toys

REVIEW: KISS Starchild “BlownUps!” review with laser light show (Paul Stanley Weeble Wobble)

From the  Dressed To Kill line by Jabberwocky Toys

5/5 star(child)s

REVIEW: Lego Ideas Jazz Quartet 21334 Toy Building Kit (1606 Pieces)

LEGO Ideas Jazz Quartet 21334 Toy Building Kit (2022)

$130 Canadian (18+)

It took me two leisurely days to assemble this kit.   I must be getting better at this, or this kit isn’t as hard as some of the Speed Champions car kits (9+).   It consists of four classic era jazz musicians, assembled in four stages from smallest to largest.

Each musician is built in conjunction with his or her base.  The bases were fun in their own right, recalling classic childhood Lego building experiences of the 70’s.  The trumpet player was first, a splindly and fragile figure that you’ll want to pose correctly and leave alone.  His red tie, slightly askew between his suspenders, is really cool.  Each of the three male musicians has a unique tie.

The upright bassist is second.  His deep brown instrument has a real Lego string piece for added effect.  The bass itself looks really cool, while the player is skinny and delicate.  His bowtie is made from a Lego video game controller.

The drum kit was one of the most fun steps.  The bass drum building technique features studs on five sides.  There are no stickers, only printed graphics on the sides.  The snare drum, two toms, and floor tom are all slightly unique from each other.  Likewise the crash, hi-hat and ride cymbals.   They come in a shimmery golden colour, but if you like gold, you’ll love the pianist!   Meanwhile, the drummer has a beard and hat, and an undone bowtie.  His stool is actually built upside down.  Very cool design.

Check out the drum kit below, as it is assembled.

The piano player has a lovely orange dress that was fun to build.  Her gold earrings are old-fashioned chromed design, the same as the One Ring from the recent Rivendell set.  Her piano was one of the most complex sections.  It is very curvy, with shapes that would have been impossible without these newer rounded Lego plates.  For authenticity, inside there are 31 little pieces assembled in a row that resemble that piano’s hammers.  The keys themselves are very nice prints.  There are pedals, and the top can be opened up for you to admire the details inside.

The full stage (including stylin’ looking front steps) measure almost three feet in width.  It’s huge, but fits exactly the space of our old VCR in the entertainment stand.  Fear not though — each musician’s stand / stage section is removable, and you can display them any way you like, even on separate shelves.  They certainly look best all together in the order designed.  My bassist’s head is slightly tilted towards the drums so he can hear them clearly.  The pianist is gesturing to her band, conducting their jam session.  The little posability you get is often limited to shoulders and elbows when you get any at all.  All four musicians have ball-jointed necks.

This is a fragile set and not for play.  Be careful dusting!  But have fun building.

4.5/5 stars

GREAT SCOTT!! Dr. Kathryn, Rob Daniels, Jen & the Mad Metal Man Grab A Stack of Lego & Toys!

Epic Lego-based show tonight, with a splash of vintage Star Wars, some new music, and lots of laughs!  Together, Dr. Kathryn, Rob Daniels, the Mad Metal Man and I viewed and discussed the following:

  • Plenty of Star Wars Lego, both current and old!
  • More Star Wars.
  • 8 track tapes!
  • Simpsons minifigs, and a secret technique for finding a complete set of your own!
  • The new Lego Space Galaxy Explorer anniversary set, mid-build.
  • Jen arrived and showed off her five Spice Girls Brickheadz figures.
  • A pair of questions from Jex Russell the Jexciter.
  • Lego Delorean from Back to the Future.
  • Indiana Jones Lego.
  • …and a sneak preview of a brand new Tee Bone Man villain named Dr. K!

All this and more on this week’s Grab A Stack of Rock.  Thanks everybody for a fun Friday night!

 

Dr. Kathryn, Rob Daniels, and the Mad Metal Man Grab A Stack of Lego and Toys!

GRAB A STACK OF ROCK With Mike and the Mad Metal Man

Episode 22:  Dr. Kathryn & Rob Daniels Return!  Lego & Toys!

 

Dr. Kathryn is back!  A knowledgeable expert on all things fun, this time we’re taking a look at Lego and toys.  With her will be Rob Daniels, our resident specialist in sci-fi and cinematic knowledge!

Under the influence of Harrison the Mad Metal Man, my wife Mrs. LeBrain has gone a little Lego crazy!  Therefore we have a lot of Lego around the house now.  Star Wars, cars, Space, and more.  I have a brand new 2022 Galaxy Explorer set that I am excited about.  Jen has the Spice Girls in Lego “Brickheadz” form!  Dr. K has the Delorean from Back to the Future!  She’ll also be showing off her Simpsons Lego collection.  As for Harrison and Rob?  Expect them to be exploring space with their collections…

New “Ask Harrison” question from Jex Russell is on its way, and we’ll also sneak in some music content, with fresh unboxings!  Mr. Durling strikes again…

 

Friday June 2 at 7:00 P.M. E.S.T.  Enjoy on YouTube or on Facebook!

