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The Worst Action Figure Ever?


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#1 Tortle

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Posted 04 June 2003 - 09:37 AM

Many of my reviews so far have been very positive. That's mainly because I have many a year of action figure collecting experience under my belt. Just for fun, I thought I would do a review of the absolute worst action figure I have ever owned. But to do this, I would have to return to a time where I wasn't quite as distinguishing in my tastes... a time when I would buy pretty much anything with the "Star Wars" logo on it... a time when I discovered how horribly bad action figures can be...

And now, the worst action figure I've ever owned is (drum roll, please)...

...and no, it's not Meckaneck, although he comes close... it is, in fact...

The POTF2 Scanning Trooper!

Click here for a pic of the Scanning Trooper. And now, on with the review!

Looks - 0 out of 5: Kenner decided to take lack of originality to a new level with this figure. The Scanning Trooper was made not only of a combination of rehashed figures, but with a combination of vintage and modern figures. He sports a POTF2 AT-ST Driver body and a vintage Imperial Officer head. As you can imagine, there's a gigantic clash in styles of the sculpt, and the figure just looks atrocious.

The only thing original on this figure is the forearms. Whup-de-do.

Articulation - 2 out of 5: The Scanning Trooper has the basic POTF2 articulation: head, shoulders, waist, and hips. While he has at least a little bit of articulation, it's not like you can do much with it. He can sit... but only with his legs straight out, like he's stretching his hamstring. "Scanning Trooper... with Hamstring-Stretching Action!!" :lol:

Accessories - 1 out of 5: He comes with the scanning box, which, although accurate to the movie, has approximately 0 play value. The box doesn't have any handles, so the Scanning Trooper can't really hold it. Basically he comes with an accessory that he cannot interact with, and does nothing but sit there next to him. Hm...

Play Value - 0 out of 5: The Scanning Troopers were shown in Star Wars for approximately two seconds, so it's not like you can re-enact scenes with them. While the same can be argued for the Cantina/Jabba's Palace aliens, at least the aliens look cool and you can imagine them doing cool stuff. The coolest thing I can imagine the Scanning Trooper doing is delivering UPS packages.

Coolness - 0 out of 5: The Scanning Trooper is probably the most boring character in the Star Wars galaxy, so Kenner was not starting off on a good foot to begin with. But couple that with the cheesy reused parts and crappy accessories, and you have probably the most uncool figure ever made.

Overall - 0.6 out of 5: Yes, this is the worst action figure I've ever had the displeasure of owning. I urge everyone NEVER to get this figure, even if it's given to you. Even completists should avoid this monstrosity.

-Nathan

PS - I encourage everyone to chime in on their least favorite action figures, too!
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Posted 04 June 2003 - 09:55 AM

Even completists should avoid this monstrosity.

:lol:

This was TOO funny, and too true, Nate.

But let's be fair a completist does need this. :p

Let me think about my worst figure and I'll post it.

Too funny Nate, too funny.
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#3 arforbes

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Posted 04 June 2003 - 10:10 AM

Ahaha! :lol:

That figure is pretty crappy looking. I just don't know why some companies feel the need to make crap like this! :p

:)
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#4 ToyMan

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Posted 04 June 2003 - 10:33 AM

this is the lamest toy i've ever purchased.

i think it clearly sucks more thank this "scanner" dude, because these were probably designed to NOT suck, and the toys from the series represent commonly-known figures.
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#5 Tortle

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Posted 04 June 2003 - 12:38 PM

Well, I would argue that the Scanner seems like a crappier toy, but I can't really tell for sure because I've never bought a DC Hero toy. I know for a fact that I would hate them, so I've been avoiding the line. But damn... that Clark Kent sucks the big one, so it's hard to decide which is crappier, the Scanner or Clark...

My review pertains to figures that I have personally owned, because I wouldn't be able to write a good review of a figure that I haven't personally "played with". If I was going to do a review of a toy that I thought was the worst of all time (regardless of whether or not I owned it), I would probably go with something from GI Joe Extreme or a Pretender Transformer. God damn, those things sucked arse...

-Nathan
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#6 ToyMan

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Posted 04 June 2003 - 12:51 PM

i can tell you, never having owned one but having played with a few, that i hate star wars and star trek toys. actually, i might want one of those borg/klingon fgures. those looked kinda sweet, eh? :lol:
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#7 Rokk

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Posted 04 June 2003 - 07:01 PM

...and no, it's not Meckaneck, although he comes close... it is, in fact...

