Sculpting - ***
The head sculpts are all great, and help carry the figures. I'm not
thrilled with the hollow soft rubber - the heads remind me of dog chew toys
- but it's acceptable. When I was a kid I had these terrific figures
from Warner Brothers of the cartoon
characters, and I think because of those I have a better appreciation
for this type of rubber head.
I had a major issue with the soft plastic on one figure
though. Snoopy has a twisty tie around his neck, and mine was very
tight. So tight that it caused him to have a deformed neck. As
you can see in the photos, my poor Snoopy has an odd tilt to his head
because of it. Be careful picking out that particular character.
The bodies are very short of detail. The hands have
very stubby fingers, and the details on the collars, clothes, and shoes is
extremely basic. Don't get me wrong - I don't expect these to be
Muppets level quality. They are simply 2D characters, and they
shouldn't have that level of detail.
But poor Snoopy's arms are barely stubs, and the overall
detail on the sculpting is less than I'd hoped. It's not terrible -
they still are getting three stars in this category - but it could have been
better.
Another major knock to the sculpting is the hands - none of
the characters can hold any of the accessories. Charlie can't hold his
kite, Linus can't hold his book, and although there aren't a lot of
accessories here for the characters to hold, better hand sculpts would have
been nice.
The bodies are made of a solid plastic, but like the heads
their hollow, so the figures are very light overall.
Paint - **
For me, there's nothing worse than getting geeked up over an upcoming
line, and then being disappointed. That's unfortunately the case on
these figures in a few areas, paint being the worst.
The faces are fairly well done, with clean lines on the
eyes, eyebrows and mouth. The clothes aren't nearly as good.
Some figures, like Lucy, had sloppy lines all over - around her dress,
shoes, socks, etc. Others, like Schroeder, really came out all
right. It looks like a real crap shoot as to whether you'll get a
figure with decent paint ops or not.
The paint work was hit or miss on the accessories as well,
and some of the paint - particularly the skin tones on the arms and hands -
is gloppy and thick.
Articulation - **1/2
The articulation on these figures is slightly unusual. There's neck,
shoulders, cut elbows, and waist on the majority.
The neck, shoulders and waist all work as you'd
expect. The elbow joint simply twists, allowing you to turn the hand
to different positions.
Two of the figures break this rule - Snoopy has neck,
shoulder, ankle, and a weird waist joint that is at a 45, instead of a
horizontal line. This unique waist joint allows Snoopy to sit down.
I would have given them another half star on the
articulation because of Snoopy's ability to stand and sit, until I opened
Schroeder. They took away his articulation, and although he has a
waist joint it's completely useless. He is permanently in a sitting
position, and only had neck, shoulder and cut elbows.
Accessories - ***1/2
Easily the best thing about these figures are the accessories. All
of them come with sensible extras, and they are well designed.
Lucy has her psychiatrist's stand, along with a little chair. Of
course, only Snoopy or Schroeder can sit on the chair. But the details
and size of the stand is great.
Schroeder has his trademark piano, the bust of Beethoven, and a plastic
'carpet' with musical notes. The detail on the bust shows how good the
work Playing Mantis can do when they set their minds to it.
Snoopy has four accessories - the large bird bath, small water dish, his
bird buddy Woodstock, and Woodstock's nest up in a tree. The sculpts
on all of these are nice, although Woodstock is a light on detail. His
feet are sculpted in a walking position, which means he can stand on his
own.
Charlie Brown had the only disappointing accessory. The large tree
is great, but the quality of the paint and plastic used on the kite is just
plain awful, and the fact that Charlie can't hold the kite AND you can't
stick the kite into the tree in any way (how else would you want to display
it?) means it's pretty useless.
Linus has his blanket of course, although it's just a square of
material. You'll have to beat it up some yourself to get it too look
much like his blanket. He also has a section of wall, and a philosophy
book, which he can't hold in his hand (but can tuck under an arm).
Sally, has a TV (with the Great Pumpkin show on the screen - although she
wouldn't be watching a show about the strip...) and a neat little bean bag
chair. Hey, those are the perfect accessories for her, and although
she doesn't fit perfectly into the bean bag, it works reasonably well.
Value - Single Carded **1/2, Boxed Sets ***1/2
Even though the accessories are great, and the sculpts on the heads good,
these aren't eight dollar figures. But if you can find the boxed sets
for $16, that's a far better deal, and brings them down to just over $5 each.
Overall - ***
I'm not sure I'm being completely unbiased here. I may be giving
these a half star more than they deserve, because of my nostalgia for the
license.
So let me see if I can weasel my way out of it - if you end
up paying $8 each for these, they get an overall score of **1/2. But
if you can find them for under $6 each, they get *** overall.
The biggest disappointment here is that these aren't as good
as the Rudolph series. Playing Mantis
did an absolutely marvelous job with that line, and I was expecting
something similar here.
I'll be buying all the unique characters, but if the quality
doesn't improve, it's unlikely that I'll buy any silly repaints or simple
accessory changes.
I've included a picture down below that shows the scale of
these figures compared to the Simpsons and the Rudolph line. In two
days I'll have a review up of the six figures from the Great Pumpkin series.
Where to Buy -
I picked these up at Target, and I've heard they've also been spotted
at Meijers. The Target SKN is 087060339 for the single carded
figures, and the Great Pumpkin boxed sets are 087060329. It might be
tough to get complete sets on-line, since the case packing is going to be
so goofy, but there are some sources:
- Comics Infinity
has the 3 packs for $17 each, and the Snoopy Doghouse playset for under
$19. I've gotten terrific service from them every time I've ordered
through them. Search for the term 'peanuts' and they'll all come up.
- Beans
Toys has them in sets for $36 (in the three packs). They are
still a pre-sell.