A-Team by Jazware (and cheap store ranting).

[rihia2k]

Midday surprise today, at a local 'dollar-store' (I think most of you guys know them as that).
Anyways in New Zealand we have the 2 Dollar Shop, Coin Save, and 123. They generally sell cheap crap that doesn't work, isn't licenced, gives you lead-poisoning & basically doesn't save you any money because the poor quality just sets you back. These stores also reek of tacky incense.

The only thing I ever buy from these stores are sunglasses if I get caught out in summer.

On my lunch-break from work today I had 5 minutes to kill, so I thought I'd pop in to the only one in town I hadn't visited, basically to laugh at the toy names... I'd already seen Bakugam (with an M), Super Power Defenders of Combat, Super Deformation Robot, etc, along with all the usual engrish and red Batman on the cards...

I ain't bought a figure since the '90s from a Coin Save, I just couldn't justify taking up the space. Everything in these stores toywise is just bad, and at best a joke.

The best they have are Harry Potter with an inch-thick blob of red toxic paint for hair, or Ben 10 with 1 1/2 arms and 3 pupils unintentionally.
Completely unlicenced of course.

Then I found these...



okay, not Ravenwood, she just happens to be in the shot. But I was ready to scoff at them, expecting them to be called B-Team or something, but nope I've been collecting long enough to know the score. These are Jazware, Fox Studios and official.

What are they doing in a tacky junk shop at bottom dollar was my question?! I never saw these make it to a 'real' department store in New Zealand, and proper licenced gear never shows up in the kinda' stores I mentioned. I'm not earth's most obsessed A-Team fan, but grew up with it, and like these figures, they brightened up the afternoon at work...

So what was distribution like for this 3 3/4'' Jazwares line in other countries? Any other (villian) characters or a van released in this series? I hadn't seen these until today...

[rihia2k]

Ohh... and my shelf scanning statistics suggest children love Faceman and Murdock??
Only one of each left, but like eleven Hannibals and three BAs.

Guess kids want their Liam Neeson in Qui Gon form.

[joeybones]

Not sure, but Ive been seeing the name jazware on items for a few years now.. Mainly only fiding them at like big lots or dollar tree. They might have lucked out with this series to be in big name retail stores, but I guess they didn't hold up. They were out for a very short time, I think Target had them on clearance within 2 weeks of the release. Same with the price of persia toys, Not sure what company dumped those.

[sportsandstuff777]

May 11, 2011 8:49:47 GMT -6 joeybones said:

Not sure, but Ive been seeing the name jazware on items for a few years now.. Mainly only fiding them at like big lots or dollar tree. They might have lucked out with this series to be in big name retail stores, but I guess they didn't hold up. They were out for a very short time, I think Target had them on clearance within 2 weeks of the release. Same with the price of persia toys, Not sure what company dumped those.

Yes Target had all those A-Team clearanced out cheap and they still didnt sell Ive some pop up at goodwill too I like the original show and toyline not a fan of this remake

[Meatybat]

Man , do we have the these in a discount store in the states ? Or does nayone have a set cheap ? I need a set of these . I hate to say it but I LOVED the movie and its a guilty , guilty pleasure of mine.

[joeybones]

I got my set at target for like $1.27 each, I think that was the cheapest they went a few months back... I need to look in boxes, im not sure if I sold em,traded em or gave em to the kid.

[shogi]

There's one other figure in the whole line and a van. I picked up all the figures when I first saw them (mind you it took a few stores to find them all) Distribution in my area was spotty. I think Target got a couple of restocks, but they all got clearanced out. Face was typically snached up quickly. There always seemed to be more BA and Hannibal figures than anyone else. I want to say Target was the only store that had the figures at all, but TRU & Target had the van

The van was ok (Still never got one) only the two front doors opened and there was a sliding side door that would detach pretty easily. It also had some lights and sounds IIRC (I would have gotten one on clearance but at the time I was short on cash and it was either the van of Appa from the Last Airbender....Appa won )

Something I liked about the figures is that they're basically all rubber but have close to the same amount of articulation as modern GI Joes. This makes custom work easier as all you have to do is heat up the figure and pull off the body parts. Here's a pic of the final figure completely taken apart

[rihia2k]

Hmm, so that's the fifth wheel character I need. (and prob'ly won't find very easy). One bad guy v.s. the A-Team. Doesn't quite seem fair somehow...

I bet the van is well sold out here, cos' even adults with no action-figure interest still want the van.