Ugly Toys.

[LamangoNumber2]

I have a question. I've recently found some of my old Muppet Plushes (A small Muppet Baby naked Kermit that I customized to be Robin), an Animal (With it's eyesbrows acting like a mustache, eyes, and nose upside down on his head.), and a few others. Then I found some Fozzies... And I have to ask this. What the heck did Fozzie do to tick off so many plush toy makers? To make matters worse, I went to Tough Pigs, and re-read the Ugly Toy Pagents, and the Fozzie plush toys are hideous! So Hideous in fact, one of the toys, became a reaction image just as well as an Ugly Beaker, and a Bert, called Burt, with enlarged pupils.
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/9385/fozzie3.jpg
See? Did Fozzie somehow take in the murder of every Plush maker's family?

 

[Drtooth]

I'm sorry, but these are a buzzillion times worse. Grover is basically just a reused Elmo and worst of all, Snuffy has EARS. There's no way ANYONE could overlook something as obvious as a character with no ears, and then giving them huge elephant ears like that.

 

[matleo]

I'm goingto go out on a limb and say that at some pint the company who made those keychains made Dr. Seuss keychains. Snuffy looks a lot like Horton there.

 

[LamangoNumber2]

I'm sorry, but these are a buzzillion times worse. Grover is basically just a reused Elmo and worst of all, Snuffy has EARS. There's no way ANYONE could overlook something as obvious as a character with no ears, and then giving them huge elephant ears like that.

...Wow... Just wow.... But seriously, why do toy makers seem to hate Fozzie? Also, Gonzo's one for ugly toys, but he is sorta...Ugly to begin with, same with Animal... But how can someone mess up something as simple as Grover?

 

[Drtooth]

Plush dolls are pretty difficult to master. As one member once put it, a figurine is based off a clay sculpture... we can get a lot more detail into it. A plush is basically a stuffed pillow shaped like something. There have been great Muppet plush toys over the years... the Fisher Price and Macy's Kermits being the highest quality ones, I feel... Fozzie is tricky to get down right... there are some that were good, some that looked completely off. Gonzo? nose... his nose is sculpted in foam giving it a unique shape. Again, pillow stuffing makes the shape seem completely off... unless we're talking Baby Gonzo, since the nose is larger in proportion to the head.

Animal merchandise I'm never really happy with. Everyone seems to cheat it with the pink fuzzy lollipop look. But you actually look at the puppet... he's got layered small hairs over an orange foam head. And some are lighter pink, some are almost a dark red... The only thing I've seen get it right was the Palisades action figures. AS long as he's not a fuzzy pink lollipop and at least has a furry head (difference between fuzzy and furry... furry is hairier) it's an improvement. Some characters never work well in plush.

But these seem to be carnival toys. There's such a weird mindset behind them. They have to be made cheaply, yet it takes a fortune to actually win one. You'd think they could just give them away for what they cost to produce (or at LEAST sell them at stores). Some of them are quite good looking... Nanco had some good ones. I saw a Megaman that made me want to smash open the claw machine. I even went nuts trying to win a large Heathcliff once. But these Muppet plush you're talking about aren't worth it, even if it's such a sure thing that it's hanging off the edge and all you'd need to do is drop the claw in the vicinity of the plush to knock it back down.

Disney IS planning a line of Plush, and I'm told they're quite nice. We just have to wait for the movie, though.