Hot Mash…
Super Impulse, famous for their line of impossibly small replicas of iconic toys, games and products, showed off a basket full of their Poptaters at the recent Toy Insider Sweet Suite Event.
Poptaters are a mash-up of Hasbro’s Mr. Potato Head and the world of pop culture personalities. A bit bigger than SI’s usual licensed collectibles, Poptaters feature characters from fandoms both obvious and surprisingly obscure. There are also generational leaps from Boomers to Gen A giving the product a wide appeal.
The Spud Abides…
At the Super Impulse booth, Lucky Trolls (aka Wishnicks) and Garbage Pail Kid Adam Bomb sat next to Child’s Play’s Chucky and Sonic The Hedgehog. Painter Bob Ross seemed prepared to render a happy little portrait of The Office‘s Dwight Shrute and there was even Kiss’s Gene Simmons replete with axe bass and dragon boots.
My favorite in this series is the perfect presentation of Jeff Bridges as “The Dude” from the film The Big Lebowski (1998). It’s the piece that made me laugh out loud.
I was a Pre-Teen Couch Potato…
National Toy Hall of Fame inductee Mr. Potato Head has gone through many revisions since its launch in 1952. I have fond memories of sitting on my living room couch (circa 1959-1960) happily pushing combinations of various eyes, noses, brows, and mouths into a variety of vegetables. Unfortunately, the original kit had a fatal flaw in requiring that kids raid the refrigerator for suitable noggins.
Tuber or Not Tuber…
I don’t think my parents realized when I convinced them to buy the toy that it would lead to a daily attack on the family food stock. Honestly, finances were tight and food security was the number one priority in my house. Finding me mangling the contents of our vegetable bin became contentious.
In the mid-1960s Hasbro rolled out a revamp with the inclusion of a plastic potato surrogate to host the facial parts and accessories. That likely saved innumerable pounds of produce from the waste bin and allowed for safer rounded points on the pieces.
SkeletonPete Says…
Getting a chance to relive a legacy play experience while celebrating a favorite franchise is the lure of Poptaters for me and I assume other collectors. Super Impulse keeps growing the options.
Just announced at San Diego Comic-Con and coming in the fall are Poptaters of Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie, Silent Bob, and Vocaloid virtual popstar Hatsune Miku. They’ll also be starchy renditions of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Sesame Street‘s Bert and Ernie, Star Trek‘s Mr. Spock, and other pop culture faves. (image courtesy of Super Impulse)
Poptaters figures stand approximately 4 inches tall and come with a selection of 11-14 interchangeable pieces. They come packaged in clear cylindrical display cases to show off on your collector shelves but don’t leave ‘em boxed up. Mixing and matching the various face and body parts is where all the fun lies.
The Pricing by item runs from $14.99 – $17.99.
is easily triggered.
