Mistress of the Dark!

Happy (week of) Halloween, folks! Justin here. While we here at ToyFare HQ are busily trying to figure out Halloween costumes we can piece together on the cheap (I’m currently accepting all nominations for interesting shapes I can shave my beard into), some of the companies we cover are out there doing some really cool Halloween-related stuff. TJ posted last week about Mattel’s awesome Halloween charity auction. Now, Tonner Doll brought us word of a super-limited edition figure they just put out!

That’s right, it’s Elvira, Mistress of the Dark! Says Tonner,
“She is limited to 300 pieces and was done for our Halloween Convention that was in Framingham, MA last weekend. We have a few left for sale on tonnerdirect.com and she sells for $175.”

I love the name “Framingham.” But that’s neither here nor there. The point is, if you’ve got an Elivra fanatic in your life, act now to make this the best Halloween ever for them!

Mattel’s Dream Halloween Benefit

Hey Gang, just wanted to pass along some info on a cool Halloween event that Mattel’s participating in where you can get your hands on some exclusive one-of-a-kind figures including a Darth Vader themed Mater from Cars and a Spirit of Grayskull variant of the SDCC exclusive Masters of the Universe Classics line.

Here’s the full details from Mattel:

Dream Halloween is right around the corner. This is a fantastic event where Mattel teams created one-of-a-kind collector items to auction off for Children Affected by Aids. This year, among the spectacular toys are two items we showed off first at San Diego Comic Con, the one-of-a-kind Darth Mater and the second and last publicly available “Spirit of Grayskull” figures. Both are fantastic collector items with all proceeds from the auction going to a very noble cause.

If you are interested in attending the event or would like more information about bidding from home please go to CAAF4kids.org.

Darth Mater:

It’s Halloween in Radiator Springs and Mater from Disney/Pixar’s CARS has decided to make his own Darth Vader costume! Using found objects from the local junkyard, he has transformed himself into the not-so-terrifying villain Darth Mater!

Created exclusively for CAAF’s 2008 Dream Halloween auction, Darth Mater is a one-of-a-kind 1:9.5 scale model created by the design team at Mattel in close cooperation with John Lasseter and George Lucas. Armed with a light-up red lightsaber that pivots from his right front wheel both clockwise and counterclockwise, Darth Mater makes lightsaber and Darth Vader breathing sounds, plays the classic Star Wars “Imperial March” theme, and utters dialogue recorded by Larry the Cable Guy especially for the occasion with funny quotes such as “Luke, I’m your manufacturer!”

Darth Mater comes on a custom-built 21.75” wide by 18.75” deep by 4.75” high base decorated like the floor of the Death Star with flashing LED lights synchronized with the sounds. The base includes two clear acrylic plaques, one with the Lucasfilm logo signed by Mr. Lucas and the other with the Disney/Pixar logo signed by Mr. Lasseter. Finally, the model is protected by a 21.75” wide by 18.75” deep by 14.25” high clear acrylic case.

Spirit of Grayskull:

King Grayskull is the first new Masters of the Universe Classic figure from Mattel featuring the first ever highly detailed fully articulated versions of classic Masters of the Universe characters from the world of He-Man and She-Ra. King Grayskull is the ancestor of the heroic warrior He-Man and defended the ancient land of Eternia from the evil forces of King Hssss and Hordak!

To help celebrate the return of Masters of the Universe toys to collector’s shelves, Mattel has created a special variant of their San Diego Comic Con exclusive King Grayskull action figure as a “Spirt” which will forever live in the walls of his castle. Only two editions of this all-clear version of King Grayskull will be made for the public. One was raffled off at SDCC 2008, the second will be auctioned for charity at the Dream Halloween event.

King Grayskull comes complete in a diorama pop out package which folds out to create a mini Castle Grayskull playset featuring flashing energy and the sound of King Grayskull declaring “I have Power!” when the jaw bridge is opened. He includes his shield, battle axe and Power Sword.

–TJ

The Big Toy Industry Panel!

If you’re a toy fan and you have any curiosity at all about how the toy industry works and what’s going on in it right now, I highly recommend checking out this panel transcript for the Big Toy Industry Panel at Wizard World Philadelphia. It’s fascinating!

This was my first time ever moderating a panel, and I definitely didn’t expect it to veer off into such…well, depressing territory. But hey, this is the state of the industry right now, and these are the guys who are living it every day. I know that, speaking to a lot of the participants afterwards, many were happy to have a chance to present “their side” of the industry to fans. If you’ve ever wondered why there’s so much part re-use these days, or why any company wouldn’t sell direct-to-consumer, or even why toys are getting so expensive, there’s a lot of food for thought in here.

Check it out, then come discuss it on the Wizard Universe Message Board.

-Posted by Justin