This one was a request from a co-worker.
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Showing posts with label Fox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fox. Show all posts
Little Dracula (DreamWorks / Bandai)
Little Dracula
DreamWorks / Bandai
1991
Happy Halloween, all! In honor of the day, we're going to cast our sights at a relatively unknown / forgotten series from DreamWorks / Bandai. 1991's Little Dracula!
Little Dracula was a character created for UK children's books by Irish Author Martin Waddell which became a US television series...Whoa, that's a lot of countries involved with one series. The stories began being published in 1986 with the first book, "Little Dracula's First Bite". It would be followed by seven more books, unofficially ending with 1992's, "Little Dracula's Other Monstrous Poster".
In 1991, Fox Kid's picked up the rights, and developed it as an animated series. Unfortunately appeal never really took hold, and as such the series was cancelled after just one season (13 episodes). However, just because US children didn't enjoy the series didn't mean that it was a total flop. France and Germany television studios ordered an additional 13 episodes for a second season which aired throughout various European countries.
The year Little Dracula debuted on television, an action figure line was produced by DreamWorks / Bandai. Why DreamWorks and Bandai? That's easy enough to answer. DreamWorks released the figures in the US, while Bandai handled the remaining globe.Each figure featured numerous accessories as well as an action feature which was activated by twisting arms, legs, hands, feet, or simply by pushing a button - Corresponding to each figure as denoted on the bottom left of each package. Unfortunately for the toy line, it was as short lived as the television series in the US.
With that said, nine figures did manage to make their way to retail shelves. This wasn't bad considering it covered the majority of ground of the characters from the show. In fact, the only figures that didn't make it to plastic were; Big Dracula, Granny, Millicent, Ms. Dracula and Hannah the Barbarian - Certainly enough for a second series should popularity have garnered such a release.In addition to the figures, four vehicles were produced. While all of them were made available in Europe under the Bandia banner, only two made their way to the US via DreamWorks. What's interesting to note is that depending on which area of Europe you look for the Coffin Car will depend on what it's called. It's been found in boxes denoted as; Coffin Car (obviously), Drac-Mobile and Voiture Cercueil.
Unlike the Coffin Car, the Drac-Moto appears to have only come out entitled as such. We have not been able to locate any other versions that contain a different name, or language other than English. That's not to say they don't exist. We just haven't seen them.
Because we are mentioning the various variants for the vehicles, it's worth noting that an Italian version of the Garlic Mobile can also be found. However, you're going to want to search for Spar Agilo - Which translated apparently means Spar Garlic. Much like the Cereuil, we have no clue what Spar means. We have not been able to find any variants to the title for The Dracster despite our searching.
UPDATE
Reader Da Cu writes to tell us, "Spara Aglio means (Shots Garlic). Because the car "shots" (or better Launch) pieces of Garlic."
However, in our search we did find the awesomeness that is...
...Dracula's Dragster from Polar Lights!
No, this isn't related to Little Dracula - As we're sure many of you deduced just in looking at it. Instead, it's a re-issue of the original 1964 released version of the same name from Aurora. It's just a simple model kit that requires mad painting skills, and of course, glue. Good times for model and Dracula fans.
We digress though. Back to Little Dracula.
The last piece released for the series was the cosplay Little Dracula Scepter & Amulet. This to date is the most difficult and expensive piece to track down in the line.
Little Dracula remains popular in European countries, and had a short lived revival in book form through 2001 when a handful of the prior titles were re-issued in print. However, nothing new seems to be brewing around the character currently. Perhaps much like the resurgence of 80's cartoons and toys, in a few years demand from children of the 90's will take its toll, and we'll see a resurgence in nostalgia from that decade.
That about wraps it up, folks. Enjoy your Halloween. Keep it safe, keep it fun, keep the candy coming and scare some little kids in the good spirit of all three.
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The X Files (McFarlane Toys)
The X Files
McFarlane Toys
1998
True story. None of us here at The Toy Box has EVER seen an episode of The X Files, and yet we've wanted to do a post on the 1998 McFarlane Toys series since pretty much the beginning of our site.
The X Files was a series about......Um.....Stuff. It also starred these two people - One was a guy, and the other was a woman. Together they did....Um...Stuff, and all was well.
In 1998, McFarlane Toys produced a series of action figures based on the big screen movie adventures of those two fine folks from the television series, and fans were happy. The first production of figures came on your typical rounded edged bubble card, but due to popular demand, though not popular enough to produce a second series, the figures were re-carded on a new style of card that rounded off with the circled "X" from the logo at the top left.
A total of eleven figures were produced for the line, ten of which were released in both the first and second batch of basic figures. What's disappointing about this series is that the majority of the figures were the same characters over and over, some not even in different outfits, but with a different "accessory".
