The Munsters - Uncle Gilbert Action Figure by Diamond Select Toys

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I've always loved The Munsters and The Addams Family, ever since I was little, now I'm an adult, I don't laugh as much at the jokes and situations as I used to but there is something weirdly wholesome and sweet about they way both those families just accept anyone, no matter how weird they look except "normal looking folks" that is, except of course for Poor Marilyn Munster, who seems to have been brushed with the ugly stick by the family's standards!

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One of my Favourite character's from The Munsters is Uncle Gilbert, played by Richard Hale, who only appears in one episode, "Love Comes to Mockingbird Heights" and only for a few minutes at the end.

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In the episode, poor unlucky in love Marilyn gets taken in by an opportunistic Bank Clerk who wants to get close to her to get even closer to the crate full of Gold Doubloons  Uncle Gilbert sends to the family to look after for him until he arrives.

Being The Creature from The Black Lagoon, he has collected this huge treasure (a total of $180,000) which he got from savaging shipwrecks etc

Lily doesn't feel good having that much money in the house and so decides it's safer to deposit it in the bank while they await Uncle Gilbert's arrival, and it is there that Marilyn meets a young gold digging bank clerk who takes an interest in her and more especially,  Uncle Gilbert's treasure.

That said it will come as no surprise that I was really pleased to discover that Diamond Select Toys produced a range of four Munsters action figures which included Uncle Gilbert as part of the range.

This was back in 2013 as you can see from the above picture which was a preview photo from the Diamond Toy Fair of that year, that the other three figures in this series were Hot Rod Herman, Race Way Lily, Hot Rod Grampa and of course Uncle Gilbert.

While I found it weird that they included Uncle Gilbert in this set as the theme was obviously The Munsters Hot Rod episode from 27th May 1965, but Love comes to Mockingbird Lane was aired on 22nd April 1965 and has nothing to do with Herman's stint as a Road Racer, I am very glad they released him as part of the set, I would just love to know why!

Anyway, I guess You want to see the figure itself now, so here he is... I had planned to get another so I could have him out of the package to display him as unfortunately he comes in on of those packages that will be completely destroyed during opening.

But sadly, I didn't manage to; he was the last one on Amazon when I purchased him for £17.70 and yesterday, I decided to look on Amazon to see if  he is now available for sale, the good thing he is, the bad thing is he now is listed for £91.33! 

So it's really not likely I'm going to get another one any time soon!

Anyhoo, as the previous picture of him in his package wasn't a close up... here's one so you can see his handsome face in more detail!

One thing I have to say, which should come as no surprise, if you've read any of my other posts and know that I have a thing for The Creature from The Black Lagoon,  is that I really love this sculpt.

The artist Jean St. Jean did such an awesome job on this figure and even though he is clothed in the style of his Munsters incarnation he is not only a very true likeness to that incarnation but also to the character Uncle Gilbert is based on.

I love the paint on his eyes too, they really do look similar to a toad or frog's eyes. I would love to be able to hold him and check out the rest of the sculpt in person but until I get another, and knowing it would set me back 91 quid to get one, I'm going to have to keep that wish to one side for now.

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By the way, if you would like a little more information in the artist who came up with this sculpt, you can read an interview with him by clicking the link in the above paragraph.

I was happy enough with my Uncle Gilbert figure, and not being massively enamoured with the others in this run, I initially thought I'd leave it at that...

Until I received him and discovered that each figure comes with a section of The Munster's staircase and if you do get the rest of the figures, you can display them on an awesome diorama the staircase of The Munster House at 1313 Mockingbird Lane, Mockingbird Heights, California.

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I absolutely love this diorama set, and really want to have it so I could display a loose Uncle Gilbert or Herman walking down it, or as the above photograph shows, with a miniature version of Eddie Munster's pet "Spot" who lives under the stairs and comes complete with nasal flames as part of the finished piece.

But alas, that too will have to wait a while as they are all averaging at £42 on Amazon now, and like I said to remove them the packaging has to be destroyed, which will considerably lower their value so even if I did have them, I'd probably keep them in their packaging too and then try and find more of them loose or for cheaps so I can remove them form the package without feeling bad about it!

Anyway, I found a really good review of this and the other characters in the set, plus the diorama on mwctoys.com so if you want to check them all out, my advise is to click the link in the name.

Well, that's it for now,

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Fugglers - Mrs. McGettrick / Spin Master

Around 2010/2011,  I noticed a very cute and very strange style of handmade cuddly toys being sold on Etsy by a very talented woman called Mrs. McGettrick ...

