Category Archives: Pop Culture

All pop culture focuses be they film, comic book, toys or television. One group brings these worlds together.

Exploring Toy Fair 2016: Playmobil

Logo - Toy Fair - 2016

In keeping with the presentations from the 2016 Toy Fair, I wanted to share a quick group of images that I saw in the Playmobil booth. There aren’t a lot of them but I think you will enjoy them.

Logo - Playmobil

I noticed this larger than life NY Rangers figurine as I walked by their booth and sadly they were not taking any additional appointments for the day and the rest of my time was pretty locked up just the same. Fortunately, I was able to quickly zoom in and snap some photographs of the hockey figurines along with the giant Ranger. I didn’t sway from my focus and see if anything else was perfect for this post since everyone in the booth was taking care of business at this time. Next year I will make an appointment but that being said aren’t these hockey figures cool?

toy fair, toy fair 2016, playmobil
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Exploring Toy Fair 2016: Crayola

Logo - Toy Fair - 2016

It’s clear that Crayola is one of the most iconic brands in the history of creative play from their being the creator of the famous wax crayons that I am pretty sure every single one of us owned as a child. I have fond memories of the original small box of “9” and if you were a lucky duck you might have gotten that big “64” box with colors you could only imagine existing. Do you remember that it even had a sharpener on the box? I do. During Toy Fair, Skeleton Pete and I explored the offerings that were happening in the Crayola pavilion and I am presenting them to you below.

Logo - Crayola

As with many of the Toy Fair attending vendors, the press outlets must set up an appointment to explore the offerings so one of their team can provide insight on the product line and field any questions that you might have about what you were seeing. As we entered we were treated to this delicious cupcake and a cookie. Yes I ate them both because wandering the Javits Center in this fashion is draining and exhausting.

toy fair, toy fair 2016, crayola

toy fair, toy fair 2016, crayola
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Exploring Toy Fair 2016: Fat Brain Toys

Logo - Toy Fair - 2016

As noted only a few posts ago, my exploration of the 2016 Toy Fair was done and while a considerable amount of my narratives will be located on PiercingMetal.com there are other items that I found of real interest and fell outside of my usual wheelhouse. As a scribe you also meet some awesome reps from numerous different companies and this post focuses on what was observed at Fat Brain Toys. Take a look.

Logo - Fat Brain Toys

Skeleton Pete and I had gotten to the point of expanded exploration at this point of the convention and what I mean by that is how we were between the locked in appointments and now was the perfect time to see what else could be discovered. The large bins with this colorful goop type stuff caught my eye and I learned from the Chizcomm PR rep Stephanie that it was known as magic sand. I grew up on Play Doh, Silly Putty and even those grosser things like “Slime” so found the sand to be super interesting.

fat brain toys, toy fair 2016

This stuff was amazing. It really felt like sand and yet there was nothing on your hands when you were done mushing it around between your fingers or molding shapes. Even the famous clays I grew up with didn’t offer that to happen to you.

fat brain toys, toy fair 2016
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Exploring Toy Fair 2015: Colorforms and Folkmanis Puppets

logo-toy-fair-2015

As previously announced here on the Chronicles, I had attended the always amazing Toy Fair for my PiercingMetal.com website. This year I wanted to expand upon the findings at the event by using this blog to feature the stuff that just didn’t fit over there. I’ll begin with two company’s that I love and showcase some Colorforms and Folkmanis Puppets visuals.

logo-colorforms

When I was growing up, there was always something cool coming out from Colorforms and that tradition seems to be continuing into 2015 as you can see with these fun packs. Two popular licenses such as Spider-Man and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are sure to appeal to those fans of the characters and this toy.

colorforms, toy fair 2015

colorforms, toy fair 2015
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Checking Out The Nanodots “Gyro” by Nano Magnetics

I’ve been hitting the American International Toy Fair with my PiercingMetal.com website for a few years now and if this is something that you weren’t aware of you can click on THIS LINK to open up numerous posts about the event on that website. Historically speaking, I’ve only ever used The Chronicles to mention that we were attending but with this years event the time for change has come and additional coverage will be posted here. I’m not sure yet at this point but will decide once I am exploring the halls of Javits in February where I will again be attending as a member of the press. Recently I received an item in the mail from the fine folks at Nano Magnetics, the makers of these cool little construction dots that are magnetized. I met them at one of the Toy Fair conventions a few years ago and we kept in touch. I felt that featuring this item in a post made the most sense so behold “GYRO”. They come in this cool box which is about 5″ by 5″ in case you wondered.

Opening it up you see that four parts make up the set along with a stand for your desk in case you want to display them to the people who are visiting you. The two clear objects appear to have all the techno-stuff to them and they bear the most weight. The two colored spheres are lighter and I imagine contain less parts on the inside.


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