I mentioned in my reviews of Teela and the Goddess that the pins used for the heads created something of a “bobblehead” effect. Well, in a post on He-Man.org, ToyGuru presents fans with the following dilemma:

Hey He-Fans,

We’re well aware that a lot of fans are receiving Goddess figures that have a “bobble head” effect. Here is the 411 on that:

In order to have removable heads, the pin used to connect the head and neck is creating the undesired effect. We’ve already looked into it and here are two options we can explore to correct this:

1: Make the head non removable on future female figures (no future females will have a second head option)

2: Use a larger pin, but lose all up and down articulation. Head will only move left and right.

What are your thoughts folks?

TG

My thoughts…? Fix the heads without sacrificing anything!

Or if you’re not willing to do that, just leave well enough alone. I’ll take a bobblehead over 1960s-era articulation any day of the week.

If I was forced at gunpoint to choose one of the options, I’d have to go with #1, but I’d rather just stick with the status quo, which at least allows us to have both a ball jointed head and extra heads. I find the bobblehead effect to be a minor inconvenience (coming from someone who does enjoy “playing” with his toys) compared to the loss of ball jointed heads or alternate heads. But now Mattel’s gone and made this an issue, and we might get stuck with female figures with swivel heads.

The female figures have already lost the ab and waist joints, and Mattel skimped on the tooling budget for the Goddess and Evil-lyn by not making the feathers a separate piece. Sticking fans with a choice between a ball jointed head or alternate heads, however well-intentioned, is a crappy move.

Of course, the best option would be to use some creativity and, heaven forfend, a little engineering money to find a way to fix the bobblehead problem without sacrificing anything.

In any event, I encourage you to register your opinion–whether it agrees with mine or not–on the He-Man.org boards. Unless there’s a really solid consensus, I suspect that, inside Mattel, the inertia will be on the side of the status quo.

Now, I’m sure some of you are going to ask: “Is this the thing that will finally get Poe to stop buying MOTUC?” And the answer is no…not yet. Two reasons: one, I’m already on the hook for the 2010 subscription. And two, with the exception of the Sorceress, this issue isn’t going to affect any female character I really care about–Evil-lyn is already in production, and I was never a POP fan. However, if 2011 looks like it’s going to be a POP-heavy year and we’re officially stuck with swivel-necked women, chances are I’ll skip the sub and just pick up the male characters.