Things I Learned @ Toy Fair 2014 #4: There’s A Dreamland Fairy in Your Future…

Posted on March 12, 2014 by geelw

Dreams can come true (with a little parental assistance)! The other cool dreamland product I say at Toy Fair won’t be out until later this Spring, but it’s a really neat idea on a few levels. Cassie Slane and Ami Van Dine, two moms created Dreamland Fairy after their six year old daughters came thought up the idea of a fairy house that they could keep in their rooms.

“Now what does one DO with a fairy house?” you ask? Well, since you’re a little behind the times and I’m a nice guy, I’ll let you in on the big deal because I happen to like it when you read my posts… Continue reading →

Feeling Peckish With a Pen (or Fork)? Open Up a Kanamit!

Posted on March 12, 2014 by geelw

So, I had a silly dream about that classic Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man” and woke up feeling extra hungry for some reason (that episode usually has me feeling the opposite). I was also curious as to whether someone actually went to the trouble to create and translate that infamous Kanamit book into something readable just for fun. Or whatever “fun” one could get from such a tome (no spoilers here!). A quick search reveals that the fine folks at Entertainment Earth just so happen to carry a blank Kanamit Journal so YOU can write up your own take on that tome and try to slide it onto the shelf at your local public library. Or you can get all collect-y and go whole hog with a signed copy packed up in a collectible tin case with a Kanamit of your very own to cuddle.

Somehow, “cuddle” and “Kanamit” don’t quite fit together, but hey, it’s a small comfort considering humanity’s fate in that episode… Hmmm. I need to go find some food. Back in a bit…

Things I Learned @ Toy Fair 2014 #3: The Monster Eater Makes For A Fine Best Friend…

Posted on March 3, 2014 by geelw

Don’t be afraid of the dark! It’s always fun to prowl the floor at Toy Fair and see people with great ideas turning them into toys with a purpose and sometimes it’s indeed true that great minds think alike. I got to see a pair of excellent dream-related items at the show worth closer examination and thanks to the two happy ladies with fine tales to tell proudly showing off their products, I’m here to give you the rundown so you can go spend some money in the near future.

Einar, The Monster Eater comes to you from Wendy Lasater of Dandy Innovations. Wendy’s a housewife with a young daughter who tends to (as many kids do) have nightmares and used to come rushing into her parents’ room to sleep with them for comfort. While many parents find this behavior acceptable, Wendy wanted to set her daughter free of whatever monsters under, in and around her room were plaguing her. Enter Einar, and a new plush hero was born…. Continue reading →

Things I Learned @ Toy Fair 2014 (#2): It Takes A World Village…

Posted on February 26, 2014 by geelw

Share your travel experiences! Laura Barta travels a lot and wants you to do so too. Thanks to her company Whole Wide World Toys is set to make a splash with the first of a few World Village Playsets set in various countries that bring a bit of foreign fun home for the kids to play with and learn from. China is the first stop on Barta’s tour and the $59.99 set (set for a May 2014 launch) encourages not only play, but thanks to the included 32-page storybook, allows for children to get some reading time in to go with their play.

The colorful illustrated play mat (slightly reminiscent of the great Richard Scarry’s work sans the cute animal characters) is printed on a nice fabric, making it an interesting and arty shift away from a simpler cardboard game surface. A set of fourteen story cards are included to kick off imaginations about that faraway land (and perhaps some future travel plans?). The thirteen figures of people, animals, food and transportation are set in a puzzle frame that has the name of each piece in English and Mandarin Chinese (a nice touch), and if you’d like more elements for the set, an additional $39.99 gets you an extra three wooden pieces – a shop, house and boat, all of which add even more color and life to the set.

If you’re not ready to commit, or don’t quite have the space for the set if you live in a small space, you can (and should) at least snap up the wonderful My China Travel Journal (also available on Amazon in retail and Kindle versions). It’s 32 pages with some color illustrations and photos, telling the story of Emma and Joe, two American children as they explore parts of the country, meet people and enjoy the culture of that wonderful country. Barta’s writing is crisp and lays out some nice historical tidbits that keep the pages turning.

