Tollbooth Update

Just wanted to try something with Tollbooth's hands. He can be short, I just want better hands. First attempt. 

Damn, Tollbooth ain't that short. Look at him next to desert Duke. 

I found an extra Resolute Duke. Looks like these hands will do just fine!

FSS 2: Tollbooth Review

Remember that scene from "A Christmas Story" when Ralphie finally gets his Little Orphan Annie Secret Decoder Ring that he has been waiting on for so long? He finally gets it and decodes his first message, only to find out that it's a "crummy commercial"? His response to that realization...

"Son of a bitch."

That was my response when I read a first review of the new Tollbooth figure from the GI Joe Club's FSS 2 collection. I then read a second review and was a little less stressed out. I have great fondness for Tollbooth and the bridge-layer for a peculiar reason. I'll have to unearth a little history for you.

I'm kind of an old guy, I've been around for a while. Well, I'm not ancient, but I was playing with the original GI Joe back when I was a kid. No, not the original 13 figures, the Big Guy! On and off throughout my life growing up, I've always collected and played with toys. My parents never told me that I needed to stop playing with toys and grow up. So I never did! Well, you know, I did grow up. Discovered girls, had various jobs, bought a car, that sort of stuff.

But I still collected toys. When Star Wars came out in 1977 and my older brother bought me the Early Bird Certificate, I was hooked as soon as those figures started showing up. Along comes 1982 and GI Joe returns and just dominates the toy aisle for nearly the next twelve years. In 1982, I was 19 years old when I bought my first 3 3/4" GI Joe figure. Been pretty much hooked ever since. 

In 1984, for Christmas, my girlfriend gets the Bridge-Layer for me for Christmas. Of course, I had to marry her! Well, not just that reason, but it certainly helped! So the Toss n' Cross and Tollbooth have always been a little more special to me because it was a gift from the woman who would become and still is my lovely wife.

Plus, the vehicle was very unique, very different, and I just really liked the character of Tollbooth. A simple sculpt, but such a cool character based on the file card. I just liked the guy!

I've also become a bit of a cheap-skate. I don't mind paying retail or a little more for a figure, but that first bunch of figures from the Club's first FSS offering, while cool, where just too damn expensive. And then along comes FSS 2. And Tollbooth and another fave, Keel Haul, are revealed. DAMMIT!!

So I did it; I signed up, knowing, hoping that I could sell off the figures that really didn't interest me that much and maybe almost zero out the cost of the ones that I wanted. Maybe... We'll see how that works out.

The Tollbooth reveal looked just fantastic. Sure, there were those crappy Shipwreck arms, but not a deal killer. Looking back at that original reveal, it really stands out that the legs are a bit off. The lower legs are definitely shorter than they should be when compared with the thighs. 

Tollbooth really turned out to be short. I mean, really short. Even shorter than some of the female figures.

So I tried out a quick custom using an extra Joe Colton figure. Not bad, not bad at all.

Why couldn't the Club use this body for Tollbooth? I suppose what really made me think more about the figure and the whole design process that the Club has to go through goes back to Episode 86 of "What's on Joe Mind?" The guys at WOJM talked to David Lane about the process that the Club has to go through in order to make a figure.

It doesn't really seem to be an easy process. The Club has a lot of hoops that they have to jump through in order to use the Hasbro molds. Hasbro seems willing to work with them, but it may not always be a smooth process.

Was it a shocking surprise to the Club that Tollbooth was going to turn out to be shorter than most figures? Probably not. They're doing the best that they can and, dammit, I'm going to be grateful for that.

Hell, Hasbro wasn't planning on revisiting the character, so many thanks to the Club for bringing him out. Besides, aren't real human beings quite different in their heights? Duh!

So, yeah, I'm a little disappointed, but I'll manage to survive. I'm just glad to have Tollbooth in the modern era and am looking forward to including him in more and more pictures in the future.

 

New Display Space

I have my own space!! Well, sort of. We moved into a new-ish place in April of 2013. It's a bigger home with a mostly finished basement. There's an unfinished area that is primarily used for storage, but there is one section that serves as a decent work/display area. The walls are unfinished but it still works for me as my man-cave. 

