by Brian Cullen
By most scientific measures, I am an adult. I know this because a) I pay taxes b) I bitch about having to pay taxes c) every morning, I stare in the bathroom mirror and remember that I’m one day closer to the cold, infinite grip of death.
But on some of those days, you get to play with toys! WEEEEEE!
I was jazzed — positively jazzed – to get this assignment. I haven’t really checked into the toy scene since…I dunno. 1989ish? But there’s got to be some awesome improvements, right? I mean, we live in the age of Microsoft Zune and Compuserve and Sega Dreamcast and laser discs! We’ve got to have some huge strides over those quirky 1980s toys, like those weird cars that turned into man-bots, or those acid-dream horses what with the rainbow tails an–
In my defense, I was talking about Go-Bots and Rainbow Brite’s horse, Starlite
Still, how hard could it be to review a couple of toys? Just go in there, figure out what the hell a “brony” is, jot down a few notes and boom: done. Right?
Well. Entering this party, it became readily apparent that a) there is a whole industry of people that follow the business of toys and b) I was not one of them.
So while everyone else swarmed over the apparent latest and greatest innovations, I looked for something familiar an–HOT DAMN, AN AVENGERS BAR!
Character for character, the Avengers are way more fun to drink with than The Justice League
HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS they had these Avengers dolls action figures that were on this bar and they had AVENGERS-THEMED DRINKS!
Apparently “Hulk, Smashed” and “Captain Rumerica” were a little too awesome to use
Haha! Awesome! Hey, someone should drink all four in a row, and call it the “Avengers Assemble,” which I’ll do right after I finish my scotch.
Assemble! …even if two of you do look exactly alike
Ok, ok, ok so – Iron Man has the best drink, and the Hulk’s is weird. Like, he’s a big ol’ tough guy, you know? And that has a lotus flower and–CRAP! THE TOYS!
Marvel
So, lots of movie toys, which is radical. As you saw, looks like Hasbro is bringing out lots of big ol’ Avengers action figures (just the main four – no big Black Widow, Hawkeye etc. Although they’re well-represented in some smaller action figures). Looks like they also have the Andrew Garfield-era Spider-Man toys, which, while cool, I can’t help but think have got a touch of the eye jaundice.
Ol’ Webhead’s got gallstones again
That’s not all you can expect out of Hasbro’s Marvel toys in the near future. They also left out a huge bucket of superhero disguises, like Hulk gloves, so you can commit some awesome misdemeanors without leaving fingerprints!
Stay strong, Bri-Bri. Maintain your journalistic integrity…
By now, I started getting an understanding of what the hype was about. And it seemed like the biggest buzz was around…
Star Wars Angry Birds
Oh my, ladies and gentlemen. Those better informed than I were very, very excited about this. Now, obviously, I know about Angry Birds and I know what Star Wars is. But this combination hit the Hasbro faithful like a piping order of Wendy’s french fries dipped in Frosty. By the way, here’s what Harrison Ford looks like as a bird, in case you were wondering.
That’s going to make it much easier to break into the base on Endor
The selection of Star Wars Angry Birds toys was downright neat. Slingshots, some kind of porcine AT-AT, and a certain product description which is better left for the Hasbro/Rovio marketing department themselves:
Get ready to unleash the birds to destroy the Death Star and in the new ANGRY BIRDS STAR WARS JENGA DEATH STAR game! Take turns trying to topple the Empire in an intergalactic battle. Pull back the X-Wing Fighter to launch an epic squawk attack with LUKE SKYWALKER, HAN SOLO or CHEWBACCA birds. Knock the pigs’ block off and explode the Death Star.
You guys. I just got drunk off of words. That one sentence with all the capital letters may as well have said FOOTBALL DRINKING MEAT SANDWICH LASER SHAKE (which, incidentally, was the score of my last Rorschach test). In any case, brace yourselves, because chances are you’ll see plenty of Angry Birds Star Wars in 2013.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Wh-what? Grown men follow…wait. What? This doesn’t–
“Soon you will be one of us”
AUGH! Dammit. It’s looking right at me. Wait. Is it irony? Do the bronies like this for ironic reasons, or, like, childlike whimsy, or-
“ONE OF US”
AUGH! GET OUT OF MY HEEEAAAAAAAD!
KRE-O
Spock: Hmmmmmmmn
Kirk: Hahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Cynics would accuse KRE-O of being the Thomas Edison to Lego’s Nikola Tesla, especially considering that Legos and KRE-Os fit each other. But those people forget that Lego is Edison to Kiddiecraft’s Tesla. Checkmate…jerks.
KRE-O launched a couple of years back with a “Battleship” line (meaning that you can get a KRE-O Liam Neeson, should you so desire, and why wouldn’t you? You’re just getting a jump on “KRE-O: Taken 3″ followed by KRE-O Transformers. And up next? “KRE-O Star Trek” and “KRE-O G.I. Joe,” both of which promise to be hits.
Transformers
When I was growing up, I always loved when the Transformers had some kind of crossover with creatures of the animal kingdom. Like, apparently I was so privileged that the idea of a car that could become a gun-wielding robot still left me craving more, because I am a sociopath. But occasionally, they would make some kind of dinosaur transformers, which would change from dinosaurs to human-bots. And this was proof that life was worth living.
Well, good news, everyone! There’s plenty of half-beasts, half-robots coming up in spring of 2013. I don’t have many details yet, besides this dragon-looking gentleman.
Nothing beats a robot dragon except a ghost ninja
So there you have it – a full slate of cool toys coming your way from Hasbro next year. In addition to bringing out a lineup that made even a grown-up like myself excited, they also put on a damn good party. At the end of the day, I enjoyed a heck of an event, and thank goodness them Avenger cocktails didn’t lead me to make a fool of mysel–
Dammit!
Leaf beer: not nearly the success that pumpkin beer was
Brian Cullen really, really enjoys robots but doesn’t understand how they work. He also enjoys drinking beers, and has a pretty solid understanding of how that works. You can read about his musings about both on Twitter @BucketCullen.
We wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he was born wearing a tuxedo
Brian recently listed Our Favorite Fall Beers and praised one of the NBA greats for his charity with David Robinson, You the Man!
