Well, it's the Christmas season again. ...Yes, I know I should be saying "holiday" season, but I celebrate Christmas, so for me, it's the Christmas season. Still, Happy Holidays for everyone who celebrates something different and I respect your beliefs.
Anyway, it being the Christmas season, it's a time to celebrate, reflect on the year, and break out the stuff that's so associated with the holiday season, it can only be taken out around this time of year. Candy Canes, Stockings, Santa Claus, Chocolate Oranges, A Christmas Story, Crackers(for my British audience), Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Christmas Trees, Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer, Egg Nog, The SNES Game Daze Before Christmas, A Christmas Carol, Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Mannheim Steamroller Christmas albums, A Christmas Story 2, Wreaths, A Twisted Christmas(both the Bob Rivers and Twisted Sister albums), Tinsel, Nutcracker Soldiers, Snowed In at the House of Mouse, Those Ornaments Your Kid Made For You Last Year And You Instantly Forgot About, and, most importantly of all: ADVENT CALENDARS!
Now most of you are probably familiar with those chocolate advent calendars you can get for about a buck
Or those ones where it's basically "make your own calendar" and you can slip stuff into little pouches for your kids to rummage around in to find that illusive Jolly Rancher.
However, on the more creative side of things, toy companies have been producing their own advent calendars for decades!
Have you ever looked at that toy that serves as a nostalgic symbol of youth and gone "...Eh, I have better things to spend my money on"? Well, after Play-Doh's put tiny tubs of goo--that you could get 3 for a dollar normally--into a windowed piece of cardboard and put it in stores for $20, suddenly it becomes more important than breathing!
Yep, from Playmobil to Little People to Thomas the Tank Engine, toy companies are taking these bargain bin toys, putting them in nicely decorated boxes, and taking advantage of the fact that we're desperate to celebrate these 4 weeks out of the year where we're forced to be nice and buy other people stuff they'll forget in a month. And I just have one thing to say to those sneaky corporate con artists:
Who doesn't love an advent calendar?! Counting down the days until Christmas and receiving a tiny reward every night for your patience? It's like celebrating Christmas every day of the month! Even if they just plucked the item from a 25-cent bubblegum machine, the spirit of the holidays and the thrill of getting something new just overrides that initial feeling of disappointment and instantly turns trash into treasure!
And no company knows this strategy better than building brick distributors Lego and Mega Bloks.
Since 1998, Lego's been tantalizing us with their wide range of advent calendars. You want a Star Wars set with Yoda wearing a Santa suit? You got it!
They know we can't resist these cheesy yet hilarious combinations, so as long as we're throwing money at them, they'll continue to give us those Lego Friends in slightly Christmasy outfits!
However, when it comes to franchised advent calendars, Mega Bloks has the market cornered. They know we can't resist their licensed properties, so they'll make advent calendars out of all of them! Monster High, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Smurfs, Moshi Monsters, etc. Who cares what relevance they have to the holiday season? We want them, they have them, the buyer/seller relationship is complete.
And since I have an obsessive compulsion to own every kind of building brick set ever made, and since as an online toy reviewer I'm required by law to review an advent calendar around this time, all throughout December, we're going to look at one of these:
The Mega Bloks Despicable Me Minion Calendar!
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Name: Despicable Me Advent Calendar
Distributor: Mega Bloks
Model: CPC57
Pcs: 221
Yep, to celebrate the holidays, let's take a look at yet another thing from those delightfully irritating midget Simpsons: The Minions.
I briefly said in my Nanoblocks review that I am not a fan of the Minions. Or the film series they came from. Maybe I'm just too old for sappy family movies where they put more focus on the jokes and awkward situations than the story(I'm looking at you, Dreamworks), but I never found them cute, funny, or engaging in the slightest. And the breakout characters the Minions... are about as funny as killing your Sims with the pitch on your speakers turned all the way up... If you like the movies, that's fine, but me, I want to stay as far away from them as possible.
Then why did I buy a Minions Advent Calendar to look at? Three reasons:
- It was sold at a huge discount at a K-Mart going out of business
- My grandma is REALLY into Minions and I thought it would be a nice gift for her
- That obsessive compulsion I told you about earlier
But first, let's talk about the box itself. Now despite my dislike of the Minions, I have to admit that the set up looks nicely Chistmasy and festive.