VIDEO: Christmas 2021 Village Tour – Judas Priest – 50 Heavy Metal Years of Music Unboxing

Enjoy a tour of the best Christmas Village I’ve seen yet — complete with carnage and baby Yoda. Or, skip ahead to watch the unboxing at 3:43!

Yes — it has arrived. Judas Priest’s 50 Heavy Metal Years of Music. 42 CDs of music. Limited to 3000 copies. And in 2022 we will be reviewing this monstrosity front to back.

#931: Our Arsenal

A prequel to #796:  Improvisation

RECORD STORE TALES #931: Our Arsenal

One of the greatest joys of youth was improvising.  What continues today with music and tech, started back then with toys.  We made our own games with what we had.  Bored with the toys already sitting in the basement, we simply invented new ones of our own.  Board games using army men as the pieces, or Star Wars playsets made of shoeboxes.  We did it out of boredom and necessity.  Kenner didn’t make a Cloud City playset, and even if they did it would be too large and expensive.  Instead we made one ourselves, complete with sliding carboard pocket doors.  It had multiple levels and was scaled to work with Kenner figures.

At the cottage, the need to improvise was multiplied.  We couldn’t count on TV for entertainment, with only two channels.  We could not bring all our toys and games with us to the lake.  Therefore we had to have fun with what we had.  For the first 10 years or so, the cottage was under constant construction.  Rooms were not finished all at once, but a little bit each year.  Same with exterior elements like porches and sheds.  That meant there was always scrap wood, nails and a hammer available.

I recently dug up some of our cottage improvisations.  They date back 35-40 years.  These haven’t seen the light of day in so long, that there was also an abandoned nest of some kind in the box.  Unsurprisingly, given my early penchant for being a Tony-Stark like arms dealer, all these home-made toys are built for war!

First up are my weapons.  My dad made me a bow and arrow when I was a kid.  The bow broke but he kept it along with one of my arrows.  I can see where I taped a little fin on the arrow.  The arrows were not sharpened; there were no tips.  It was just to see how far I could shoot them.  Not far!  You couldn’t really hurt anyone.

Also in the weapons locker was my old tomahawk.  I found the perfect stone and branch, lashed them together, and voila!  35 years later my tomahawk is still intact.  I can’t believe this stuff wasn’t burned up for firewood ages ago.

Next, and ripe for a tetanus infection, is our little flotilla of battleships.  We always had offcuts hanging around.  These look to be made of tongue-and-groove panelling.  Decent toy boats were always hard to find.  They were either super fragile, or leaked and sank.  Our boats always floated and were armed to the teeth.  Look at the all the guns!  Rotating turrets too.  My sister’s boats weren’t as sophisticated as mine.  She got into the boat making game too, adding her own graphics and designs.  We brought these boats down to the water and had some pretty fun adventures.  And nobody got hurt on the rusty nails.

Finally, we had some plastic beach cars and trucks that we always had a blast with in the sand.  We built roads and bridges.  I found plain old cars a little more boring than my sister did, so I took things into my own hands.  I got my favourite yellow pickup truck, and armor plated it.  My mom gave me hell for using too much tinfoil.  “Expensive!” she would always remind me.   But I had to take my time and get it right.  I had to do it twice.  The idea was to leave no Scotch tape visible on the outside.  At the end I had a shiny silver armored pickup truck.  And amazingly enough, some of that armor plate is still on the truck.   It was combat ready.  I always thought it would be cool if I could find a little helicopter to hang out in the truck bed, but I never did.

I found these old toys sitting in a cardboard box in the shed when I was looking for dry firewood.  Of course there was no way I could burn these up.  The battleship, which I have now dubbed Bismarck, might even float again one day.  They’ll never sink the Bismarck!

#889: The Dreadnoks

RECORD STORE TALES #889: The Dreadnoks

I’ve always had trouble letting go.  Even though rock music was my true obsession, there was some overlap.  Even  into grade nine, I still bought GI Joe comics and figures.  It was always hard letting go of an obsession.  My “favourite things”, in order of discovery were:

  1. Star Wars until its natural end in 1983-84.
  2. GI Joe/Transformers from 1984 to 1986-87.
  3. Rock music from 1984 to present.
  4. WWF Wrestling from 1985 to 1990.

You can see how the evolution of this worked.  A GI Joe figure was in the same scale as Star Wars, but with far more articulation well suited to an older kid.  The first wave of figures even featured real-world accurate weapons.  They were a natural step for a kid still wanting that action figure experience, but geared for someone older.  Transformers went hand in hand, since Marvel were producing a comic line to go for each.  Transformers resembled the die-cast cars that older kids (and adults) collected and displayed.

