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Post by BYWInsaniac on Dec 3, 2009 4:07:56 GMT -5
When I was five and six years old, back in 1991, I was in love with "Bucky O'Hare." I had all the toys, I'd sing the song all day, and I even had my mom cook up a costume for Halloween. I adored the show, but could never understand why I couldn't have a Jenny action figure. I even made my own out of paper I wanted one so badly. Well, my friends, today that kid got his wish:  Yes, this is a prototype of Jenny. Sure, she's unpainted, but look at it this way: I can freekin play with her!!! Interesting notes: - the whole figure is a hard plastic, rather than the soft vinyl head - the tail comes out (it fits in like a peg) - the seam on Jenny's head runs up the middle of her face, rather than on the side of her head        Any FYI, this is why Rumblebee was going to be FREEKIN AWESOME!   It's a [darn] shame these figures never came out. They had some incredible stuff planned for Wave 3, too (KOMPLEX with lenticular screen). I'll take better photos later, but I just couldn't wait to share this with you guys. UPDATE: Here are some more pictures of Jenny, really focusing on the detail of this figure.    Here's what I was talking about earlier. You can see how the mold seam ran down the middle of her face.        Look at this one. Check out her headband. I love the way they addressed it. In the cartoon it was just kinda cheated, but they actually thought about how to make it work. It looks great!          Here's a shot of the removable tail.   I'll do Rumblebee in the next few days. He's a really rad figure, and there's a lot of interesting stuff going on with his prototype. Finally, some of this loot ends up in the hands of a FAN, rather than toy collectors! -JJ |
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Post by wildgoose on Dec 3, 2009 8:13:41 GMT -5
sod jenny, ITS RUMBLE BEE! can i have your address please so i can uh... come visit... whilst your not in...
lol seriosly though congrats! you got something realy special there, how did you get them?
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Post by BYWInsaniac on Dec 3, 2009 14:04:48 GMT -5
Ebay and more money than I'll ever admit. Hahaha. Isnt that Rumblebee FREEKIN RAD though? It's such a **** shame they axed the line because they were getting REALLY creative with some of the figures!
Sly Lezard had a tongue that would flick. KOMPLEX, as I mentioned, had a lenticular screen. Such great stuff!
-JJ
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Mornan
S.P.A.C.E. Ensign
Posts: 10
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Post by Mornan on Dec 3, 2009 21:09:47 GMT -5
Congratulations man, that's really awesome.
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Post by Rygar on Dec 3, 2009 23:45:16 GMT -5
You, sir, are made of more awesome than I thought possible. Congrats!
-Rygar
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Mornan
S.P.A.C.E. Ensign
Posts: 10
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Post by Mornan on Dec 4, 2009 0:19:31 GMT -5
Here's a question, are you going to leave her unpainted?
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iron37
S.P.A.C.E. Lieutenant
Posts: 88
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Post by iron37 on Dec 8, 2009 0:48:18 GMT -5
congrats. Great find
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Post by Pow! on Dec 8, 2009 19:19:03 GMT -5
Oh My God, that Jenny is so awesome!!! You are a lucky man!! Please post more of the Jenny figure, I'd love to see it!
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Post by Kooshmeister on Dec 24, 2009 1:06:47 GMT -5
Wow, think you took enough pictures? Anyway these are pretty neat I just wish they'd made Frix and Frax. Why they never made Jenny I did not know. Despite the fact I myself am indifferent towards her, she's nonetheless a main character, and a popular one, so you'd think she would've been made in the first series of figures instead of, say, Dogstar.
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Post by BYWInsaniac on Dec 24, 2009 3:36:19 GMT -5
Well, Nead Adams fought and argued to get her released in the first wave, but Kenner (or was it Hasbo at the time?) wanted her for the second wave to help drive up sales in the second wave.
Not that I agree with that choice! The toy company was dumb. They killed the franchise.
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Post by Kooshmeister on Dec 24, 2009 12:27:09 GMT -5
Well now that I know this is the reason I don't blame Kenner or Hasbro or whoever for opting to release Jenny in a later wave. It's important to look at this from the toy company's point of view. For starters, it was a cartoon aimed mostly at boys, so they probably figured Jenny wasn't going to be a character most kids would line up to get. I know that when I was a boy, I found the Aldebaran episode tiresome and usually never watched it.
Also, the later wave is filled with characters most kids wouldn't have cared too much about. Bucky in a different outfit, two minor members of Dogstar's crew, and then some characters who only appeared in one episode each. Jenny would've thus been the star of the wave.
Calling them stupid is a bit silly. Their plans were solid, they were just never implemented due to the franchise's failure. Adams' zealous insistence upon Jenny's early release just makes him seem somewhat bossy and without confidence in his own product's staying power.
