YOU GOTTA LOSE YOUR MIND WITH...

... K'NEX KISS FIGURES! (Sung to the tune of Detroit Rock City.)

I've been seeing these make the rounds on some blogs and fellow Horde member, Jboy, sent me a pic the other day, letting me know they were in Target, so this past Saturday, I swung by my local Target to see if they were in and sure enough, there they were in all their black and silver glory...

Oddly enough, for someone who has started to build up quite the collection of KISS toys, I was never a huge KISS fan. You can read about my personal brush with KISS fandom HERE. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I suspect that the sheer nostalgia for the image of the band, that undeniable 70s-ness, that draws me to them. Heck, I even made a Lite Brite Brutes series based on them.

Also, I am a sucker for minifigures, so I imagine that these could have been Men At Work or Huey Lewis & the News and I still would have bought them. Okay... maybe not.

It amuses me that they keep releasing KISS merchandise with the names Demon, Starchild, Spaceman and Catman. Having dealt with KISS licensing both with Mixo and now with Funko, I know that this is the only way that they ever want their names presented, and that mostly due to a) an attempt to further "characterize" their personas, and to b) never, ever, ever mention Peter Criss or Ace Frehley's names ever again. Such a shame.

Here's John, Paul, George and Ringo themselves...

The minifigures themselves, while upholding the proper level of cuteness required for any decent minifigure worth its salt, have some flaws. First off, those hands are... umm... not good.

They do come apart, thus upholding the proper level of "take-aprt-ness" required of a minifigure from a "building set". Having taken one apart, I got to take a closer look at the quality of the figures. They're not Lego level, for sure, but they do their best with what they have to work with. Actually, some of the design and engineering of the figures is borderline trademark-infringement, but that's not my problem.

This set gets major cute points from me for including their little '70s platform shoes...

One major problem with these is how easily the hair just falls off. And since I have no desire to see Paul Stanley with a shaved head, I'm thinking that I may just permanently glue the hair on.

The real prize in this set is the mini instruments. You get two guitars, a bass and an adorable little drum kit! Which is better than I can say for some KISS toy sets. Hell, this set is worth it just for these instruments. Who doesn't need a killer little drumset for their Lego minifigures?

Oh look... instructions...

Once the whole thing is put together, despite the flimsiness of the "stage", it's a pretty awesome little set. I mean, look how adorable these little rockers are...

Yes, they have some flaws, but for $9.99 (that's the price of three Lego minifigures!), you can't beat this set.

I guess in the end, although I'm not the kind of KISS fan that owns all the albums and knows every song (I'm all good with a greatest hits mix), I am, however, a fan of their era, their image and their legacy. Part rock stars, and part comic book heroes. When I buy these kinds of toys, I'm not so much reminded of their music, as I am reminded of my babysitter and her best friend back in '76 who couldn't stop squealing over their posters, or their Marvel comic book, printed in their own blood, or their TV movie battles against the Phantom of the Park or their amazing commercials hawking their 12" tall Mego dolls.

So, for a non-KISS fan, I imagine these won't be the last KISS items I buy.

I WANNA PLAY WITH DOLLS ALL NIGHT!

And pose them every day! (Sung to the tune of Rock and Roll All Night)

You can practically hear Eric Stettmeier jumping up and down with glee as he prepares his dolly-hating onslaught of endless teasing over today's showcased collectibles. ;)

But today's selection of toys represent the bygone days of the late '70s when it was more about style over substance, and the rock-n-roll world was ruled by stadium-filling giants, and how the shadow that they cast covered every avenue of merchandising, from t-shirts to coffee mugs, from record players to silk-screened mirrors. And of course, to dolls with removable clothes.

Well, the those halcyon days are back with the new KISS 8" neo-mego action figures from the good folks at Figures Toy Co. (Really? That's their name?)

I spotted these a while back over at Classic TV Toys, and had sent the link to my friend since we share a common interest in both old-school Mego-style figures and the band KISS. My buddy wasted no time in ordering us a couple of sets and we couldn't wait to see them! Well, now they are here in the Nerdatorium, so I thought it would be fun to take a close-up gander at them.

But first, I want to tell you a bit about my few brief brushes with KISS fandom. First of all, I didn't actually know that KISS was a band until I was 8 or 9 years old. I mean, I knew they played music because my babysitter had their records, but to my way of thinking, so did The Archies. My first introduction to KISS was from their classic Marvel comic book (you remember, the one with their blood added to the red ink?), so I just thought they were some sort of weird looking superheroes. I would later watch KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park on TV, thus further driving home the fact that they more like pop-culture characters than actual musicians (an opinion with which, to this day, some may still attest).

Later I would hear the first few KISS albums and finally get it. Later still, I would walk away from them entirely once they took their makeup off and started telling me that I was "made for loving them". No thanks. Then, in high school, while finding an interest in '70s rock (like Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath), a few KISS albums would make their way into my cassette case.

But my desire to own the new reproduction figures stems primarily from the fact that one Christmas, I asked for the original KISS figures (the commercial for them was epic), but I guess that Santa thought a child of 6 years old didn't need that kind of influence.

Anyway, I've got them now!

 

These figures, according to the packaging, are all based on the band's Love Gun look (they would subtly change their look every album). On the whole, the packaging and figures look fantastic. In fact, for any KISS fan, I would strongly suggest just leaving them in the packages and displaying them, because once you open them, its all downhill from there.

The clamshell that they come in is a little weird. I suppose it was designed so you could open it up, play with the figures a bit, then put it all back together and it still look new. But they also added this sort of "seal" to the top of the clamshell to help the true mint collectors know if it had been opened or not.

Well, I circumvented that little security feature, by just opening up the side and sliding everything out.

The figures were held in with a couple of twisties, but I just cut them.

Also, each figure came with a "collectible album cover", which was basically a piece of paper with the Love Gun cover printed on it.

I took every figure out of their package and got a few shots. Standing them up was a total pain, because, in true Mego fashion, these figures were about as sure on their feet as Tara Reid at the American Reunion rap party.

Sadly, once I got these figures out, their coonless waned drastically. I mean, I still love them for what they are, but they have some issues.

 

I guess my biggest complaint is with the faces. The faces on the original Mego figures were just awesome. But these faces look like they had one sculptor make Gene's face (to small for his head), another sculptor make Pauls' face (and gave him tiny little pupils), they found the original Mego sculpt for Peter (the only one that looks good) and then just used whatever creepy porcelain babydoll face for Ace. 

 

A bit of a shame really, because the outfits on the figures are all great. In fact, with better faces, I think these figures would have been absolute homeruns, but instead they just come off as pretty cool as long as you don't look too closely at them.

Also,  and I know that this would have been impossible without making the production cost and retail price go up, but I would have loved it if they came with instruments. I know that a full drum set for Peter Criss is out of the question, but they could have at least given him a pair of sticks and the rest of the guys their guitars.

Luckily, I managed to find a guitar that I already had for Ace...

And I had an axe/bass for Gene from another Gene Simmons action figure produced my McFarlane Toys years ago...

So, not that I meant for this to be a review or anything, but I guess I'd give these figures a 7 out of 10. Pretty awesome in many ways, with some lame spots here and there.

But the point is, after all these years, I finally got my KISS Mego figures! Take that, Santa Claus!

Lite Brite Brutes! KISS!