The San Diego Comic Con was this past weekend, and although thousands of people were able to attend, I was not one of them. That's some sad news right there. But the good news is that we got a few Muppet-related news tidbits which we'll report as if I was actually the one doing the news gathering. Don't tell the Associated Press!
The Guinness Book of World Records went to Comic Con to award a few world records plaques to things such as Detective Comics for being the Longest Continuously Published Comic Book and The Simpsons for being the Longest Running Animated TV Series. They also awarded Brian Henson with the plaque for Farscape, which has the Most Digital Effects in a TV Series. Good work, Farscape! You look pretty!
Archaia Comics announced that the upcoming Labyrinth and Dark Crystal comics will feature covers by the great Brian Froud, who will also be serving as the Creative Consultant for both titles. That's some great hiring there, Archaia! Now if you can only convince him to do some interior art for the comics, I'd be happy as a baby being tossed in the air by David Bowie.

Archaia also gave us a few more details on the upcoming Fraggle Rock comic book. It will be in anthology format, with both long and short stories. The books will be a bit smaller than a comic book, coming in at just 8"x8". The comics will also contain "new levels of interactivity," which could mean just about anything. Maybe they'll come with instructions on how to grind the pages down and make your own Doozer sticks.
BOOM Studios didn't have much new information about the Muppet comics at their panel, but they did say that they're planning on getting rid of the 4-issue installments of The Muppet Show Comic Book and turning it into an ongoing, which will make it so much easier to keep track of the numbering. And I know you're all very concerned about keeping your Muppet comics organized to an obnoxious degree like myself. The image above is the pencils for the cover of the Pigs In Space one-shot comic, which will be written by Roger Langridge and illustrated by an unidentified artist.
eFX Collectibles had the first signs of their upcoming Muppet Photo Puppets on display, including Rizzo, Reporter Kermit, and a piece of Miss Piggy. Rizzo looks fantastic. I'm tempted to buy him and make him carry my luggage. It's hard to judge that Reporter Kermit, since they made no effort at all to make him look good in that glass case. Muppet News Flash: Nobody wants to buy an ugly Photo Puppet! And the Piggy face looks like they're on the right track, with a chubbier Piggy like we used to see in the Muppet Show days, as opposed to the newer, slimmer Piggy we've gotten used to in recent years. Though I'm staying dubious until we see what her hair and costume will look like, since we all know that the clothes make the pig.
Oh, and these guys were there. Do you think Bunsen is a DC or a Marvel fan? UPDATE: Looks like they did a sketch for the Comic Con masquerade! Enjoy the nerdiness!

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Labels: awards, comics/magazines, Fraggle Rock, Photo Puppets

This past Sunday, I had the amazing opportunity to attend the New York Toy Fair, where all of the toy companies come out to show their wares. ToughPigs' own Martha and Andrea were with me as we used our finely-tuned Sixth Sense to spot anything with a Sesame or Muppet logo. And that Sixth Sense was invaluable, as there were hundreds upon hundreds of booths. We were lucky enough to see some great toys that are coming out in the next year, and what kind of friend would I be if I didn't share the news? A pretty crummy friend, that's what. Well, crummy ain't in my profile, so here's some fun things to whet your whistle.

Master Replicas/Corgi

It's times like these that I wish I had a business card with the ToughPigs logo. Because dropping the "I write for a Muppet fan website" shout-out is apparently good enough to get us inside Corgi's closed doors, but not good enough to take pictures or ask detailed questions. Thankfully someone out there was able to grab photos, so you can see what I'm talking about.

The Kermit, Animal, Gonzo, and Fozzie Master Replicas photo puppets were on display. It was the first time I'd seen the Animal, Gonzo and Fozzie ones up close. There's a lot of good to be said for Animal, though I'm still convinced that his facial hair is all wrong. But the ostridge feathers are very pretty, and they flow like he's alive when there's a breeze. Gonzo looks great, with the exception of his nose, which is not-so-arguably the most important feature to get right. I understand the problems that arise when using foam, but I would have much preferred if they caved in and built a nose out of hard plastic. Fozzie, as TP's own Martha put it, makes up for all of the ugly Fozzie merchandise we've ever had. He's beautiful and perfect. I can't think of anything bad to say about him. He's a little shorter than I pictured him, but it fits with the sizes of the other photo puppets. I can only hope that he's affordable, as I pretty much need to own one.


The other Muppet product in Corgi's hidden room was five small Electric Mayhem figurines. They were very pretty, but the design was just flawed enough to make a shopper second-guess. The person I spoke to didn't have any details, but she said that the figures will be sold on the higher-end. Meaning that if they aren't perfect, and they're a little more expensive, they'll probably sell approximately 3 of them. And they'll all be Animal, because everyone loves Animal. Eat drums.