EDIT: Also, this figure, with a smaller head and helmet than the cartoon character, begs the question...where exactly are Jenny's ears?
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Post by BYWInsaniac on Dec 25, 2009 5:17:09 GMT -5
Well, I do feel justified in calling them stupid since it was their foolish release plan that sunk the franchise. The whole thing about more Toad Air Marshall figures than Bucky. That's really stupid, and it clearly didnt work.
I guess their strategy with Jenny was sound. And as Neal Adams says, they were flooded withe letters begging for a Jenny figure. I guess the only thing that doesnt exactly connect with me is this:
How does having Jenny in Wave 2 help sell the other 6 figures in the wave? How does Jenny's presence in the wave perk interest in the others?
I guess the initial "Kids want Jenny, let's get these guys on the shelf" gets Hasbro that first order for wave 2, but then you run into the whole clogged shelf thing once Jenny is gone...
Wow. Way too much thought into something that happened almost 20 years ago. Sorry bout that. I'm tired and prone to rant-ish behavior!
-JJ
PS: I forgot to answer Mornan. I do plan to leave her unpainted. I also plan to start saving up so that if I ever see a painted Jenny on eBay I'll be able to snatch her up!
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Post by Kooshmeister on Dec 25, 2009 18:52:25 GMT -5
Simple overestimation of demand I guess. It's a common problem with Hasbro's Star Wars line now and it's what killed their recent Indiana Jones revival. I really am unsure how the other wave two figures would've sold.
They were clearly withholding Jenny to make money. They knew of fan demand, weren't particularly confident about the line's ability to survive into a second year, and so withheld a popular main character because feared putting every main character out on the initial wave would make kids lose interest, once they had all their favorite characters.
After all, unlike, say, Ninja Turtles, Bucky O'Hare didn't have a vast array of marketable characters to choose from, once you get past the main cast there's really only Frix, Frax and...well, just them, really, and possibly Dogstar's crew. Beyond this it's all second-tier characters with one episode apiece.
Oh well, as long as we're criticizing the toy company, I wanna say I think their choice of characters for the second wave is really odd.
The Terror Toad? He's too little! He was like twelve feet tall on the show! He should've come boxed as a "big size" figure (Toadborg and Al Negator are also underscaled, but not to the degree the Terror Toad is).
And why exactly did Pitstop Pete get a figure? I can understand Sly, Kamo and the Terror Toad. They all had pivotal, starring roles in their episodes, but Pete? Despite having a name and one line, Pete barely even qualifies as a supporting character. They really should've made Wolf instead. He would've gone better with Rumble Bee since they both helped fight Komplex in the finale, during which Pete was mysteriously MIA.
This suggests they either just had lousy choices for figures (no offense to Pete fans), or they had more planned for Pete in future episodes.
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iron37
S.P.A.C.E. Lieutenant
Posts: 88
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Post by iron37 on Dec 25, 2009 20:51:27 GMT -5
Im guessing they had alot more planned.. more than were even aware of. Or couldve planned on just making more up as they went. I used to have tons of ninja turtle toys, but now that I think about it I dont even remember seeing half of the actual characters in the cartoon that they had figures for.
But still they did well for quite awhile for action figures anyway. Maybe Bucky shouldve just bombarded us with figures of variations and random characters instead of the select fe that were planned. I dunno.. just looking at successful action figure trends of the past (he-man, star wars, gi joe, ninja turtles, batman, etc)
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Post by BYWInsaniac on Dec 28, 2009 16:50:27 GMT -5
Ya know, I've always been confused by this push for Pitstop Pete. Neal Adams is selling a freekin shrit of him! The design looks awesome, but really? Pitstop Pete?
I'm guessing that Wolf was a holdover for Wave 3, kinda like Jenny was for wave 2. In theory, season 2 of the show should have be hitting about the same time as wave 3, right? So the second season probably would have had a slew of new characters (like TMNT did to generate toys) as well as more focus on existing characters.
Anyway, Wave 3 had Wolf (named Calvin Lupis), Komplex-2-Go, the Tri-bot, Digger McSquint, a space-suit storm toad, and (I believe, since his artwork is in a lineup I have) Smiley (http://buckyohare.org/merch/attack/17.jpg). There is also a strange Jenny variant, with some zaney headdress thing...
The crime is HOW FREEKIN COOL THESE TOYS WERE GOING TO BE! Gah! I mean, Rumblebee transforms, Komplex has a lenticular screen, Tribot broke apart into 3 toys, Digger had a giant gun, Sly Lezard's tongue had a flicking action (like the Dino toy from Flintstones). Even Pitstop Pete and Terror Toad had opening jaws, not exactly AWESOME but still pretty creative!
*sigh*
Oh well. One of these days I wanna figure out how the japanese fans make those AWESOME model kits, so I can put some of my favorite Bucky characters in plastic.
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