There are three shelves that are in my primary display area. The top shelf is too high for a decent display, so it is primarily being used for vehicle storage. Right now, the top shelf serves as storage for my vintage Tomahawk and X-19 Phantom. There's also a PoC HISS tank up there. 

The second shelf is reserved for my 12" custom GI Joe troops. The third shelf is for my small Joe collection. Primarily figures, no vehicles. 

The bottom area is my "stage." This is my area for dioramas for photo purposes. It's a mess right now because I'm working on the small Joe display. 

Going back up to the top, you can see the Tomahawk. My two Budo figures are up there also. Cool figure, but just doesn't seem to fit into the military sensibilities to me. 

Let's swing down to the 1/6th Joe display. While these guys are far from the Sideshow/Hot Toys level of detailing, I'm pretty proud of them. In the early 2000's up through around 2005, I was pretty obsessed with recreating the real American Hero characters in the 1/6th scale format. Hasbro had started producing different head sculpts for their 1/6th line and began to really expand their different head sculpts with the Pearl Harbor, Historic figures, and later when they started making their own up-scaled small Joe characters. 

I had a pretty decent website that was a list of my figures and they each had a page set up similar to a file card. It was originally hosted on BellSouth servers and it was only a matter of time before it faded away. I really need to try to rebuild it over on my 1/6th blog, Original Flocking No Hair Rubs. Maybe one day, I'll get these guys back online.

While not quite accurate to their smaller versions, these guys were always good enough to me. Well, mostly. Some are just my interpretations based on the 1/6th gear that I had in stock.

Low-Light, here at the end, is one of my favorites. I had the blond head sculpt for a while and just randomly placed the gray watch cap on his head. Boom, that's Low-Light!

Moving down to the small Joe shelf, you can see how much space is already taken up by Cobra forces. The black NCC has been moved and everyone has slid over to their right to allow some more room for Joe figures. I only used a few of each of the troop builders and still don't have every type of specific Cobra troopers represented. No Eels or Snow Serpents and only a couple troops representing the RoC era. Not to hate on them, but they just don't really match the overall look. Although, the Elite and Desert Vipers were pretty dang cool looking!

Here you can see Joe figures being prepped for their place on the shelf. There's still more space given to Cobra troops, so I'll have to probably make some cuts as to who gets to be on display on the Joe side of the shelf.

These guys currently in this picture are definite inclusions to the display. Somehow, I have to justify Retaliation Roadblock and Resolute Roadblock being in the same display.

A closer look at the Cobra troops as we pass along the display. Cobra Commander over there on the left, IDW style, sort of his relaxed, back at headquarters look. His "woman" next to him. My new sort-of Pythona custom with Nemesis Enforcer's tentacles on her back just to see how that looks. Weirdness.

Various vipers, ninjas, and other odd-ball freaks populate the Cobra ranks.

If I had the space, I would could make an entire shelf devoted to Cobra forces, but I'm limited on space. I could probably add a shelf to this wall at a  later date to expand display areas, especially for my small Joe collection.

Stay tuned! I'm still working on the GI Joe section and I'll post again once that is complete!

Pythona?

I remember buying an Aurra Sing figure from the Star Wars Power of Force series many, many years ago. Silly me, thinking that she might have been worth something. Especially when the package just came apart in storage. I stumbled across the loose figure just a few days ago and wondered if I could do something with her head. Only one way to find out.

Chop!

Here's her head mounted on the Resolute Baroness body. That monster of a head of the Baroness almost immediately went into the spare parts bin. Ugh!

So now I have this creepy pale-skinned female working for Cobra. I posted a picture on the GI Joe Community Facebook page and the first suggestion to an ID was that of Pythona. Yeah, it could work. Not necessarily from the Cobra-La story line, but something weird and odd that work. Maybe Dr. Mindbender created himself a companion?

Thanks, Otto, for the ID idea!

More new toys!

Over the past month or so, I've managed to pick up all of the missing wave 3.5 and 4.0 figures that I needed. The elusive Joe ninjas, Jinx and the Blind Master, as well as the Cobra Night Viper have been added to my collection. I'll focus on the bad guys first since they are usually the cooler looking figures. 

I picked up this Crimson Guard at a local Rite-Aid store. It's a damn shame that Rite-Aid is now my best source for GI Joe figures. This particular store is one of four in my area. Each of the other three has Rise of Cobra figures still hanging from the pegs and all at the Rite-Aid bargain price of $13.49. 

