppose that’s why there is a stand included. He moves about as well as I expected and the only knock I’d give the figure are the lack of knee joints and it’s worth pointing out that Beast Kingdom’s Darkwing has knee joints, while Scrooge does not. Most of the articulation is well-hidden at least which is a nice bonus.
They really made sure he could look in just about any direction.
In terms of accessories, Donald has a lot and a little. All of his accessories are just optional display parts so there’s no props or anything. Given he’s a generic Donald Duck, there isn’t exactly a prop that jumps to mind so I suppose it’s not a big deal, it’s just odd to have gripping hands on a figure that has nothing to grip. Donald also has a set of relaxed, open, hands and a set of waving hands. No fists is a bummer so you can’t even really try to replicate his classic hopping mad pose. Donald also comes with a second head, but I think it’s just included either as an extra or to help pack the other faceplate because it’s not needed. Donald’s face system works in that there’s a plate that comes off and behind that you have a plate for the eyes which are removable. The back of his head works with both faceplates, which is good because when I tried popping the head off the neck came with it and I could not get that off. And thankfully I don’t need to because I can just swap the faceplates. Donald’s other expression is an open mouth with frowning eyes which required a different shape for the eyes. You get four sets of eyes for each faceplate: straight-ahead, looking up, left, and right. Swapping them is fairly painless, and swapping the hands out is also easy, which is great considering I had issues with my Hero Cross Donald. Lastly, the hat is removable and attaches via a magnet. Beast Kingdom also includes a stand which is made of translucent, blue, plastic and features a black arm that is designed to grab the figure around the neck. It’s a bit unusual, but it works and it looks okay since it has Donald’s name printed on the front. I just wish it wasn’t hollow and had more weight to it so I felt like it was really anchoring the figure down, but he doesn’t have issues standing so I likely won’t even utilize the stand.
For those who don’t have an expensive import Donald, here’s some comparisons to the short-lived DuckTales 2017 toy line and a NECA TMNT figure.
Perhaps more useful, a comparison to a Marvel Legends Spider-Man and a Figuarts Goku.
Beast Kingdom’s take on Donald Duck arrived largely as expected. The product shots online paint an accurate picture of what you’re getting, so if you’re a Donald fan and you’re okay with the price, then you should be satisfied. I have some nitpicks with the soft goods, but they look as advertised so it’s not like Beast Kingdom delivered a product that was misleading. My only real issue is with those legs as a digital render isn’t going to reveal just how cheap they look in person. If I’m paying a premium for a collectible, cheap is the last thing I want to enter my mind when I look at it. And the lack of fist hands too kind of sucks as I find the options I have in posing the figure aren’t “wowing” me. It would have also have been nice if the beaks were removable. I like the angry expression quite a bit, but the neutral one is almost too plain. It looks like Donald, but when am I ever going to choose to display Donald with an expressionless face? This is a character that’s usually displaying some pretty extreme emotions be they happy, mad, frustrated, scared, etc. I definitely don’t picture Donald Duck in my head with a blank expression on his face.
Looks like they’re getting along just fine!
Ultimately, your perception of value is going to define how you feel about this figure. It mostly looks the part, the articulation is acceptable, and there’s some options available for display purposes. It just all comes at a pretty steep cost and I don’t know if it truly earns it. There’s no feeling of “extra” with this guy: no reference items or just fun add-ons like you might see from other companies or even from Beast Kingdom as they included Scrooge’s number one dime in his set (among other things, and to be fair, he’s being sold for $85). I’m fine with this figure though and I’m happy to add it to my Donald display, but it didn’t leave me wanting more figures from the line. I feel pretty comfortable now in passing on Scrooge and the nephews. Maybe Beast Kingdom can convince me to buy another Donald down the road if an update comes along based on a favorite short or something, but for now, I’m content to let this be it and I enjoy it for what it is. And on a personal note, I’m also happy to devote this blog’s 900th entry to a Donald Duck toy! Now I have 99 entries to think of an appropriate 1000th one. Will it be Donald? Will it be a toy? Check back, I suppose, in a year and half or so.
Well, here’s something different. Bronx, the good gargoyle dog, is NECA’s fourth entry in its relatively young line of action figures based on the beloved Disney Afternoon series Gargoyles. And not only is Bronx here all on his own, he’s also got something for his buddy Goliath that collectors of this line have been begging for. Unfortunately, he also arrives as part of NECA’s Haulathon event, a gimmicky collector event taking place at Target that should be over by now. Unlike his line-mate, Demona, Bronx appears to have shipped in rather large numbers. Also unlike Demona, he was never put up for order on Target’s website so those who want him have been forced to trek to the store in hopes of catching him on a shelf. Or, you get a friend like I did in @JoePoppingOn who came through for me again with a Bronx! That’s three figures he helped me acquire so a very, hearty, “Thanks” are in order for him. Give him a follow on Twitter, especially if you’re located in the US north east.
Articulated jaws are cool.
