Mainlining Christmas

I can forgive The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special for being bad, but I can't forgive it for not being bad enough. The original Star Wars Holiday Special , of course, is a thing of legend. It's impossibly bad, unbelievably bizarre, and utterly mystifying. It's never officially been released, and everyone involved seems ashamed. I'm not saying this had  to be that bad, but it had to be... something. Most importantly, it needed to be memorable, and The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special is already fading from memory minutes after watching. I guess I better get the plot down before it's gone for good. Set soon after Rise of Skywalker, the special opens with Rey trying (and failing) to train Finn to become a Jedi while their friends are preparing for Life Day. Blaming herself for Finn's lack of progression, Rey follows some advice in an old Jedi tome and heads out in search of a lost Jedi temple. BB-8 accompanies her for some reason. They locate the temple and come across

To be clear, I honestly thought I was done writing about Christmas-themed toys. I've reviewed quite a few over the years, but something about the experience wasn't as fulfilling as it once was. It's hard to put my finger on the precise issue-- Oh, wait. Now I remember: no one cared about any of those posts. At any rate, I've looked at a variety of holiday action figures , dolls , building sets , playsets , a Batmobile , and... whatever the hell this was ... but there was one thing that always eluded me. And that, of course, was The Elf on the Shelf. Obviously, "elude" is a strong choice of words. I've seen countless of these for sale over the years but it's rare to see them marked down significantly. There were times early in the blog's existence I considered paying the full $30 for a chance to mock these little demons publicly. But before I got around to that, I started seeing them parodied and viciously criticized, and... I don't

First things first - if you don't have kids and don't have any reason to care about toys, then clicking on this was probably a waste of your time. Sorry. For those of you who do have kids to shop for this year... at the very least, you should probably start planning ahead. Because Toys R Us, one of the country's largest toy sellers, is about to go belly up, and that's going to throw a mangled giraffe carcass into the gears of the toy industry. I feel like that metaphor got away from me. According to literally the first source I came across , Toys R Us peddles 15% to 20% of the country's toys, and not all of it will be picked up by other retailers. While other stores will probably increase their holiday orders due to the loss of their competitor, between 1.5% and 3% of the country's toy sales will likely just... not happen. In this context, "not happen" means you'll drive around town looking for the official voice-changing Captain America

If you're not familiar with Funko's line of Pop! figures, it's probably been a while since you've stepped foot in a Hot Topic. Or Barnes & Noble. Toys R Us, Target, Gamestop, Walmart, Walgreens... these things are everywhere. Usually in large numbers, too. These are vinyl figures, which is different than normal plastic for reasons that after fifteen years of collecting toys as an adult, I still don't remotely understand. They're stylized to look cartoonish and fairly uniform. The toy line stretches across more properties than I can count - if it is or has been part of pop culture in the past three decades, there's a very good chance it's been made as a Pop! figure (possibly with a dozen or so variants). As a rule of thumb, I don't pick these up. There's too many to bother with, and while I like the look of them well enough, they're not really the sort of thing I go after. I made an exception when I heard they were making this one,

In addition to the crappy doll I've already reviewed, The Mensch on a Bench brand has expanded to infect numerous products. I've seen ads for toy animals, and more dolls. And, of course, the activity kit I'm looking at today. Do I even need to specify I found this on clearance? I got it at Michael's for 70% off the original price, which was still $2.99 I'm never going to see again. Among the lies I found on the packaging were that there were eight Hanukkah card inside - mine only included SEVEN. Also, this claims the book includes "10 Fun Activities," when none of the activities were fun. Setting that aside for a moment, let's look at what's included. There are the aforementioned eight (seven) identical Hanukkah cards and envelopes, six crayons, four markers, two sticker sheets, and the activity book. The cards are ugly, the crayons and markers are cheap, and the stickers are... well, they're stickers - not much to say there. Alm