I discovered heavy metal music on December 26, 1984.  A  few months later, wrestling appeared on my radar with the very first Wrestlemania.  A lot of those guys looked like rock stars, with crazy costumes, long hair and male bravado.

As my interests shifted and evolved, so did my collections.  The Star Wars toys were put into storage in the crawl space.  I was given tape boxes, Christmas after Christmas, to store my growing music collection.  A typical Christmas would see me receiving some new tapes and action figures.  I’d sit in my bedroom reading GI Joe comics while rocking out to Long Way to Heaven by Helix.  I was a weird kid but I liked what I liked and didn’t much care.

The Joe characters diversified along with me.  In 1984 they got a little more outlandish with the introduction of Zartan and the Dreadnoks.  Zartan, the master of disguise, was a deluxe action figure whose skin colour turned blue in direct sunlight.  This gimmick only worked outdoors, which meant we played with Zartan outside in the summer while giving him a rest in the winter.  His backup didn’t arrive on toy shelves until 1985.  They were three bikers named the Dreadnoks:  Buzzer, the Brit with a ponytail and a chainsaw, the mohawked Ripper, and the flamethrower Torch who had a bit of a Lemmy beard going on.  Their Mad Max inspired outfits would have allowed them to fit into a rock band quite easily, if only they came with musical instruments instead of weapons.  They’d make a cool punk trio.

The Dreadnoks expanded their lineup the following year.  On explosives came Monkeywrench, bearded and obsessed with Guy Fawkes.  Then in a deluxe set came the vehicle driver Thrasher, and his definitely Mad Max inspired Thunder Machine car.  Made of bits and pieces of scrap, it hit the same post-apocalyptic notes as the other Dreadnoks, as well as rock bands like Motley Crue, Kiss, and Armored Saint.  Thrasher had a punk rock streak of green in his hair.  And now they were a quintet.  They were literally begging for me to make them custom musical instruments.

There were always wooden match sticks in the house, so I used them for guitar necks, drum stands, drumsticks, and a microphone.  Cardboard boxes were cut up to make the bodies of guitars and a few drums and cymbals.  Black electrical tape held them all together.  And so the Dreadnoks became a five piece band, and I put them on display in my bedroom on a shelf with my Kiss cassettes.

If only I had a picture of my Dreadnok band.  Not everybody had a camera back then.  Even if you did, it seemed film was always out!  You can imagine what they looked like!

 

#836: Transformers 2 – Revenge of the Schnauzers – How It Was Made & Full Movie

GETTING MORE TALE #836: Transformers 2 – Revenge of the Schnauzers

For one weekend in the summer of 2012, I put the music on pause.  Transformers 2 – Revenge of the Schnauzers was the title.  It was a series and  I made four movies in total.  Five, if you count the final one that I shot but never edited.  There’s something so satisfying about animating Transformers.  I wanted to go big or go home this time, and what I ended up with this time was a 44 minute movie (originally split into two parts for file size reasons).

It’s amazing to think I did this movie in a single weekend in July 2012.  Probably Canada Day weekend.  I filmed the whole thing in just two days.  You can see the the light change as I filmed from sunrise to sunset, in order to squeeze time out of every minute.  And this movie was just my side project!  At the same time, I was also posting 1-2 articles per day for my main gig:  reviews and Record Store Tales.

I came prepared for Canada Day weekend with my Nokia C3 cell phone as my only camera.  Here’s something you didn’t know.  Cell phones back then were so much easier to do primitive animation with.  There’s a pause button you could hit when you’re making a video, and it essentially allowed me to do the stop motion very single-handedly, very quickly, just by hitting that pause button.  Sure, I made a few mistakes along the way.  I had to reshoot entire scenes when I didn’t know I was pausing “off” instead of “on”, but it did enable me to do this entire thing in just two days.  I barely stopped to eat, and I was just wiped by the end of it.  I think it was a manic episode to be honest with you, but a doctor never diagnosed that so it’s just my opinion.

I chose the characters (and more importantly, toys) that I wanted to use for the movie.  Most of them are from the Generations lines, with some third party add-on kits for Hound and Goldbug.  Others are reissues of G1 originals:  Soundwave and his tapes, Predaking, and Ultra Magnus.  I needed figures that would be easy to transform on the fly.  Magnus and Predaking were brand new in my collection and I wanted to show them off.  I decided to bring more Decepticons with me than Autobots to give them a real disadvantage.  I built the teams and roughed out a story.  Dialogue was improvised on the spot but not fixed in place until the editing stage a few days later!

