The people at Pixar are quite smart. Knowing the risk to the franchise they would be taking if they made a fourth movie, they could either let the characters drift into the darkness like so many other Disney films, or they could do what they do best and get creative. They created Toy Story Toons which are a series of short films involving the Toy Story universe. The second short film was entitled Small Fry and deals with Buzz getting replaced with a fun meal version of himself while the real Buzz gets stuck in a meeting for abandoned fun meal toys. Personally, its my favorite of the series so far, so when I saw that Mattel was producing a Small Fry Buzz as an exclusive for D23, I had to get my hands on one.
Mini Buzz comes in some pretty awesome packaging. 3 boxes to be exact. The first one is a square box decorated with the Poultry Palace logo and the Toy Story toons logo. It also has some very realistic(and gross!) grease stains all over it. Once you open that one up, you find a design that I think many of you would recognize as a happy meal box. It looks just like the McDonalds happy meals i remember getting, just with a different companys logo. There's a word search and a maze on the box, but I'm not doing mine because it'd ruin the box. Are we done yet? No? There is still another box?!? Anyway, the last box is the smallest and also the trickiest to open, with many people originally believing it couldn't be opened. Its a pink tray that holds buzz as well as cut-outs of a fun meal. There is a clear plastic dome that encases them. The trick to getting buzz out is to look for the taped edges on the pink tray and cut the tape, allowing you to dismantle and reassemble it as you please. However note that Buzz is quite tricky to fit back into his spot, though it can be done, you risk damaging him and the box.
Now on to the figure! Mini Buzz stands around 4.5 inches tall, putting him in great scale according to his appearances in the short. Though I don't have a picture, I have seen some collectors put Woody's hat on him, which fits perfectly, to recreate the short. His sculpt is dead on, which is somewhat surprising to me since it is a mass produced item by Mattel. From his big bubble helmet to his oddly proportioned body, this is Small Fry Buzz without a doubt. He even has the wheels on the bottom of his feet! The helmet is not removable and is permanently attached to the figure.
As far as paint applications go, he is quite a simple design. The figure in this review had one minor paint flaw on his hand, although this is my second. The first had his eyes and goatee thing painted off center, so if you're bothered by things like that(like I am) then you may want to take special care buying him.
Buzz has some articulation, though it is very simple. His waist can rotate, his legs can go forward but they can't go back very far, making posing him ice skating impossible. His wrists rotate, and his arms can move in and out as well as up and down. You have to get his legs in just the right position because the wheels combined with his top heavy design make standing a challenge.
Overall, I really like this guy. He's pretty much everything you could ask for in the character, which when you think about it, isn't a lot. His simplicity is his charm I suppose. Below I've included a link to Disneys site showing Small Fry.
http://video.disney.com/watch/small-fry-4c4830945c4af28bb89a6e29
No comments:
Post a Comment