You know, 2011 was a pretty great year for custom action figures. Jin Saotome perked my interested early on with his Earthworm Jim, and now thanks to his newest custom Mega Man, I can't stop thinking about other great custom figure opportunities. Quite a while ago I found a pair of custom Ace Ducks from the Ninja Turtles line, but I feel at this point, Ninja Turtles are well covered. As are G.I. Joes. And Transformers. I know for a fact that there are some really awesome cartoons and things from my childhood that are just begging to get real toy lines and especially to have some custom figures pop up, but haven't been given the proper attention just yet. So then, hit the jump for the 5 properties I'd like to see custom figures of in 2012.
5. Samurai Pizza Cats
So many mornings were spent as a kid desperately trying to get up in time to actually catch a full episode of Samurai Pizza Cats, though 6 am is nearly impossible at any age. Why were the networks so cruel as to stuff this one in a slot I'd never get to enjoy? Even so, I'm not the only one who loves this Tatsunoko property that was surprisingly dubbed fairly well in English, at least compared to other things. And hey, it even takes a good-natured shot at my boys the TMNT, so I can find the fun there. But do we have a bunch of customs? Nuh-uh. I'm not even entirely sure they had official figures widely available in the US, though Japan and Europe had some model kits similar to Gundams. Someone is going to have to change this as I don't think I can live in a world where we don't have figures of cats in robotic samurai outfits.
4. Freakazoid!
Back in the heyday of Warner Bros 90 cartoons, Animaniacs and Pinky & The Brain were all sorts of popular, but a slightly less-remembered show, Freakazoid!, was where a lot of experimental potential was getting sunk. Taking a cue from The Tick, Freakazoid! utterly lampoons the super hero genre by inventing absolutely ridiculous characters and situations. The title character, Freakazoid, is the purest kind of off-the-wall madness, creating episodes where he stops a villain by imitating Jerry Lewis or just simply telling him he's fed up with his antics and to leave everyone alone. However, there is some shining hope here as Figure Realm customizer warrack made a pretty darn convincing Freakazid earlier this year. Let's keep that streak going into next year, yes?
3. Darkwing Duck
I don't know a single person who doesn't know of and love Darkwing Duck, the somewhat spin-off of Ducktales staring Drake Mallard, a super hero duck in a snazzy outfit with a gas gun and the best sidekick ever, Launchpad McQuack. To be fair, Darkwing Duck did have a toy line, but compared to what we could have seen, it didn't go far enough. Just imagine what a Revoltech Darkwing Duck figure would look like. Worse still, we never got a Gizmoduck figure! Blathering blatherskite, that's unacceptable! But fear not, as yet another Figure Realm custom toy maker, this time G Brand (he did that set of Ninja Turtles I loved) has a custom Gizmoduck from 2009 that is pure win.
2. Bucky O'Hare
Bucky O'Hare was sadly not long for this world, only managing to get 13 episodes, a pair of video games on the NES and arcade respectively, and a toy line that didn't make it past the first wave despite being rather good and already having the second wave prototyped and ready to color for shipping. The problem was, from what I'm understanding, Bucky was a product of the "Hey Ninja Turtles was an anthropomorphic team of heroes based on a comic series so let's do that again" craze. The actual graphic novel is...silly at best, but the show holds up as pure early 90's camp. Yet despite having one of the funnest theme songs and best licensed NES games of the time, we don't have a flood of custom figures. Figure Realm user asher-B has one of the very few Bucky O'Hare customs, going all the way back to 2008, but the result is more "What if Frank Miller designed Bucky O'Hare?" Again, it's a great start, so let's see some more. Let's see another Bucky! Let's see a Deadeye Duck, please! Let's see Jenny the cat witch! Lots of great options here, so don't waste it!
1. Swat Kats
Freaking yes. If you weren't watching Swat Kats, I really don't know what to tell you. I wish I could have included the Season 1 intro instead of Season 2, but embedding is disabled by all the videos I found (go watch it here for some of the best guitar licks since Power Rangers). I mean hot damn, if that intro doesn't get you pumped as $#%&, you may be on life support. Cats, flying a fighter jet, and the cat in charge of the weapons system is voiced by the same voice actor who played Donatello in the 1987 cartoon? (That'd be Barry Gordon by the way.) Swat Kats actually did have a toy line that consisted of...four figures. And it didn't even include the Turbokat vehicle! Unforgivable! Figure Realm customizer gigantopithecus tried his best in 2010 to give us T-Bone, Razor, and the Turbokat, and succeeded with mixed results. We have got to get the word out and find a wide variety of custom toy designers ready to pick up the slack and give us some real figures. C'mon, you know they'd be great!
Bonus: The Mother *&$%#@! Cheetahmen! (NSFW)
Do I look like I'm kidding? Take a look at an official commercial. Yes, Action 52 and the never-released stand-alone sequel Cheetahmen II do not represent the finest is either presentation or nostalgia, but the Cheetahmen were actually designed to have an action figure line that never happened. Not fair! Some things, such as Street Sharks, ended up being great precisely because of the toy line! We can't deny ourselves of something potentially Earth-shatteringly fantastic! These are karate cheetahs! Karate cheetahs! Frick, someone get on this and get me some custom Cheetahmen right freaking now!
There, I'm done. I think I got that out of my system, and conveniently right before the year was up. So there you have it, a desperate plea to custom figure makers out there to fulfill my entitlement fantasies. You make these and I guarantee coverage! But this can't just be about me. Nope, I want to know what everyone else wants to see, or if my choices are profoundly stupid (hint: they're not). Tomofolk, what custom action figures do you want to see in 2012? Let's get the suggestions going!
P.S. If anyone can provide better videos than the ones above, please do leave them as comments and I will gladly make the swap. That is all! Happy end of 2011!