|
Packaging - ****
You can't go wrong with these sturdy, attractive, collector friendly
boxes. The blue color is growing on me fast, and this one has great text
and graphics. I like the inclusion of the photo of the actual Muppets on
the front, and as exclusives go, this one is packaged extremely well.
Sculpting - ****
These are two of my favorite characters from the old Muppet Show, and I'm
happy to see just what a fantastic job Palisades did bringing them to
life. I love the facial expressions on both, and they capture the look and
feel of the muppets themselves perfectly.
There's tons of detail on both the head sculpts
and bodies, with each button and wrinkle shown the same care and attention.
The hats are not removable this time, which is a
bit of a disappointment, but not a major problem. The hands are sculpted
to hold the canes, and they both stand just fine on their own.
Paint - ***1/2
The paint ops are solid, if not absolutely perfect. Figures like these
require so much more detail and quality than the usual superhero, for example,
and yet they manage to pull it all off better than almost anyone.
The vaudeville costumes are amazing, and all the
stripes are perfect. The colors are all consistent and the borders are
clean between them, and there's no glopping, even on the flesh tone hands.
I did have some minor problems around the whites
of the eyes, with a little of the paint bleeding into the face. But in
general I was once very impressed by the quality.
Articulation - ***1/2
The figures are both extremely well articulated, with a new and interesting leg
joint (new to the Muppets line, at least).
The figures have neck, shoulders, cut biceps,
elbows, wrists, knees, waist, ankles, and a split crotch joint.
Yes, that sounds rather painful, but works great
with a pot bellied character like these. We've seen Palisades use these
with the Year Without Santa Claus figures, and Playing Mantis did it with the
Rudolph figures.
This odd joint works well here, and allows the
legs lots of forward and backward motion, much more than a normal crotch
joint. The only negative is that the waist joint on Waldorf tend to gap,
showing the inside of his body.
Accessories - ***
Both figures come with one accessory - their cane. The canes look fine,
fit in their hands, but are fairly basic. Still, most convention
exclusives are lucky to have any accessories at all.
Value - ***
The pair cost $25 at the show, not bad considering they are two new figures.
Sure, they are variants of the 'normal' Statler and Waldorf, but since those two
won't be out for months, these are really the first versions. And while
the tuxedo's are the garb we know them best in, these outfits are just so
visually cool. In a perfect world, $18 - $20 would have been so much more
palatable, and that's way they dropped a little in this category.
Overall - ***1/2
These take the top spot as my all time favorite Muppets exclusives.
Sure, Vacation Fozzie is all kinds of cool, and the Koozebane
Kermit is one my favorite Kermit so far, but these two look so great on the
shelf that they blow everyone else away.
The can't get quite as good of a score as say,
Koozebane Kermit, simply because the price tag is a tad too high to keep them in
the same ball park. But these two look great, and have great articulation
and paint ops - all on two of my favorite Muppets characters.
|
