Back to the Future 2: Micro Machines

Today I'm taking a look at an odd little Micro Machine set. It is the Back to the Future 2 Action Hoverport set. I bought this set as a kid new at a dollar store in the mall. I'm pretty sure I got it after Back to the Future 3 was out. I thought the little Delorean was cool so I picked up the set.

The set included the Texaco Hoverport, Delorean time machine, and the light blue police car. The Hoverport's center hub can spin so the robot arm can fill up cars at different locations. You can see that arm move in the actual movie.

 I picked up the darker blue police car at a yard sale one time, thinking it was the same car. When I got it home an compared it I notice more differences than just the color. They are similar, but look at the engine area at the back of the car. The darker car has a more square engine area and the light car has a more rectangular area. Two different sculpts.

The Delorean was sculpted for the Back to the Future line because it had the Mr. Fusion food processor and other time gadgets sculpted on. I don't know if there was a regular Delorean made in the standard Micro Machines line.

Homies

At one point in time (during high school) Brian and I planned to do some sort of web comic featuring Homies. These little figures from the quarter machines were all the rage to collect. We took some photos of the Homies that we were going to use as main characters on the Fisher Price Sesame Street Playset. It's got a great stoop for the Homies to hang out on.

The Mighty Spector - MOTUC

The Mightly Spector is the 3rd 30th anniversary figure to be released as part of a special MOTUC subline.  Spector is probably the most contriversial MOTU figure to be released in the Classics line.

The Heroic Master of Time Travel can help fight villains from Demo-Man, to Skeletor, to Slush Head. I like that they are trying to tie the eras of He-Man together, but there are a few to many characters that exist at all points in time.

Check out my review below!

Action Figure Adventures Ep 3

Here we are at week three. At this point I'm sure you all know the drill. Like the great cartoons of the 80's you have to have a formula for the episodes. Ours looks something like.... The Heroes are bored, take a peak at Chuckle's adventures, the Heroes and Villians getting into a fight, finally a new escape plan is attempted.
 

What's going down, Undercover Brown?

 Chuckles  being in the ceiling allows us to explore a lot of unusual story lines and meet weird characters. There are already so many characters in the dorm that it makes it fun to have a wide open space to have some of the other adventures to take place in.

Alpine and his Teddy Bear (and Teddy Roosevelt)

 This episodes main escape centers around the GI Joe Alpine. The list of escape routes were the first plot points to be determined. Sometimes action figures were included in the show because they worked for that plan. Their characters skill set matched the mission. Other times a figure we liked were used because we wanted to work that figure into the story.

Sword Brothers resolve their differences with swords!

We know all the GI Joe fans have been waiting for a Snake Eyes vs Storm Shadow battle. It's difficult to put sound effects into a fight when the toys are supposed to be toys. If the story ignored the fact that they are plastic and we were pretending they were real people we would need metal and metal sounds for the swords and smacking and clapping sounds for punches. Instead we needed plastic tapping on plastic sounds.


I hope you enjoy it!

Action Figure Adventures Ep2 Eggs

Tomorrow we will release the third episode of Action Figure Adventures! Like last week I'm posting some notes or "Easter Eggs" about AFA Ep2 in the hopes that you will check it out, or to give you something to look for during a second watching.

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During the opening, the cooler that gets dumped holds characters that we used in show. I wanted them to be on the top of the pile for the short animated bit at the end of the segment. The script wasn't finished yet, so the importance of characters hadn't really been established yet. This is how Wolverine got into that segment but never has a line in the show. This also explains why other characters who are in every episode aren't featured at the end of the opening.

2:15 Alpine and his bear are important in a  future episode. These are the types of things we were able to start working into episodes once the story line was more firmly planned out.

2:29 This is the 2nd time we see Battle Force 2000 in this episode, they must be important.

3:00 Clutch is holding a tool that comes with a Tech Deck toy skateboard.

Tiger Force characters (Trip Wire and Frostbite) were chosen as Clutch's helpers because their tiger outfits went with the animal.

Can anything stop the Animal?

4:35 The high tech rope of the future is actually US Army grade parachute cord.

5:33 The line about the year was changed to 2004 during sound recordings to help make the show seem more current. The footage was shot in the fall of 2002. It still took forever to edit so the dialog change didn't make it very current in the end.

6:47 You would never have a plumbing trap in the ceiling. (I just wanted pipes up there)

7:50 The Star Wars characters start to develop their own story line. More about foiling villain plans rather than escaping.

The Jawa laundry pile doesn't appear in other episodes.

Derek decided instead of recording electronic beeps we would have the droids talk in old Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) sounds.

10:42 The Rolling Stones post card was specifially place on the wall close to the floor for this episode. (Usually we try to hide the ticky-tac used to hold figures in place, but this time Spider-Man show off that he uses it to help him stick to things.)

