Funko Pop! figures seem to have taken on a life for kids and collectors like Beanie Babies, if Beanie Babies pulled in every licensed property under the Sun. The latest Funko Pop! figures tie in to the latest season of Stranger Things. Their marketing team even mocked up a Tiger Beat magazine spoof that brings it together. Maybe it’s because the Duffer Brothers succeeded at pulling together some good nostalgia, or maybe these new likenesses are some of Funko’s best so far, but whatever the reason, we think Funko fans are going to want to take a good look at this new line.
The 2017 Toy of the Year and People’s Choice award winning figures seem to be getting better. More clever designs? The more… odd… the combination of characters and styles, the better these seem to appeal to Funko collectors. Stand-outs for the first round of characters include Scoops Ahoy Steve, Will the Wise, Flayed Lifeguard Billy, Date-Night Hopper, and Joyce with her magnets. This time there’s an over-sized monster available, too.
Three other new figures announced this month will appeal to that good guy in you. Funko has released Mr. Rogers Pop! figures previously, but the latest comes from the new film starring Tom Hanks. Two others feature everyone’s favorite Australian animal lover, the late Steve Irwin. Funko has two designs, a common type with Steve and an alligator and a rarer chase figure with Steve holding a turtle.
Most of these figures are available now and others have just been posted for pre-order. Click on any of the first 14 images below to find out more about the main line of figures, or to order any at Amazon, and don’t miss the pre-order for the new exclusive Eleven figure available only at Amazon. Below you’ll also find preview images of Stranger Things retailer exclusive Funko Pop! figures from Target, Wal-Mart, and more.
What can you say about Mr. Rogers that you didn’t learn from his more than three decades on television? Plenty, as you’ll find in The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers, a new work of non-fiction by Maxwell King that we previewed earlier at borghere. If you could meet any creator of the past fifty years, it would be difficult to find anyone as sincere and genuine as television’s Mr. Rogers. Maybe Jim Henson? Bob Ross? Mr. Rogers was a man whose private life was every bit as real as his persona on television, according to hundreds of people who knew him that were interviewed for King’s new book.
The fear for a reader of the book is like any behind-the-scenes peek at a beloved film or television series: As with learning the magician’s secrets or seeing a Muppet with a hand stuffed up its back, the man that became Mr. Rogers has his flaws, and his several TV projects, books, speeches, and other works reveals in many ways and from many avenues that he really was just a man. So for some, there’s too much to see here. Yet readers will not be surprised that no matter who was asked and prodded, there were no skeletons in his closet to reveal–King even notes the categorical rejection of so many Internet myths that have arisen about him since his death in 2003. All, of course, are false. What you saw was what you got: an educated thinker who chose to help people with his singular career path.
Yet was he really just a man? Would any other person have so many incredible encounters? An autistic child visited his set with his family, only to speak for the very first time when Mr. Rogers addressed the child directly through the famous puppets King Friday XIII and Queen Sara Saturday, which the boy had watched for years on TV at his home? Or when Koko the gorilla, who passed away earlier this year, visited him, she took him into her arms. Koko was a long-time fan of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, and when they met the two spoke to each other in American Sign Language and took photographs of each other. Before the advent of the literal movie blockbuster, Mr. Rogers had thousands of children and their parents lined up around city blocks for a chance to meet him in person. Clearly, if Mr. Rogers was just a man, he was like no other before or since.
Just shy of her 47th birthday, Koko the gorilla passed away Tuesday in her sleep at the Gorilla Foundation’s preserve in Woodside, California, in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Koko represents a giant leap in the future of humanity’s relationship with the animal kingdom–she could sign more than a thousand of words of American Sign Language and understood 2,000 words of spoken English, she liked to rhyme words, she could read and paint (painting not only real objects but expressions of her thoughts and emotions, even naming her paintings), and could play a musical instrument–the recorder. She proved years of human scientists wrong, conveying clearly to the world that she had complex thoughts and feelings, sharing compassion, laughter, love, and care for others. And she became famous for all she showed the world, and had well-known friendships with the likes of Mr. Rogers and Robin Williams.
