Happy Birthday, America!

    

Blue Oyster Owl Clam from Nathan Jurevicius x Toy Art Gallery

    I'm gonna out hipster all the hipsters with my newest idea.  This is what's gonna secure my place as an eccentric old man years before I need to really be good at it.  First, I'm gonna give all my shirts away and buy a bunch of pocket tees.  No, you can't have them either, I'm gonna mail them to wherever they send those sports shirts from the losing team of championship games so that my magic goes world wide.  Next, I'm gonna get a screech owl and carry him around everywhere in my pocket. Oh my God, I can hear the collective sigh of not only every dude with his typewriter in Starbucks, but every old back woods bro who thought he won the crazy game with his raccoon he walks on a leash whenever he goes into town.  You'd think my wife isn't behind this idea but she wants a screech owl so badly it has blinded her to my madness.  His name is Tilda Swinton by the way and he is not interested in coming to your birthday party unless the cake is made of mice.  Good luck with that.

I love how judgmental they look.  Could you have disappointed a bird any more than this?

    Until I figure out how to buy my pocket screech owl I will practice with a less temperamental stand in like this Owl Clam from Nathan Jurevicius x Toy Art Gallery.  This toy literally consists of a shell fish that is harboring some owl fugitives.  It's pretty nuts, and it can be all yours when this Blue Oyster version releases later today at noon pacific time only from www.toyartgallery.com.

Francis AP Dunny Sets from Scott Tolleson

   Did you know in The Bride of Frankenstein movie that the title character actually had red hair?  It's hard to tell because the film is in black and white, but there ya go.  Now I did learn it on the internet, so it may or may not be true, but if it is that's a fun tidbit in case you're ever on Jeopardy.  I only ask for ten percent of the winnings as your manager.

    Scott Tolleson can make The Bride's hair whatever color he wants because that's called "artistic license."  Which is not considered one of the six points of identification required by the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles to get and extra copy of your registration and they don't find it funny if you try that.

   Now The Bride wasn't part of Scott's Odd Ones Dunny Series when Kidrobot released it, so he made her up, cast her in resin, and had her join her man Frankie in holy matrimony (oh and Scott hand painted her).  And the groom got spruced up too with a bow tie and a kiss from his lady.  Each set of figures comes with a marriage certificate, is limited to ten, and will sell for $250 when they're released this Tuesday at 10am pacific time from http://www.stolleart.com. 

Ring of Honor Series 2 Action Figures

    Let me tell you something (you know it's about to get serious when I say "let me tell you something"):  if you are a fan of professional wrestling and have never been to see Ring of Honor you are selling yourself short.  Sharon and I went to our first one recently when they did the War of the Worlds Tour with New Japan and we were completely blown away.  The crowd was insane, which I expected being that we were in the old ECW Arena in South Philly, but the show itself was like nothing we've ever seen.  The matches were fast paced and the characters beyond interesting.  We came home and attempted to watch what normally airs on national television and we couldn't do it.  It was like tasting filet mignon then having someone try and feed you the manager's special.


   Now you can make up your own story lines and create epic battles with these new figures.  This is series two for Ring of Honor and Figures Toy Company and features Adam Cole, Delirious, Bobby Fish, and Kyle O'Reilly.  They're available right now at http://figurestoycompany.com.

    On a personal note, Jinxed in Philadelphia and myself hosted a custom Munny show a few years back and Delirious actually worked on a figure for us, so it's pretty cool to see him get his own in this series.  In fact, I found the picture of it:

Of tokidoki and Crane Machines: An American Tale of Success in the Face of Adversity

  This past weekend the weather was warm and the crane machines were calling me like the quarter stealing sirens they are, so Sharon and I headed down to Wildwood to satiate my arcade lust.  Now I don't consider myself an expert at crane games, but the chest full of prizes I've won for my wife since we've been together would probably say otherwise.  It's filled to capacity with random stuffed toys that I've snatched from plexiglass prisons with the steady hand of a vascular surgeon.  I like to think of myself as a freedom fighter for cheaply made, possibly unlicensed, boardwalk trinkets.

