Comic Book Guy Lego Minifigures

The first series run of Lego the Simpsons was pretty special to me because it was a combination of two of my favourite things; the Simpsons and Lego.  While my admiration for the Simpsons has certainly dwindled throughout the years, I still wanted to collect that Lego series because it seemed pretty cool.  So when I heard about a second series of Lego the Simpsons was releasing I thought I might be interested if they (Lego) released popular characters.

Unfortunately I was disappointed by the characters released in the second series.  They gave us again the Simpsons kin, but also characters that I find boring such as Patty and Selma (who are supposed to be annoying characters), and Hans Moleman and Martin Prince.  I was like, are you serious?  Who would want these characters?  But anyway, I don’t want to rant.  The only redeeming character that I really wanted was of Comic Book Guy, aka Jeff Albertson.  So rather than buy the whole series 2 of the Simpsons, I decided to only get minifigures of Comic Book Guy.

The first series of the Simpsons was pretty accurate towards the characters, yet I was again disappointed by the second series with the lack of accuracy.  I mean CBG is supposed to be fat, yet Lego didn’t bother with releasing a bigger minifigure body for him.  While I understand how complex creating a new body can be, I just think creating a wider body would have been nice.  I was also disappointed by the lack of paint on the back of CBG.  This second series of Lego the Simpsons felt rushed and almost like a money grab (which as a Simpsons fan, I’m used to).  For this reason, I really can’t recommend this series and in fact it’s the worst Lego Simpsons toy ever!

Comic Book Guy Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Book_Guy

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjpqGVk67WE

The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History

Title: The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History

Author: John Ortved

Publisher: Faber & Faber

It happens to me every year; I decide to watch a new Simpson’s episode on Sunday night hoping the show has finally turned a tide towards what it used to be.  Sadly it never happens, and I’m left distraught over the fall from glory this series has had.  What’s amazing is that there are now more terrible seasons than actual good ones.  An outsider might question why I’m still a fan despite so many terrible seasons, but the reason is those early episodes were so well made that I became a fan for life.

To help me better understand the creation of the show and why its quality has gone awry, I decided to read The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History.  The book was written by John Ortved, a long time Simpsons fan.  In writing the book, Ortved interviewed many people who worked on the show and also did extensive research.  The interesting thing is the main creator’s of the show refused to be interviewed by him, though admittedly I didn’t see it as much of a problem.

The Homer Hot Wheels Toy Car

After months of searching I finally found “The Homer” toy car at Dollarama.  This toy car was made by Hot Wheels in 2013 (although it was for the HW City 2014 line).  The Homer was featured in the episode called "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" of the second season.  In that episode, Homer meets his long-lost half brother, Herb.  Herb owns a car company, and asks Homer to build his dream car.

As a Simpsons fan, I love collecting unusual items such as this.  I never thought they’d make a toy car out of this episode, but thankfully Mattel did.  The car is die-cast making it strong and durable, with plastic windows, and a chrome bottom and grill.  The paint is nice, and exactly like the cartoon version.  I only paid $1.50 for this car, making me thankfully it didn’t retail for $82,000, lol.

Hot Wheels:

http://www.hotwheels.com/en-ca/collection/bdc92_the-homer

The Homer Wiki:

http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/The_Homer

The Simpsons Lego Minifigures Code Cheat

Here’s my decoder cheat for figuring out which Lego Simpsons character is in each blind bag from the Lego 71005 series.  You basically want to feel around for each of the pieces memtioned below to get the character you want.  Good Luck!

Lego Homer Simpson:  Look for a rectangular shape that is hollow (which is the remote), then for a small square piece which is the donut.

Lego Bart Simpson: Look for a barbell shape which is the skateboard wheels, then feel for Bart’s spiky hair.

Lego Marge Simpson:  Look for Marge’s hair which should feel like a long raspberry.

Lego Lisa Simpson:  Look for her saxophone, then her spiky hair.

Lego Maggie Simpson:  She doesn’t have legs, so look for a character without legs, then for her spiky hair and her teddy bear.

