Episode 145 America on Parade

Ep. 145 America on Parade This week we review the Park 13 Haunted Mansion and Tower of Terror LE box sets. We preview the upcoming Indiana Jones series. We have news about Valentine's Day, Aladdin and Disney Store figures. And we have an interview with Disney Design Group artist Maria Clapsis.

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Puppy Love for Valentine's Day 2014

On January 24, 2014 our first duel three inch figure combo pack for Valentine's Day will be released at D-Streets. This combo features Lady and the Tramp and is an edition size of 2000. It is a nice artist and cartoony take on the two characters that still leaves room for Animation series versions of these two love dogs that can be designed closer to the original animation.

Episode 103 Magic Mirror

Ep. 103 Magic Mirror This week we announce DV's March VinylMadness! A contest for custom artists. We also have Matt from Vinylmation Kingdom on the show to make a huge announcement you will not want to miss. MC and I talk about our Top Ten Vinylmation stories from 2012 and look ahead to 2013 with predictions. And of course, we have all the latest news and release dates.

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Valentine's 2013 Vinylmation Revealed

We told you that a Maria Clapsis designed Valentine's figure would be awesome and we were right. Check it out! (Pic from Vinylmation Exchange and adjusted by us) It's Cupid. With a bow (like Sagittarius) that you can see at the bottom. There are also hearts in his ears. My only hope is that he has wings too! He'll be $14.95 and will be available at both D-Streets and Online on January 4th.

What do you think?

New December/January Release Dates

With the announcements below we confirm there will be WDW Marathon figures this year as well as another Valentine's Day commemorative. We have yet to see the actual figures, but the marathons are called "mini medals." So here is a look at the 2013 medals:

The Valentine's one is anyone's guess. We also get details about the 2013 series, a Pixar LE combo and the third Fantasia. We have no clue what order the 2013's will be released in, but Disney released the calendar from which the figures were inspired in park stores. So i'll find it and take a look this week. I would assume the order of release would correspond to the months they appear on the calendar. Here is a look at the 13 figures as they were on display at Mickey's Circus.

We will have to wait until January for the 9/3 Crush and Squirt LE combo. It will have an edition size of 1250 and will retail for $64.95.

The third Fantasia combo is a Parks and Online release featuring Hop Lo & Gold Fish. There are 1500 of them and it will retail for $24.95.

Also in the mix is the seventh junior series installment and a new Disney Vacation Club Piece. The junior series is themed to space and was on display at Mickey's Circus.

We don't know for sure, but we can assume the DVC figure will be this design that we saw only in concept art on Vinylnation years ago.

JANUARY 4, 2013
D-Streets
2013 Series - 3-inch figure by Dave Keefer & Maria Clapsis (Edition Size: 2,013 / Retail: $14.95)
Valentine's Day 2013 - 3-inch figure by Maria Clapsis (Commemorative / Retail: $14.95)

JANUARY 4, 2013
Online
Valentine's Day 2013 - 3-inch figure by Maria Clapsis (Commemorative / Retail: $14.95)
Vinylmation Jr. Series #7 - In Space (Mystery Box / Retail: $9.95)

JANUARY 10, 2013
D-Streets
2013 Run Disney - 3-inch figure by Maria Clapsis (Commemorative / Retail: $12.95)

JANUARY 10, 2013
D-Street Orlando (And Wide World of Sports?)
Walt Disney World Half Marathon Mini Medal (Open Edition /Retail: $1.95)
Goofy's Race Marathon Mini Medal (Open Edition / Retail: $1.95)
Walt Disney World Marathon Mini Medal (Open Edition /Retail: $1.95)

JANUARY 11, 2013
D-Streets
Vinylmation Jr. Series #7 - In Space (Mystery Box / Retail: $9.95)
Disney Vacation Club Exclusive 3-inch figure (Open Edition / Retail: $14.95 )

JANUARY 11, 2013
Online
2013 Series - 3-inch figure (Open Edition / Retail: $12.95)
Disney Vacation Club Exclusive 3-inch figure (Open Edition / Retail: $14.95)

JANUARY 18, 2013
D-Streets and Online
Pixar Series #1 - Crush & Squirt, Finding Nemo - 3-inch & 9-inch figure set by Maria Clapsis (Edition Size: 1,250 / Retail: $64.95)

JANUARY 25, 2013
D-Streets and Online
Fantasia Series #3 - Hop Lo & Gold Fish, The Nutcracker Suite - 3-inch figure set by Thomas Scott (Edition Size: 1,500 / Retail: $24.95)

M.C. Rescues Some D-Street Releases

M.C. braved the rain to hit up D-Street today. Let's see what he found...

Rescuers 2-Pack with Bernard and Bianca from Animation 2 for $26.95. He was excited enough to wake up early and go grab these. I enjoy the design, but not enough to grab them. Especially since I never really had a connection to this movie. No real line reported and plenty of the 2-pack still left. We will probably see them for sale at tonight's trading event at the Contemporary.

Junior 5 also officially released today. M.C. grabbed some chaser shots. Oddly enough, they were out in the open in the display.

Smoke and Mirrors. Love this one! Looks like Junior 5 is giving us the first clear part Jrs. The smoke is actually painted onto a clear head and body.

Peanut Butter and Jelly. Don't like as much, but a cool use of a clear purple bottom.

Also today, the 3" Valentine's Day figure was out in the stores. This is a very lovely display.

Release Weekend News

A few interesting notes about the latest slue of Vinylmation releases. First off, D-Tour. One of the original six designs that we saw Disney release photos of was NOT available for purchase at D-Street this weekend.

Flowers & Vines has not yet, to our knowledge seen the store shelves. In it's place was a design Disney hadn't told us about.

Headphones Mickey, a figure we reported for sale on eBay a few days ago, is fully stocked at D-Street. Here's a peek at the shelf as it looked last night.

I saw a lot of interest in these new designs. We also learned via Disney Artist Eric Caszatt's Twitter that: "Artists at DDG created flat 2D art that Maria Clapsis translated to the Vinylmation Mickey platform." I was wondering about that as the first thing I did when I ripped open my first D-Tour was check the bottom of the feet... no credit given.

Next up, when Disney released the turn around pictures for the Theme Park Favorites, there were two we had not seen on the series poster.

They are variant designs of the yellow "Classic Fan" figure from the poster. A look in the D-Street display case...

...and the shelves...

...show no sign of the Red and Blue versions. Might these be more variant Cast Traders? In retrospect, this is a great series to have such traders. As this is series geared toward the guests of the parks that are not necessarily into Vinylmation yet and Disney would like to hook them on the idea of trading. A concept that hooked a lot of us into this hobby in the first place. Your thoughts?

Also available this weekend for the first time state side, the Chinese Zodiac series.

No oddities here. And the final release was this 9" Valentine's Day piece from Holiday 3.

Also of note around Downtown Disney...

The shelves where stocked with plenty of Astrology, 2012s, Flags and Nerds Rock! (minus Daisy) but notably missing from D-Street were the WDW 40th figures and Sea Creatures. Granted, there are a ton of new releases, so they probably had to move them around property to make space.

We also saw signs that Urban 6 is on sale for Buy One, Get One 50% off. Did you pick up any new Vinylmation this busy weekend?

Episode 055 Elephant Bathing Pool

Ep. 055 Elephant Bathing Pool This week we talk about Furry Friends and Disney's decision to pull the product from store shelves. Annemarie joins us once again to give her first hand input. We also review the newly released Animation 2 series. There are a ton of new releases dates to let you know about as well. And we interview special guest Mellisa French. A teach who used Vinylmation as the base of a series of class art projects.

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