I love Family Guy.  Now, I realize that it’s a show that you either love or hate – there’s no middle ground.  Either you like the style of humor, the use of Manatee jokes, and the often rambling (or non-existant) plots, or you despise them with ever fiber of your very being. 

Mezco has been doing a bang up job on their action figures based on the show.  We’ve gotten some terrific original characters, including Herbert, who I recently reviewed right here at Quick Stop.  And they’ve done some much appreciated variants, boxed sets, and even large scale figures.

For this year’s San Diego Comic Con, Mezco did an exclusive large scale figure.  Standing 12″ tall, the Evil Monkey from Chris’ closet can now threaten you with his evil gesture!  And in this scale, he’s actually pretty close to reality, if you consider a cartoon monkey some form of reality.

If you have any questions, drop me a line at mwc@mwctoys.com, or swing by my site, Michael’s Review of the Week, for more toy review goodness.

The Evil Monkey!

 

 

Packaging – ***
Since he’s so big, you’d expect a big box, and that’s what you get.  It’s also a fairly plain white box, with simple black outlined graphics and text.  It does the job though, keeping him safely cradled inside.  It also points out the critical highlights, such as his exclusivity, size and flocking.  This isn’t a ‘display it on the shelf’ sort of box, but gets job number one done.

 

 

Sculpting – ***1/2
Cartoon based sculpts are never as easy as people think.  Translating a two dimensional character to three is tough enough, but the appearance of animated characters (particularly proportion and scale) can vary from scene to scene, and especially episode to episode.

 

 

That being said, Mezco has done a very good job with this translation.  The body, limbs and proportions are all excellent, and the expression matches the source material perfectly.  If I have one nit to pick, it’s in the size of the mouth around the teeth.  Generally on the show – but not always – the upper part of the mouth and lips are larger then they are here, rising above his teeth more.  Here, the entire mouth around the teeth is pretty much the same size, with little difference between the upper section and the lower jaw.  It’s not a huge problem, and depends on your angle as well.

Paint – ***1/2
One of the coolest features of this guy is his flocking.  It cuts down on actual paint of course, but looks much, much better than all that open expanse of plain brown paint would have.  It’s also done extremely well, with a very even coating and almost no signs of rubbing or damage.  The joints at the hips, neck and tail are also engineered in such a way that none of the flocking rubbed off during the few weeks I’ve been goofing around with him.

 

 

If it were merely the flocking I was grading him on here, he’d be a four star figure.  Unfortunately, there are some issues with the paint on the face.  The eyes are great, with clean lines and even pupils.  I have him sitting about three feet above my head at work, pointing down at me, and his stare is drilling into the back of my head.

But the only major issue is in the teeth, where the bright white slops over onto the upper and lower lip in a number of places.  Since the teeth are recessed back from the lips, it’s not super obvious in photos, but in person it’s pretty clear. 

 Articulation – ***
For a rotocast figure, and a cartoon design at that, he’s pretty well articulated.  He has a ball jointed neck (yay!), and ball jointed shoulders, which work quite well and have a nice range of movement.  He also has cut wrists and ankles, so you can turn the hands or reposition the feet.  And finally, his tail has not one, not two, but three cut joints, allowing you to position it in a myriad number of ways.

 

 

Accessories – Bupkis
Nope, nada, zippo.  Not sure there was anything actually important, although we have seen him kicking back and enjoying some Foghat and a little doob on the show.  I suspect that might have been pushing it though.

Fun Factor – ***1/2
Kids love monkeys.  Okay, so most will have no idea who he is unless they watch the show, and come to think of it, his expression may scar them for life.  God knows, it hasn’t been good for Chris.  So maybe he’s best suited to the adult crowd.  But even they’ll find him real ‘fun’, and not just a display piece.  Folks at work will get no end of humor out of seeing him in your cube, although he might end up in some poses you hadn’t expected while your at lunch.  Ah, those crazy co-workers.

 

 

Value – **1/2
He’s a convention exclusive.  He’s huge.  He’s flocked.  He’s licensed.  And I doubt they made very many.  I was originally going to give him a half star less in this category…but then I got to thinking.  Hey, I gave that I.W.G. Sasquatch two stars here, and he was about the same price – non-licensed, much smaller, and less articulated.  That doesn’t seem quite fair…

After more consideration, the $45 price tag did seem about average for a rotocast figure of this scale and quality, particularly with the exceptional flocking.  That stuff ain’t cheap by any means.

 

 

Things to Watch Out For –
The monkey came packed with some protective foam around the inside of the shoulder and neck joints.  This is there to protect the flocking during shipment.  After it was removed, and I played around with the joints for awhile, I didn’t notice any flocking getting rubbed off, unlike the recent I.W.G. Sasquatch I reviewed, but I’d still be careful when using those three joints.

Overall – ***1/2
When I usually sit down to write a review, I have an overall score already in my head.  I then break the figure down into it’s components, looking at each area individually.  And then I come back to my overall, taking into consideration the various weights of each category, and that seperate undefinable ‘it’ factor.

When I started this review, I had three stars in my head.  But by the time I got done looking over the figure again, playing around with it, and having it in my office for awhile, that score climbed to ***1/2.  This is a damn cool figure, and is probably the most sensible of all the large scale cartoon figures Mezco has done so far, since it approximates real size in your own environment.  The price point seemed a tad high at first, until I started considering some of the other SDCC exclusives and their cost, and similarly flocked figures.  In the end, I’m really glad I picked him up, and he’s quickly becoming one of my favorite exclusives from this year’s show. 

Where to Buy –
Obviously, the Con was your best choice.  But Mezco Direct, Mezco’s own online store, should have some available soon.  You can put in a pre-order there now, and they cost $45 plus shipping.

 

Comments: 1 Comment

One Response to “Toy Box: The Evil Monkey” Pedro Says: August 10th, 2009 at 7:17 pm WWWWWWWWWWWWOAAAAAAAAA I WANT ONE OF THEESEE !!! PLZZZZZZZZZZZZ Where did u buy it? Leave a Reply Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website Δ