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Back before ComicCon last year, I received a sample of Palisades Toys' "Culinary Catastrophe" set. The set is a Swedish Chef Muppets action figure with three "lobster banditos". I've been meaning to review these for some time now, and finally am getting around to it.
I'll start out by confessing that the Swedish Chef has always been one of my favorite Muppets. Way back in High School (in the 1970's), my friend Dan and I would laugh and carry on, doing the "bork, bork, bork!" song and routine as performed by the Chef on the Muppet Show. It was a great show, and a fun character among many many fun characters. I hadn't expected the package from Palisades Toys, and I was pleasantly surprised to open the box and find the Swedish Chef staring back at me from beneath those bushy brows (not that he has any eyes to see staring at you…) Palisades Toys slogan, as printed on the box, states, "Play with it!" It creates a quandary, though. Take the toy out and play with it, or leave him in the box and preserve the potential "collector value"?
Being in a position of needing to review the figure, I took the plunge and removed him from the box. The figure is reasonably well articulated and nicely detailed, giving a very good facsimile of the appearance of the Muppet from the show. The Chef's hat is held on magnetically; a nice touch that keeps the hat in place without either making it severely oversized, or having to mold a retaining pin and hole into the two pieces. The shoulders have both a hinge point for raising the arm, and a rotation joint for swinging the arm. The elbow is jointed, and the hands rotate at the wrist. The legs are jointed at the hip, and the hips rotate below the torso. The neck rotates at the shoulders. The lobsters are pliable plastic figures over a wire armature for posing, and include six-shooters for them to hold.
The Chef's decoration is really something of a mess, and purposely so. The clothing and the apron are painted to look as though the kitchen has darn near exploded on him. The apron is a pliable rubber, and may be removable, but it does not appear it was designed to be removed. I would be afraid of possibly breaking it while stretching it to get it over the head.
Overall, the figure appears to be well and solidly made, though I have to concede that I did not let a 6 year old play with it to see how well it held up to "real world" conditions. At that, between the fact that it is medium sized (about 6" tall and about 2.25" wide across the torso, not including the arms), and considerably more "stout" than the small fighting man action figures my son used to enjoy playing with, it should be more durable than those.
Whether it will gain value or not in the future as a collectible is anyone's guess. I have seen a number of these special packaged ones for the ComicCon on eBay, and the current prices were not much different than they were charging for them at the Con. My own take on collecting is that I collect things because I like them, not because I think I'm going to make a truckload of money off of them by selling them in the future. I'll likely be picking up some other figures in the Palisades Muppets line in the future, just because I like the Muppets and these are much nicer than most of the Muppet toys I've seen in the past.
Now for a minor "downside" to the review: While the figure is nicely made and a great likeness of the Swedish Chef, many of the box illustrations are of the actual Muppet, and not the action figure. This is understandable in many ways, but the detractor of this is that the photos show the Chef in positions and with some accessories that the action figure cannot accomplish or does not have. This could possibly lead to the incorrect conclusion that the action figure is either more articulated than he is, and/or that other accessories are included or available.
All in all, though, it's a nicely done figure. If this is representative of the entire line of Muppet figures, then those who enjoy the Muppets will find a nice toy or collectible in this line. As of the last time I checked, many Target stores are carrying the Palisades Toys Muppet figures, so availability should be good.
Palisades Toys can be found on the web at http://www.palisadestoys.com .
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