The thing that made these "teddies" stand out and gave them their appeal to myself and many others was the fact they had teefs... proper human - bite you in the bum when you're not looking teefs!

So of course I fell in love...

I kept an eye on them for the next couple of years but for some reason never got around to buying one to love up and after a while I not really but kind of forgot about them, then remembered and so recently I went looking for them and found them gone!?!

By then it was 2017/2018 time, and I had procrastinated so long that I had apparently missed my chance...

Mrs. McGettrick's shop was now closed and all that was left to let me know I hadn't hallucinated their cuteness was a few pages of reviews from lucky customers who didn't stupidly wait until it was too late to bring home a Fuggler to love...

Now I know this will surprise you all but this made me want one all the more, so armed with the name Fuggler I went searching to see if someone had had enough of their one and wanted to sell him to me, instead I found something even better; and also the reason why Mrs. McGettrick had to close down her Etsy store...

As you can see from this thread I found on her facebook page ... Spin Master have taken over Mrs. McGettrick's Breeding Programme and began releasing them, so on the plus side, there are more chances for me to find and adopt the Fugglers of my dreams but on the con side, they are of course mass produced and not handmade limited and slightly different quirky hand sewn little buggers like the original ones were... Swings and Roundabouts I guess.

Another thing I discovered was an interview with Mrs. McGettrick about the inspiration for her Fugglers and subsequent handing over the breeding programme to Spin Master Toys, you can read it here if you're interested.

 I'm pretty sure you know what comes next right?!

I checked out Fuggler.com and discovered a cute little page called Home, Horrible Home it was so adorable that after I'd had a good look all around the site I just had to take the opportunity to get myself one this time.

So now the problem was which one?

The graphics at the top of the page rotates to show several adorable little Fugglers that I'd be happy to give a home to, but out of all of them 2 really appealed to me... 

The Sketchy Squirrel - brown bushy tailed Fuggler and the Suspicious Red Fox Fuggler, perhaps because I see and hear their mammalian counterparts on a daily/nightly basis...

 Anyway for a start they would do, closely followed by the adorable Mr.Buttons a furry orange haired little bugger, Annoyed Alien , Grey Burlap Nightmare Bear and Grey Sickening Sloth!

The problem is, I always tend to want the more obscure or harder / more expensive versions of everything and of course Fugglers are no exception!

The other 2 I'm after are even more obscure; one is a cute little fluffy bunny, in brown or green and the other was called Sexy Beast but as that one is a semi-naked humanoid male with a 5 o'clock shadow and dirty grundies, it's very unlikely that Spin Master will release that one for children to snuggle up with any time soon!

So I'm going to give making my own one a go at some point soon.

The Home page of the website, has a lot of quirky little notes, such as a link entitled: What the heck is a Fuggler? When you click on it, this pops up...

All the info links on the page are animated to give the impression these little critters are not only alive but a bit mental too!

 Well that was me sold, so I decided on going looking, my first port of call was clicking on their "Adopt a Fuggler" section at the top of the page... unfortunately the places listed on the home page are all U.S. based shops.

So seeing as I'm in the U.K I had to get "creative", by that I mean check out Ebay and Amazon to see if there were any U.K based sellers of these adorable critters and if so, if they have one of the eight I'd happily give house room to...

I found quite a few on both sites so that was cool, only The red Fox which was my first choice seems to be permanently out of stock or being sold for stupid amounts on Amazon, so he was out...

 I decided I'd go for my second choice of Sketchy Squirrel.... And here he is!

I'll be doing a box opening and longer post on him soon, but for now you'll have to make do with the above picture!

Another thing that will really (not) surprise you, is while I was writing this post I couldn't stop myself from seeing who else was on offer and ended up buying Mr.Buttons as well, so you can expect a post on him soon too!

By the way, while purchasing him, I discovered an interesting little titbit of information...

It turns out that there is such a thing as a rare Mr. Buttons who comes with a golden button for his "BUTThole" instead of the standard brown? (don't quote me) button...

Another thing, you may not know is that the original - Mrs. McGettrick Fugglers didn't have BUTTholes, which may explain why they were so grumpy - constipation can do that to ya!

Another and exclusive to Spin Master's Fuggler incarnations is the addition of a range of Vinyl figures, so even if you can't get hold of your favourite soft bodied version, you can always buy a mini companion to stick in your pocket and take on your travels with you!

Something else I really like about Spin Master's range of Fugglers is they kept the original creature designs Mrs. McGettrick came up with so even though they are second generation and come with a BUTThole now, they are true to the original creations and the fun and quirkiness of the originals and Mrs. McGettrick's Fuggler Emporium.

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