Lego Abe Simpson: Look for a square piece (his newspaper), and then for legs that bend.

Lego Chief Wiggum:  Look for a head with a large flat head (his hat), then for a pole (his baton), and then for his megaphone.

Lego Ralph Wiggum:  Look for a square piece (his Valentine’s card), then for legs that don’t bend, and for a smooth head.

Lego Itchy:  Look a crunchy cheeto like piece (his club).

Lego Scratchy:  Look for a pole with a triangle end, which should be his axe.

Lego Apu:  He should have a smooth cup, without a handle.

Lego Ned Flanders:  Look for a cup with a handle, then a tool box shape piece.

Lego Milhouse:  Look for a square piece (his comic book), then for legs that don’t bend, and a head that isn’t smooth.

Lego Nelson Muntz:  Look for a bat shape pole with ridges near the end, and then legs that don’t bend.

Lego Mr. Burns:  Look for a smooth pole, he’s the only character with a smooth pole.

Lego Krusty the Clown:  Look for a circular piece (his pie), and then for a head with horns (his hair)

Lego:

http://shop.lego.com/en-US/LEGO-Minifigures-The-Simpsons-Series-71005?fromListing=listing

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baRjx89IeRA

Comic Book Guy and Comic Book Shop

If you`re a fan of Comic Book Guy, then having the Playmates version of him with his comic book shop is a must.  I bought this toy a couple of years ago from e-bay, during a bear market of Simpsons collectables.  Yes, lamentably the popularity of the show has declined over the years leading to many people selling their collectables for whatever they can get for them.  Luckily, I am still a fan of the show (at least the older episodes), which means that I am still collecting the Playmates toy line.

Comic Book Guy was one of the few Simpsons character`s to come with an interactive environment.  His environment is his comic book shop, The Android’s Dungeon & Baseball Card Shop.  It`s pretty detailed with shelves full of items, a comic book rack, and even a display case.  The stickers clearly display colorful drawings, and even manage to have a few jokes as well.  A bonus feature of this interactive environment is its ability to say over 30 phrases, though this requires 3 double AA batteries for it to work.

The actual toy figure of Comic Book Guy (aka Jeff Albertson, aka the Collector) is pretty cool as well.  He`s made out of plastic, just like the rest of the Playmates Simspons toy line (World of Springfield, WoS). The paint job is pretty simply, so you won`t be seeing that many mistakes or runoffs (however my figure does require a little touch up paint in his beard).  If you are planning on displaying him, I recommend you avoid heavy sun exposure because this toy line is prone to discoloration.  Overall this is a wonderful toy to own, and with the current low resell price of this toy line, it’s the perfect time to be a collector.

Comic Book Guy Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Book_Guy

YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O-ManD2LiI

Homer Simpson Papercraft

This Homer Simpson papercraft was created by Ninjatoes.  It comes with the papercraft sheet and instruction sheet.  There’s a lot of stuff to printout, so I suggest you print the instructions in black and white ink.  I would also recommend you make two copies of the papercraft sheet because one copy will be the one you cut and build, and the other can be used as a guide sheet.  This papercraft seems easy, but after all the cutting and gluing you will realize that it’s actually challenging.

The difficult parts were the small parts such as the arms, fingers, ears and nose.  Since there were a lot of parts to glue, it also took longer to build because of how much time I had to wait for pieces to dry before connecting them together.  Needless to say, patience and tweezers were both needed in this build.  While the instructions are color photos, I was still lost on certain sections of the build and had to improvise.  The easiest parts to build were the pants, shirt, and shoes.

Once completed Homer looks pretty cute, and accurate to the cartoon.  The arms of my papercraft are a little warped, but I’m okay with that because it’s barely noticeable.  My favorite part of this papercraft is the head because of how much detail went into building it (the printout even includes Homer’s comb over hair).  In fact just building the head alone would be sufficient to have as a nice display piece.  I had a great time building Homer Simpson, and hope to do another Ninjatoes papercraft in the future.

Homer Simpson Papercraft:

http://ninjatoes.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/homer-simpson

YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roWtEj5_7CA