;) When I first saw the title to this thread I thought for sure that your worst action figure was going to be the infamous Meckaneck. No doubt that he is one of the worst action figures I own.

Another terrible action figure I have is a Mon-El action figure. DC Direct started putting out Legion of Super-Heroes action figures a little while ago. I was thrilled. The first three they released included Lightning Lad (with a mechanical arm and a regular arm that you could switch), Cosmic Boy (with magnets in his hands and two metal balls) and Saturn Girl (lame). They are slowly but surely releasing more and more characters. Well, Mon-El was one of the next figures after the orginial three. At first blush, he looked like a nice sculpt. But, he is locked in a rigid pose and has very limited articulation. Well, the worse part was once you opened the package I was nearly knocked out by an overwhelming chemical plastic stench from this figure. On top of that, the rubber used for this figure was not rigid at all. You could easily bend the arms of this figure. Just terrible. Luckily, they have improved on the materials used for the Legion figures. But, their lack of good articulation and awkward poses still leave a lot to be desired.

Now, Mon-El or Meckaneck would win the award if it weren't for the fact that a friend of mine gave me some of those god awful DC pocket heroes. They are totally horrendous. Nuff said.
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Posted 05 June 2003 - 08:37 AM

There are so many brutal action figures in the world it would be hard to pick just one. Limiting it to figures I’ve owned makes it a little easier, but only a little easier.

I figured there are really 2 categories for me: (1) worst figure when I was a kid, and (2) worst figure as an adult collector.

For the worst figure as a kid I’ve really racked my brain. The first thought that came to my mind was, "What line of toys only required me to get one figure to realize I didn’t want any more?"

Adam Power (here) was the only figure I bought from the Power Lords, but his arms that bent both ways were pretty cool. Then the Chuck Norris toys came to mind. The Chuck figure I had only kicked backwards (Here) but he had some cool weapons, and his sidekick Kimo had a cool side arm feature. Plus they could interact with my Karate Kid figures: Daniel, Kreese, and Mr. Miyagi. These figures blew, but they were fun for a while.

I also had some Captain Power stuff, but it worked well with my Star Wars and G.I Joe stuff.

So while I had multiple toys I got interested in there are various reasons I lost interest in them. The toy line failed. I didn’t want to be a ninja anymore. They were too expensive. Or whatever other reasons popped up. So even though I didn’t want to think this could be the case it must come from one of my main toy lines: G.I. Joe, He-Man, or Star Wars.

While nothing with He-Man jumps out at me right away I’m sure there is some figure that could make a run at the title. Let’s face it Zodac wasn’t the greatest figure ever.

And G.I. Joe usually had some functionality to all of their figures. Maybe the Fridge was a bit of a stretch, but he was HUGE at the time. Hell, he’s still huge. Golobus was pretty far out there, but it was from the movie which made it ok.

So I guess this leaves me with Star Wars. I think that the vintage figures were great because they offered major figures, or lesser figures with excellent play value. But there were some figures that didn’t really inspire too much awe. Lobot didn’t have too much to offer as a mute cyborg, but he could act as the Chewie to Lando. The Gonk Droid didn’t really do much either, but there was always a need for droids in the SW universe. Plus he made that cool clicking sound.

But there is one figure that had no appeal to me as a child. When I opened him, as a gift, all I could think was, “What am I going to do with him?”

General Madine

Looks: This figure is based on one of the scariest characters in the SW universe. If one person in the SW universe was a child molester, then it was Madine. He had that crazy hair and dull way of speaking. Which Kenner was able to recreate with the look of this figure. Everything looks pretty good in terms of color, but his hair and beard are off. But at the time he was very much par for the course. 4 out of 5.

Articulation: Again this figure was par for the course at the time. There weren’t any SW figures with better articulation. Only G.I. Joe could beat SW in terms of articulation at the time. 4 out of 5.

Accessories: A POINTER?! I got an action figure and his accessory is a friggin’ pointer. Couldn’t they have at least thrown in a blaster too? You couldn’t even pretend it was a lightsaber because it was white. 0 out of 5.

