More Califonia Raisins

I got up early this morning to hit the flea market. I bought two toys which I planned to post about today. I ended up photographing them and a bunch of other toys I've been sitting on for a while. I have to clean up my toy room because I have a couple people coming out to give me quotes on carpet. I was planning on posting a Flea Market Finds post, but I'm tired. I'm going to bed... so a quickly post.

Here are four more of my PVC California Raisins figures. As I've stated before I used to hunt these guys down at yard sales as a kid. I started just collecting the dancers and band members. Eventually I expanded to all the Raisins. As their popularity grew the range of poses and props expanded for these little plastic dudes.

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First up, we have a big surfer wearing orange sunglasses and sneakers holding a blue and yellow surfboard. Accompanying him is a female Raisin in a hula skirt. I really don't remember there being very many female figures.

Next up is a Raisin wearing matching yellow sunglasses and sneakers. He's holding a blue boom box up to the side of his head. This figure cracks me up. Now every kid walks around listening to ear buds, but we thought it was cool to carry boom boxes on our shoulders back in the day.

Okay, the final Raisin in today's post is a smaller surfer figure. I'm not sure why they made Raisins in two different scales, but there are big ones and small ones. He's wearing red and his board is solid yellow. This Raisin has an unusual stance and he is a little off balance.

Well... I'm off to bed.

Spider Bytez - Nick TMNT

Spider Bytez is one of the mutants created for the modern Ninja Turtles cartoon on Nickelodeon. He's one of the goofier looking characters in this series. He has a large round body with short stumpy arms and legs. Spider Bytes also has four long spider legs coming out of the top of his head. Each of these little arms has a hing joint in the center and a ball joint at the base. Other than that, Spider Bytez really doesn't have much articulation.

He is molded in black plastic and is decorated with a few other colors. He has some small red paint apps on his face and arms. He has large white teeth and green tips on each of his spider arms. He's a really fun toy, but really small compared to the Turtles.

Cyclops - MU First Class

This Cyclops figure is based on the X-Men First Class comic book series, which were modern comics set during the early years of the X-Men team. I really loved that comic series. Cyclops came in a two pack with Jean Grey and an issue of the First Class comic. Check out this snow picture post to see the Jean Grey figure.

Cyclops is dressed in a blue and gold uniform. He has an X-logo on his waist, but his uniform has very few other details. Like just about every Marvel Universe Cyclops figure, one of his hands is posed to make it look like he is activating his visor.

Scribblenauts Unmasked Series 2 - DC Mini-Figs

I previously posted about the video game inspired Scribblenauts Unmasked DC comic figures. I bought several figures from Series 1 trying to get Vampire Batman. Unfortunatly I wasn't able to buy the right blind box. Tonight I was at my local comic shop and I saw Series 2 was now out and Bane was one of the figures in this wave. Of course, I got to get Bane!

These little goofy cartoon versions of DC Comic characters come in blind boxes and include little figure stands that look like spiral notebooks.. I bought four packs and scored four different characters.

I was super happy to pick up Bane. He looks great, and is a little bulkier than many of the other characters. The purple monster with headphones is one of mystery figures who is blacked out on the packaging. In the first wave it was a little dude in a Green Lantern suit wearing headphones. Let me know if this guy is based on an actual DC Character.

 I also got the late 90's red lightning Superman. I really don't know what the storyline was when Superman became a blue or red energy elemental.I also picked up the modern Blue Beetle. I'm really happy with Bane, but I don't really care about any of the other three figures.

California Raisins

I am a huge fan of stop motion animation and a child of the 80's. So naturally, as a kid I loved the California Raisins. I watched the cartoon and had a ton of PVC mini-figs. Below you will see a small piece of my California Raisin collection. I used to by PVC Raisins and Tasmanian Devil figures at flea markets when ever I'd find them as a kid.

I have two similar but slightly different lead singer figures. I'm not sure if they are truly different, or if the microphone arm on the one is wrapped. Below you can see my collection of "dancing" Raisins. I have three identical "peek-a-boo" figures. One larger one dancer, and my favorite figure in this post is the Raisin with sunglasses.

Mulan - Disney

It's funny how when you are a kid you've seen every kids movie, then you sort of loose touch until you have your own kids. In the late 90's, Disney movies were kind of hit or miss for me. I've never seen Hercules or the Emperor's New Groove. I did however see Mulan. My buddy's Dad bought the movie on Laser Disc. It was a decent film, but having only scene it once, I don't have all the songs memorized or anything. I was a freshman in high school when it came out. When I'm working at the Haunted Hayride each fall, the kids that work there are mostly 10 years younger or more than mysel. They occasionally break into song from the film. It kind of cracks me up.