I remembered this one particular store and went by and was pleasantly surprised to find a Steel Brigade figure hanging there, just waiting for me. Even with the $13.49 price, I was still going to snag him. Fortunately, there was a Buy One, Get One Half Off sale, but there were no other Joe figures to be found. Luckily, the wonderful cashier sold me the figure for half price! Sweet!

The next time that I went to the same Rite-Aid, there were three new Retaliation figures just waiting for me!  A Crimson Guard, the new Cobra Commander, and the new Firefly. I had already picked up CC and Firefly from a sale at Hasbro Toy Shop and really didn't need them again. This time, the sale was Buy One, Get One Free! So I picked up the Crimson Guard and Cobra Commander. I'm planning on keeping this particular CC on the card. A rare occurrence for me to leave a figure in package, but he's a pretty cool figure.

The next time I went, the Firefly figure was still there, but now on sale for 50% off! Uh, okay, don't really need another, but I'm not passing up a GI Joe figure for $7.50! Future custom fodder, I suppose. So now the store was cleaned out and I just needed to wait and see who would be next to arrive.

Sure enough, three more figures were there waiting for me - Kwinn, Budo, and Snake Eyes w/ Timber. Already have two each of Kwinn and Budo and don't really need another Snake Eyes. Plus, no sale, so these figures will be there for a while. I'm not buying them.

With all that crap begin said, what do I think about this new version of the Crimson Guard? No big deal. I'm not really impressed. If I can find another, I'll be happy; otherwise, I'll be content with just this one. I'm just not overly impressed with the figure. I never have been. even way back to the original O-ring version. 

Now this guy is a really surprising find - the mythical Night Viper. I honestly thought that I would never find one of these guys. I picked him up at an Atlanta area Toys R Us; my local TRU sucks for carrying Joe figures.

Hasbro did a good job with the Night Viper. I know that he is largely a combination of parts, but they all work very well together. The tiny little head from the PoC Alley Viper works well with the Night Viper helmet. Can anyone get it off once it's on? I really like the sniper rifle as well. Always have liked it previously. Great design, but still a little wonky when trying the get a soldier to hold it. Thumbs up for Hasbro for this one!

I honestly wasn't very interested in picking up another version of Cobra Commander. Yeah, the colors seemed right, the accessories were cool, but did I really need another version of this guy? I bought him as a last minute addition to a Hasbro Toy Shop order. I needed to get over $50 to avoid shipping, so I ordered CC. Not bad! Well done, Hasbro!

Proportions are very well done, far surpassing the wobbly versions from the 25th line. Both the helmet and the cowl head look great on the body. My only complaint is the feet. I really don't like the rocker ankles for this figure; it really messes up his ability to stand. Plus, the holes in his feet aren't deep enough for a stand. Minor complaint.

Just check out that scowl under that mask! That's an awesome look!

Finally, I was able to pick up another elusive figure, the Retaliation Cobra Combat Ninja. Ninja this, ninja that - whatever. The dark ninja's get these guys swords. A straight reuse of the awesome Cobra Shocktrooper body with a new paint scheme and two new head sculpts. I'm currently at three of these guys and I'm okay with that amount. If I find anymore in the wild, I may pick one up, but I won't be manic for them like I was with the PoC Blueshirts, Cobra Viper, or the two versions of the Dollar General Cobra trooper. These guys are decent enough, but I'm just not really wild about them.

I was able to score two through my Hasbro Toy Shop deal and was lucky enough to find another in the wild.

Here's the initial head sculpt that comes with the figure. It's okay, but I'm not really very impressed with the sculpt.

The secondary head sculpt is pretty cool looking. Looks like a monocular helmet. It almost looks BAT-like. I haven't tried it on a BAT body yet to see how it works.

None of these figures really blow me away with their awesomeness. CC is close, but his weird feet ruin his chances of the number one slot. The CG is kind of boring, so he's dropped back in the standings. I suppose the Night Viper takes first place, Cobra Commander in second, Combat "Ninja" in third, and the Crimson Guard trails along in fourth place.

Coming soon - thoughts on Jinx and the Hard Master. I think the Hard Master figure has better acting skills than Rza!