Little Nicky (McFarlane Toys)

Little Nicky
McFarlane Toys
2000

Whether you like Adam Sandler or not, there's no denying that the comedian had his hay day with hit after hit; Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer, and all those other films that have become cult classics now helped to pave the way for the man as a household name. Unfortunately for Sandler, as it often times goes in Hollywood, his career slowly seemed to diminish. One of his recent films, Pixel was deemed so bad that critics were calling it the last nail in the coffin of his already heavily dwindled career (again at the time).

Since then, Sandler has signed a contract to provide four Netflix direct films. His first film, The Ridiculous 6 was just that - Ridiculous - As in ridiculously boring, crude and obnoxious. As of this writing, it has a zero percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics and general audiences can't stand the film.

One of the films churned out during his downward spiral in Hollywood was Little Nicky. It's honestly probably one of the last films we saw him in - Prior to our attempt to sit through The Ridiculous 6. Truth be told, we remember about as much about the film Little Nicky as we do about what happened the day before we were born - I.E. Nothing whatsoever.

Around this time, McFarlane Toys, as popular as they were for their Spawn figures, were throwing everything they could at the wall, and hoping something would stick. Toys based on the film were one of those particular items that thudded against the wall, then slid down it - Or rather, bounced off in a ricochet that sent it flying back at McFarlane's head.

Much like the film, very few seemed interested in toys based on the characters. After producing just four figures, McFarlane Toys quickly moved on in their search to find something else to produce.

Little Nicky with Mr. Beefy*Mr. Beefy

Cassius and Little Nicky*Gate Keeper and Gary the Monster

Mr. Beefy was also produced and released in a baggie. Believe it or not, one of the last sales we saw for this was a box of seventy-five of them for $35.00. Nobody bought them.

For those who want to hunt down the Little Nicky figures, you can easily obtain a full set on the card for about ten bucks.

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Coneheads (Playmates Toys)

Coneheads
Playmates Toys
1993

It rarely works out when you take a three to five minute Saturday Night Live sketch and convert it into a ninety minute movie. Very few SNL sketches have been able to find success on the big screen, and most typically go on to have cult followings, but not necessarily be memorable iconic films. Coneheads was no exception to this rule.

The 1993 film was seen as a desperate attempt by cast and crew to grab a piece of the tail end success of Waynes World, and springboard into a non-related series of SNL character based films. Sadly while more films came such as It's Pat, Stuart Saves His Family and Superstar, most of them were critical flops with the same problem being sited over and over - One-note characters and plots stretched thin over a feature length period.

It was rather interesting to see Playmates Toys release a line of figures to coincide with the film in 1993 considering they were still pushing the ever popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys out in mass quantity. Coneheads wasn't exactly a line that the company needed to stay afloat in the toy isle, and it certainly didn't help them in any way.

Much like the film, the series of toys saw little to no success. Only six figures were produced in total.

Beldar in Full Flight Uniform*Beldar in Suburban Uniform*Prymaat in Full Flight Uniform

 

Prymaat in Suburban Uniform*Connie*Agent Seedling

SNL films were in abundance from 1992 to 2000, but since that period it seems that someone has learned a valuable lesson, and with the exception of 2010's MacGruber, there haven't been any big screen iterations of the characters. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? We suppose that's all a matter of personal opinion.

 

Join us next time when we take a look at Dynomutt and Blue Falcon!

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