Bronx comes in NECA’s standard Ultimates styled packaging with artwork on the front and product shots throughout. The front flap opens to reveal the figure inside and showcase the accessories, with one accessory displayed about as prominently as the actual figure. We’ll get to that, but first we need to talk about Bronx. Bronx, being more like a dog than human, is a quadruped who gets around on all fours. He’s also wingless, so at last he’s a release in this line that’s relatively easy to fit onto a shelf. He scales well with Goliath and the others when placed beside them, and because his form doesn’t showcase giant pectorals, he’s probably the most on-model release when compared with the show. NECA is obviously not going for a true on-model look with this line, so for Bronx, it’s more like a bonus for those out there who wish the company was aiming to do just that.
Yup, that’s Bronx all right.
The sculpt for Bronx is essentially what one would expect of NECA where the character is concerned. He’s a lovely shade of blue with a pale gray on his underside reserved for his lower jaw and belly. His eyes are all white and always displayed in that fashion, unlike the other gargoyles who only go all-white when trying to intimidate others. I like how the paint is applied to give them an almost glowing appearance as the white is soft on the edges and more stark in the center. His body has the usual gargoyle anatomy with spikes here and there. Not only does Bronx lack wings, he also features a far shorter tail giving him a really compact appearance. He’s all front end too with a smaller backside. He looks awesome, and even though the Bronx design from the show was never a particular favorite of mine, I find myself really liking the look of this figure because NECA just plain nailed it.
He’s a big boy.
Even though Bronx stands on all fours, he’s articulated in a very similar manner to his line-mates in some ways, but he’s also different in others. For one, Bronx has articulation at the jaw so he can open and close his mouth and look a bit more fearsome, if need be. His head is on a double ball-peg and it’s reinforced with another ball peg at the base of his massive neck so he gets terrific range looking to the side as well as up and down. He also has plenty of tilt and he’s very expressive in that area. His front legs are joined to the body via ball-hinges and he has “elbow” joints, ankle joints, and toe joints. His legs can spread out wide and kick forward and back. The torso has a rubbery overlay, indicating that NECA intends to do more figures in this style down the road, which does kill whatever torso articulation is hidden underneath that. His rear legs are affixed via ball joints just like the other gargoyles and he has knee joints that move very little as they’re always intended to be bent. Past that, his feet are done in the same fashion as the front ones with ankle hinges, rockers, and toe hinge and rocker. Because of his design, Bronx isn’t going to be super dynamic, but I think NECA did a good job here of getting articulation into this figure without sacrificing really any of the aesthetic. And I wish they’d add neck articulation to the other figures.
Check out the range on that neck!
Bronx doesn’t fly, or use weapons, or even have hands, so he doesn’t have much in the way of accessories. For Bronx, there’s really just two: a second head and a hunk of meat. The second head features a wide open mouth and is a touch more fearsome looking than the standard one. It would still feel a bit unnecessary if not for the big slab of meat he also comes with. I don’t know that I’ll really incorporate it into my own display, but the meat can fit into the mouth of the second head so he can hold it, or it can be placed at his feet. The meat looks fine and it’s painted, but at the end of the day it’s just a piece of meat.
The alternate head features a jaw that’s sculpted open.
He deserves a treat.
What collectors are really intrigued by is the last accessory: Goliath’s closed wings. Also referred to as caped wings by the fandom, these are for the Goliath figure and are posed as the character often did in the show by hooking them below his chin like a cape. This is a casual, walking around, look for Goliath and has the bonus of reducing the amount of space he takes up on a shelf. To put them on, you need to pop off the head and wings from the Goliath figure and then just drape it over the shoulders. They’re a soft, flexible, material, but still feature the same paint and detailing as the open wings. There are two pegs on the rear to slot into the figure and these basically just keep things together. Once the head is replaced, the look is complete and it’s…okay. Goliath’s body was sculpted to be in attack mode, so his head isn’t really positioned in a casual manner making it look a bit awkward. If he had a joint at the base of the neck, this could be worked with, but alas he does not. The head is also even more locked-down than before as his hair keeps him from really being able to turn his head. He can look down a little, but that’s it. Still, now that the display is four figures, the extra room is welcomed so I’m probably going to stick with this look, but what I really want are just relaxed wings.
A more studious look for the clan leader.
They do go well together.
Bronx is a terrific entry in this young line, and he might be my favorite. I’ve mentioned how the other figures are so cumbersome that they’re not very fun to mess around with, but Bronx doesn’t suffer from that at all. He’s a joy to play with and pose, and while his accessories do nothing for me, the actual figure is great. The caped wings for Goliath are certainly a welcomed addition, but I am lukewarm on the end result. It’s okay, and maybe I’ll like the look more with an Elisa to pair him with, but it seems clear to me that the figure wasn’t really sculpted with this look in mind. I think NECA is generally very good at balancing aesthetic with articulation and function, but with this line I don’t think they’ve been as successful. Hopefully we see some improvement going forward and that these extra wings which are sorely needed aren’t few and far between.
Even with Goliath’s new wings, I still feel this shelf is maxed out. Good thing the next release isn’t slated until the fall.
As mentioned before, Bronx was part of Haulathon at Target. He was up briefly on the Haulathon website, but I literally know of no one actually receiving the figure via that site as seemingly all, or most, of the orders ended up cancelled. He seems to still be shipping, so check your local stores if you’re after this one. He has since gone up for pre-order in the usual places with an expected June delivery, so while you may have to wait, you shouldn’t have to go to the secondary market to add to the clan.
The Nostalgia Spot 