New Toys Trickling In At Walmart

[Zobovor]

The new freight is rolling into the store, in preparation for the new layouts that are coming. I put a bunch of it out today. I could wait until I've done the reset in the department, but a) as a consumer I know how frustrating it is going to the stores and not finding new stuff, so I'd rather it be available for sale now, and b) it's less work I'll have to do later (once I rearrange the shelves to the new layout, everything will already be done and I don't have to go digging in the back for all the new stuff).

We got a bunch of the new Combiner Force toys for Robots in Disguise 2, which are some of the most singularly simple toys I've ever laid eyes upon. I'm glad that they're still making Transformers for babies, because it can't all be collector-driven stuff based on characters from 1987, I suppose.

We also got the Alt Modes assortment, which I think I've seen at Toys "R" Us previously. For those who don't know, they're gigantic robot heads (about two inches tall I think) attached to tiny little robot bodies. Pull the oversized insignia mounted on the top of the head and the robot body flips inside the head and a vehicle mode pops out in its place. I'm sure there must be people out there who love these, but frankly I do not see the appeal.

There are tiny little holes in the boxes, so you can kinda-sorta see who is in there, but I still opened up the boxes and identified them. I hate blind packed toys. They are the bane of my existence. Kids (and collectors!) are constantly tearing open the package to see what's inside. And, frequently, once they've already got the package opened, they steal whatever it was. These things are $6.97 a pop at my store and I am not about to lose $167 worth of stupid-assed big-headed robots.

Since I was identifying the characters anyway, I talled up the case assortment because I was kind of curious. The case I got was wave one for 2017, and consisted of Megatron, Bumblebee, "Cliffjumper" (red Bumblebee), Hound, Sideswipe, Starscream, Bluestreak, and Silver Optimus Prime (he's more grey, really). I had thought some would be shortpacked but actually every character came exactly three to a case, so you have the exact same chances of getting any of them.

I didn't buy any of them. To me, seven bucks seems like a lot for such a silly novelty, and I take my giant transforming robot toys from outer space much more seriously than that.


Zob (got some blind-packed TMNT Half-Shell Heroes baggies, too, but at least those have individual UPC's so the characters were easy to identify)

[Zobovor]

On Friday, January 6, 2017 at 5:03:09 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:

> The new freight is rolling into the store, in preparation for the new layouts
> that are coming.

Oh, I was going to say something about the new Voltron toys, too.

So, I guess Voltron is coming back? I remember seeing something about it on the Playmates Toys web site but today was the first time I've seen the actual toys. There are lions with spring-powered action gimmicks but there are also actual transforming lions that combine together.

So, even though I was a Transformers nut back in the day, of course I was well aware of Voltron and its impact. I always wanted a set of lions but I never managed to collect the Matchbox versions. Quite by accident I ended up with the Panosh Place version (my aunt had bought it for somebody as a Christmas present, forgot all about it, and ended up giving it to me after she unearthed it), but it was distinctly inferior to the Matchbox toy (larger, yes, with opening cockpits, but it was all-plastic and the individual lion legs were not articulated). I don't even know what happened to that thing. I think I left it behind when I moved out of my Dad's place.

I bought the Trendmasters reissue in 1997 or thereabouts at Toys "R" Us for $30. I was really strapped for cash back then so that was a huge amount of money for what amounted to a fringe purchase. It was all-plastic as well and was missing a lot of the gimmicks that I remembered, like the missile pods that popped out of the panels on the Yellow Lion's head, so I ended up returning it to the store. If I had to do it all over again, I'd definitely have kept it. I just remember being so dissatisfied with it at the time. And thirty dollars was, like, six Star Wars action figures or three Beast Wars toys.

So, anyway. The new lions are really large (I've only seen the ones that form the arms and legs; didn't get the Black Lion yet) so the combined Voltron must be absolutely massive. I don't like the look of it, though. It's too streamlined. I likes my Voltrons square-shaped and chunky. There's an arbitrary, ill-defined point where a redesign takes one step too far away from the original, and the new Voltron is about three steps over the line.

Still, it's exciting to see yet another one of the toys come back that was part of the original robotic tour de force from the 1980's.


Zob (all we're missing now is a Mighty Orbots revival)