Quick Changers: Pizza Delivery Truck / Pizza Parlor

The toy shelves in the 80's were full of transforming/converting toys and these Quick Changers from Buddy L circa 1982 are some of the first I remember. I'm pretty sure I had this Pizza Delivery Truck as a kid and when I recently came across a few carded specimens I couldn't resist.

I can't tell if this one has been previously opened or if the glue from the blister bubble dried up. You can see the bubble has yellowed due to it's age so my guess would be that the glue dried. The card features some pretty cool art followed by 4 simple steps to convert the toy from one form to another. I also like the "no batteries needed" blurb for the adults who would be purchasing these for their kids.

The back of the blister card again has a few simple steps for converting the toy back and forth along with a cross sell of the other vehicles offered in the line. I think this is the initial wave of vehicles and as I remember a few others that I don't see pictured here.

The vehicle is chunky and lightweight, but the plastic doesn't feel cheap. It's mostly hollow underneath and the white box of the vehicle is also hollow as it just pegs onto the vehicle's body. The stickers come pre-applied and after 30+ years amazingly still look good. The vehicle features rubber wheels and a pull back friction "motor" allowing the vehicle to travel on it's own once pulled back.

The conversion is the same for most of the vehicles. Take off the top and fold the vehicle body in half. You do have to flip back the front wheel assembly underneath to do so. Once this is done, the top pegs back on and you have your alternate mode.

It looks more like a pizza parlor front the front view than the side, but for something so simple this is fairly imaginative. I imagined as a kid I probably made a little city block out of the few Quick Changers I had. These are fun little toys and at the time of this post is my latest "desk distraction" in my office. These still pop up from time to time on the secondary market if you have the desire to look.

Transformers Monogram Optimus Prime Keychain

Another Dollar Tree find, these little PVC keychain figurines are similar to the blind packaged figures also found at (some) Dollar Tree stores. I didn't care about owning all of them so I just grabbed Optimus Prime.

Monogram did a good job with the overall sculpt. I'm glad the hands are molded as fists instead of open as some of the others cheap PVCs. Paint apps are hit and miss. I had to look at all of them on the pegs and find the one with the best applications. Too bad the smokestacks were painted silver/gray. The tires molded on the back of the legs were painted gray when I would have preferred if they were black.

The keychain is attached to the head and the plastic clip is the larger size. I don't use it as a clip at all, instead I just stood the figure on my Optimus shelf. Not too bad for a buck.

Marvel Battle World: Mystery of the Thanostones (Battle Ball)

While traveling for work last week I stopped in the Target down the road from my hotel to grab a snack after dinner. Of course I checked out both the trading card and toy section. On one of the end caps was this huge Marvel display for their new game, Battle World: Mystery of the Thanostones. I was surprised to see it was made by Funko and not a company like Hasbro. My older brother had told me about these earlier, but this was the first time I had seen them in person.

The top shelf of the display housed three gravity feeder type displays fill of Battle Balls. These retailed for $9.99, but were on sale at the time for $8.99. The bottom shelf had larger packs that retailed for $24.99. 

The display really catches your attention 1) for the sheer size and 2) the artwork used for the characters. In the center was a little display showcasing 6 of the actual figures that are used in the game. Each side of this figure display where images of the other characters available in this initial wave.

While some of the choices for characters is a little puzzling, I was surprised at just how detailed these figures are. They are only about an inch tall so Funko could have mailed it in and just released some crappy painted, non-descript figure. 

After standing there for a moment and looking at the display and the figures, I decided to take a change on the game and grabbed one Battle Ball.

These Battle Balls are made up of hexagon shapes so it's like a large die more than a ball. I noticed the top and bottom of the ball had a recessed section with a peg and a flat groove. The back of the wrapper shows you that contents of the Battle Ball along with an image of a Thanonstone.

Once I got the wrapper off and the ball opened, I found the orange Thanostone, some hexagon shaped cards (one of which was sealed in a black bag), and a small bag with a die and a figure.

