Two New Playmobil Video Games This Week

For reals! It's been slow on the toy front but a Playmobil Circus game is coming to the Nintendo Wii this week, and a Playmobil Pirates game is coming to the Nintendo DS. It is presently unknown if any cool exclusive figures will be offered as mail-ins or some such, but hey-- heads up, gamers!

And apparently you can gamble with the dead. Truly, the pinnacle of electronic entertainment has arrived.

Unintentionally Freaky Figure: Clown from 3553 Circus Arena

One of the fun things about toy collecting-- or being a packrat-- is seeing old stuff in a new light when sorting through figures. I kept my "vintage" Playmobil-- the pre-1990 stuff from when I was a kid-- separate from the "modern" stuff, or "what I've bought since college." (There was a big gap in there.)

From the Red Circus Arena, the clown (pictured) is surprisingly freaky. The set is fairly standard fare-- a ring, a band, some nifty vac-metal instruments-- but holy crap, look at this thing. In a post-Dark Knight world the various lines and red markings are just a little more creepy, but here's where it gets really good. Those red lines on his face are not merely painted-- they're carved in. Not content to merely paint the face, Playmobil went the extra mile to really engrave the look on his face.

This sort of attention to detail-- molding elements versus painting them-- is something we'll look at a little more in the future. But for now, I gave the closest thing I've seen to a Playmobil slasher star one of my spare knives so he can HAUNT ALL YOUR DREAMS. Enjoy.

Toys "R" Us Gets Lots of New Playmobil (if you're in the USA)

It seems that all of a sudden, some (but not all) Toys "R" Us stores in the USA are getting a massive push of new product. Some stores have stuff in more than one aisle, with all sorts of sizes and price points to delight and amuse. Even more astonishing, there were loads of sets I haven't seen before, so being my lazy self, I didn't write down all the numbers for your reference. (Sorry.) Here are some of the things we saw in today's runs:

Circus
Small clown, $100 tent, dog act, pony act, tightrope, and what probably amounted to the entire new theme minus one or two sets.

Take Alongs
In addition to the 4774 Barbarian set we reported earlier, a new Knight set (4775) and Pirate set (4776) were available. It didn't seem like there was a spot for a fourth set, so that seems to be that.

Knights
A red dragon-with-barbarian is available for $20. It's the older dragon mold (the one with arms).

Dinosaurs
Seemingly the entire line is being sold at Toys "R" Us for roughly the same prices Playmobil sold it for directly in January. Even the boring little quad is there.

Romans
There's a Roman camp, 5838 Gladiators with tiger, and some larger sets you have no doubt seen elsewhere.

Christmas
The return of the Nativity Scene, and a new advent calendar packed with little woodland creatures. In other words, zzzzz.

Now if I wasn't so cheap to not have a camera phone, I could probably share pictures. Since so many new items were there today, it seems unlikely there would be too much more-- but it's nice to see the biggest toy retailer in the US picking up some serious slack for the brand. It's as close as we've ever seen to a full year's line outside of a specialty toy retailer.

Sadly, there were no new Specials (or Pals) to be seen, and there were no sign of the new blister packs we're told are being sold at select larger Wal-Mart stores. There were, however, a large number of older sets which have been at the stores for ages or have been restocked.