While I haven't actually gotten my hands on an Elf on the Shelf yet, I've heard a great deal about it. And from that, I suspect The Mensch on a Bench may be just as good an idea as the Elf. If you think that's a compliment, you probably don't know much about Elf on a Shelf. The "Mensch on a Bench" was introduced to the world on Shark Tank. Sadly, they gave it an influx of cash and some publicity instead of letting it die there. Like the product this is clearly ripping off, The Mensch on a Bench includes a book and stuffed doll. Also, it sits in your house, sleepless and ever watchful, judging your children. You also get a removable cardboard bench, because "mensch" doesn't rhyme with "shelf." The doll is fine, if unremarkable. I doubt he'd stay on his bench without being tethered to it, though. The story of the Mensch on a Bench is essentially the story of Hanukkah with all the interesting war stuff excised. Instead,

Those of you with unusually good memories still won't recall that I reviewed Jack from Series 1 of Diamond's Nightmare Before Christmas line a few years ago, because - frankly - it wasn't that memorable. So, given that, let's take a moment to recap. We're now around thirteen years out from when NECA produced the first wave of their Nightmare Before Christmas line. Over a few years, they produced damn near every significant character (along with several insignificant ones) from the film. With one notable exception. For whatever reason, they didn't make Santa. They did Jack in a Santa suit, but skipped the big guy himself. Fortunately, Diamond decided to rectify this omission, which brings us to today's review. If you remember my write-up of Jack (which we've already established you don't), you know I wasn't overly impressed with the quality control. The arms and legs were too thin to support sturdy joints, so we were left with something

Christmas With the Joker , the second episode made of Batman: The Animated Series, is something of a guilty pleasure. I know there are some fans who consider it among the series's worst, but I love the episode's spin on the Joker. There's something both endearing and unsettling about his attempts to crack jokes involving destruction and danger. We see him playing more in this episode than we ever would again, poking at Batman with jokes only he seems to understand. Over the past few years, DC Collectibles has been producing six-inch figures based on the show. Last year, I was pleasantly surprised to see them add a version of the Joker from that episode. It's branded "Holiday Joker," despite the episode's name having "Christmas" in the title (quick! Call Fox News!). I ordered it and waited, hoping to get it in time for a Christmas review. Unfortunately, I missed it by a few days. Oh, well - there's always this year. The line this i

This differs in two notable ways from nearly every toy I look at. First, I actually paid full retail price for this. Second, I think it's actually worth it. Granted, full retail doesn't mean a lot - this went for $4.94 at Walmart prior to Christmas. I'm not sure why they felt that $4.94 was the precise amount they wanted to charge, as opposed to $4.95, $4.99, or an even $5, but they seemed committed. The fact the price tag is a removable sticker is presented as a selling point, as it simplifies gifting this (and, for the little it's worth, I was able to peel off the sticker without difficulty). The box features a "touch me" section, which was smart - more of this in a moment. I'm not too impressed with the graphics or the back, but that's hardly a deal breaker. Note that the front and back photo are identical but flipped on the y-axis. Pretty lazy, guys. Pretty damned lazy. But none of that matters, nor do the ridiculous claims and sellin

Aside from the toys themselves, the worst thing to come out of the "Elf on a Shelf" fad is the endless pile of imitations. These things have been popping up everywhere over the past few years. I kept meaning to grab one when they got ridiculously cheap, but for some reason they vanished from the shelves before dropping below 50%. And, given these start at fifteen bucks, that's not nearly enough of a discount. We found this one while vacationing in Oregon last August. A Walgreens had him (and plenty more) at 75% off, which still seemed high. But we decided to make the $3.74 investment, so here we are. Let's start by looking a little closer at the packaging. The back of the box has some artwork showing elves playing various sports, along with a crappy poem explaining the elf's purpose. It's actually a bit ambiguous - it says he's been sent to determine if you're "Nice enough to make Santa's team," but it's unclear if your &q