Beautiful Disney “Tribute” Cars Round 2 – Hot Wheels RealRiders

About 6 months ago we got this set of spectacularly painted RealRiders done up in the theme of several Disney movies. You can read all about ’em here; needless to say I was completely enamored by the quality and detail of the artwork. So when I stumbled across “Round 2” a few days ago amidst these Q1 doldrums, I was more than happy to snatch ’em up. Here’s what we’re working with:

• 1 / 5 – Pinocchio – ’66 Dodge A100
• 2 / 5 – Dumbo – Bread Box
• 3 / 5 – Alice in Wonderland – Volkswagen Deluxe Station Wagon
• 4 / 5 – Sleeping Beauty – Super Van
• 5 / 5 – Robin Hood – 3D-Livery

We’ve got a lot of familiar faces here – the Super Van, and A100, the Bread Box, and so on. Why does Hot Wheels keep choosing the same models, right down to the year? (One day I’m seriously going to go through what I have and take a count of each model…should be mildly interesting.) I assume it’s due to the amount of space available for the expansive portraits and scenes. Most of them contain a sizable, uninterrupted rectangle (or square) with ample room for anything from a long, panoramic shot of a landscape, a medium-distance scene of a few character in some sort of interaction, or a nice big closeup of one or two main characters.

Like the previous set, these things are miniature works of art, right down to the cards which are as colorful and detailed as the cars themselves. I actually kinda hate to open them, and if they weren’t a whopping ~$5.47 a piece I’d probably snag 2 of each. The cards are about 1.5 to 2 times as thick as your average back and almost the entire front surface is filled with a fantastical poster from the appropriate time period. You’ve got the dated fonts, a hokey tagline or two, and an absolute flood of color. I think that’s what hits home most with me about these guys: it’s the sheer range of colors in use. I guess “back in the day” these movie posters were treated a lot like paintings and thus there was a lot artistry in mixing and making colors – nothing as homogenized as today’s digital colors. (Obviously a computer display can replicate these colors, the idea is that perhaps a given artist’s “red” was not #FF0000 and this “old red” was used to make pink, which was then used in a purple, etc. …small irregularities in customization that build up over time and between different artists.)

First in line is Pinocchio it the Dodge A100. We’ve got some expected artwork of Pinocchio, Geppetto, and Jiminy Cricket on the sides which is nicely detailed. Even Jiminy, as small as he is, can be seen clearly. One side features (what I assume to be) the moment Geppetto brings the puppet to life, and a closeup of Jiminy can be see on the rear doors. What I like most about this particular vehicle is the blue-purple gradient that fills the ambient space. It creates a dreamy effect and it’s not a shade of blue I’m used to seeing often.

Next is the Bread Box featuring Dumbo; perhaps it’s appropriate that such an outdated vehicle features one of Disney’s oldest animated films. (It was their sixth theatrical animated film.) I never much “got” Dumbo but there’s no point in doubting its cultural longevity and what I assume to be its influence on later works. The entire vehicle is awash in a baby blue with the roof painted to look like the top of a circus tent. One side prominently features Dumbo while airborne; the other showcases a tender moment between our titular character and his mother. The back has some mouse who I’m 100% unfamiliar with… I appreciate what’s going on here but again, Dumbo just doesn’t resonate much with me. I kinda dig the idea of turning the Bread Box into a circus tent though. (And oh god help us – Dumbo is another animated film succumbing to Disney’s live-action curse. I’ll be interested to see how this performs, because it’s not like today’s little kids – or even their damn parents – have much familiarity with the character, let along the movie.)

