Merch Murmurs: What Are The Haps At Toy Fair?

Posted on February 19, 2014February 11, 2019 by Vic Bright

In case you hadn’t noticed, there has been a little thing called the Toy Fair going on this week and the internet won’t shut up about it. How does it affect us Bubbler’s though?

That is a great question, one that I had assumed I’d be able to answer quite easily. For you, my dear Bubble Blabber enthusiasts, I have waded through site after site and over 1000 terrible convention floor photos to bring you some news.

At a glance, Toy Fair is a wonderful place to be if you are a fan of the Walking Dead, Batman, Game of Thrones and Gaurdians of The Galaxy. Whilst I’m sure most of us love those things, you can only collect so many Batman figures (and there were sooo, so many Batman figures, I’m wondering if Bruce Wayne realises just how high profile he is) , what would really impress us is some upcoming toys featuring say, The Simpsons or maybe Family Guy….

Thankfully, a few toy manufacturers, and a very few websites, acknowledged the desire for animation themed toys and I came up with some cool merch. Thank you Jebus, as otherwise I just wasted an hour and a half of my life. First to catch my eye was Series 1 of Neca’s 25th Anniversary Simpsons figures: The Greatest Guest Stars. These have been advertised as designs on Neca’s website for sometime now (first pic below) but the finished figures were debuted at the Toy Fair.

Photos courtesy of Coming Soon

As you can see, these come as poseable 5″ toys or blind boxed mini figures. You can also buy a box set featuring all six characters from this debut collection.

Photo from Comic Vine

The only other Simpsons merch I could find is the already available Lego House and a tantalising tease of some upcoming mini-figures.

This bad boy weighs in at £179!! So double that for dollars!

Photos from Toy Ark

Somewhat of a damp squib was Factory Entertainment’s Archer Towel and plush. The plush is new but the towel is not. Boo, you can do better, cool but not essential buying by any means.

Fans of the excellent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on Nickleodeon would not be disappointed ( we may not usually cover TMNT but just go with it, this stuff rocks) as there was a ton of new gear from Playmates, ranging from action figures and sets to plushies, all brilliant.

toy fair 2014 turtles blimp set — This Blimp! Love it.

For us here at Bubble Blabber however, by far and away the best manufacturer this year is purveyors of excellent custom vinyls, Kidrobot. The company had everything for adult animation fans in their booth, from Futurama to South Park and all of it was fresh and original. Great stuff.