Hands-on with the new toys
by RRabbit42
Last issue, I mentioned that Mobo85 got some information on the new Phineas and Ferb toys being released by Jakks Pacific. If you need a refresher, check out the Jakks Pacific Phineas and Ferb Toys page and the forum. Those items are now available in stores, and I got my hands on some of them.
First up are the Gabble Heads.
  
If you go to Toys "R" Us or their web site, you'll see these listed as "Slammers Plush with Sound". The website description says that you should shake or toss them to get them to talk, but as it turns out, you can be fairly gentle with them and still get them to respond. A light tap is all that's needed since they appear to have some sort of vibration sensor in them rather than an old-style tilt switch. It was kind of amusing listening to Phineas talk pretty much all the way home from the store as I drove home. Eventually, Ferb took over, interrupted every once in a while by Dr. Doofenshmirtz.
I am impressed with how the characters look. Sometimes, making the transition from a two-dimensional cartoon character to a three-dimensional object that you can hold doesn't work out that well. Jakks Pacific did a good job on these. I think Dr. Doofenshmirtz's expression is my favorite of the three. I expect that when I can finally get the one for Agent P, it will be just as good.
Next up are the action figures. Toys "R" Us has an exclusive collector pack, which you can see to the right. It took a little bit to get it out of the tube package because there was quite a bit of tape used to seal the bottom of it. Excessive use of tape seemed to be standard practice for some of the packages, but with the shape of the packages, it's probably the best way to seal them up without resorting to something like shrink wrap.
Each of the figures has movable arms and heads, except for Perry, who makes up for it by being able to remove his fedora and tail. You can also adjust the torso on Phineas and Ferb, but they seem to have a problem staying upright. I found out why a few minutes later.
When I turned my attention to the action figure sets, the Skateboard Launcher was the first one I opened. I was surprised to see that I could remove the helmet from both boys. For some reason, I was expecting them to be a single molded piece. But they're not, and when I removed the helmet from Phineas, I was looking at the same figure that was in the Toys "R" Us collector pack. That's when I found out they're not steady by themselves because they're designed to be fitted onto the skateboard.
 
  
The mounting posts are the same on the skateboard and the surfboard, so you can swap Phineas and Ferb between them, which I did in the last picture above. It looks like you could have Doofenshmirtz riding the board in place of Ferb because Doof's legs are flexible enough to fit onto the mounting posts, but not the other way around. Ferb's legs are a bit shorter, so they had to make them stiffer to support his weight.
Now, I haven't tried out the skateboard launcher, the surfboard squirter or the Uglyinator yet. I also wasn't able to get the last action figure set, which features Candace and Phineas up on stage from "Flop Starz". That's one of only a couple of toys that feature Candace, so I wasn't surprised that the two stores I tried were out of them already. Maybe I'll save those for a future review.
Alright, that's it for the first in a series of reviews on the toys, but hopefully they won't all be by me. Head on over to your local Toys "R" Us, their website or Amazon.com and see what they've got. And if you feel up to it, send in a review.
| 