Attack Alien (with Primitive Man)*Scully (with suit and corpse)
Scully (with parka and cryopod)*Scully (with parka and alien)
Fireman*Mulder (with parka and alien)
Scully (with suit and cryopod)*Mulder (with parka and cryopod)
Mulder (with suit and corpse)*Mulder (with suit and cryopod)
As stated above, the repacks offered nothing new to the series.
Attack Alien (with Primitive Man)*Scully (with suit and corpse)
Scully (with parka and cryopod)*Scully (with parka and alien)
Fireman*Mulder (with parka and alien)
Scully (with suit and cryopod)*Mulder (with parka and cryopod)
Mulder (with suit and corpse)*Mulder (with suit and cryopod)
Prior to the series end, McFarlane Club released the exclusive Flukeman, and Sam's continuously carried the three pack which featured Scully, Mulder and Alien.
Flukeman (McFarlane Club)*Sam's Club Three Pack with Scully, Mulder and Alien
Join us next time when we take a look at Identity Crisis!
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Futurama (Moore Action Collectibles)
There's not much we can say about the show Futurama that we didn't say already in our prior post based on the Toynami brand figures.
Prior to Toynami's Futurama toy line a smaller series was released by Moore Action Collectibles in 2002. The line covered the basic of basic figures - Fry, Leela, and Bender. It also included a smaller version of the Planet Express ship, which was shrunken down to fit into the packaging size that the figures were in. It was obviously not designed to be interactive with the figures themselves.
During the series, two exclusives were produced - Chef Bender (Previews Exclusive), and Leela in a swimsuit (Toyfare Exclusive). The Leela figure can be found in both a carded and boxed edition.
The Futurama line was discontinued shortly after the two exclusives were released. Moore Action Collectibles hasn't been heard from or seen since 2004 when the company released its final Buffy the Vampire Slayer toys. The companies lines of toys such as Beavis and Butthead, Kabuki, Fathom, and more were definitely unique, but unfortunately without a strong leading line, could not compete with today's fast paced action figure world.
Join us next time when we take a look at 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas!
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Futurama (Toynami)
With the success of The Simpsons, Matt Groening and David X. Cohen pitched the idea of Futurama to Fox. It was a series that followed the adventures of Philip Fry, a 20th century pizza delivery man who is accidentally cryogenically frozen, and thawed in the 31st century. In the show, Fry works for his distant relative Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth as a delivery man for Planet Express along side his new friends, Bender, Leela, Zoidberg, Amy, and Hermes.
The cast includes such notable names as Billy West (Ren and Stimpy), Katey Sagal (Married...With Children), Phil LaMarr (Madtv), Lauren Tom (King of the Hill), Tress MacNeille (More animated movies and shows than we could ever list), and John DiMaggio as the voice of Bender (and also Marcus Fenix from the Xbox 360 exclusive series Gears of War).
The series ran from 1999 to 2003, then was dropped. The show was immediately picked up by Cartoon Network, and ran in syndication from 2003 to 2007. When their contract expired, Comedy Central not only picked up the rights to run the show in syndication, but also the rights to produce new episodes. The show was recently renewed for its seventh season on the network.
In terms of action figures based on an animated television show, the 2007-2009 Toynami series of Futurama toys is one of the best we've ever seen. Not only are the figures meticulously sculpted to match their animated counterparts, but the packaging is one fine piece of colorful eye candy. Each small box is uniquely designed to coincide with the figure inside.Unlike most toy lines, Futurama's was not broken down by any particular series, but rather by year. Tonami would announce what figures they were producing in any specific year, and then proceeded forward. There were no waves, or series numbers.
While there was certainly room for the series to grow, in its three year span Toynami made sure to produce the majority of major players in the series, though they didn't steer too far from this path to produce many secondary figures.
The full list of basic figures include;
Amy (2009)
Bender (2008)
Calculon (2008)
Chef Bender (2009)
Captain Yesterday (2008)
Clobberella (2009)
Fry (2007)
Hermes (2009)
Kiff (2008)
Leela (2008)
Mom (2009)
Nudar (2008)
Professor Farnsworth (2009)
Super King (2008)
Zap Brannigan (2008)
Zoidberg (2007)
There were five exclusive packs produced for the series;Fry and Leela (San Diego Comic Con 2009)
Santa Bender and Robot Santa (San Diego Comic Con 2008)
Zoidberg - Mating Season (San Diego Comic Con 2007)
Glorious Golden Bender (San Diego Comic Con 2007)
Zoidberg - Mating Season - Blue Variant (Toyfare 2007)
Destructor and Gender Bender (San Diego Comic Con 2013)
There were also small "Tineez" figures produced that while they have the same type of packaging are not considered to be part of the set. We won't go into those here.The secondary market has been incredibly kind to these figures. Depending on the character, one alone can set you back a hundred dollars, with the majority selling for between fifty and sixty dollars each. This is excellent news for secondary market dealers, and a nightmare for buyers. But, no matter how you look at it, that's an impressive price increase in a series that ended only a few years ago.
Join us next time when we take a look at Stargate!
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