Here we are at the midpoint with Alice in Wonderland artwork plastered all over the Volkswagen Deluxe Station Wagon. You can certainly interpret Alice in Wonderland (I’m just gonna call it “Wonderland” from here on) in any number of different ways, but when it comes to the visuals, it’s hard to argue against the artistic depiction of and LSD trip. Well ok, scratch that – it’s a convenient way to say things, but I don’t want to spread mistruths about drugs. I’ve taken plenty of LSD and I’ve never see anthropomorphic animals. A “hallucination” can either be a “real” hallucination, or a “pseudo” hallucination. Pseudo-hallucinations are where things like lights and patterns and shadows play tricks on your eyes. You might see trails on moving objects, static lights may appear to flicker, or the tile on the floor may appear to crawl. The point is that you know you’re hallucinating, i.e. your brain knows that the flickering light isn’t really flickering. Now a real hallucination is the same type of shit that “crazy” people experience – you know, your dead grandmother rises up out of a pile of dirty laundry and tells you you’re really a cat – that kinda shit. A real hallucination is indistinguishable from reality. You’re mind can’t tell the difference. You may be able to recognize it as a hallucination later on, but at the time, a hallucination of your friend walking through the door feels/looks exactly like your friend walking through the door “for real.” Obviously these sorts of hallucinations can easily be quite dangerous, and for this reason, most recreational drug users aren’t chasing down shit that gives them “real” hallucinations.

And for what it’s worth, Lewis Carroll, the author of the original Alice in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking Glass was not a recreational drug user and hardly used any medicine at all apart from homeopathic treatments.

I know that was random as hell but I wanted to get that out, because too often are Wonderland and “acid trip” conflated out of ignorance for the sake of convenience. A better description would be a dream, or perhaps as a metaphor for “being high” in a very general sense and/or otherwise “escaping reality.” The truth is that Wonderland is more often a piece that we project ourselves on; our interpretations of the work say more about us than they do the material, and indeed what we’re looking at here is Disney/the director’s interpretation of Carroll. What we do know is that Carroll wanted to create something “dreamlike.” And hell, just how often do our dreams make sense…?

Anyways, this Disney version of Wonderland is certainly dreamy/trippy/surreal/whatever! The artwork is crisp and vivid. And besides the bizarre setting, one of the weirdest parts of Wonderland are its inhabitants. There’s a beautifully colored shot from the “tea party” on one side with the March Hare, Alice, and the Mad Hatter. The colors are all bright and distinct from one another. The opposing side shows us a nice wide shot of the Cheshire Cat in all of his pink and purple glory, and the back shows the nervous little re-eyed White Rabbit with his oversized pocketwatch. The background is made up of a very deep, saturated blue, bordering on a very deep teal. Again, it’s a color we don’t see often on Hot Wheels, and it contrasts nicely with all of the busy and bright color of the illustrations.

Our penultimate entry, plastered all over the body of the Super Van, pays tribute to one of Disney’s darkest films and one of their most sinister villains. Yep, we’re talking about Sleeping Beauty (and Maleficent) which is something I feel like I really ought to watch again as an adult. The story behind how the film came to be is a little chaotic and could’ve easily resulted in a trainwreck, but instead it gave us of the most unique animation styles of any Disney flick. It’s tough to convey all of this stuff on the Super Van but it’s a good attempt. We’ve got an easy-going shot of Aurora and the Prince enjoying some quality time together on one side and a shot of the 3 good fairies on the back. The highlight is on the passenger’s side where Maleficent (in final form – Dragon Mode) squares off against the gallant Prince Phillip. The dragon is shown in her entirety, spitting out an otherworldly streak of green flame towards our hero. The scale is quite impressive and even on such a small picture you can see how enormous Maleficent’s dragon form truly is. I’m also diggin’ the curvy, sort of spiny trees off to the right. It’s as if the forest has a sinister consciousness of its own, with branches appearing to be more like living tendrils than stationary plant life.

Bringing up the rear is the highly unique 3D-Livery motorcycle-carriage thingy celebrating Robin Hood. I vaguely remember this film but it’s not something where a lot specifics are jumping out at me. The way the artwork is done with the “curtains” appearing slightly opened makes it feel like you’re looking straight into the passenger area of the vehicle. It’s a pretty cool effect. One side is a simple shot of Robin plus one of his homies (probably Little John). On the reverse is King John (the lanky lion) and Sir Hiss (the snake). There’s not a whole lot to talk about here because there just isn’t that much going on, but the use of color is impeccable as always. I especially like the deep reddish purple King John’s robe.

And there you have it! Another set full of iconic, high quality artwork. Much like the preceding set, I do wonder why some of the newer classics have been passed over. Maybe that just means more sets are in the works? The Little Mermaid and The Lion King would be my first picks, but I’d be happy to see anything from the late 80’s – 1990’s heyday of Disney feature-length animation; you know, the stuff I’m actually more personally in-tune with…like Aladdin, Hercules, Mulan, Pocahontas….probably a few others I can’t immediately recall.