Gund

The Gund showroom was also closed to the public, so we decided to be sneaky and see how much we could see before someone noticed us. Most of the toys were nothing new. Dolls and puppets and some Abby Cadabby stuff. What caught my eye was a beautiful Count von Count doll. He really looked just like the puppet, and I'll shell out some dough for it. Another new (to me, at least) item I saw was Twiddlebug finger puppets. It's an idea so natural, I'm upset with myself for not thinking of it first. At that point, someone realized that we weren't important and we were shown the door. Well, the joke's on you, Gund, because I'm promoting your products anyway! Ha HA!

MINDstyle/Dark Horse

MINDstyle and Dark Horse had two booths across from each other, so forgive me if I didn't bother to tell them apart. They had all of the City Critters out on display, which are very nice. Not quite as Muppety as I'd like, but they're fun little toys. There were three Dark Crystal statues on display, including a pretty statue of Jen and Kira with the Crystal Shard. But the highlights were the Fraggle Rock toys.


First off, there is an 8" Doozer. And he's beautiful. Though Doozers are so simple, I'd imagine they'd be hard to mess up (I'm sure that won't stop the toy companies from trying). They had just received the Doozer that morning, so they didn't have any details yet, but they said he will probably be on a slightly higher-end than an action figure. I'll do some research to try and find out more about it.


The other Fraggle surprise was the upcoming Fraggle Rock blind-boxed figures. They're maybe about 2 1/2" tall, slightly stylized, and very very pretty. Characters include: Gobo, Mokey, Wembley, Boober, Red, Traveling Matt, two Doozers on a Doozer construction, the Trash Heap's head, Pa Gorg's head, Sprocket's head (with bowl), and two generic Fraggles. I'm a little surprised that they included the two generic Fraggles above Junior or Ma Gorg, Cantus, Convincing John, or even some sort of variant (Boober dressed as the Old Gypsy Lady?). The other strange part is that each character is placed on top of an alphabet block. I'd think that these would be marketed toward an older crowd, so the "educational" value might be better left off. Plus, I have no idea what learning letters has to do with Fraggle Rock. But other than that, these figures are terrific, and I can't wait to own them. I'm not excited about the blind-boxes, but a Muppet fan's gotta do what a Muppet fan's gotta do. And that's spend a lot of money.

Toy Vault

The good people at Toy Vault were nice enough to let me take pictures, so I'll let them speak for themselves. And in case my photo skillz aren't good enough for you, here you'll see a pillow with the Dark Crystal logo, a plush Fizzgig (with giant, scary opening mouth), plush of Rygel from Farscape, Labyrinth Door Knocker plush (I can only assume the other one will be produced as well), and a Talking Ludo plush (unfortunately, the demo didn't have the voice chip yet, but he's adorable anyway).



Deal Makers

This is a Dutch company that makes Sesamstraat wooden toys like scooters, toy trains, toy cars, and the like. Their American counterpart will soon be selling these toys (with the Sesame Street logo, I'd wager), and I happen to think they're cutie patootie. I especially like the cars, which wobble as they roll. They've got a vintage look to them, and I'm a sucker for toys that don't even try to be "realistic". Just a wooden ball with Ernie's face painted on it, that's all I need. Also pictured are some Sesamstraat bicycle bells. Not yo-yo's, as I originally assumed.




Putumayo Kids

The last booth we visited was Putumayo Kids, which specializes in international CDs and DVDs. They had a video playing of their new release, called "Sesame Street Playground," which is a compilation of songs and skits from all of the different Sesame Street productions from around the world (subtitled for the mono-lingualled like myself). The video looked like a lot of fun, and it's always interesting to see Elmo trouncing about in some foreign nation. The DVD will come packaged with a CD, so get ready for some new-to-us material from Sesame Workshop! The art in the image is the final album art without the text added yet.


Unfortunately, we were not able to get access to the Fisher Price room where they were unveiling the new Elmo Live doll. But you can see some video of the unbelievable living Elmo here.

So, I hope you enjoyed this quick review of Toy Fair, and I hope you feel like you were there too. If you do, you owe me $8 for the cab. C'mon man, we said we were splitting it! Don't be that guy.

Click here to get all excited over toys that won't hit the shelves for another 8 months on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: DVD, Fraggle Rock, merchandise, Photo Puppets, review, Sesame Street

If you're a huge [insert obscure comic book name here] fan like me, then you're probably following all the exciting news coming from the San Diego Comic Con. There's inter-company crossovers, fanboys and girls, and writers being treated like celebrities. Of course, nobody is coming to a Muppet fan website for news from Comic Con. That's what Newsarama is for.

Thankfully, for the comic book intolerant of you, there are lots of companies presenting their wares at Comic Con, just like in the opening number of episode 511 of The Muppet Show. Except there are no pies. And no pie salesmen.

