If you haven’t yet subscribed to our YouTube channel, you might have missed some of our videos from San Diego Comic Con. We’ll forgive you this time – we know how busy Dads can get.
In the meantime, we’ll catch you up by embedding our videos to the site periodically. Here’s the latest, a quick booth tour of the Marvel Super Hero Squad toys you’ll see on store shelves shortly and over the next few months.
Catching up on our content from San Diego, check out our Hasbro booth walkthrough of the new Star Wars toys landing in stores now!
Stay tuned, we’ll be live-blogging the latest in Super Hero Squad at Hasbro’s San Diego Comic Con Marvel panel!
And we’re live!
They are flying through the Super Hero Squad news, but we were able to snap a few shots. First the Super Hero Headquarters Heli-Carrier, expected this fall for $29.99. It plays the SHS theme music!
Toys ‘R’ Us will be offering an exclusive Asgard collectors pack with Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Loki and others.
All these are going to be released to retailers in 2010. Also, in October Marvel is doing Marvel Mania month, with $1 off coupons for SHS 2-packs.
Now for the 2011 news. Here’s a showcase of the 2-packs expected in 2011. Red Hulk and classic Wolverine, schnick schnick!
War Machine, action Spidey and Iron Man in Cap’s clothes!
All those SHS figures need some vehicles, right? Two new Squad Cruisers were debuted. Here’s Captain America’s Cruiser:
And they saved the best for last – Blackbird with Cyclops and Wolverine!
The way Hasbro was talking, these new SHS 2-packs and Cruisers will be tied into the second season of the animated series.
2012 seems to be a busy year, not only for the tie-in with The Avengers and Captain America movies, but with The Avengers animated series as well and the fourth Spider-Man film. So expect many more great SHS and other figures in 2012 and beyond!
And that’s all she wrote. Thanks for reading along.
We caught this demonstration of the upcoming General Grievous lightsaber at Hasbro’s booth. Take a look:
Brian Merten from Hasbro Design was kind enough to show off the packaging at the end of the Star Wars panel:
We’re at the Hasbro Star Wars panel at the San Diego Comic Con. We’ll be reporting the latest in Galactic Heroes news. The panel is under way!
There will be a fall figure mail-in program for a vintage rocket-firing Boba Fett figure to celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back.
Okay, they just brought out the AT-AT. This is the full size one, not the Galactic Heroes one. Still looks awesome.
Expect the new line of Galactic Heroes figures in September. The new line of GH figures are mostly redesigns of existing characters. But who cares, it’s a new Emperor and Darth Maul!
And here’s the GH AT-AT, due in stores in August. That’s just right around the corner!
They demoed the new General Grievous lightsaber. It has removable blades and rotates. It’s not a powered rotate, it’s manual via a twist of the wrist, but it does a cool buzzing sound when it spins like Grievous’ guards.
Nice! A Star Wars AT-AT Toys ‘R’ Us exclusive in vintage packaging. This will be released in October.
Target is getting vintage packaging Snowspeeder and Tie Fighter releases later this year.
Mighty Muggs are back! Target is getting exclusive 3-pack releases of “mini” Mighty Muggs! Get these starting in October.
And it’s over. They are saving more announcements for Celebration V in September.
UPDATE: At the Q&A after the panel, it was announced the full size Mighty Muggs will no longer be in production for retailers. They will continue to exist for exclusives, like the Iron Man and Transformers SDCC exclusive Mighty Muggs this year, but there will be no more full size Mighty Muggs from the Star Wars line. The mini line is a test run, and if they sell well, Hasbro will consider bringing more out in the future.
No doubt about it – wherever you are in the US, summer is definitely here. Temperatures are hitting triple-digits, the school year is coming to a close; and, let us guess, you’re trying to find out how to continue to fill your child’s schedule with constructive activities rather than TV time.
V.Tech has just the thing to cure the dreaded “summer brain drain”. The company has announced a new product, the V.Reader, aimed at early readers ages 3-7, to keep kids practicing their reading over the long, hot summer months. Stories are brought to life with sound, music and voices from some of the most popular TV and film franchises, such as Dora The Explorer, Toy Story and Shrek. Multiple modes will allow young readers to follow along with the story and interact with reading games, to help with letters, phonics and even a second language. A story dictionary is also available for new word discovery.
An online bookstore will provide a portal to free titles, themes and avatars kids can then use to customize their e-books. Downloadable content will be available by tethering the V.Reader to a PC or Mac, and feedback will also be transferred from the device to a parent’s registered account to show how their child is progressing on the various games and activities.
The V.Reader will be released in Target stores on June 21, and with other retailers later this summer for $59.99. It will come in two colors, blue and pink, both of which are available for pre-order now at Amazon.com. There will be 11 software titles at launch, at $19.99 each.
Were you driven to purchase your own Snuggie after those terrifically awful commercials? Well now your kids will look marginally cooler than you while raising the roof and doing the cabbage patch in their very own Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants-branded Snuggie.
We admit, if we didn’t have to worry about peer pressure or blackmail, and could choose a color other than neon blue or pink, we’d probably lounge around MDIAG! HQ in one of these. The fact that our kids can, while sporting their favorite licensed characters, makes us pretty darn jealous.
There’s nothing else we have to add with this story, other than a reminder this is My Dad Is A Geek!, not My Dad Is A Dork.
Read the full press release here, which also includes announcements of Dora and SpongeBob-licensed Bendaroos and Touch N’ Brush hands-free toothpaste dispensers, but we didn’t mention them because they aren’t as easy to make fun of.
In our opinion, there’s no better toy company than Hasbro. There’s never a trip to our favorite store without checking out the Marvel and Star Wars aisles in search of that elusive Super Hero Squad or Galactic Heroes pack, or (R.I.P.) the latest Mighty Muggs releases. How could you not love the company that releases such beloved toys for our todders?
Well, now there’s more to love. From now until June 20, you can double-up on your kids’ favorites from their geek-worthy collections with HasbroToyShop.com‘s Buy One, Get One Free deal. The terms:
Not only are your favorite brands – Marvel, Star Wars, G.I. Joe – among the items eligible for the sale, but there’s My Little Pony and Littlest Pet Shop items for the princess in your family as well. Heck, pick up a Milton Bradley board game for your next family night!
So what are you waiting for? Start shopping!
It would be hard to say SANRIO didn’t have some influence on MDIAG! It’s a given that any self-proclaimed geek with a love of all things Japanese would have, at some point in their lives, “experimented” in the world of Hello Kitty (we’re not admitting a thing…). So it only tickles us in the least when our kids find their own fascination with the cutesy, bizarre world of the pink feline and her friends.
Therefore, if we must, it is our duty as parents to bring happiness and joy to our…kids’…lives by celebrating SANRIO’s 50th anniversary starting this summer with in-store events, co-branded collections and limited edition products. This will also be the first time, outside of SANRIO’s Harmonyland and Puroland theme parks in Japan, where SANRIO families such as Hello Kitty, Sugarbunnies and retro characters including Little Twin Stars, Tuxedosam, and Patty & Jimmy will appear together on merchandising for the months-long event.
For the unabashed fan, they can keep abreast of the latest in limited-edition product offerings and surprise interactive get-togethers and other special anniversary events and contests online via the SANRIO website, Twitter and Facebook. That’s a little more than we may be willing to go through, but we’ve been through worse for our kids…
For full details, read the full press release here.