Coolness: This figure was brutal. There wasn’t any use to him. Admiral Ackbar looked cooler and out ranked him. He wasn’t dressed for Hoth or Endor, so he couldn’t be used there either. His spot in the carrying case was quite secure because he was useless. 0 out of 5.

Overall: 8 out of 20. While it is a fair score it should still be penalized for being such a terrible figure. In an interesting side note, this figure is the most common figure I have come across that people don’t want. He is regularly the lowest priced and most plentiful.


For the worst figure as an adult collector I had just as much trouble, but at least things were a little “fresher” in my mind. Being that I have really only bought Star Wars figures as an adult it narrowed my search.

My first instinct was to blast some of the first figures Hasbro released: He-Man Luke, He-Man Lando, and He-Man Darth. Their weapons sucked, their poses sucked, but they still sucked less than Monkey-Faced Leia. But there was hope in the line with the release of C-3PO, and Boba Fett.

I do have to say that R5-D4 just missed being my choice. It was play value and a cool paint job that saved him this dishonor.

Then I moved on to Episode I because there was a bevy of brutal figures. The first of which came to mind was Ody, but at least he’s an alien. Then there was the overload of Anakin’s, Obi’s, Darth Maul’s, and Qui-Gon’s to deal with. But in a moment of clarity it came to me: Jar-Jar Binks.

Now I could easily start Jar-Jar bashing, but that’s not why I selected him. He was an innocent character; in fact it was only in America that he was met with such harsh hatred. And I need to be very specific with my Jar-Jar choice, because the plain Jar-Jar is a nice figure, although I would have preferred a different accessory.

The Jar-Jar I chose, as worst figure as an adult collector, was Jar-Jar Binks (Naboo Swamp).

Looks: While the figure doesn’t look too bad it does look exactly like every other Jar-Jar. If he is supposed to be swimming, then perhaps they could have attempted to make him look wet. Why make a swimming Jar-Jar look dry? 1 out of 5.

Articulation: Ankle articulation? Wow the kids are going to go crazy for that! I can’t count the number of times I was playing as a kid and thought, “Gee, this is a fun figure but I wish his ankles moved. It just doesn’t look like he’s REALLY swimming.” Even as an adult collector what are you supposed to do with ankle articulation? If you want him to look like he is swimming then you need him to lay on the ground. If you put him on a figure stand, then the ankle articulation is useless. The rest of the figure only has the standard articulation. 0 out of 5.

Accessories: A fish. I guess those accessories packs sold so poorly that they had to do something with the stock of stupid fish accessories. Just a terrible choice. No accessory would have been a vast improvement over that stupid fish. 0 out of 5.

Coolness: Jar-Jar is not cool. I may not hate him, but he is not cool. There is no reason to buy this figure. There was plenty of Jar-Jar on the market. Scared Jar-Jar, Riding Jar-Jar, Shooting Jar-Jar, and the existence of a perfectly good basic Jar-Jar. There was no reason to buy this figure, he wouldn’t have even been useful as customizing fodder. The sad part was that everyone wanted him. He was released near the end of the line, and was short-packed. This led to him being a very desirable collectible. The fact that people wanted him, and didn’t care what the figure was like I feel only hurts this figure. I’m so glad that I didn’t pay top dollar for him. 1 out of 5.

Overall: 2 out of 20. This figure sucks. Every time I see one over priced it makes me want to punch the seller in the face. The Star Wars universe is filled with amazing characters in amazing environments. Why they made this figure, again, instead of a new figure completely escapes me? Even a General Madine would have been better. :ph34r:
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#9 ToyMan

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Posted 05 June 2003 - 11:40 AM

Adam Power (here) was the only figure I bought from the Power Lords, but his arms that bent both ways were pretty cool.

veers! you brilliant bastitch! you have no idea how long i've been trying to figure out which toy that was! dude! :ph34r: i had just resigned to thinking that it was some strange voltron/micronauts villain, or something...

sweet! e+
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Posted 05 June 2003 - 11:42 AM

Glad I could help. :ph34r:
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#11 Tortle

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Posted 05 June 2003 - 12:05 PM

Great reviews! I concur that those figures are total garbage. By the way, the link for Swimming Jar Jar actually goes to the standard Jar Jar figure, so for those who are curious to see this atrocity of plastic, click here.

