Fisher-Price's Imaginext toyline has been pumping out
Toy Story themed figures and sets for a while now. I see them whenever I look for the Imaginext DC superhero offerings, which is often. Lots of cute and cool stuff, but nothing has 'jumped out at me.'
Until now.
My limited familiarity with the series meant I was taken completely by surprise when I saw these
Imaginext 'Army Men' the other day. Even though the ubiquitous
Little Green Army Men have made many appearances in Toy Story themed toy sets (including Lego) over the years, it still never ceases to amaze me when they transcend their original cheap plastic forms and appear re-imagined yet exactly how they should be all at the same time.
So meta!
Like most red blooded American boys I had hundreds, maybe thousands of Little Green Army Men throughout my childhood, so seeing them re-imagined in the Imaginext style tickles me to no end!
The set comes with a Medic, a Soldier, a mine detector, binoculars and a cot. Each figure also has a removable 'base' so they can appear like your regular green army men or it can be removed so they can be used in Imaginext vehicles and playsets. Brilliant!
No weapons, but what do you expect from a pre-school line in 2013? Regardless, the play possibilities are near endless with these guys.I can just imagine them sweeping the living room floor for mines and hauling away the
dead undead on their cot. Good times!
By now I know you are wondering: what is up with that price tag? Now THAT'S a story:
I found these at Target a couple weeks ago, just lying on a random toy aisle shelf. It was the only set of
Imaginext Army Men and I did not see a shelf or peg with a price for them (and at the time they did not have a price tag on them,) so I sought out the 'price checker' machine to see what they were going for. The price checker showed that the figures were not in the system.
Pro tip: if a toy you want is not in the system, take it to the front. Sometimes you can get a better than retail deal if the checker can't find an actual price and just throws a number out to make the sale. Although sometimes they find the right price, and sometimes they throw a higher number out too. It's a crap-shoot, but it can pay off, and what's the worst that can happen? You alerted them to an item not in their system. Good karma. It's a win for them (they find out about the item,) and for you (you sometimes get a good price or good karma at the very least.)
This time it payed off for me, but in a very odd and unexpected way:
So I took the figures to the front. The checker couldn't find it in the main system either. She was very helpful, asked the other checkers around, and offered to go to the back etc to find the price. By then the effort wasn't worth it any more, so I said 'no thanks' and proceeded with my other purchases.
I returned to the same Target the other day and while perusing their clearance aisle, I saw what I assume was the same pack of Army Men with a clearance tag on them. And the price? $1.26?!?! The tag even says 'Was $5.00' which is off by a few bucks to begin with.
I suppose an employee later found the set up front behind the registers and thought it may have been a return or that there was something wrong with it. I can further speculate that they saw two of the 'same' figure in the pack and without looking any closer figured that a customer had pulled the old 'Toy-Aisle Troll' switcharoo before returning the set (see cardback below to further cement that theory), but that's all mere conjecture.
Either way I guess not finding it in the system led them to come up with a ridiculously low price and they just tossed it in with all the other clearance toys, where I later happened onto it again and GLADLY paid the buck twenty six! I'd almost feel guilty but for the fact that all I did was ask about the price of a product that was not in their computer system. They did the rest and I could care less what their mindset was now that I have these cool Army Men!
To add oddness to non-injury, I wonder how
Disney feels about shilling the characters of their now direct rival
DC Comics? I don't know how 'across the board' this error is, but it's funny to see '
Disney/Pixar Toy Story' logo above
Batman and friends! This isn't a mere packaging error, it's a fulll on print error, and a big one!
Until I look into this error further and determine how common it is or isn't, I think I'll keep this set packaged up. Heck, maybe the error is why Target put the set on clearance? Does anyone know what's up with this? UPDATE: I've personally seen this set now on three occasions; each time it has the Batman line image on the back. I have not noticed this error on any other Toy Story themed figure sets.
Whatever the case may be, I now have a cool toy, a cool error package, and a cool story...all for $1.26. CHEAP!