On a side note, I also have to thank Laura for introducing me to Palais des Thés and their very tasty Grand Yunnan Imperial Black Tea, as there was a bag included with info about the game. They have two retail shops here in NYC, but I’ve never been there all the time it’s been open. Well, that may change soon enough (either that, or I’ll be ordering some tea online very soon). It may not be the trip to China I’d prefer, but I think I’ll be happy nonetheless. That said, seeing this well-crafted playset and talking to Barta made for a great experience and she’s got plans for the next playset already. Ireland is the next stop for Whole Wide World Toys, so it’ll be interesting to see how that set looks once it’s ready.

Things I Learned @ Toy Fair 2014 (#1): Super Sprowtz Wants To Help Your Kids Eat Better*

Posted on February 24, 2014 by geelw

Well, besides there being way too much stuff for one person to cover without going slightly mad, I did pick up a few helpful life tips while poking round this year’s show. Below (and for the next few days) you’ll find those tips with a few products that come in quite handy for learning some essential life skills. Yes, this is a humor piece of sorts, but everything in these posts are things I saw and liked, so plugged it shall get. Onward!

(Thanks, SuperSprowtz!)

Eat Your Veggies! Super Sprowtz wants to change the way parents and kids look at and eat food and if their TF2014 presence was any indication, these healthy looking guys and gals are going to make a major impact over the next few years. Launched in 2011 by WILD Restaurant owner Radha Agrawal, the company is dedicated to getting kids to see and appreciate vegetables in a more positive manner using a wide range of media and fun activities to get them motivated and moving towards more healthy eating choices… Continue reading →

I Went To Toy Fair And All I Got Was This Lousy Bad Back (Okay, Not Really)…

Posted on February 19, 2014 by geelw

Owch. *squeeeak!* Hear that sound? It’s me bending over to see how swelled up my feet are. Eh, it’s not that bad, but I do need to lie down. I’m NOT lying down though – I’m typing this at the library because I figure I needed to post at least ONE update today before I went home and keeled over. I was planning to go home first, drop of the bags of stuff I’m carrying and then pop on out to write this post, but I very wisely decided to go straight to the library because I’d have tripped on a stray hair and landed square on my bed, never to rise again (well, until sometime tomorrow).

Anyway, the show was interesting as always. Made some new contacts, ran into a few old ones (and man, have some of them grown since last year!) and I’ll have a bunch of articles to write up over the next week or so. Hmmm… can I survive for the next hour and nine minutes or so and not keel over before I get kicked out of here? We shall see. Someone is going to sleep like a dead log tonight, that’s for sure…

Queen of the Constellations Barbie. Yeah, You KNOW You Want One.

Posted on November 21, 2013 by geelw

So. Because she made a purchase a long time ago from either a website or home shopping channel, my mother gets a Barbie catalog popping up in her mailbox every so often. If I’m around and I see one on the coffee table, I tend to leaf through it just to see the collector’s edition variants that range from high fashion recreations to licensed celebrity, TV and movie properties, all costing a premium. Once in a while I’ve even poked around the Barbie Collector website for fun or while waiting for a huge file download to complete, but I’m not a collector of figures these days – for me it’s just fun to see Mattel trying to keep the character relevant in this era of short attention spans.

That said, today someone pointed me to this awesome Queen of the Constellations Barbie and I had to do a double take because it looks like something out of a Blizzard game. Queen of the ZERG is more like it! Anyway, they’re marked down $25 to $75, limit of five per buyer. No, I don’t want one, but I guess if you’re a guy or gal who’s going to be sewing up that next cosplay outfit for yourself or someone else, you can’t go too wrong by using this as a jumping off point. Of course, Mattel may sue the pants (or that lovely “Zerg” dress) you’ve made right off you, so make sure you’re covered on those fronts…

MUST-READS: Beautiful Lego Will Make You Want To Become A Plastic Architect…

Posted on November 8, 2013 by geelw

The cover alone of Mike Doyle’s Beautiful Lego is a showstopper, but inside this 280-page $29.99 paperback are some of the most incredible examples of LEGO art you’ll ever seen in such a wide range of categories and styles that it’s impossible to NOT be rendered utterly speechless every few pages. Doyle’s own work is spectacular and rages from that stunning cover image to gorgeously ruined half-destroyed homes constructed in black, white and gray LEGO pieces.

