I
periodically browse the
Entertainment Earth website, partly because they have
so much cool stuff, but also to monitor when
Twilight Zone merchandise becomes
available. I spotted the following last
week:
My heart
sank. Followers of this blog are aware
of my crush on
Maya the Cat Girl, and I liked to believe that my championing of
her to my contact at
Bif Bang Pow! had something to do with their decision to
create an action figure of her. I wasn’t
nearly as concerned about Henry Corwin/Santa Claus because, frankly, it’s an
action figure of Santa Claus, which would look awfully strange on a display
shelf eleven months out of the year. I
emailed my contact (hell, I’m gonna go ahead and call him a friend) at Bif Bang
Pow!, and he brought me up to speed on a story that was even more far-reaching and
tragic than I could have imagined.
Going
forward, they’re essentially prohibited from using any human likeness in their Twilight Zone products. Not just actor/actress
likeness. HUMAN LIKENESS. This means that if a character has a human
face, it cannot be adapted to action figure or bobblehead form.
WHAT THE
FUCK?
We already
knew that securing actor likenesses was both a legal and a monetary issue, which is why
BBP! was focusing on CHARACTER likenesses (for example, the
Three-Eyed Venusian
action figure is easily identifiable as such without looking expressly like
Barney Philliips, the actor who portrayed him).
I can only presume that an actor (or their estate) took issue with this
approach and demanded remuneration despite the fact that their specific
likeness was sidestepped. It all comes
down to dollars, kids, and Bif Bang Pow! doesn’t have bottomless pockets like
Hasbro. I am not privy to the details,
of course, so this is only my presumption, but I’m sure I’m not too far off.
This
effectively kills both the action figure and bobblehead lines, and here’s
why: there are hardly any Twilight Zone
characters that don’t have human faces, even the aliens, and they’ve already
done most of them. I can (almost) count
the remaining candidates on one hand:
Janet Tyler
(with bandaged face) (from “Eye of the Beholder”)
Old Ben in Alien Disguise (from “The
Fugitive”)
Emily Harper
(from “The Masks”)
Wilfred
Harper (from “The Masks”)
Wilfred
Harper Jr (from “The Masks”)
Paula Harper
(from “The Masks”)
And… that’s
it. Every other character in the series
--- be them human, alien or monster --- has an identifiable human face, which
makes them impossible to render in action figure or bobblehead form under the current restrictions. This means Maya the Cat Girl and Henry
Corwin/Santa Claus had to be cancelled (along with the delayed
Clown from “Five
Characters in Search of an Exit”), despite the fact that they were already in
production. This also means the quiet
death of dozens of future possible items too.
Unless something changes, both the action figure and bobblehead lines
have been effectively killed.
Here's Bif Bang Pow!'s official press release on the subject. It's cool to see some of the figures they were planning but hadn't announced yet (including Anthony Fremont from "It's a Good Life" and Marsha the Mannequin from "The After-Hours"), but the tragedy of the whole thing wrecks said coolness. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
However, we still have four
previously announced figures to look forward to in the next few months, none of
which have recognizable human faces:
Nurse (from
“Eye of the Beholder”)
Alien (from
“Hocus-Pocus and Frisby”)
We may also see
reappearances of some earlier figures that are now sold out, notably
Dr. Bernardi from “Eye
of the Beholder” and
The Invader, both of which certainly deserve
another run. And Old Ben from
"The Fugitive" is in
bold above for a reason: an action figure is
currently in production! I’ve been
granted first scoop rights, so pardon my gloating while I post the following:
That is a
seriously amazing sculpt. Of course it
is. BBP does great work.
This whole thing is just plain heartbreaking,
not to mention maddeningly frustrating.
We can hope that something changes, but as things stand right now… the
end is in sight. Of course this wasn’t
going to last forever, but to have these wonderful lines abruptly ended like
this is just awful.
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