Anyway, what’s your favorite? Were you exposed to some of these uber-old movies as a child? Even for those of us born in the 80’s, those early flicks were already 40 years old – I doubt many kids these days are watching cartoons from the 70’s. Personally I’m torn between Alice in Wonderland and Sleeping Beauty. The latter is such an eerie piece that you really can’t compare other Disney works to, but on the other hand it’s easy to admire the sheer absurdity woven into the former.

Well that’s it for now! Keep your fingers crossed for me – send some good vibes my way in the hopes that I find something in my wheelhouse. It’s been a dry dry toy world lately!

DISNEY Character Cars (Series 1) Are Here!

The meat of this story goes back a couple of weeks but hey, this is the best I could do. As soon as I started seeing them pop up online I began scouring stores for these guys because I’m guessing these might be at least a tad more collectible than most. I won’t get into a tedious store-by-store account of my journey, though I do want to point out a couple of things.

One, back then and even up until as recently as yesterday, I’ve only seen these cars at Walmarts. When I first spotted them I found everyone except for Maleficent. They had the remaining 5 plus 2 more Mickeys on the rack. Looks like the contents of a case to me. One day and several Walmarts later I did find Maleficent alongside a healthy selection of the rest of ’em.

Since then though, these things have been very spotty around here, and when I do see them, I tend not to see complete sets. (For this reason I’m thinking about picking up a second set to keep unopened.) Target is too busy stocking the protracted versions of Despicable Me, Super Mario, and SpongeBob “sets” to make room for much else – hell, I haven’t even spotted all the new DC stuff (Ivy, Martian Manhunter, Sketched Series) aside from the Teen Titans Go! stuff.

Update: GameStop appears to be carrying these now as well, so give them a check if you’re having trouble elsewhere!

I could certainly be wrong, but if you want my advice, go ahead and grab these when you see ’em (if you want ’em), and keep in mind that Mickey Mouse is likely the most common (highest production numbers), Maleficent followed by Elsa seem to be the fan favorites, and if anyone at all is getting passed over more than the others it’s got to be Mike Wazowski.

I’m almost ready to take a good long look at these new thingamajigs, however I want to quickly draw attention to a blurb of text on both the front and back of each package: Series 1. Is this to suggest that we’ll see more Disney Character Cars in the near-ish future? There are other lines I’d rather see extended but I’d be on board with a virtually limitless supply of Disney Character Cars. It’d be even better if they’d theme each series – not something as restrictive as a single movie – but more like a series of princesses, a series of villains, kings, “sidekicks,” and soon.

However I feel like there was another set that teased us with a “Series 1” and still hasn’t delivered on a Series 2…am I imagining this…? I don’t feel like digging through my backs to confirm but I swear the idea of multiple series was already floating around in my head.

Whatever, let’s break into ’em and see what we’ve got:

• 1 / 6 – Mickey Mouse
• 2 / 6 – Elsa
• 3 / 6 – Winnie the Pooh
• 4 / 6 – Maleficent
• 5 / 6 – Jack Skellington
• 6 / 6 – Mike Wazowski

You can immediately tell that a great deal of care and creativity went into each of these Character Cars as a distinct entity. Via the use of paint types, color schemes, body shapes, and decorations, each of these cars really feels like it comes from a completely different universe than any of the others. This cuts down on any kind of cohesive look, but that’s cool considering all the different “stuff” that makes Disney Disney.

As far as the actual character selection goes, my only real gripe is Mike. He feels a little too contemporary for this lot. (And yes, I know Elsa is “newer” than Monsters, Inc. but Frozen has been regarded as an instant classic since its release so its inclusion is understandable.) I guess I would’ve preferred someone more iconic – Ariel or Ursula (The Little Mermaid), maybe Simba or Scar (The Lion King), or maybe “The Beast” – but Mike Wazowski seems a bit weak considering his company.

Winnie the Pooh tends to stick out a bit as well, probably because he’s much more closely associated with younger children than the rest, but he is a massive, very well-known property under Disney, so I really can’t fault Pooh’s inclusion even if I’d personally prefer other characters.

