While I usually go on endlessly about action figures in this exploration of Toy Fair 2008, it’s important to note that these figures are but a very small part of the whole event. However, the event is so massive that it’s necessary to try to find your own focus as you walk inside, as even throughout four days, the miles and miles of aisles must be traversed quickly in order to try to see a bit of everything.

I don’t find myself completely limited to action figures, though, as this gallery of the Javits Center demonstrates. Anyone prone to distraction by and kind of sound, bright lights, or moving parts, well - they wouldn’t make it down the first aisle before being sweet-talked into abject adulation (and often, equal amounts of incredulity) towards what they’d seen.

One common theme during this year’s Fair was robotic toys. While the Robosapien made a big splash a few years ago, the general robot model has been improved upon and dissected into submission, allowing the user to more easily construct electro-animals out of this Bioloid kit. Sure, it’s painfully expensive, but stepping boldly into the future isn’t a cheap endeavor. These robots moved around with more stability and grace than any I’d ever seen in person before, and they’ll surely go somewhere great if they offer themselves at a slightly more affordable price.

OWI Toys offered up a great set of solar powered robot monkeys, car and boat kits. Despite solar power being one of our greatly unrealized, renewable and harmless natural resources, it remains underused in the world at large. These small items packed a surprisingly powerful kick under a small solar lamp. I’d imagine that the solar racecar would need to be reigned in somehow lest it get lost at breakneck speeds into the middle of a busy intersection. This same booth offered beautiful, but functionless, aluminum bug kits that gave off a very strong robot vibe.

Continuing in the theme of eco-friendly toys, the Javits Center was crawling with great ideas that reduced plastic waste, toxic batteries and paints, and harmful work conditions for the manufacturers. One gentleman who was most passionate about this was the creator of Tree Blocks - a charmingly super-organic kind of building block made of wood from renewable forests, packaged exclusively in recycled materials. These are so organic that the bark is still on them, and yet, they seemed to fit together to make study structures. Little figural pieces were also made form wood and clothed in simple cloth outfits. The whole idea was super-basic, but that’s what the word needs more of. Despite access to a computer and all manned of Barbies and video games, my own niece prefers the possibilities of building blocks and Legos.

Also eco-friendly were the Ecotronic Toys, which took the idea of saving the environment one step further, as all of their electronic toys run on nothing but kinetic energy storage, not unlike the watches that one shakes to recharge, or the flashlights that require a crank mechanism. With a few friendly barbs at American waste, the English gentleman sold me on the idea of his Ecotronic toys. Not, though, that the robot head’s coils were malformed after some confusion at the factory between inches and centimeters in the blueprints.

I also loved the ecology of Fascination’s self-sustaining ant farm, called AntWorks. While these aren’t completely new, the idea if that your colony of ants remain nourished by the clear gel within the farm, as they’re made extra-visible by its transparency and illumination. No easy solutions have been formed about how to replace the ants or gel when they naturally die out, so you’d have to buy a second one to enjoy the rich cycle of life again.

The same company also had some eerie and effective magnetic levitation devices on display, which included hovering silver spheres, globes, and an Asian relic statue.

As always, Lego pulled out all of the stops outside of their Forbidden Booth, giving viewers a view of the almost-life-sized Indiana Jones, C-3PO and Clone Trooper statues - made entirely out of thousands of Legos. Unfortunately, this was all that I got to see, as I’d not made an appointment to see them this year. They invited us in so warmly last year - but the ritual, sadly, was not repeated, and we were turned away.

In terms of figural things, I always have a love of Zoomorphs as they add more and more animals to their collection. The ability to pull apart brightly-colored animals from all walks of life and make your own cruel hell-beasts out of them has an appeal to me, but let’s not dig too deeply into that. One can choose from all kinds of mammals, fish, lizards and dinosaurs, birds, and even mythological creatures, and it’s a LOT of fun.

Stikfas were also present - another kind of small man-shaped toy that one can pull apart and put back together again. The surfaces of these, as well as their plentiful accessories, are designed to be cut apart, painted and customized into whatever you’d like, though. I spent long hours in my dorm room creating Stikfas versions of Batman and The Joker, so it’s good to see that these sturdy little guys are still around. The company is also venturing into the crafty territory with a new product called Korkis, which are exactly what they sound like - craft baggies full of corks and pipe cleaners, also meant for imaginative repurposing into creatures and structures.

Artists were also set up among the various booths, including a Gus Fink - whose extensive collection of mini-figures, all cute and creepy, will have a large appeal to the urban vinyl crowd. We chatted with him a bit, expressed our own desire to do precisely what he’s doing with his life, and promised to destroy his patience with us by asking a thousand questions.

Also, check out Scruncalli Dunchie, a small, artistic company which makes large statues of samurai and smaller, unpainted busts of Greek gods. The sculptor, Rocco, has been employed by various toy making companies, but his own sculptures remain what he’s most passionate about. Check them out, as they’re pretty well done and caught my eye from across the showroom floor.

Finally, we saw Musical DNA. In terms of a simple explanation, it’s a highly evolved Rock Band / Guitar Hero kind of game that runs on your home computer. Using a MIDI hookup, you can attach your drums, guitar or keyboard to the program and see your music come to life on the screen, in beautiful patterns of lines and colors. One can play freehand, use it to learn music as a game, or just watch the pretty colors spiral upwards. As a visual person with some degree of synaesthesia, it’s like seeing my brain come to life and make sense on a screen.

And while I won’t mention any specific toy, there were more than a few that defied any kind of fun or logic by their very nature, and seeing someone try to sell the idea of it was an uncomfortable experience. Most awkward of all were the discount-rate booths in the back, forgotten corner of The Center, lovingly dubbed ‘Inventor’s Alley’. All I could do was try to see what these guys had invented without making eye contact and being forced into a conversation, standing in the grimy aisle and trying to be kind. Word to inventors : do not ever, ever, ever sell your game with a slogan that relates to ‘hating the game’. I’ve actually seen way too many games sold on the idea of evoking hatred for the product but a love of victory, and it just doesn’t work. When someone says ‘hate the game’, I’m inclined to agree. Also, don’t change around letters in the spelling of a common word just to make it funky and different - it degrades us all.

Stay tuned for some very specific coverage of Tonner Dolls, Mattel, Mezco Toys, Corgi and Master Replicas, DC Direct, Diamond Comics, Amok Time, NECA, Shocker Toys, Revoltech, Huckleberry Toys, and McFarlane Toys, among lots more!

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Article Tags: action figures, AntWorks, Ecotronic Toys, Javits, Musical DNA, OWI Toys, Stikfas, Toy Fair, Tree Blocks, Zoomorphs

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This entry was posted on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 at 2:00 am and is filed under collecting fyi, events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.