I used Windows Movie Maker, then and now, to edit.  It was much less stable then (or at least my computer is more powerful now).  The amount of edits I used numbered in the hundreds and crashes were frequent.  Even though I was essentially editing “live” in-camera as I filmed and animated, I was also tightening up those edits with Windows.  Funny enough, Windows has no more features in the current version than it did in 2012.  For the laser blasts, I added a “split” and inserted a “fade in from white” effect.  They are remarkably effective.

I originally edited the movie with mainstream rock music as the soundtrack.  I used Van Halen, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Bruce Dickinson, and AC/DC among others.  Needless to say, YouTube never let me upload it, so it sat on my various hard drives and DVDs all these years.  Until I recently had an idea.

Uncle Meat’s hatred of my “playing with action figures” inspired me to use his music to get around the YouTube issues.  More accurately, Max the Axe’s music (with a little of my sister’s mixed in).  It worked brilliantly.  Just as well as the original version, though with music you’re not familiar with.

Now you can hear many of these great Max the Axe tracks for yourself.  While watching robots blow each other to bits!

Sure, it was cool when I used “Accident of Birth” by Bruce Dickinson as the entrance music for the Colossus Schnauzers and….

Oh!  You’re confused about the Schnauzers.  Having grown up around the wee beasts, I realized that in action figure scale, you could use them as giant monsters if you could get them to do what you wanted them to do.  With Kathryn Ladano’s help, we used treats as incentives to chase and attack Autobots.  I affixed Decepticon logos to their foreheads and wrote them into the story as Shockwave’s latest creation:  Colossus Schnauzers.  With DNA stolen from a secret lab (named after the two doggies Laci and Ali), the Decepticons engineered giant versions of the beasts.

It’s up to the Autobots to find out what they are up to, with a small squad led by Ultra Magnus.  (I had focused on Optimus Prime in the preceding chapter with his death and rebirth as Powermaster Prime, so I wanted a different leader figure this time.)  I used two Bumblebee figures.  One was modified with a third-party head that made him into a Generations version of Goldbug, his rebuilt form.  This is all roughly based on an original Marvel comics storyline.  I also took inspiration from the TV show.  One figure that I wanted to show off next time was my transparent “Ghost Starscream”.  I didn’t have time to get into that with this chapter, so I ended it with some foreshadowing that would allow me to introduce my ghost version of the figure next time.

I coloured the dialogue to make it easier to tell which ‘bot is talking. I did an “infodump” introduction for the Predacons.  This is the much-critisized technique used by Bob Budiansky in the 80s Marvel series.  Each new toy had an introduction, because the comic was just a device to sell toys.  That was my homage to Budiansky.  The characterisations of the figures in my film are meant to be true to their toy bios and comic book appearances. Although my story takes place in a universe all its own, it’s similar to the ones you know.  The “release the Schnauzers” scene is of course a parody of the the Kraken scene in Clash of the Titans.  I wanted something that reminded me of Poseidon pulling the chain that opened the big gate.

I haven’t watched this movie for a long time. I had forgotten that I even included a “blooper reel” at the end. This is the only part of the movie that still has its original music soundtrack. Though I’ve forgotten the name of the track, that’s Kathryn Ladano’s music playing and that’s her in her only cameo!

Consider that I shot this thing in two days, sunrise to sunset, and edited it together in a couple more, all while posting new daily reviews and Record Store Tales. That’s unbelievable and probably also unhealthy. But I still enjoy the results! I legitimately like this. I also enjoyed adding the new music by Max the Axe and seeing how it worked out.  I’m proud enough to post it here for you to enjoy. And I hope you do!

Live Stream – Uncle Don Don Cutoff Shorts Countdown, Interview with Geoff Stephen, Unboxings & Guests

Thanks for watching the Saturday live stream! If you missed any of it, it is now available below via YouTube. I ran into numerous technical issues, so apologies are in order for bad audio, bad video and audio lag.

Content-wise though, woah nelly! You are in for a treat. Here are some highlights:

For a live interview with Geoff Stephen of 1001 Albums in 10 Years, skip ahead to 0:07:00!  He is doing something really special for healthcare workers, so check out what he has to say.

To check out some unboxings, go to 0:12:40 of the stream.

BONUS FOOTAGE – For a sneak peak at an animation test (not part of the actual live stream) you must go to 1:26:06.

For the Uncle Don Don Cutoff Shorts Countdown, start at 1:26:10 of the stream.

For a special Star Wars chat with all-around awesome guy Kovaflyer, go to 2:01:30 of the stream!

Technical issues aside, this live stream set one new record.  It represents the longest span of time in a single day.  I’ve done longer streams but this one had segments ranging from 7:00 am to 9:00 pm, a 14 hour range.  It was fun for me and I hope you enjoy despite the quality problems.