Variants. I like them all but don't feel compelled to buy them all. I'm not excited about the ghost of samuel Arrow but I am excited about the regular Sam, kermits, Gonzos, Fozzie, Rizzo, Marvin Suggs, Sal, Jonny Fiamma, Rowlf, Scooter, Animal, Bunsen, Beaker, Pepe, Piggy and Janice.
At the end of the day nobody forces us to buy them. It's all a matter of consumer choice. You choose to buy or not to buy.
There's no point getting het up because a character hasn't been made yet. Maybe it will and maybe it won't ever get made. It would be impossible for Pallisades to ever make all of the Muppets in their different incarnations. It could all have stopped with signature versions of just the main characters and we'd never have got secondary or tertiary characters at all. Pallisades have tried to please the most people most of the time, the variants are sometimes a necessary evil to push the line forward with a retailer or they provide a cheap way to make something slightly different, show a different side to a character.
Muppetmania is a subjective beast. People will always differ on their opinions of who is hot and who is not, who should be made next and who should never have been made. Pallisades and Ken are merely jugglers trying not to drop the balls, adding in new ones and changing the colours to suit the audience as often as they can.
Jamie put this more succinctly, he always does **** him.
but really, why complain when there really is something for everyone in this line? You can't have your cake and eat it because there's a whole big wide world of people out there to please.
Variants are good. In many ways. Looking for a variant makes people travel to different stockists or different webstores. It spreads sales around more evenly and increases the chances of retailers ordering more Muppets stocks.
Not only that but often the regular versions look a little plain in figural form and variants spiff some figures up, give them needed vavavoom!
Then there's costumed Muppets specific to theme, themes that keep building with passing waves like the steppin' out theme. I'd go so far as to call a playset anchored figure part of a theme and as such the labs and Electic mayhem and pigs in space grow. But without variants that wouldn't happen and it would be a far less interesting line to collect.
I count myself very lucky to have stumbled onto the Muppets when I did, to watch the line grow a while before buying any and now almost being up to date with all the releases. I was actually considering finding something else to do and just getting ready to throw out all my toys, I was bored and disappointed by the non interaction and corporate nonsense spun by other manufacturers, the toy quality control on lines i was collecting had seriously deteriorated and I just couldn't see a point in continuing to collect.
Then I bought my first Muppets just to see what they were like in person and I was hooked from the first. It's a priviledge to own these toys when so much has gone into making them. They aren't just any old toys, mass produced cheaply. There's heart and soul in the Muppets toys they almost live and breath. The environment playsets are gems, every one of them even if there is room for improvement here and there. All the sets work and all the sets make this line unique in actually having environments to place figures contextually. How many other lines do playsets like this? The larger companies just don't have a grasp on reality or their finger on the collectors pulse like Pallisades do. I feel mean spirited for even saying there's room for improvement.
I don't want to kiss tush here because I won't be buying every figure that's produced, no GOSA or VC Beaker, no IS Fozzie or WW Dr. Teeth, no wedding set or black jacket Rizzo for me. No megas or minis. I don't love everything that's made but I can appreciate it for what it is and why it is.
There is so much stuff to love in the line that a few passed over figures don't make a scrap of difference and there's no point sweating it over them. I know I don't. I'm too busy appreciating everything else that I do like.
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I understand how some would pass. But that's why it's an exclusive in the first place.