Anyway, I bought this Mulan figure at a yard sale one time. She was a Happy Meal toy back in '89.  Mulan is a pretty basic figure, but comes with two interesting accessories that allow her to be both a princess and a warrior. Mulan came with a cloth skirt and a set of plastic armor. Both accessories are easy enough to slip on and off to make the transformation. I bought her thinking I might be able to use her as a civilian girl in an animation sometime. Back when my friends and I were making our animated series, Animation Creation we often needed generic people for animations.

Bob the Goon - '89 Batman

Bob was the Joker's number one guy. We rarely get action figures of henchmen. Bob the Goon is dressed in all black including his fingerless gloves. He has a Joker gang logo on his chest. Bob is bald on top, but has long blond hair around the back and a beard. Bob also has a kicking action feature. This is activated by a little button on the back of his belt.

Bob originally came with a pistol, knife, and black hat. I don't have any of his accessories, because I bought Bob at an indoor flea market. My friends and I were planning to create a stop motion adventure video project in which a archeologist discovers the Batcave in the far future. He reads three different case files and each of these stories would be acted out using different types of toys like movie, Super Powers, and animated series figures.

Prince Adam in Anmation

Below is a really nice animation cell of Prince Adam from the very first episode of the She-Ra cartoon. Early in the episode, "Into Eternia" (aka The Sword of She-Ra Part 1) the Sorceress contact Prince Adam using telepathy and orders him to travel to Castle Grayskull. The image is actually made up of two layers. One contains Adam's head and hand, while the other cell contains just his eyes. If you look closely you may also notice some notes and arrows on the original pencil drawing photographed behind the two cells. This explains that in the show the camera was to zoom in on Adam's forehead. Additional cells or an optical effect was also used to show the Sorceress's face over Adam's.

Here is a screen shot from he actual episode which shows the production background behind Prince Adam. It's pretty excited to have a cell from the very first episode. I need to get this bad boy framed up and on the wall.

Toy Hunters sells the 90's

Today's Toy Hunter episode focused on selling 90's toys at Wizard World Portland. Jordan was looking for "new classics" like Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers to sell to the younger crowd in Portland.

Jordan's first visit was with a woman named Abby who was selling her brother's toys. Jordan bought a lot of Power Ranger items off her. He bought the Shogun Megazord, some classic Space Lego sets, and the Lucky Draw Saba Sword. Toy Hunter recently featured another Lucky Draw toy. These are basically extremely rare Japanese releases of toys.

At the second collector's home Jordan bought some Real Ghostbusters Screaming Heroes figures. He also bought some Police Academy figures. He bought a decent set of carded figures.

At the final collector's house Jordan purchaced the TMNT News Van, which is a repaint of the Party Wagon. He also bought a very rare Japanese Transformers VSX set. This set contains original Japanese GI figures of Optimus Prime and Megatron.

At Wizard World Jordan was selling toys like crazy. Stan Lee dropped by his booth to ask Jordan to try to win a Neil Adams Captain America piece of art that was for sale at an auction at the convention. Then Jason David Frank, the original Green and White Power Ranger came by looking for a cool Power Ranger collectable. Jordan ended up selling him the Lucky Draw Power Ranger Sword.

I enjoyed getting to see some other toys.We've seen tons of Mego dolls and carded Star Wars figures on the show. I enjoyed seeing the Turtles and Power Ranger toys. Not a bad episode. I liked that the show included some celebrity guests, but Jordan didn't focus on buying foe them for the entire episode.

Rattlor - MOTUC

I have posted about the vintage Rattlor in past, but today focuses on the Classics version. Rattlor is one of the most detailed Masters figures when it comes to both sculpt and paint applications. Every surface of his body is covered in scales. In additon most of his scales are painted one of three different colors. Rattlor is by far my favorite snake-man.  His body was originally created for the snake-men army builder pack. Rattlor came with a neck extension piece that helps to replicate his vintage action feature. His head can also just be attached straight to his torso.

Like the vintage figure Rattlor came with a snake staff. He also came with an Evil Horde arm band to represent his involvement with the Horde in the She-Ra cartoon. The stripes on his scale covered legs make him look really tall. All-in-all, he's a great action figure.