12 Days of Christmas: Day 7

Bring on the swords!

12 Days of Christmas: Day 6

 

Halfway through Christmas Season and the Lego comes into play. 

12 Days of Christmas: Day 5

One of these rings is not like the other...

12 Days of Christmas: Day 4

The birds are back!

12 Days of Christmas: Day 3

No monopoly of bird presents here...

12 Days of Christmas: Day 2

Another entry, and we could not resist involving Turtles - The Teenage Mutant Ninja variety!

12 Days of Christmas: Day 1

It's back! Our series of posts relating to the Twelve Days of Christmas during the actual Twelve Days of Christmas!! Some new entries and the return of some old favorites to feature during the Holiday Season.

So it begins...

The Road To Christmas: Holiday Joker

It has taken many years wait, but finally a figure based on Joker’s ‘Mock Mr Rogers’ appearance from “Christmas with the Joker” (Batman: The Animated Series) has become a reality!

The Clown Prince of Crime isn’t packaged alone, for he’s also accompanied by puppet sidekick Laughy The Elf and a dishevelled tree decoration.

As far as Christmas-themed action figures go - this is a must!

 

Click to see more...

Flying Cauldron Butter(Scotch)beer

During the 'Road To Christmas', we’re going to be making some other stops along the way. One of these for the first time in this blogs history is the world of Harry Potter, as I cover a newly discovered product nodding to the franchise.

It was upon our familys weekly internet shop to Cyber-Tesco we discovered Butterscotch Beer or rather a fun take on the Butterbeer delicacy alluded to in J K Rowling’s book series. Butterbeer in reality is a thing! Sort of.

Going by the label, this product is a shameless 3rd party moneymaker with Potterverse fans set in its demographic sights. Going by reviews on Amazon, this product is also sold on the Warner Brothers tour to visiting punters. Flying Cauldron who dreamed up this wonderful beverage idea has certainly placed their foot into the doors of Hogwarts.

Coming from personal experience with this product, this is not beer. It says beer on the bottle, but isn’t beer at all. Another one for the Root/Ginger Beer family. This tipple is admittedly in smaller print Butterscotch Flavored cream soda (and is also Gluten-Free).  Saying that - this is very nice Cream Soda with a cool wizardry design that should appeal to all non-Muggle folk out there.

There’s nothing ‘Duff’ about this beer and this is a product I recommend for Potter-themed parties and the like. However, it is probably worth weighing up where its less expensive. This is currently exclusive to Tesco online (based in the UK), but is also retailing from various Amazon sellers and online candy stores. Prices on products like this tend to change so its worth searching around before investing in this US-based take on Butterbeer.

Butterbeer could end up being the Halloween equivalent of eggnog! 

Alternatively, there are a bazillion homebrew (no pun intended) tutorials across Youtube showing how to make Butterbeer, which is a fun option to consider. Something worth looking into for a possible follow up article.

This could get messy!

(gif courtesy of muggle.net)

The Road To Christmas 2018!

That's right! It is now the Ber Months and Christmas is looming closer.

Stay tuned for Christmas-related coverage on here as well as extra coverage on our spin-off 'All Year Santa' blog. There's a lot of upcoming Christmas tat to ramble on about as well as fun things and events from the throwback pile. If you're a long time reader you'll know we will be doing this well into January and beyond.

We have no shame.

Arrival of the LetRabots

And today’s Figured Out blog is brought to you by letters A, T, O, and W etc…

LetrAbots (subtitled:  ‘Transforming Secret Agents’) is a fun range of transforming robot letters that join the many blindbag toy ranges out there. For £2.99 a pop you get a toy, a checklist and profiled portrait card for each said toy. Each lettered character is given their own unique name instead of generically going by their alt-mode alias (e.g, P is called Plasma). 

The robot designs are a non-serious approach with beedy-eyes and chunky basic bodies. This appearance and feel of the toys gives a slight harkening back to the original 80’s McDonalds Happy Meal Changeables. Comparison photos taken! 

Being the alphabet, this line still has life after collecting all 26 toys. Having more than one of the same toy expands the play value with extra letters to create words with. Extra vowels are always a good thing! The robot range can get away with repeat characters, and there’s always potential for doing breaktime swaps with other collectors.
  

 Beyond this fun plastic display of edutainment and transforming robots is more waves on the horizon. France, Spain, Italy etc are all ahead with later releases, featuring numbered characters, glow in the dark outlines and a combining gimmick. The UK has a while to catch up yet!

LetrAbots can be found in ASDA stores, Amazon, Ebay and wherever Google may direct you… 

5 Selected Toys Covered in Slime..

Slime is becoming a popular plaything again. The fun days of Ecto-Plasm and Mutagen are back, but with a broader variety of colours and brands available.

Just for kicks, we’ve randomly selected some toys to go with an ensemble of slime recently purchased from various stores - and photographed the lot!

Anyone would think this blog has run out of ideas! We’re certainly scraping the bottom of the barrel to coin a phrase. So here goes…

1   1. Headbanger (Toxic Crusaders)

Toxic Crusaders is naturally a slime themed toy range, featuring characters drastically changed and deranged one way or another by radioactive goo. Headbanger was a perfect find without having to dig out the archives too much. 

2. Schleich Unicorn

Unicorn-themed anything has been a huge request on letters to Father Christmas over the last year. A perfect toy pairing, as slime has become trendy at the same time too. 

3. Dean Ambrose (WWE Retro)

Given his ventures with Nickelodeon, fellow grappler John Cena is no stranger to a slime party! On this occasion, it’s time for another WWE star to model a slime overcoat. Dean Ambrose was first out of the wrestling box! Give the Lunatic Fringe a mop and he could pass off as a pre-mutated ‘hideously-deformed-creature of the super-human size and strength’ who hails from Tromaville!

4. Fish Face (TMNT)

This is the USA exclusive repaint of Fish-Face who I like to dub Disco Fishface because of the wild new color palette. Orange is the colour used for retro-mutagen in the 2012 version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, an antidote version of the Kraang ooze that reverses mutations. I always thought the character Xever before he became Fish-Face was pretty cool and wanted to see him return. Alas.  

5. Putrid Pizza (Grossery Gang)

Another line of toys suited to sludge is this anthropomorphic rotten food range. I went for some extra cheese and chose a yellow slime overcoat for this modern-day Food Fighter. 

 

6. (Honorable Mention) Weird 1960’s Wind-Up Snoopy toy.

Looks like Charlie Brown’s best friend has a very bad cold. I threw this entry in to bulk up this already filler article.

All the slime in this feature was purchased at either Poundland, Home Bargains or The Entertainer. This is all the signs of pocket money well spent!