MINDstyle to make 25th Ann. Fraggle figures!

[Redsonga]

I admit it, I am a fangirlie . $10 sounds okay to me *hides face* And I could use the blocks for something or other...

 

[beaker]

(Thanks! New emoticons include Rizzo, Swedish Chef, Big Bird, Cookie, Grover, Sherlock, Count, Wembley, Doozer and Skeksis, along with a few getting a shine-up like Gonzo's snazzy bowtie.)

I think these figures are going to be small vinyl statues. I don't expect them to hold a true scale to one another or to the Palisades Muppet figures. I have a hunch that Kermit will be smaller than Boober.

I'm very curious about the letter inclusion. I think packaging each of the fraggle five with an alternate character would have saved this horrid blind boxing idea.

Gobo with Sprocket, Wembley with Junior, Red with Ma Gorg, Mokey with Pa Gorg, Boober with Trash Heap, Uncle Matt with Storyteller Fraggle, Doozer pack one (each includes 2 Doozers) with Cantus, Doozer pack two with (insert Fraggle here), Doozer pack three with (insert Fraggle here).

They could have rarer chase figures like the minstrels. I don't like it but that part makes sense. Each pack could run $15-35 and released in a rotation of 2-4 at a time with cheaper package deals to buy entire waves.

This chase irritation exhausts the customer and harms a product's momentum. Heck, and costs could be spared in nixing the letters thing. Just my thoughts. I don't know how MINDstyle's business is structured.

I don't know, chase adds to the rarity. What this means is the 12 announced figures, and either a couple of variants or whole new figures.

But yeah, I say just have no packin. The letter blocks have nothing to do with FR, nor add any value. IF anything, again like Marvel Legends Figures do it...maybe each figure comes with a part to a bigger figure. That would have been perfect to create a larger Gorg figure.

And youre right, chances are Madam Trashheap may be about the same size as everyone else due to the limitations of the scale.

We'll all just have to wait and see til Toy Fair photos leak online to weigh in.

 

[Drtooth]

Agreed about the letter thing. And if you get doubles and missing characters, you may very well end up spelling "FFRFLEE RFK." I would like to see some sort of varients on the characters, but that would add to the rarity, so I wouldn't really want to see it here.

But if anyone has seen the Blind Box Vynal type figures, they do tend to range from 6-12 dollars, so I could easily see these selling for about 7-9 bucks a box. And I don't think we should count on any articulation, since most of the times, these are just souped up PVC figures. But still, the last PVC figures we got were just Doozers (as cool as they were, I would have liked to see more of them). And even then, those Doozers cost about 6 bucks each, so these wouldn't be too much more than the others.

Personally, I'd like to see them blind boxed, BUT with little lables that tell you which figure is inside (I can think of an example, I forget the company, but they had the girls of Street Fighter 2). Plus, I'm sure somewhere online you can probably get a set of all the common figures (in the event one will be a rarity) for a flat price. I've seen Kubricks and mini statues sold that way.

BTW, If you get an extra Wembly, you could quite easily customize Shakey Sanchez.

 

[Redsonga]

Don't get me wrong, I don't really like the letters idea, but I am an artist so I would be able to use them for something or other if I had to

 

[DTWolf]

BTW, If you get an extra Wembly, you could quite easily customize Shakey Sanchez.

Shakey Sanchez! Perfect! That's just the kind of idea I was looking for.

And I have seen what might be called "semi-blind" boxes of Japanese figures--each box had a small hole in the front, and behind the hole was a slip of paper showing a number. There were six figures, so if you only wanted, say, figure #4, you could always avoid buying the other five. (They left an element of chase in it, though, because there was a special repaint of each figure, and you couldn't tell from the number whether it was the regular figure or the variant.)

 

[Kermieuk]

These sound great, but Im holding on comments until we see pics from ToyFair.

Few other ideas for duplicates.....

Wembley, you could make the Wizard.

Boober......Sidebottom and the Gypsy!

Chris

 

[minor muppetz]

The blind packaging is a bad idea. The collectable letter accessories don't make sense if they are blind boxed. And if the packaging is blind boxed, then why not include some obscure characters (like Cantus or Wander McMooch) in the first series?

 

[frogboy4]

The more I think about it the more I believe the letters to be a ploy to encourage collectors to buy the entire series, but on top of that they've decided to make it challenging to buy the whole series. Fraggle fans have waited so long for product to hit market that this blind box taunting just seems like they want us to dance like monkeys for them. I still don't think the bulk of Fraggle and Muppet fans care for the repaint/chase sort of hype.

I wonder how hard these really are going to be to get. It's like MINDstyle is designing the set for the non-fan or expecting it to be unpopular. I think they should release the first wave legitimately and see how it fares before resorting to these irritating tactics. I really don’t think they get it.

Still can't wait to see the sculpts though! ​

 

[beaker]

Im holding off from being too critical, as in a way its kind of like waiting in the desert for 25 years for a drink of water...and then you got water finally, but say "hey, this isnt specialized mineral water!"

Mindstyle is making the Fraggle Rock figures in the urban designer vinyl/Kid Robot/Japanese collector market style, and I think it's awesome. Do I have more than 50 dollars to spend trying to guess which figures Im getting? Not really...

But again, we'll have to wait for Toy Fair. Ken and company seemed more than willing to listen to fans, so perhaps before these get released this late spring or summer they'll make some changes.

I just can't find it to easy to complain when a company announces theyre debuting 12 different Fraggle Rock characters as figures, a company and line that wont be cancelled at the last minute like say...the Sesame or Fraggle line with Palisades or that one other company.

 

[Drtooth]

I say, this license is worth it just for hearing "Marjory the Trash Heap" in a mainstream line up. Considering how the Mokey and Travelling Matt plush (of all sizes) were cancelled after the prototypes, due to the retailors, it's nice to see a bold line up like that. Though I still say, they can get away with selling the toys with a lable or sticker, so you know who you're getting.

Other than that, the letter thing is the only thing that bugs me. It's not a make or break point (especially since I'm liable to wind up spelling Grg or Ragr). though I like the idea of a build up character. Or a Doozer tower. I'd go for pack ins of the various creatures in the rock. like the Flute bird from the "Brave Boy" number.