ToyCyte: Toy Culture Collected

Perhaps the very last 1/6th scale figure I ever, ever, ever thought I’d see, mute Britcom star (and possible space alien) Mr. Bean is finally on his way from Hong Kong’s Enterbay. When last we reported on this in September, the final details were a bit hazy, but Enterbay has since published a small gallery of photos and established a suggested US retail price of $150.

Maybe it’s his lack of a context for any possible collection that makes him a perfect part of every collection, being a character that never seems to have a comfortable place in the real world anyhow. I probably can’t count the number of lonely Friday nights in high school that Mr. Bean and I spent together, thanks to local channel WLIW.

Mr. Bean comes dressed in his signature brown suit, has six expressive hands, his teddy bear (brilliantly named ‘Teddy’), and his suitcase. What I’m most interested in is the fact that above Mr. Bean’s perma-smile is a ’360 degree eye system’, which definitely implies articulated eyeballs – ideally suited to create all kinds of awesome, creepy poseability. Because I have a dark sense of humor, I’m immediately envisioning him obliviously sidling up to Ash Wood’s similarly-scaled Les Mort 13, or a Hot Toys Hellboy.

While the ‘BUY’ button on the Enterbay website seems to be busted for this particular item, I’m inclined to say DON’T pay the $250 price tag that some sites are claiming, and wait for the projected ‘sometime in January’ release date.