Following on from last week and the ecstatic response by collectors and non-collectors alike, here is the second part of the two-hundred-and-sixty-seven-part-long series about the action figure accessories that you, the collector, simply must own! This is a special part including additions from the readers that I either neglected to mention, was going to mention later or simply completely forgot in a heroin-induced haze. Over to you!
5. Blades (Thanks, dayraven!)
Yes, guns get mentioned, and so do swords! But swords go part in parcel with butcher knives, switchblades, daggers, ninja swords, axes, swiss-army knives, machetes, scythes, foils, cleavers, and everything in between! Just as for ethnic gangs, bladed weapons are the source of amusement for many of your toys – not just your ninjas and vampire slayers, but also WALL-E!! He loves to cut. Not to mention…
6. Lightsabers (Thanks, Burger King!)
EVERY. TOY. NEEDS. A. LIGHTSABER. There, I said it. While it’s an ongoing crime in the toy world that Hasbro refuses to make good 6″ – 7″ action figures of Star Wars characters (the REAL Star Wars characters, that is, the Original Trilogy, and the lame LAME Star Wars Unleashed and Star Wars Transformers don’t count) it also means that you can’t get good 1/12 scale lightsabers for the vast majority of your collection to use. Fortunately, this isn’t holding back your 3 3/4″ figures from taking to a duel – everyone from the Terminator to G.I. Joe can get armed up with the color of their choice. (For me, it’s red all the way!)
7. Wrestling Accessories (Thanks again, dayraven!)
And for WWE stuff, yes, the ring is mandatory, and goes w/ everything… but Jakks has given us ring bells, breakaway tables, steel steps that make noise(!), folding chairs, face dent chairs, barrels, video cameras, microphones, trashcans, dumpsters, caskets, giant tires, 2×4s, barbed wire wrapped ball bats, sledgehammers, announce tables, park benches, TONS of ladders, stops signs, cookie sheets, brooms, kendo sticks, championship belts… you literally could accessorize and entire collection w/ nothing but Jakks accessories and have a PLETHORA of good stuff for your figs to bash each other with.
Right on, brother! You’re absolutely correct – the quantity and pure insanity of the wrestling accessories pumped out by Jakks et al is phenomenal. I’m partial to the ones with some detail (a bit of paint goes a long way for that fire hydrant you’re going to belt over Napoleon Dynamite’s head) or the ones with hilarious action figures – putting the smack down on Pedro through a breakable table is poetry in motion. But it’s not just Jakks who’ve pumped out this kind of accessory – the Buffy Accessory Packs by DST include so many excellent things with which your toys can smash each other with, be it books, pots, stakes, Acathla – the list goes on!
8. Dollhouse accessories (Thanks, jestergoblin!)
Yes, it’s ok for us to all admit that really what we’re doing is pretending to play dollies with our little toys like little fairy girls, so why not just let go with the barriers and get your toys some dollhouse accessories? Not so much the furniture, but the stuff for MEN. MEN who like cutlery (the Joker will stab Pedro IN THE FACE!!) and blenders (FORCE PEDRO’S HAND IN THERE!!) and pies (The Joker will…you get the idea) and so on. Brilliant company Palisades (RIP) cottoned onto this with the sensational Muppets line, including what is essentially a pansy prissy dollhouse kitchen – but for REAL MEN!!! – with the awesome Swedish Chef, to become one of the best playsets ever made. Nearly every one of the accessories (of which there are a TON) can be transferred elsewhere for your other toys to use, and it’s the same with most things like this. Toss the cupboard from the Angel Wesley action figure into the aforementioned WWE ring for a KILLER weapon. Take Brian’s martini (from Family Guy) and give it to one of the Evangelion kids – underage drinking, so what? They’ve got enough problems, what with the apocalypse-riding-around-in-a-robot-containing-your-mum thing.
READER RESPONSE!!
Previously, on Doc Thomas Probes, Start Growing Today! wrote:
“Satisfy your girl with longer pens, grow 1-3 inches start today with lwth xnb”
Doc Thomas responds:
Bit perplexed by this comment, which got deleted the next day. My pens are plenty long as it is, and 1 – 3 inches on top of any action figure really messes with the scale. A 5″ Darth Vader, say, would look totally ridiculous alongside a 3 3/4″ Luke Skywalker. Hell, it wouldn’t even fit in with anything in the 1/12″ scale.
Yeeeaaahh…
googum
Dayraven,
See, that actually makes sense: the suitcase in the set was empty, and I thought it was going to be full of cash; and then I figured that would doubtless pop open during the match, and nobody wants to see "makin' it rain" with a bunch of wrestlers…a bunch of dude wrestlers, anyway.
But seriously: is the match then over when someone gets the case down, or do they have to fight their way out of the ring with it? (Next, they have to fight their way to a notary…)
dayraven
@googum: not quite homes… the money in the bank match contends for a contract for a world title shot at any time in the next year, not cash… because the contract is like "money in the bank" instead of actual money. and yes, more than once, guys on the ladder get crotched by an arm or someone tips the ladder over so the climber gets crotched on the top rope. and if you're really lucky, one guy might lean one ladder against another in the corner of the ring and run up it for a clothesline to the ringside area. 😉
googum
I just got my oldest son a "Money in the Bank" ring–like ten bucks at Kmart, marked down from $40 or something. Apparently, they hang a briefcase full of cash from a rope, and six guys go in and fight over it. (Which kind of undermines the "reality" of wrestling, since if they were really fighting for the money, every time someone went up the ladder to grab the case, they'd get punched in the junk.)
Great piece, Doc! Looking forward to the next in the series!
3B
I want a WWE Elimination Chamber! It can serve as basically ANY type of chamber: torture chamber, battle chamber, etc.!
Mario
I must say, I enjoy your brand of humour/toy opinion.
dayraven
thank you dr thomas for the shoutouts… i had indeed forgotten about the buffy line, but you're right, they cranked out a ton of cool accessories/ playsets there as well.
man, we need a playset examination of these days, don't we? cuz like the aforementioned wrestling ring, sometimes a playset is crucial, whether you're displaying for your own pleasure, playing w/ it like a toy setting, or doing the right diorama for a photoplay, playsets are really a crucial part of the toy experience, aren't they? like, sure, i played w/ my swamp thing figures on trees and in the grass, but who doesn't love having that buffy library as a backdrop for their gandalf or any other intellectual kind of character, or have their hordak hanging out at the fright zone right between a pinkberry and the slime pit? (speaking of which, the first toy geek to custom make a starbucks or pinkberry gets my geekly dollar!)
these accessory articles have been a load of fun dr thomas! thanks for them, and thanks indeed to poe for running them! so, any idea what's next on the doctor's table?
DrNightmare
Oh, Thomas, you scamp….oh sorry, I meant DR. Thomas, I know how all us fake doctors get hissy if we aren't properly fraudulently addressed! 🙂