Toy OTD: RFX, John K.'s Political Toys: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton

I'm way overdue for another Toy OTD column, so I thought I'd come back with something special. After a long toy hiatus, John (Ren & Stimpy) Kricfalusi has designed some terrific new figures! I'm not exactly sure why, but John has graced us with cartoony versions of all three candidates from the primaries.

These are simply wonderful figures - the designs are really pushed and fun, the sculpts are great 3-D versions of John's drawings (a big shout-out to sculptors Chris Peterson and Arshak Nazarian), and the paint work is amazing as well!

There's a lot of imaginative, striking color choices to savor. Look at how many colors there are in Hillary's hair alone! Barack's face could've looked very uniform and dull, but there's some airbrushed accents here and there that really go the extra distance. The gold podium is unusual but eye-catching, and Hillary's flocked pantsuit is a great touch!

The toys are generously sized - up to nine inches tall! - so the $24.95 price is a great bargain, considering the quality of the figures.

The John McCain figure is the only disappointment. It's still a good toy, but for me, it's not as successful as the others.

Granted, he's a tough guy to caricature, but the body seems a little generic compared to the other designs. The color work on his face is low on contrast, so the viewer's eye tends to get pulled to the detail on his body instead. It's loaded up with props, which feels a little unecessary, considering how successful the other designs are without them.

Mr. Kricfalusi is a firm believer that toy packaging can be just as entertaining as the toy itself, and I heartily agree! While the boxes for these toys are nicely colored in the old-school style, and loaded with funny drawings and comments (check out the huge American flag with "MADE IN CHINA" printed beneath it!), the package design feels a bit scattershot in approach. The clubhouse and rocketship boxes were so strong in John's early toy work, that I came away feeling like I wanted a unifying theme to pull the current package designs together - like a campaign bandstand or a voting booth decorated with bunting - something that says "presidential election" more clearly.

Regardless, this is an awesome toy line! You can get Barack Obama or John McCain for $24.95 + shipping each, Hillary Clinton for $19.95 + shipping, or all three for $54.99 + shipping at the RFX toys website. Order yours today!


PS - John even had a Huckabee figure in mind... too bad it wasn't to be. Check out this, and a lot of other cool stuff in his interview with Meltdown Comics!

A Sea Change For McCain?

LA TIMES: McCain goes over to the dark side
by Jonathan Chait - March 10, 2007

'THIS IS NOT Luke Skywalker here," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), discussing his friend and Senate colleague John McCain's second run for the presidency. "This is a totally different campaign."

Graham was looking for a way to reassure his fellow conservatives that they no longer had anything to fear from McCain. His choice of metaphor is one of those windows into the fundamental cultural gap that separates hard-core conservatives from the rest of humanity. To most people, who think of Luke Skywalker as a hero battling an evil and immensely powerful empire, Graham's implication would be seen as an unmitigated insult. In the world of the GOP elite, though, it's a form of praise: No, no, don't worry, McCain's with the empire now.

Seven years ago, of course, McCain was likening himself in public to Luke Skywalker, waving light sabers on stage at rallies and comparing his party's establishment to the Death Star. He would say such things as, "My party has become captive to special interests." He would cite a bumper sticker that read "The Christian Right Is Neither."

And now? Well, let's just say that if John McCain circa 2007 was campaigning against John McCain circa 2000, he would call him a communist. The old McCain called President Bush's tax cuts fiscally and socially irresponsible, a giveaway to the rich in a time of rising inequality. The new McCain was recently interviewed by National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru and asked if there were any circumstances, including the guarantee of spending cuts, under which he'd consider repealing the tax cuts he denounced and voted against. He replied: "No. None. None. Tax cuts, starting with Kennedy, as we all know, increase revenues."

We all know that? In fact, economists know that this is not true. Conservative economists know this isn't true. Even conservative economists who work in the Bush administration have admitted this isn't true. As former Bush economist Alan Viard, now at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said: "Federal revenue is lower today than it would have been without the tax cuts. There's really no dispute among economists about that."

How does McCain explain his conversion to voodoo economics? He doesn't. He says things like: "I haven't changed. My record is the same on all issues, which is that of a conservative Republican." Which is funny, because a few years ago one of his close advisors — someone who is now furiously insisting that McCain has always been a staunch conservative — told me, "Ideologically, we all changed."

Now watch him madly pander. In the same interview, Ponnuru asked McCain about cloning:

"Sen. McCain: I'm obviously against any human cloning. Obviously.

"Ponnuru: Would you be willing to ban it?

"Sen. McCain: Sure.

"Ponnuru: So you'd support something like the Brownback bill?

"Sen. McCain: Yes. I think I'm a cosponsor."

At this point in the interview, his advisor interjected to say, "I'll double-check that." It turned out McCain was not a cosponsor. His casual language about a matter of the deepest philosophical weight — Ban it? Sure! — suggests he knows little about the bill except that supporting it would help him win the nomination.

What makes McCain's conversion all the more tragic is that it's plainly not working. He has spent the last three years plotting to make himself the candidate of the GOP establishment that he once attacked. But, as the Wall Street Journal reported, "2008 is shaping up as the worst presidential year in three decades to be the candidate of the Republican establishment."

His career since then has indeed resembled a certain famous Jedi. He began as a crusader for justice. Soon he realized that he needed to acquire more power in order to accomplish his noble goals. But over time, his pursuit of power became the goal itself, and by the end he lost his capacity to differentiate between right and wrong.

This is not Luke Skywalker here. This is Luke Skywalker's father. But at least Darth Vader attained his position before the Death Star exploded.