When you revealed your childhood worst action figure, I started thinking... what would be the worst action figure from my playing days? I don't remember that many bad toys because my nostalgia seems to limit my memory only to cool toys. Then I remembered a day many years ago that scarred my young developing persona...

A friend visited and marvelled at my MUSCLE collection, taking a particular interest in a purple #189 (screaming Niku). He desparately wanted to trade for it, offering me some rather large Transformers. Although purple #189 was one of my favorite MUSCLEs, for some weird reason, I succumbed. It turned out that I deeply regretted that trade because not only did I lose one of the coolest MUSCLEs, but I received the crappiest toy of my childhood (and the subject of this review)...

Predacon Headstrong!

Although Predaking is one of the coolest combiner robots of all time, its individual components, especially Headstrong, are total crap.

Looks - 0 out of 5: There truly is nothing good-looking about Headstrong. The primary colors make him look like a Playskool toy, and his sculpting detail is quite limited. His proportions as a robot also look absurd. Additionally, the most important part of a Transformer, the robot face, looks like it was designed by a grade-schooler because, like the rest of the toy, it has virtually no detailing. As a rhino, he looks no better. Headstrong looks more like a bootleg toy than a true G1 Transformer.

Articulation - 1 out of 5: Headstrong can only move at his shoulders and elbows. BFD. Although G1 Transformers are pretty bad when it comes to articulation, they're usually not THIS bad.

Accessories - 1 out of 5: He comes with a gun and a sword... which is a good start. But the gun looks dwarfed in Headstrong's gigantic, grossly mis-proportioned hands. And the sword, like Headstrong himself, looks blocky and simplistic.

Play Value - 1.5 out of 5: Toys should give you a reason to play with them. The only reason a kid would ever touch this piece of crap is to put it into Predaking. Since I never had the other Predacons, I could never make Predaking... so this figure was totally worthless to me. However, Predaking is so cool that it bumps up this figure's play value slightly.

Coolness - 0 out of 5: Headstrong is just total garbage. You know it's bad when the pictures from the TF cartoon (which was notorious for woeful animation) look cooler than the toy.

Overall - 0.7 out of 5: Headstrong was just barely saved from becoming my most hated toy by his involvement with Predaking. If you're a G1 TF completist and you MUST buy this toy, I would recommend super-gluing your Predacons in combined Predaking mode. There's no reason to play with this Predacrap individually.
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#12 ToyMan

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Posted 05 June 2003 - 12:35 PM

i was given a gun-mode g1 megatron when i was a young one, and i thought it was absolutely stupid.
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#13 Rokk

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Posted 05 June 2003 - 07:31 PM

Hmm, the worst action figure from my childhood. This is an interesting question. It is tough to remember the worst since I mostly have good memories of all the toys I loved as a kid. So, I went through some of my older action figures. As I was sifting through all these old action figures there it was. Wham! Like a bolt of lightning. The worst action figure from my childhood. Dr. Huer

I was a huge fan of the NBC TV show Buck Rogers. Erin Grey was smokin' in those slutty futuristic outfits. Anyway, I loved the show so my parents got me some Buck Rogers action figures for my birthday. I got the cool figures like Buck, Killer Kane, Tiger Man, Twiki and Draconian Guard. They were all "cool" figures. Then the last figure I got was a Dr. Huer.......what was I supposed to do with this action figure?

Let's perform a quick investigation of our good doctor.

Looks: 0 out of 5
C'mon, Dr. Huer was the most boring character from the TV show. And, amazingly enough, his action figure perfectly captured his boring image. A very plain paint job. The perfect action figure of a stodgy old man. Plus, his face didn't even look like the actor's face! It was just a very ugly and blah looking figure.

Articulation: 2.5 out of 5
He actually has surprisingly good articulation compared to the dominant action figure of the period: a Star Wars figure. He has articulation at his neck, shoulder, elbow, thigh and knee which effectively blew away the articulation of my early Star Wars figures. The only problem is that it felt that he was held together by rubber bands. His joints became very loose quickly and he did an excellent imitation of a person without a skeletal system when you tried to stand him up by himself.

Accessories: 0 out of 5.
NONE!

Play Value: 1 out of 5.
Dr. Huer's only purpose was to get kidnapped or killed early in my "story" while playing with these figures.

Cool Factor: 0 out of 5.
Are you kidding me? Have you seen this guy? The only thing more un-cool than a nerdy scientist is an OLD nerdy scientist. No kid wanted to get caught playing with this figure.