Matthias Sundburg played Peter Parker in another video project to come out of Millersville about super heroes and their relationships. He also voiced Peter Parker in the interview portion of Animation Creation 10 as a nod to this series (we were editing AC 10 as we made AFA2)

13:45 This scene contradicts a scene in a later episode were character talk about not being able to change cloths.

15:10 Homer Simpson is on top the villain base through the entire show, but isn't used as a character at any point in time. He was a dorm decoration before the show started.

15:56 This shot is an homage to one of my favorite shots in GIJoe: the movie from 1987

The APPS that Battle Force 2000 use didn't actually fire very well, but it looks petty good.

18:16 The entire hallway shot was done at 4 am one weekend so that I wouldn't have to
deal with people walking down the hall in the shot

18:55 The fake trash shoot set was built very early on and the segment was animated around the same time as the opening segment without a complete script.

19:14 There is a photo of Derek in the trash without his lower jaw. This is left over from the opening of Animation Creation (Our other animated show)

21:13 I tried to keep the ceiling scenes kind of dimly lit

21:44 They Might be Giants are one of my all time favorite bands. I've seen them in concert 15 times. The song Minimum Wage is probably one of their least well known songs on the most well know album (Flood).

Flea Market Finds #6

As I mentioned in Flea Market Finds #5, over the weekend I picked up some 90's trading cards for cheap. I picked up the complete Wolverine "From then 'till now" set for a dollar.

The 90 card set came in a plastic case with the packaging attached to the lid. I didn't own any of these as a kid although I was a pretty avid card collector.

The art seems to come straight from the comics at the time, but still looks a little odd. I don't know if they recolored the art or had artist redraw stuff based on comic art. I just don't know the history of the cards.

and the Joker got away!

Today we are taking a look at the 1978 Superheroes Jokermobile. It was made by Corgi Junior out of Great Britain. I got this sometime in the early 80's from a neighbor who passed down a lot of toys he "out grew".

 It's matchbox sized and features a white paint job with stickers. My stickers are badly yellowed. This "van" features driver and passenger side doors as well as a double rear door. None of them actually open. It has an interesting design with the trianglular headlights and curved windsheild.

The top of the car has a small hole in it. I don't know if this served any function. As a kid I used to stick a gun that came with a matchbox army jeep in the hole so the Joker had a 360 degree machine gun on the roof.

The car has a metal top rivited to a plastic bottom. The wheels are plastic with metal axles.

Micro Machines: Hoth Playset

This is the 2nd Star Wars Micro Machine Set that I have reviewed. The first one didn't seem to get a whole lot of views or feedback, so I might not bother with the rest of this line. We will have to see. Again this set is from the late 90's and was made by Galoob.

The set is okay, but doesn't feel very movie accurate. I think I really wanted it as a kid so I'd have a mini figure of a Stormtrooper, C-3P0, and Luke with his lightsader. The Hoth parts of the set were kind of secondary. It also includes an AT-AT, Han on Taun Taun, and Princess Leia.

Action Figure Adventures Bleachers

Here is a photo taken in my college dorm room the year after the main animation was complete. I had many of the AFA figures at school to shoot a few missed shots, and shots for the intro that changes slightly each episode. You can also see a few figures in the photo  that were not used in the series. These are figures I bought online and had shipped to my dorm. Cobra Stinger Driver, Joe Colton, and Rip Cord are the three iIcan think of that are pictured but were not in the show.

These bleachers are used in an up coming episode of AFA for one of the weirdest side stories.

Flea Market Finds #5

I got a chance to go out to the flea market this weekends, and I am happy with what I found. I picked up some 90's trading cards for dirt cheap, but what I'm excited about is...

the complete set of 2003 Masters of the Universe Happy Meal toys based on the 200x series. I had a few of these guys that I had picked up over the years, but I had been looking to complete the set for a while.
 

 

 He-Man with Power sword featuring punching action and some articulation. His power sword can also be attached to his back via a peg. Battle Cat is some-what articulated as well and features a spring-loaded armor piece that allows for He-Man to be knocked off in a fight.

 

Skeletor, like He-Man has some articulation and his Havoc Staff. Panthor has articulation in his legs and tail. He features a spring-loaded missile launcher that is meant to shoot the target on Battle Cat's armor to knock He-Man off.

 Ram Man has a head butt feature if you push down on him. Beastman (who is huge) comes with his whip and has a feature to make him swing it if you hit a button on his back.

 

I saved the weakest two figures for last. Orko is a whined-up toy who kind of walks around. He features one point of articulation in his wand arm. Man-At-Arms looks pretty good, but is missing articulation in his armored arm because it houses a mechanism to launch his spinning shield. (He's better than Orko, but not great)

 

I think this set actually came out of the store display unit because many of them have hot glue on their weapons, backs, or feet. It's possible someone collected them all and glued them together for some reason, but I have a feeling they were part of a display.

 One last shot of He-Man and Skeletor battling it out. I picked up this complete set for $3 and considering I paid a buck a piece for the three I already had... I'm pretty happy. (almost happy meal happy)