I was in my office working diligently on a Family Guy scene in which Peter and Quagmire discuss something offensive, which is not an uncommon occurrence, when I got a call from my husband (we both work on the show).
“Hey, you have to come down here, there are Family Guy vinylmations!”
Bless his heart, he didn’t know they weren’t ACTUAL Vinylmations; they’re 3” figures by kidrobot; but he knew I’d be very excited. We were having our annual FOX studio sale, and my fellow employees were going crazy over these little guys.
They’re blind-boxed, which was a surprise. I’ve received my fair share of Family Guy merchandise over the years; actually I’d say I have quite enough, but I HAD to have these. The attention to detail is great for any fan of the show, and their stubby-stylized look is extremely appealing for the characters! I'm not certain if these are made out of vinyl, however. They are lighter than Vinylmation and feel a little less sturdy. It's also a little unusual to have a blind-boxed toy with little to no opportunity for trading, especially with such a high probability for pulling duplicates (I'll explain later).
First we have Quagmire, Cleveland, Peter and Joe. Each toy comes with one or two small accessories; a mug of beer, or in Joe’s case a tiny wheelchair. (Seriously cute.)
Chris is one of my favorites figures in the set, fans of the show will remember the Ball-in-a-Cup gag, which is one of my favorite little accessories. I also pulled the Evil Monkey and Herbert (who's a rarer figure).
I didn't pull a Meg figure, but a friend of mine did and I got a look at her. Overall I'd say the female figures suffer a bit from this stubby design (poor things). As you can see, Lois' body looks pretty awkward.
I bought 14 boxes and out of a possible 16 figures I pulled 12. Only two duplicates. I got lucky, most of my friends pulled several duplicates. The distribution for these is pretty interesting, there isn’t one chaser, there are actually much fewer of several of the figures. From what I’ve been able to deduce, there are for example 2 Stewies and 2 Brians in each box of 16, guaranteed, but only 1 Meg or Chris. There’s only one Herbert in every 32 boxes, and only one Angry Peter in every 64 boxes.
Each figure comes with a pretty good sized sticker.
The Giant Chicken and Death characters seem to be the rarest; they’re the question-mark silhouettes on the box. I was lucky enough to pull a Chicken, and I think he's the best of the figures. His design is fantastic and he feels somewhat sturdier than the other figures, oddly. I LOVE his accessory: a frying pan with an indentation of Peter's face in it! Awesome.
These retail for $9.95 and you can find them here:
http://www.kidrobot.com/Toys/MiniFigures/FamilyGuyMiniSeries3Inch.html
Overall, if you’re a fan of Family Guy or just enjoy cool looking toys, these are great fun for any collector. I got a few coworkers hooked, and told them all about Vinylmation. Hopefully I’ve brought a few new collectors into the fold!
Annemarie Brown
@AdmiralAkbrown
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