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While McFarlane Toys is busily digging its own grave in the market, there's a new bad boy in town, and his name is Mirage Toys. Formerly the industry joke N2 Toys, newly-named Mirage is battling it out for "Most Moronic Company" with the release of the first series of the previously promising, now sadly devastatingly awful South Park.
Not too long ago, McToys had nice pictures of this hot property for Toy Fair. The figures were nicely scaled, detailed and even slightly articulated, with a claymation-esque sculpt that worked perfectly for the figures. Suddenly, the scheduled line disappeared, with little explanation given as to the absence, until now. The first series from Mirage includes Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Butters (!?!) and is one of the most awful series of figures to be released this year.
The first question is, where the mfff is Kenny? Butters might have his moments, but he's not worthy of the first series. Kenny, the mfff mffffer, is the mfff mfffff and mffff mfffffff mffff with strawberries on top - how could they possibly exclude him from the first series?
The second question is, why the mfff are these figures so huge? Peanuts set the standard for irregularly huge out-of-scale figures, but they had a certain appeal, a cuteness that I can't quite put my finger on. The ugly South Park abominations are just huge, dwarfing your other figures for no good reason. About 4 1/2" tall, they're out of scale with everything, possible exception being my impressive todger.
Each figure features an accurate yet lame-ass sculpt of the character - although it's recognizable, the look on the facial sculpt is utterly useless. Cartman looks like he's just had an anal probe, Stan looks shocked by something, Butters looks stupid and Kyle looks like a zombie. Throw into the equation that there's no articulation (so their necks move - big mfffing deal), and you have some crap toys here.
Each toys comes with an accessory character of some kind, and for the most, the accessories are better than the figure. Stan's got Sparky the gay dog, Kyle's got Ike, Cartman's got dildo - er, kitty, and Butters has... an Underpants Gnome. An Underpants Gnome?! BUTTERS?! The Gnomes bothered Tweak, not Butters, dammit! None of the accessories are articulated either, but they certainly are cool. But this doesn't save the figures at all, and I'll tell you exactly why.
These figures had some real promise, so much possibility. Imagine thin bases of your favourite South Park locations. Imagine sound chips, with profanity, or wacky action features. Imagine articulation of some kind, and the possibility of the figures actually having a decent scale - well, your imagination will have to suffice, because none of that coolness is here. These toys are really, really disappointing, and although I imagine the Timmeh! figure from Series 2 will sell well, it won't make up for the fact that these aren't cool.
(To think, Timmy won't even be able to scream his catch phrase. Bleh.)
Let's hope that a better company can get this license off of Mirage Toys, or else that they get their act together.
Do you think Toddy Mac could have done any better? Tell us on our message board, The Loafing Lounge.
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