Poochie

When Matt Groening signed his contract with Fox, he got an amazingly good deal: the studio is not allowed to give them any notes or make any changes. Or, rather, the studio can give them notes, but they don't have to listen to any of them. The creators would meet with the studio once a year as a courtesy, take all their notes, and then roundly ignore them. For instance, the year some exec suggested adding a hip new teen character to the family. Not only did they not do that, they actively mocked the idea in Season 8's "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show." "I know there's a lot of people who don't like me and wish I would go away, and I think we got off on the wrong foot. I know I can come off a little proactive, and for that I'm sorry. But if everyone could find a place in their hearts for the little dog nobody wanted, I know we can make 'em laugh - and cry - 'til we grow old together." POOCHIE'S DEAD!! *audience cheers wildly* There are new Simpsons figures out now from Jakks Pacific, but the intro of that line has nothing to do with the end of Super7's Ultimates. It's perfectly normal for different companies to do the same license in different scales, but The Simpsons simply didn't sell as well as Super7 hoped, meaning it wasn't worth the money to renew the license. The four series they did manage to release featured no "standard" versions of the main cast, and a lot of utterly weird character choices beyond that. And of course, the exceedingly high price didn't help any, either. But hey, at least we got Poochie from it. The Simpsons Ultimates are done in a much larger scale than the existing figures, which does very little to encourage sales. When NECA did their celebrity figures, they had the good sense to make them work in displays with the old Playmates line; Super7 could have done the same, keeping the size but increasing the articulation, and thus drawing in both new fans who missed out on the World of Springfield line, and old fans who were looking for upgrades. Poochie can still kind of work with the existing figures, despite being 7" scale (which makes him a bit over 5⅜" tall), because he could be a mascot costume or a display at Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con. That's certainly why I was willing to take a chance on him and none of the others. Poochie, the kung-fu hippie from Gangsta City, is wearing his leather jacket, his cut-off shorts, and his cool sneakers. He's got his hat on backwards, with a tuft of hair poking out the front, and his eyes are covered by solid sunglasses. His fanny pack is a separate piece, in case you prefer him not wearing it. The colors chosen for the toy are nice, solid tones: very orange fur, very purple hat, very teal shoes, all that. They even remembered to give the fasteners on his grey jacket silver paint apps to make them stand out. Technically his little goatee should be red, rather than black, but maybe they felt that didn't stand out enough. Articulation is far superior to any Simpsons toys that came before. Poochie D rocks the telly with swivel/hinges at the ankles, knees, wrists, elbows, and shoulders, and balljoints for the hips, waist, and neck, and a barbell head. There's also a big balljoint for the tail, but the ball is a very tight fit in the socket and, since the tail is necessarily thin where it meets the body, feels like it could be in danger of shredding if you don't move it carefully. The other joints are loose enough to move easily, but firm enough to stay in place. The elbows and knees are much easier to move than the shoulders however. When you're the original dog from hell [Cerberus? --ed.], you need some alternate parts to really get not just busy, but biz-zay. Consistently and thoroughly. First, you can replace his normal hands with relaxed hands, gripping hands, or peace signs, all of which make more sense than the fists he starts with. Then, there are two alternate heads. The one he's got on straight out of the package is utterly neutral, so there's a lot of room for variety in the expressions. The first alternate is basically the same as the regular head, just with a more open smile that definitely suits the character's totally outrageous paradigm better. The second alternate has a different shaped snout, bending down instead of up - it represents when he manually flexes it to appear more dromedary while explaining that he's half Joe Camel (and a third Fonzarelli). The interior of the mouth is sculpted, but not painted, leaving this poor beagle with a tongue the same color as the rest of his body. As a self-proclaimed rapping surfer, Poochie definitely needs a surfboard. Although Super7 did a surfing Michelangelo as part of their TMNT Ultimates line, Poochie's board is a new mold. Sadly, while there are holes in his feet, the board doesn't have any pegs, so there's no way to actually have him stand on it securely. Of course, the only thing he ever does in the episode is stand around and hold it, so maybe that was a purposeful choice. Unfortunately, they were smart enough to put a fin on the bottom of the board, so it won't rest flat on the ground and it's almost impossible to balance him on it. Conversely, since he does ride his skateboard, that gets a peg to hold him on it. Finally, he includes his electric guitar - do you think the Itchy & Scratchy writers included that trait because the character's voice actor was, famously, the former lead singer of Sadgasm? The Poochie who appeared in the two Itchy & Scratchy cartoons was not the same Poochie the animators designed and who appeared in all the in-universe marketing: instead of a leather jacket and cutoffs, he had a flannel shirt and baggy jeans. And nunchucks in his back pocket. Maybe if this line had been a success, Super7 could have made a second version sometime in the future, but at least the one we did get is surprisingly good. It doesn't make me want to get any of the other Simpsons Ultimates (well, maybe the Itchy and Scratchy Robots), but if you can find this at an acceptable price, you won't be disappointed by the quality. (Note: Super7 died on the way back to its home planet.) -- 08/04/24

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