 Charlie Clone |
Welcome to Charlie Clone's All Action Figure Revue at SWAFT.info! I'm your host, Charlie Clone! |
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We're continuing a theme of
taxonomical toys, this time diving into the
Walmart 88 cents bin to review Jungle
Realistic Animals. This ten-piece set was molded in China and
marketed by the tyrannical Wal-Mart Stores, Inc, based in cacaphonous
Bentonville, Arizona. Further inspection reveals that these animals
come from JaRu or Ja-Ru manufacturing, whose plastic oddities appear
with firghtening frequency in safety reports on the Internet.
Jungle realistic animals, plastic or otherwise, are not meant for
children under three years of age due to choking hazards and predation.
But, alas, gentle readers, I fear this might be ol' Charlie's last review. Upon opening the baggie, I discovered that all the toys were covered in a strange powdery substance...and, as if to further terrorize me, a black inky substance left a mark on the palm of my hand a la Pirates of the Caribbean. Within hours, I have already begun exhibiting flu-like symptoms. My only hope is that if this is indeed my last act upon this goodly green Earth, that I go down making them laugh... My time may be short...so
without further ado... |
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CONCEPT:
It is important to note that these are not
just jungle animals. These are Jungle Realistic
Animals. I'm not exactly sure what defines them as "realistic."
Personally, I would have preferred a bag of Jungle Fantastic Animals. Hippogryphs,
chimeras, and wyverns all the way, baby! But you wouldn't expect people
in the big Box to think outside of it, now would you?
But "realistic"
puts a burden of quality on these animals that I'm not sure the makers
were up to meeting. For instance, how many of these animals are
actually "jungle"
creatures? While tigers, primates, lions, and even a hippopotamus
certainly seem like jungle animals, how often do giraffes,
rhinoceroses, zebras, ostriches, and bactrian camels wander into the jungle?
These mostly seem to me like steppe or savannah realistic animals.
Jungles just aren't very good terrain for animals that move in herds
or, you
know, grow humps to store fat for long periods without water or food.
Thus, I conclude that this package should have been called "African
Safari Realistic
Animals."
Then, they could have packed in two British tourists with pith helmets and cameras for the lion to eat.
And there are other problems with the
so-called "realism" of this set. For starters, these animals are all in
completely different scales. The diminutive rhino is suffering from a
Napoleonic complex (being smaller than the lion), and the giraffe looks
like it's been taking growth supplements.
If your kid is really into animals or if they
have a diorama project for some environmentalist teacher at school,
then this pack might be handy (if you don't mind exposing your child to
mysterious powdery substances from overseas factories).
ACCESSORIES:
And potentially hazardous chemicals.
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FEATURES: Your child will learn to appreciate the
imperiled livelihood of endangered African species when he or she
realizes that approximately one out of three are so malnourished, they
can't even stand on their own. The zebra, the giraffe, and the camel
aren't display-friendly, unless you plan on gluing their feet to the
bottom of a shoebox. I had to splay their flimsy rubbery legs in a
rather painful-looking fashion to get them to remain erect for only a
few seconds. Apparently, Africa needs to put its large quadropeds on a
lower
body workout regime. Each animal has minimal paint application,
usually just pupils or a few strokes to color in a mane and stripes,
or whatnot. I'd recommend giving your child a permanent marker and
encouraging them to add their own battle-damage and/or pirate tattoos
to the animals. |
PLAY VALUE:
The soft plastic makes these figures very chewable. That's probably the most fun you will get out of these.
