Hey gang,
ok so what did I see and what can I talk about. Well, i saw Travis and the stuff at MR. not going to say too much since the pics are out there, Travis has his own thread and most of you already have the replicas of kermit, Animal and Gonzo. but this was the first time i had seen everything and I was very pleased....almost kinda wished i had the money for the replicas but sadly I chose to get an Arts degree instead. Fozzie looked pretty good. of ll the replicas he's the one I'm really happiest with and the one I want the most. The EM stuff looked really cool too. Dr. Teeth is clearly the strongest sculpt there, followed by Animal then probably Zoot and Janice and Floyd, bu they still all look great.
OK, the stuff you guys wanted to really hear about. The Fraggle Rock stuff WAS on display and it looked really awesome. the only complaint I have is the letterblock bases which make NO sense. Iasked if the bases would be removable and was met with a firm "maybe". What thye had were the prototypes that they had just gotten in so right now they really didn't know. but to describe them as best I can:
Gobo was sitting playing his guitar.
Mokey was sitting reading a piece of parchment
Wembley was in a very generic wembling kind of stance (there's actually a publicity photo that I think this pose was taken from)
Red was in a nice kind of "ta-da" pose
Boober was leaning against his block and looking kind of bummed about the whole thing.
Travelling Matt was exploring with a walking stick in one hand and what looked like a magnifying glass in the other.
The Doozers were building a little tower
The first generic Fraggles was blue and playing a saxophone
The second generic Fraggle was green in a sweater and just leaning wistfully on his block (I didn't ask but I imagaine we'll see paint variants on these two)
And Sprocket, Pa, and Marjory are almost all more like busts
They ALL look fantastic. they've borrowed the Palisades texturing and of course it looked really good. Wembley, Pa and Sprocket are the weakest, not necessarily bad but not as strong as the others. I think Marjory, Red and Boober are my favorites. Oh, and the saxophone Fraggle I REALLY liked him. I sent the rep to here as well as muppetnewsflash so hopefully we'll hear from him. I also gave him my e-mail address so he said he'd email me when they became available. He said to expect them next fall.
Saw the Dark Crystal stuff. The Mystic is by far the best piece there but not something I think I'm willing to shell out $100 for. Jen on the landstrider and Jen, Kira and Fizzgig looked alright but again nothing I'd spend the money on. they didn't have the castle on display since apparently they only had the prototype ad it was way too fragile.
The Jim Henson's City Critters things looked neat. I might pick up a few for the heck of it and the Mindstyle rep (I believe his name was Chris) said they would be doing pain variants for those too. he also pointed out the 8" doozer that was on display at Dark Horse.....yeah you now know as much as I do about the figure. No idea whose making it, no idea when it's available, no idea what it'll cost, but it is there.
And finally I ran into Craig Shemin. he was nice enough to stop and chat for a few minutes about a few things. He told me he's been brought in by the Diz to consult on the TMS dvds. He said he'd given them a list of things to put on and they were selecting pieces and working on them. First the bad news....First off, "A frog is born" will not be on season 3. He said they had some problems with licensing that prevented it from happening, but he seemed optimistic that they might get it onto Season 4 or 5. I 'm guessing that this might be with Sesame since it was a thing on the evolution of the character. Might have had a few other stumbling blocks if they were looking at other things. That's just my speculation. He also said they were REALLY close to getting the spot from "I love Liberty" but the production company that produced that backed out at the last second. He said he was pushing Disney to put more of the promo spots on as well as the wake-up call the Pigs in Space had recorded for NASA, but right now it didn't look good. He DID however say that they got some great commercials lined up for Season 3 and this people will be pleased and he indicated Of muppets and Men would most likely be on Season 5 but of course that's WAY off right now and anything can happen. Finally he mentioned a documentary he's working on about Henson's short films. He said they're working on the funding now and that it'll air on PBS when it's done. It didn't occur to me until later that I should have asked if that was related to the news about the biopic or what he knew about that.
And that was ToyFair. All in all it was a really great time. I'm really tired now and have two puppets shows of my own I have to get up and do tommorow so I think I'm going to cut this short now and go to bed.
Sleepily yours,
--Matleo
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