On the right, two Minions are placing a ladybug ornament(at least I HOPE it's an ornament) on a poorly-designed tree, while the top one bends in a way I'm pretty sure the figure can't. And he's balancing precariously in front of a roaring fireplace, so maybe this'll get interesting in a minute...
Meanwhile, this other Minion is speeding out of control on his snowmobile, a look of pure terror frozen on his face as he is sent out of control headlong into who-knows-what. ...I'm starting to think the box artist hates the Minions more than I do...
Oh, and this is what you're getting in the box, by the way. The surprise is spoiled as soon as you look at the front image. I was tempted to cover up the front, but I figured that we still have the surprise of finding what's behind each door, so what the heck?
And even if I did cover up the front, the back gives it all away in clearer detail, so what's the point?
Besides, we'd miss out on the Minions now trying to electrocute/asphyxiate themselves by stringing faulty Christmas tree lights around themselves.
Or this picture on the side where one Minion is dousing the other one in chocolate milk!
Or this picture on another side where the wide-mouthed Minion gets his revenge by towing the other two Minions on skis, presumably to fly them off a cliff! Seriously, they picked the WRONG person to design these box images... It's like if I was asked to pose figurines for a set based on Dora the Explorer...
As I mentioned, this calendar comes from Mega Bloks, the current license holder for the Despicable Me franchise.
And if you like this advent calendar, they give you the chance to find more Minion-themed sets by visiting their Minions page.
Where kids can discover 13 other sets and countless blind bags to beg their parents for... and that's not even making a DENT in how many Minions sets there are!
The Mega Bloks wiki Blok City lists 32 different sets and series of blind bags, including the advent calendar, all released since November of last year!
I(or rather, my grandma) even own another one: the Minion Mobile. ...Which, yes, I'll look at sometime in the future, but not this month nor anytime soon since we'll probably be "Minioned out" by Christmas.
Besides, I'm already being ordered to "Build It" by the box, so I have no choice but to see this project through to completion.
And yes, it says "0-3" on the bottom
But "5+" on the front.
Anyone between those ages is forever trapped in the Minion Mobile bubble, forced to watch the Minion short films for all eternity...
Alright, now for the moment everyone's been waiting for. Let's open 'er up and see what's behind Door #1!
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Day 1: Minion Minifigure #1
Fittingly enough, to start us off, we have a little Minion figurine. And it's the one who's about two seconds away from tragedy in every scene on the box... I can't tell what this guy's name is. According to a random image I found with Minions, he's either Tom, Dave, or Phil. I'm guessing Dave due to the hairstyle, but I don't know. ...Nor do I really care...
Somehow, they managed to make this guy look even goofier in real life. The mouth's off-center, so it looks like he's just starting to do one of those cartoon "Ooooooh"s where they start at one corner of their mouth and drag it across to the other side. Either that, or he's ready to pop a cigar in cool guy-style.
They didn't give him any hair pieces, so he just has this hole in the top of his head. I wonder if Mega Bloks has made any universal accessories for all Minions that could fit in there? ...I only have the one other set, so I don't have anything for him.
And like most Mega Bloks figurines, he's very rubbery and more action figure-like than Lego, with his suspenders and goggles strap made of a soft and very flexible rubber. I know I went on a rant in my Call of Duty: Nuketown review about how I don't like Mega Bloks figurines because they don't quite fit the building brick world they inhabit, but after encountering Lite Brix and Ionix figures, I no longer have any complaints...
In fact, I love this guy's articulation. His arms and legs are connected by ball joints, allowing for a decent amount of poseability.
This makes him a little hard to stand since the feet aren't flat, but since he's supposed to be standing on studded bricks and not a flat surface, this is excusable.
And in case you were wondering what one of these looked like naked, here you go. ...Terrifying, ain't it?
Overall, a pretty high quality figurine, even if I'm not that crazy about the character. Not too bad a way to start the calendar. Let's hope they can keep it up for the next window and beyond...
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