Born on the Fourth of July in 1971 at the San Francisco Zoo, the western lowland gorilla was named Hanabi-ko, which is Japanese for “fireworks child.” Koko’s ability to communicate with humans via American Sign Language put her twice on the cover of National Geographic, one photo featuring her own selfie (long before selfie was a term). That was thanks to her long-time friend and researcher Dr. Francine “Penny” Patterson, who began teaching Koko in 1974 when she was three years old. Over the course of her incredible life she proved that gorillas could communicate about objects that weren’t present, had the ability to recognize themselves in a mirror, and further, they could convey personal memories. Koko invented new sign-language words for things she didn’t know the word for, she knew the meaning of what she was communicating, and she was even a teacher–another primate learned sign language by watching videos of Koko signing.
Her relationship with her first cat was covered by the mainstream press. For her twelfth Christmas she wanted a pet cat, and for her following birthday she was allowed to select one from a litter of abandoned kittens, which she named All Ball, reflecting the roundness of the cat and her own fondness for alliteration. All Ball died when she sneaked out of her room and was hit by a car that year, and Koko reacted like any human would, with profound grief, which she conveyed in words via signing. Koko adopted several more cats over the next 30 years, adopting two most recently in 2015 that she named Miss Black and Miss Grey. Koko was preceded in death by her friend Michael, her gorilla friend who also could sign, who passed away in 2000. She was living with her friend Ndume, a male gorilla, when she passed away.
One of the least discussed areas of television is local television–those productions going back to the beginning of television and still a fixture even of small markets around the United States. Even big city networks and cable channels sprouted out of the success of local personalities or shows, as found in places like Chicago’s WGN, Kansas City 41, and Atlanta’s TBS. For parts of four decades, if you lived or visited Iowa or within the wider reach of its local NBC affiliate, you would have been introduced to The Floppy Show. The Floppy Show was a creation of World War II veteran Duane Ellett, a young Drake University graduate who bridged a career as a familiar voice over the air to a familiar face in black and white in the late 1950s as television became widespread. At the center of the show was Floppy, a wooden puppet with a red sweater holding his trusty bone, who would come to be known and loved by multiple generations of fans. Floppy and Ellett are the subject of a new book by professor, broadcaster, and historian Jeff Stein, titled The Floppy Show.
Since Ellett’s death in the 1980s, Floppy, the famous dog in the box, was displayed at the State Historical Museum in Des Moines, for 20 years, followed by a brief stint at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. It’s a testament to Ellett and his creation that their beloved fans never wavered–these exhibits became hallowed ground, the kind of quiet spot to revisit one’s youth for a mix of reflection and nostalgia. Of course The Floppy Show was only one of hundreds of similar shows that came and went across America over the decades, but author Stein showcases the history of an important area of television in this singular show. Working with WHO-TV and the archives of Ellett’s family, Stein researched videotapes, film, marketing materials, and photographs and pulled out more than 180 images that reveal a changing America from 1957 to 1987.
At the same time Jim Henson and his Muppets were first introduced on a local Washington, DC show, Ellett was asked to create a puppet for the show Pet Corner, a local TV program hosted by the Animal Rescue League where viewers would meet local stray dogs and cats, and hopefully adopt them. Floppy was created to help teach kids how to care for animals, in the vein of shows like the contemporary national programs Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Floppy’s popularity took off and he soon had his own show at WHO-TV. For most of its memorable years the show featured Floppy and Ellett introducing cartoon segments like Popeye and Looney Tunes, and the big deal for kids was the live studio segment where kids (including your humble editor minus 40 years or so) appeared on-air, beeping Floppy’s nose, telling jokes, and getting a sack with a bottle of Mountain Dew, a bag of Hyland potato chips, and a photo of Floppy. My joke? “What’s the biggest can in the world?” Answer: “I forget.” Quietly prompted by the kindly moustached fellow in the leisure suit, I blurted out “Canada!” Guest stars on the show visiting the local NBC affiliate included Adam West in full Batman garb.
Your editor on his own pilgrimage to visit Floppy, featured at the Iowa State Fair in 2014.
For many, scrabbling through the photos in Stein’s book, looking for an image of the reader on the set of the show, will be a big draw. So many photos of Floppy and his audience both in the studio and at events like the annual state fair make seeing yourself in the crowd in one of the book’s photographs an actual possibility.
For anyone who ever encountered Floppy or Ellett, and anyone curious about the history of television, Jeff Stein’s new book The Floppy Show is a worthwhile–and fun–trip back in time. Pick up your copy of the book The Floppy Show now, available here at Amazon.