The figure included w/ the die was none other than Ant-Man. The figure stands at about 1 inch tall and obviously isn't articulated. The sculpting and paint applications are well done for such a small figure.

In addition to Ant-Man's character card were four other cards. I had to read the included instructions to figure out what these were and how they were used in the game. Essentially each card is a battle playfield.

The Thanostone was interesting. It felt soft and almost like foam, but was hard like plastic. On the front of the stone was an "etched" image on Thanos' himself. I thought that only one figure was included in the Battle Ball, but I was wrong as the Thanostone also included a mystery figure. Once I was able to get it open I found...

Spider-Ham...the Infinity version. This figure is cast in translucent purple plastic to represent the Power Infinity Stone (I think). 

Now I understand why the character card was placed in a opaque black bag so it wouldn't give away the identity of the figure inside the Thanostone.

The instructions on how to set up and play the game are pretty straight forward. I'm not the biggest fan of board games or table top games, but this one looks interesting. I might be able to get my family to play, but that means we'll need to pick up another Battle Ball or two. Remember, you can click on the images to enlarge them.

When you're not playing the game you can use the two halves of the Battle Ball to display both the figure and their character cards. This is a nice addition as some may want to collect the figures and not play the game and this gives them a way to show off their collection.

What are your thoughts? Have you seen the display at your local Target store? Have you purchased one out of curiosity such as I? Have you played the game? I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions on both the figures as well as the game.

Vacation Road Trip Media Haul

I recently returned from a roadtrip to Fort Knox, KY to visit my brother-in-law and his family who live on base. This is the second time I've made this trip with my family and each time we've decided to break up the 8 hour drive over two days, opting to stay in Knoxville, TN which is about the half way point.

Located in Knoxville is one of the largest McKay stores I've visited. If you're not familiar with this store, it's basically a media lover's heaven. My whole family enjoys visiting, but probably not as much as me! I don't recall how long we spent there on our trip up...maybe 1 1/2 hours? I know I could have stayed longer as there is just so much to look at, however it was getting late and we still needed to grab dinner. I didn't walk away empty handed though...

The comics are stored on the second floor and I only had a little time to browse as my family was waiting for me in the car at this point during our visit. I was happy to find the issue of Marvel Premiere, but in my haste I realized after I got to my hotel room that there was a small rip on the cover. The other issues I picked up fill holes in those respective runs.

Who still buys CDs these days? Well me! The top three discs I found in their bargain section. The Waiting's self titled debut as well as Cindy Morgan set me back just a $.25 each while the classic Michael W. Smith album was just $.95. All three are classics in my book and I was happy to have something "new" to listen to in the car.

The final two albums were real treats to find. First we have Children 18:3's third album. I'm listening to it as I type this post and I'm loving every minute of it - a great purchase at $2.95. The other is Family Force 5's "Time Stands Still". This was one still sealed so I didn't mind their asking price of $3.95. I usually search for FF5 CDs when I'm browsing, but never find anything. This was the first album I popped into the player once we got back in the car much to my family's chagrin.

We ended up stopping back at McKays on the way back home and on both visits I spent more time in the movie section than I have on any previous visits. GI Joe Retaliation was a guilty pleasure purchase for myself. Spider-Man: Far From Home was one of the last MCU movies I needed to purchase. My daughters have been begging me to pick this one up.

I found Daddy Day Camp and Invincible in the $.95 bins and decided to pick those up for family movie night. My girls loved Daddy Day Care so we'll see if this one lives up to that...which I doubt it will. My family has surprisingly enjoyed watching sports movies so I hope Invincible will be enjoyed by all.

Most of my time spent browsing movies was looking for horror movies. While I'm not planning on upgrading all of my horror DVDs to Blu-Ray, there are a few movies I've been casually looking for. I was shocked that not only did I find The Hills Have Eyes, but I also found the sequel. For whatever reason these two movies aren't that easy to find on Blu-Ray, especially the first. These are both great remakes and dare I say better than the originals? Sorry Wes...