Let’s take a quick look at each of these:

Mickey Mouse, emblematic of Disney itself, is simply and elegantly represented by a classic sports car. The basic elements are accounted for – ears, red-and-black color scheme, and his oversized white eyes. I think pretty much anyone can identify this as Mickey Mouse or at least strongly tied to the character. Gotta love that the wheels feature the iconic silhouette!

Elsa might be my favorite of the bunch…all the various blues from transparent, to the matte finish on the front, and the gradient with snowflake graphics really give it a special look. And the slim feminine shape is a plus as well. Elsa’s long braid is carried over via a sort of decoration running down the back half.

I remember Winnie the Pooh fairly well, even though the show struck me as oddly dark… (Pooh’s obsession – borderline addiction – to honey (hunny?), Piglet’s overly worrisome nature, Tigger’s boundless and oftentimes reckless exuberance, Rabbit’s seemingly unfounded status as the old curmudgeon, and Eyore’s blatant perpetually depressive state) …and it’s because of this that I don’t necessarily associate the same happy fuzzy memories with it like other preschool and early childhood fare. Regardless, I think Hot Wheels latched on a pretty clever design for this car, giving it the outward appearance of a cement mixer.m/;featured on Pooh’s pots of the stuff.

Maleficent comes in at a very close second in terms what I find both aesthetically pleasing and the overall connection to / representation of the characters at hand. Besides being a straight up badass sorceress – and yes, we’re gonna call her a sorceress and elevate her beyond a simple “witch” – she also possess a totally evil, nigh demonic flying dragon as her final form! The green-black-purple color scheme is used to great effect and the devilish horns frame a sort of sinister face along with the green-tinted windshield. The long hood contributes to the car’s ominous presence and pays homage to Maleficent’s slender frame.

Jack Skellington is another nicely done car and a great use of the typical hot rod “digger” type of frame. The shape is perfectly suited to Jack’s literally skeletal figure, made even more lanky through Burton’s exaggerated and ultimately unnerving art style. We’ve got a clear view of his head and having his “fingers” curl up to form the exhaust pipes was a very clever adaptation of character parts to car parts. I don’t think you could ask for much more out of a Jack Skellington Character Car without compromising some of what makes it look like a “real” car.

And finally we’re at Mike Wazowski, the clear black sheep of the family. Now don’t get it twisted; I don’t hate Mike, I have nothing really against Monsters, Inc., and I don’t dislike the car itself: I just wish Hot Wheels had chosen someone a little more culturally ingrained. Despite my hang-ups, the car itself is well done and I think Hot Wheels did a pretty good job of turning a one-eyed green blob with arms and legs into a car without compromising too much in either direction. It’s quite unique and it looks like something that might be at home on The Jetsons.

And there we have it! All in all a very creative selection of cars and with so many different styles of animation under Disney’s umbrella it proves to be a great mine for Character Cars in general. Each design is inspired and none of them feel rushed or lazy.

I do hope these make enough of a splash for Hot Wheels to roll out a Series 2 in another few months. From Snow White to Pinocchio, from The Jungle Book to Hercules, there’s a virtually limitless pool from which to draw from. However, there are a few characters or movies that make my short list, including:

• anything from The Little Mermaid, particularly Ariel, Ursula, Sebastian, and even King Triton
• Simba and/or Scar from The Lion King
• Ralph (of Wreck-It Ralph) as far as very recent characters go
• pretty much everyone from Big Hero 6; this would make a great subset
• The Genie from Aladdin
• pretty much anything notable from Alice in Wonderland (probably a little too old for current audiences)
• Cruella deVille from 101 Dalmatians

Like I said, short list. There are tons of great characters over more than half a dozen decades that could be made into expressive and desirable Character Cars. When you can draw upon everything from the techie/futuristic vibe of WALL-E to the rustic, medieval setting of The Hunchback of Notre Dame it’s tough to go wrong.

Anyway, I’ma quit wracking my brain for Disney movies before I go crazy. Lemme know what you think – like the new cars? What’s your favorite? And what do you think of a possible Series 2? Who would you like to see?

Alright pimps and pimpettes, that’ll do for now. I’m still a little behind on detailing most of my recent finds but I am catching up, so hang around and you should notice these articles dropping fairly regularly. Until then!