This year, we were lucky enough for Master Replicas to be presenting their Muppet line of photo puppets. Kermit was there, which was released last year. But you know all about him already. You probably have him posed in some kind of lewd position over your bedpost. Yeah, I've seen the pictures.
First up is the Animal photo puppet. A picture of him was released a while back, but you can tell there has been some minor adjustments to his design to make him a little more feral and a little less... um, pointy. His hair is still a little all-over-the-place, but you can tell that he's got potential to be great once he's officially released. Unfortunately, because of the wild hair, his head is almost completely hidden. Hopefully once we can see him in real life, his design will make a bit more sense. Most ideal photo pose: slightly hunched over, eyes closed, panting, and ready to attack.
Next we've got the Gonzo photo puppet. A very rough design of his head was released to us a bit ago, but the additions look a little awkward. The photo makes it look like the last scene in Big when Tom Hanks starts to turn into a boy again, but he's still wearing the grown-up clothes. And speaking of clothes, the last time I checked, Gonzo's tux was purple. Though I wouldn't put it past him to wear bright pink as an artistic statement (possibly while eating a hi-fi system to the tune of "Baby Got Back"). Of course, the nose is far from the finished product. It's also the most important part of the puppet, since that's how most people will recognize him. Hopefully Master Replicas will find out how to make a good-looking schnozz out of a material that won't disintegrate after 6 months. Most ideal photo pose: belly dancing in a vat of butterscotch pudding.
Lastly we've got a Comic Con surprise. Fozzie Bear is the next photo puppet to be produced, and I couldn't be happier with their first stab at the comedian. Fozzie actually looks like he's in the middle of a joke that's bombing, but he doesn't yet know that the audience doesn't find him funny. He looks like he's actually alive, and for an early prototype, he looks better than Animal and Gonzo put together. Though the first thing you'd notice is that he's going to be a huge photo puppet. And while I love the idea that all of the Muppets will be to scale, I don't know any Muppet fans who will be able to afford the giant Fozzie. Well, maybe they'll shell out the money once he's wearing his hat. Most ideal photo pose: banana in one hand, rubber chicken in the other, trying to ignore the two old guys in the balcony.

Post-lastly, Master Replicas is reportedly working on a few more photo puppets that weren't quite ready for display yet. Rizzo is high on the list, as is Miss Piggy. Personally, I'd love to have the rat in my apartment, though that's mostly so he can kick out his mousey brothers. A Miss Piggy photo puppet would be spectacular, but she's reinvented her style more than Madonna, so who knows which version we'd end up with. There's also the possibility of accessory packs for each of the photo puppets, so feel free to let your imagination run wild.

So, start saving your dollars, because the Muppets are invading your house and they're aching to be posed, photographed, and left on the mantle to collect dust.

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Labels: merchandise, Photo Puppets

Welcome to the new Tough Pigs blog! On teh Int4rw3bz! Forsooth! One of the interesting things about this newly revamped TP (2.0!) is that there's more than one person writing it. While everyone's favorite crab Danny is still going to be around, he's gotten a bunch of great people (myself included) to help out.

Don't worry about the signature Tough Pigs humor and crabbiness being toned down, however - we're all funny and I know I, at least, am just as crabby. But for real, I hope to be a worthy contributor to the site, and that you like me. Really like me. That previous joke is a contractual obligation, by the way. The other contributors should be letting you get to know them soon with their own posts.

So enough of that, onto what you're really here for: Muppet stuff! It's a new year and a new ToughPigs, so let's kick off with one of the most exciting new pieces of merchandise since the Disney merger - the Master Replicas Kermit the Frog Photo Puppet!



This product had been talked about for almost a year, and was released in late 2006. It's essentially a replica (and a Master one at that) of a Kermit poser, ie. the kind of Kermit used in professional Muppet photo shoots with no puppeteer controls and an internal metal armature (but you knew that). The Master Replicas version includes a custom display stand and numbered plaque for added fancy-tude.

I've had the opportunity to see one of these up close, and it's the real deal. The fleece MR used for the outside of the replica is spot-on. Little details like the invisible Henson stitching are there, and with a bit of effort it's possible to tweak the eyes; a lot of the replicas shipped have the "flathead kermit" wonky eye focus preinstalled. But all told, great results for a first effort. I mean, it's Kermit! For really real Kermit, not a toy! Very much not a toy!

I say 'first' because on the (tentative) slate at Master Replicas for 2007 are several more Photo Puppets, namely Gonzo and Animal - and how exciting is that? Especially since the retail price for Kermit is a decent $199 (although some looking around on eBay can get you one for as little as $169) (didn't I say it's not a toy?). Given the current status of any official Muppet productions at Disney (not a lot) you could start your own authentic-looking Muppet performances at home while you wait. Except, don't put on any Muppet performances at home. Disney's legal department could be on you like that.

Images Courtesy of Master Replicas

Labels: merchandise, Photo Puppets