Friday, August 23, 2024

Toy Store-y

On our trip to Canada, my son jumped at the chance to buy a Kinder Egg that doesn't have the American limitations on it. I guess somebody once choked on a Kinder Egg toy years ago, so they made a regulation that no candy can have a toy inside. Kinder Eggs found a way around that regulation to still sell chocolate egg-like candy and toys together, but it's not having chocolate eggs with a toy inside. In Canada, however, there was no such tragedy, therefore, no such need for governmental overreach.

They had a lot of different properties he could choose from for the prize in his Kinder Egg, but my son wasn't motivated to buy any of them. He just wanted the different-style egg. He asked his sisters what egg he should get, and was on the verge of buying a My Little Pony egg, when I told him to get a Toy Story egg instead.

He did, and it came with a Buzz Lightyear inside.


 It's a tiny little figurine, but it's got a pretty great paint job. Little gave me the figure, since all he wanted was the egg. I didn't know what to do with it. I set it up on my dashboard and left it there. It fell over as soon as I began driving, and lay face down for the majority of the time it spent in my car. Here and there I would set it back up, but it always fell over again soon. I considered gluing its feet down, but someday I'd want to take it out, and then it would leave behind gluey footprints that would make my truck look grosser than it should, so I didn't.

How could I use this guy, though? Should I just throw it away or could something be done with this little Buzz Lightyear?

Then I remembered what Empire Toy Works has on his space station.

His space station has a toy store in it, and he uses little bitty figurines for the toys that are for sale there. He often has other pictures like this one below of his action figures playing with action figures too.

I realized that I could do the same with this Buzz Lightyear. He didn't have to be chucked in the garbage can and forgotten. He could live again.

He might be a little big, but he works. He looks fine with a 1/18 figure holding him as a toy.

He can be the great big, deluxe Buzz Lightyear that costs a ton of money and a kid like me could never afford. I guess I'll have to get a few more similar figures. For that matter, the figures that came with the 1/72 scale ships that I have could be thrown into a photo as some of the other toys in the store. Maybe if I get more figures from gumball machines, I could stock out a toy store. Could be cool.

No comments: