Despite the fact that recent years have given us two Muppet theatrical films and one fantastic TV series, I’m shocked at the minimal amount of Muppet merchandise on the walls of our local toy stores. Thankfully, the good people at Diamond are doing their part to fix that with a series of Diamond Select action figures (coming later this year) and several sets of Minimates.
The Minimates are tiny articulated toys, with overly simple features and detachable limbs. We got our hands on four sets (a fifth and sixth set, featuring Bunsen & Beaker in one and a “Lab Accident” Bunsen & Beaker variant, are also available at Toys R Us) of the first wave of the series, and we broke them open so we could tell you all about the little guys.
(Wave 2, coming later this year, includes Dr. Teeth, Animal, Rowlf, Reporter Kermit, Mahna Mahna, Crazy Harry, Statler, and Waldorf.)
As you can see, the four sets include Kermit & Piggy, Fozzie & Scooter, Gonzo & The Swedish Chef, and a pair of Gonzo/Chef variants. The packaging is sturdy and will definitely look good on a shelf. And if the price point is decent enough (around $8-11, depending on the store), they could make great impulse buys. We opted not to open the Gonzo/Chef variant package for now, since the pieces are so similar. Plus, when you’re talking Gonzo, you’d better be talking about his classic purple tux or you can just go home.
Kermit’s a happy little guy, complete with a removable collar. Because of the design of the toys, there wasn’t much leeway to give him a properly-shaped head, but they did a nice job at stylizing him enough to make him look recognizable and unique. He also lost his webbed feet, giving him a classic “Sam and Friends” proto-Kermit look below the waist.
Miss Piggy probably suffers from the limited Minimates design more than anyone, though that has more to do with the fact that she has a busy, complicated character design. She’s got the bunny ears on top, a nose that takes over her entire face, and is she wearing open-toed shoes? That’s just unsafe! Her boa serves as her character’s accessory (more on those in a bit), but it limits her arm movement, and doesn’t offer a lot of movement itself. But the biggest flaw is her hair, which is also removable. It sits on her shoulders just enough that she can’t turn her head. Or when she does, the hair keeps looking straight ahead, making her look like the Elephant Man’s mask. Please don’t tell her I said that.
Fozzie may look a bit off in photos, but he’s much cooler-looking in person. His giant torso is removable, so you have the option of having a skinny Fozzie, if that’s something you’ve always wondered about. His hat and ears can pop off, and the round face seems to fit Fozzie’s taller head better than some of the other characters. He also likes to dance dance dance (or, at least mine does… no judgments please).
I’m just glad to see Scooter included in these sets! His jacket has the classic Muppet Show logo on the back, which is a great and important detail. He also has the strangest costume accessory of any of them: A tiny removable yellow turtleneck collar. Don’t worry, it won’t fall off or anything, but if you do remove it, it’s tiny enough to get lost immediately. Then again, if you did lose it, you probably wouldn’t notice. I can’t even see it in the picture above.
Gonzo may be my favorite toy of the set. His offbeat nature lends him to this sort of bizarre design, and the toy nailed his color scheme and nose shape. Plus, he’s dressed to kill in his purple tux, which I want to enlarge and steal from him and wear every single day of my life.
The final character is the Swedish Chef. His hat and hair can come off, leaving him as bald as the day he was born (incidentally, he was born with that mustache). My only complaint is that his apron is a little awkward to remove, and the plastic is thin enough at the top that it could crack and break easily. Otherwise, he’s pretty solid.
Each of the characters come with an accessory or two. Miss Piggy has her boa (not seen here, because it does not photograph well on its own). The Swedish Chef get a pot, spoon, spatula, and (the most important of kitchen utensils) an axe. Fozzie Bear has his rubber chicken, naturally. Scooter has a bullhorn and clipboard. And best of all, Kermit and Gonzo come with bonus characters: Robin and Camilla.
Robin is the coolest part of the entire set. He’s designed to look like a tiny version of a Minimate (a mini-Minimate?), complete with fake articulation and claw hands that can’t actually hold anything. He can’t move, as he’s just one solid piece of plastic, but that makes sense. If he did have moving pieces, he’d likely break immediately. My only gripe is that he doesn’t sit up so easily, but he does sit if balanced properly.
Okay, so this may not actually be Camilla. It does look like a generic chicken, but I’m sure that won’t stop you from calling it Camilla, or creating a romance between her and your Gonzo toy in the Muppet Show scenarios you’ll be creating with the figures. Yes, I know exactly what you have planned.
Also worth mentioning is Scooter’s clipboard, which features the following checklist: Play the music; Light the lights; Get things started. The last one remains unchecked, leaving Scooter in a perpetual state of anticipation for all of eternity. Y’know, if it weren’t for Toy Story, I wouldn’t have these types of worries.
One of the best things about the Minimates is that you can mix-and-match the pieces to create all new characters! Or just to satisfy your curiosity of what a Muppet would look like with Scooter’s head, Kermit’s collar, Gonzo’s torso, and Miss Piggy’s legs.
Or maybe you want to know what a Chef-faced, Fozzie-eared, Piggy-armed, Kermit-legged, apron-wearing Muppet would look like.
Or maybe you have a desperate urge to see the abomination that includes Piggy’s face, Swedish Chef’s hair, Fozzie’s torso, and Scooter’s cool new shoes. If you see this character on a future episode of The Muppets, you’ll know that I created it first.
All in all, I think these little guys are neat. They’re not the biggest, coolest, most accurate Muppet toys ever, but they never claimed to be. And you know what? That’s not necessarily what makes a great Muppet toy. Sometimes it’s the most stylized, most interesting-looking pieces that you’d actually play with that make for a worthwhile purchase. So if that’s what matters to you, then get thee to a toy store!
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by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com