   Sharon is excited no matter what I happen to win for her, or at least she is kind enough to feign enthusiasm as I celebrate my show of masculinity.  But this time was different; this time there were objects marooned on a bed of plastic diamonds that I knew she would want:  tokidoki toys!  Yes indeed, one machine was filled with blind boxed toys from her favorite company.  I procured a roll of quarters from the attendant and set about my quest to win every single one.

    Spoiler alert:  things didn't go quite as planned.  I spent a few dollars trying to maneuver the crane into just the right position to be able to properly secure each box, but all attempts had failed.  Dejected I moved on, trying my luck at other rigged games of chance in order to salvage what dignity I had left when it came to my hand eye coordination, but at each machine the result was the same.  What was happening to me?  Were my powers stolen by some thief in the night?  When I was a baby my grandmother would freak out when our cat slept in the crib with me because she thought it would steal my breath.  Did something akin to this happen and one of my kitties now possessed a useless talent for carnival games?

    My head spun and I felt lost, but unlike a coed on senior week, I was not about to give it up so easily.  I returned to the tokidoki machine and I dug my heels in for a fight.  Determined to play until I was victorious or ran out of quarters, I tried again and again to snatch one of those toys from the gaping chasm of defeat.  A few times I was close, a few others not so much, until finally the claw of destiny grabbed tightly around the four corners of the box.  Breathless seconds past as it raised my prize high above, slammed it to an abrupt stop, then crept slowly towards me.  The claw swung back and forth as if its bounty was putting up one last fight before it finally accepted its fate and was dropped lovingly into the retrieval bin.  I had done it!  I had bested the machine, thus extending our dominance over our creations and putting off the robot apocalypse for a few more years.  The picture above shows my wife's hand lovingly displaying her prize.  And we all lived happily ever after.

   

Kyoot Kickstarter from Lisa Rae Hansen x The Designer Toy Collective

    Here at The Toy Viking I'm all about making dreams come true.  I'm also all about the abolishment of portion control, professional wrestling, petting cats, going to the zoo, flea markets, Norwegian black metal, container gardening, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt seasons 1-3 (available now on Netflix), and toys.  The last one is really the only pertinent one in this instance, as I'm about to smack you with knowledge of Lisa Rae Hansen's Kickstarter project.  With the expertise of The Designer Toy Collective, Lisa is poised to make her first ever vinyl production toy.  But this won't happen unless you get involved.  If you want to see this little super hero dude fly onto toy shelves around the world then you've got to make it happen.  By visiting this link you not only have the ability to make this a reality, but you'll also come away with sweet rewards in the process.  There's everything from pins, to a Kickstarter exclusive colorway of the figure, to customs from your favorite artists.  Get on it!

Purple Lucha Squid from Germs x Toy Qube

    

   This toy right here has all the stuff I like:  Wrestling and squids.  And it's a toy, which I'm very into.  It was created by a man named Germs, which would not be my first choice for an alias because I am not a fan of unclean hands.  I'm much better than I have been in the past, but still not at the level where my wife can forget to put hand sanitizer in her purse and not expect an epic meltdown.  It's a guarantee that if we run out of the stuff that I'll accidentally touch something disgusting and be without a way to remedy it.  That's why my career in professional wrestling would never take off, because as soon as I had to grapple with a dude that had more hair on his back than his head, or if someone started bleeding all over the place I would forfeit.  Actually that's not the worst persona I could think of.  Get Vince McMahon on the phone!

    I wish Lucha squids were real and their programming already a part of my overpriced cable package.  Until someone figures that out this one from the previously mentioned Germs and Toy Qube will have to do.  This vinyl dude from the deep stands seven inches tall and is sporting a full sized body mask in glittery purple.  Start your federation now by visiting www.toyqube.com.