But lets review them one at a time, shall we?
| 10. Camel: Although the toymaker
gets points
for depicting a two-humped bactrian camel, the strange fleshy, salmon
color kind of grosses me out. The aforementioned difficulty standing,
its awkward scale, and the fact that camels live in DESERTS make one
wonder who this camel paid off to get himself in the Jungle Realistic Animal set. |
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| 9. Ostrich: I don't know why I'm
being so
hard on the ostrich...other than that he looks like a
roasted-marshmallow flavored bird. |
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| 8. Giraffe: I really wanted to give
the
giraffe higher billing, if only to get in good with Geoffrey. As the
largest and most yellow animal in the set, it certainly catches the eye
among all the other toys in the 88 cent bin. Unfortunately, since
height is the giraffe's most powerful weapon, a giraffe really doesn't
do you any good unless it can stand. I suppose I can just leave
him lying on his side and make it look like all the carnivores are
feasting on his spotted carcas, but that really wasn't what I had in
mind when I bought the pack. Big disappointment, with an emphasis on
big. |
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| 7. Rhinoceros: The rhino actually
isn't that
bad, except for being so small. He boasts the least detailed sculpt of
all the animals, and also has a rather prissy-looking expression on his
face. |
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| 6. Hippopotamus: This little gal has
a bit
more detail than the rhino, and hippos are just more fun to look at,
what with that big goofy mouth and all. Sure her tusks could rip you to
shreds if you got too close to her, but I always think of those
ballerina hippos in the Fantasia version of the Waltz of the Hours when I look at
one of these pachyderms. Funny lookin' things. |
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| 5. Zebra: I don't know how the zebra
got this
high on the list other than that maybe I forgot about it when I was
ranking the lower animals. The zebra would be pretty cool, except that
for some reason the manufacturer decided to lift one of the front
hooves on a toy whose soft, narrow legs already can't support its
own weight. Possibly a general who rode this zebra was wounded in
battle, or maybe the zebra just stepped in a pile of elephant dung, but
the fact of the matter is that the zebra can't stand at all. It's also
fun to say the word "zebra." Zeeeebra. And it's useful in Scrabble. |
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| 4. Lioness: Now it wouldn't surprise
me that
this set would include a cougar in with the jungle animals, but I'm
going to give it the benefit of the doubt and declare this a she-lion.
Evidently, communist China still asserts backwards patriarchal views of
division of labor. Look at her, lazily sitting down,
passively watching the male lion go out and take down the kills for
dinner. Little do these makers know that it is in fact the lioness,
who makes up the most consistent part of the pride and that does
most of the providing, while the male lions, who wander in and out of
prides, usually scavenge their meals if they can. Maybe this lioness is
simply taking a rest after a hard earned meal...maybe. |
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| 3. Lion: Okay, so I've explained to
you the
inherent misogyny in the reclining lioness toy, but the fact of the
matter is that male lions just look cooler and have more imaginative
history behind them. Although, this particular lion looks a little more
like he's laughing
at a funny the giraffe made than intimidating a rival with a tyrannous
roar, I'm pretty sure that any little kid who is given this play
set is going to pick up the lion early in the game and imagine him
ripping out the jugular of that limp-hoofed zebra. |
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| 2.
Tiger:
Tyger, "Tyger,
burning bright, in the forests of the night! What immortal hand or eye
could frame thy fearful symmetry?" I'm fairly certain that the sculptor
for this toy based his model on William Blake's (1757-1827) etching for
his poem, "The Tyger" from Songs of
Experience (1794). It is just about
the most lethargic, depressed looking feline I have ever seen (and look
at that vaguely human schnoz!). Maybe
he's so sad because he's about the size of a large house cat and gets
picked on by all the more ferocious cats in other jungle animal sets.
Buck-up, kiddo! They're just jealous! |
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| 1. Primate: Top spot has to go to the primate. Maybe he's a gorilla. Maybe he's a chimpanzee. Maybe he's some kind of deranged scientist's hybridization project gone all wrong: a goranzee or a chimpilla. Either way, his spooky green eyes set stoically on a solid, pitch-black body will give you nightmare for weeks. He also dethrones the Dino Power Ninjatron for having the most well-defined buttocks of any action reviewed so far. But to be completely earnest, this figure is pretty much the only thing in here that is remotely usable for the mature collector of 3.75" action figures. This guy would totally be at home in a Cobra laboratory or as a DNA host for Optimus Primal. |   |
| Until
next time...
--Charlie Clone |
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