While I was looking for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, I came across this FYE exclusive steelbook of the original on my second visit. This is the 40th Anniversary edition and is loaded with extras. I've yet to compare it to my DVD copy to see how the versions stack up against each other. The Hitcher is also an upgrade, though never in a million years would I have expected to find the HD DVD version! At just $.95 how could I pass it up? Funny thing was when I opened the case to inspect the disc the original Best Buy receipt was tucked inside. Someone from Fairfax, VA paid $29.99 back on 2007 for this movie...wow.

During our stay at Fort Knox, I had a little free time to get out and explore the small town of Radcliff, KY just outside the Army base. The first store I visited was TF games, a small video game store. I was really impressed by the store's layout, selection, prices and service. The store had a little bit of everything to chose from. I used a little birthday money I had left over and grabbed two horror UMDs for $2.99 each, Alice: Madness Returns on the PS3 and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves on the NES. The latter two games were priced below current eBay listings, something that I didn't expect of Alice as that game has been rather pricey the few times I've found it out in the wild.

I left from TF Games and went down the street a little ways to visit a shop I saw on my way in called Comics Vault. The store was very small, had LOTS of inventory and at times smelled of cigarette smoke thanks to a side door being left open while an employee took a smoke break. I didn't stay here long, but I did take advantage of their 25% sale which even applied to new books! I grabbed the latest issues of Something is Killing the Children, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Everglade Angels and Batman. I also found the last issue I needed to complete the run from the 3rd volume of Captain America.

My final stop before heading back to base was at the local Walmart. While their trading card section was ravaged and offered me nothing, I did hit the clearance in the electronics department and found the gold edition of Resident Evil: Biohazard for $15. While I already own the base game on the PS4 and have beaten it, all of the included DLC was just too tempting for me to leave behind.

Just outside the electronics department was a huge bin of $5 Blu-Rays. Instead of just being thrown in, these were stored spine up making it easy to browse the titles. I walked away with two classics in The Sandlot and The NeverEnding Story and Pixels, a movie probably not that good, but one I wanted to watch anyways.

If you haven't been able to tell by now I'm a huge fan of physical media. When moving day comes I may regret my love of media, but for now I'll still embrace it. I hope to spend this weekend along with the weeks ahead enjoying some of these latest acquisitions.

Transformers Cyberverse: Thundercracker

While the Transformers Cyberverse series may not be my favorite line, I have found myself purchasing more of it than I originally thought I would partially due to the selection of characters and lower price point. I'm a sucker for the Thundercracker character so this was an easy purchase for me. Finding it at a local Ollie's discount store for $5 was the icing on the cake.

Thundercracker is part of the Warrior class of toys...basically a deluxe. It's the same mold as the original Starscream as well as the Acid Storm figure. As far as I can tell there are no changes made to the mold for this release. That said if you didn't like those toys, then I don't think you'll care for Thundercracker.

The mold itself isn't that bad. While we have seen better versions of the classic Decepticon seekers, this mold looks OK. Yes, it's a simple design with a simple transformation. Yes, there are parts of the toy that are hollow. What hinders this mold however in my opinion is the action feature. Dubbed "Lightning Slash", the top half of the body can spin around in a full 360 motion. This makes it hard at times to line up the torso straight as the top wants to drift to the left or right at times.

My only dislike of the vehicle mode are the tiny rear vertical fins. They are there, but they are so small that it's easy to miss them. This to me throws off the look of the jet mode a little. I'm fine with the colors used. Some may not like the brighter shade of blue, but if you've been buying Transformers for a while then you'll know that Thundercracker has been just about every hue of blue over the years.

If I weren't a Thundercracker completionist this would have been an easy pass, especially since there are so many better versions of the character out there. The Siege toy was a pain in the butt to transform, but is the far superior toy...then again the market these two toys are aimed at are not one in the same.