Overall: 0.7 out of 5
Seriously, I loved this show and I still had absolutely no desire to have this action figure. I cannot think of any reason why you would be insane enough to desire a Dr. Huer.
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#14 phillymadison

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Posted 05 June 2003 - 08:13 PM

that scanner figure looks sweet no joke
he would be perfect as a medic at a wrestling event with wrestling figures
that scanner could be a great suction device

i would want two :D

he's an awsome size for the old Hasbro 4 inch figures to

I think i have to find me 1

I guess ya just need a good imagenation to have fun with him

I personally think the less features and less accesoreies the better (to a point)

ill take a basic figure any day i dont care about 50 points of articgulation lol
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Posted 06 June 2003 - 05:52 AM

Thanks Nate, I fixed the link.

And that Transformers blows! I thought about Transformers too, but I didn’t have that many. So because I just had a few I really liked all of my Transformers. Although Go-Bots could have made the cut.

And Rokk, that figure blows big time too. I think I had Buck from that line? But I think it was from a garage sale when I was a kid. I think Buck usually filled the role of guard, prisoner, or pilot. I had Twiki too, but he was missing that center piece.
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#16 MIWP

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Posted 07 June 2003 - 01:33 PM

Chuck Norris action figures sucked pretty bad.
I wish I still had them!
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Posted 10 June 2003 - 06:12 AM

I’m really disappointed that this thread hasn’t had more life. Nate this was a great topic, I wish more people had taken part in it. It would have been very interesting to see what people had to say.

:mellow:
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#18 ironmask

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Posted 03 July 2003 - 11:33 AM

the karate kid toys were garbage. i never had them, but i had the distinguished pleasure of breaking a friend of mine's.
the rambo toys from back when were shizznitty, too.
g.i. joe extreme...
crapola.
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#19 max powerz

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Posted 03 July 2003 - 12:36 PM

You know, I was thinking about some of the shnittest toys I have, and here comes one to mind. You see, I find them worse than what you all have listed. At least yours have articulation, these are just plain ugly fat pieces of rubber wasting my space (yes when I find these I WILL SELL THIS CRAP)
(damn cant find a link) but its the Ad&d figures. I only had the rubber baddies, so thats all I can talk about, but boy did they suck (with exception to the fire, I kinda dig that). The actual people, I have no clue if they were any good or not, but you have to see the frog warriors, skeleton peopel, soldiers, some weird thing that was green on the top and yellow on the bottow, etc.... I found it on ebay recently, but i was looking for something else and said WOW I have those, They suck! So if anyones intrested, once I find em I can sell em (and put pics up of the pinheaded toys). Its not the worst ever, but I think its worse than particular gi joes and transformers. AT LEAST THEY DID SOMETHING! These are solid plastic shaped pretty bad, thats it. There may be one or two my bro may want, but basically its gunna go when I find em.
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#20 Knuxman

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Posted 04 July 2003 - 06:43 AM

hmm... i would have to say the clown tmnt, i love tmnt, but these were, as a wwe fan would say "arse COWN'S!"
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#21 Drtooth

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Posted 09 July 2003 - 01:04 PM

The Brad Goodman figure on the Simpsons line (and a lot of the series with Sherri and Terri)

I like Albert Brooks, but it wasn't a funny character... and because of him, no one was able to find Hank Scorpio (his best character) in stores...


But the worst? Database from the Simpsons... Don't even want to bother... he just sucks!!!!
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#22 Ridureyu

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Posted 26 July 2003 - 03:04 PM

Something else to watch for is not to judge the figure itself based purely on "its" merits. For example, the Waterworld toys SUCKED, but each figure came with a relaly cool miniature undersea mutant- THOSE were fun (like the companion ghosts from Ghostbusters).
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#23 Drtooth

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Posted 08 August 2003 - 12:34 PM

Not an action figure, but the absolute WORST toy in the history of toys has to be those Damn Hulk Hands...


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If anyone actually bought them, that would be amazing... foamy pieces of crap....
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#24 Ridureyu

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Posted 08 August 2003 - 03:50 PM

Are you kidding? those things are GREAT!!!
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#25 Ramses

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Posted 11 August 2003 - 11:10 AM

Armada Thrust,hands down.
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