Many other supremely talented artists contribute work as well ranging from realistic looking buildings and vehicles, cute animal builds, plenty of surprising characters from comics and movies, sci-fi spaceships, robots and mecha and other creations ranging from mosaics to surreal “Meta” works. And if you happen to be a Monty Python fan, there are a few very humorous recreations of skits that will have you grinning before you read the captions. The question “Why LEGO?” is answered by some of the artists here and it seems the answers all go back to the core element of guys and gals wanting to make those hard plastic shapes do things they’re not made to do and some more in-depth answers that are pretty deep if you’re one of those who thinks LEGOs aren’t made for artistic purposes.

And yes, don’t be surprised if about halfway through this book you find yourself wanting to check that hall closet to see if there’s that dusty old box of LEGO bricks still hanging out on that top shelf. Of course, you’ll probably be a bit rusty compared to Doyle and the other outstanding artists here, but thankfully, there’s a book for that as well from the fine folks at no starch press. Hmmmm.. I do happen to have space to build stuff, but I need the time and LEGOs. A whole LOT of LEGOs. And a whole LOT of money to buy those LEGOs. And a willing assistant. Wait, do I have time for a new hobby these days? Hmmmm… OK, and a WORKING time machine (most probably made from LEGOs)…

Review: Skylanders SWAP Force

Posted on November 6, 2013 by geelw

Platform: PlayStation 3 (Also on Xbox 360, Wii U, Wii, 3DS)

Developer: Vicarious Visions/Beenox

Publisher: Activision

# of Players: 1

ESRB Rating: E10+

Official Site
Score: A- (90%)

With this year’s installment of the series, Skylanders SWAP Force, veteran developer Vicarious Visions (with an assist from Beenox) takes over from Toys for Bob and bumps up the console versions to to HD quality visuals (save for the Wii version) while adding a few new play mechanics. More importantly, there are a new set of Skylanders with swappable top and bottom halves and plenty of locked off areas in the game that will send parents zipping into stores to buy new figures on a regular basis. That the gameplay is so basic yet compelling and all those enticing gated-away goodies the perfect opportunity to market new toys to kids and parents is exactly the formula any game company would kill to have in play. Skylanders has worked from the beginning in successfully roping nearly anyone who picks it up into its charms and while SWAP Force is the best looking and playing game to date, Activision also needs to kick things up a notch in the future, as you can practically hear the call of a more open world game experience with even more to do bellowing from those sweeping panoramic backgrounds… Continue reading →

Vampirella Gets Tooned Up For The New Year Thanks To Sideshow Collectibles

Posted on November 1, 2013 by geelw

Growing up reading and collecting those Warren magazines she starred in, I don’t recall ever wanting so say “D’aaawwww!” (ever!) at anything Vampirella did, but THIS figure is so stupidly cute I couldn’t help myself when I clicked on the link in the email I got. Sideshow Collectibles has teamed up with Tracy Mark Lee of Electric Tiki to bring fans of that Girl From Drakulon this lovely 10.5 inch statue in a limited edition of 750 pieces, set for a January 2014 launch.

Naturally, pre-orders are being taken NOW and at $159.99 (with free shipping AND you can pay in installments if you so desire), this one’s geared for the core collector who wants something fun for that shelf, desk or airtight display case. Of course, there will be some fans who turn up their nose at this statue because they want a more SERIOUS Vampi, buy fear not, you elites… Sideshow is going to be taking care of your blood frenzy pretty soon, too.