Annemarie’s Furry Friends Review

WDWNT on January 18, 2012

I feel compelled to preface this review with two things. 1) It’s going to be pretty harsh. 2) I hold none of the artists/designers culpable for my disappointment.

The event was good, there weren’t as many people there as I expected, having never been to a Disney Store Vinylmation event. The only other event I’ve been to was the Thomas Scott Alice signing at D-Street in Disneyland, and it seemed more crowded. Not complaining about this at all, it was pretty well organized and everyone was extremely friendly and knowledgeable, and if they didn’t know something they would go find out and report back, which I thought was nice. I got to meet Zoe, so it was nice to finally meet her! And all the artists were great, it was really nice to meet them all and they gave everyone ample time to chat (perhaps TOO ample in some cases) but everyone seemed pretty happy with that aspect.

What we (and I say we because I chatted with several other collectors who felt the same way) were upset about, as I’m sure anyone reading this article has been hearing throughout the day, was the production quality of Furry Friends. It is atrocious. Honestly, I hate to say it, but they felt more like Happy Meal toys than Vinylmation. The printing was sloppy, the colors were bleeding, and they were just plain filthy. Some look actually gross.

Marie looks like she threw up on herself. Poor Marie!

Oliver is my favorite (look at those eyes!) but not much care went into his printing process. You can actually see the collar through the tag.

What’s the point of the clear ears if they look like this? Just plain sloppy!

Look at Max’s feet! No comment.

You can’t see it very well in this photo (sorry!) , but there is a FINGERPRINT on Pegasus’s tail.

The wings come right off. Not secured in any real way, also very flimsy. You can see the finish is different on Pegasus’ feet than on the rest of his body, which I can’t say anything other than it just looks unfinished. Those smudges/ scratches came right out of the package!

Even the chaser looks terrible. The paint is poorly printed, and the edges aren’t smooth at all. I fear the value of this chaser will be diminished by the poor quality.

Not all was bad, though. The event was fun and the artists were happy to be there. With Jim Valeri:
Everyone was happy to sign my packaging:

And let’s not forget the donation to ASPCA, which is a silver lining in all this, I suppose.

All in all, you all already know how I felt about Furry Friends (I ended up caving and getting a case, since I’ll be painting over most of mine anyway… also the case was purchased before I saw the quality. No exchanges or refunds!). The designs are great, but I’m not very satisfied with the quality control. I sincerely hope someone over there sees this and figures out the problem and makes sure this doesn’t happen again. On a positive note, the design of the packaging is ADORABLE. Each box looks like a little carrying case you’d take a pet home in!

Also, no more than thirty seconds had I been home, and Mulder immediately claimed my case as his own. So Furry Friends is clearly adored by our own furry friends. 🙂

Did anyone else go out to the event? Please share your thoughts and photos, if possible. I’m also curious to hear from others around the country to see if maybe this store just got a bad batch. Hopefully others will be more more lucky.

-Annemarie

Furry Friends released in England

WDWNT on January 18, 2012

Nick from England sent in these pictures and story from earlier today.

We’ve just been to the London Oxford St Flagship store and bought the last case of Furry Friends, a whole 2 days earlier then the worldwide release. We managed to get all 13 vinyls and the paint jobs are amazing in person. Almost looking flocked and giving a furry appearance. Pegasus is my favourite.

There were none left when we left the store, and another loose case had sold in just under 2 hours of being put out!


-Nick Branch, England.

Animation 2 Chaser; Great or Missing Something?

WDWNT on January 18, 2012

The Animation 2 chaser was revealed early this morning by Action Figure Times (AFTimes.com). They seem to get their hands on a release before release day from time to time. They posted a picture of the front and back of the chaser. Click the image below to see it and our commentary on it.

ZoMG: Furry Friends Artist Signing

WDWNT on January 18, 2012

Saturday was the release and artist signing for Furry Friends Vinylmation at the Disney Store in South Coast Plaza Mall! I had such a great time at the event. I was working so I wasn’t able to buy any figures until I got off work BUT don’t worry my Grandma came with me yesterday to the event (she loves the Vinylmation community, they all call her grandma haha) and she surprised me and bought a couple figures and got them signed for me! She got, 2 Trustys and Patch, then went into the line and traded a Trusty for a Max! (Yay go grandma!) And by the way, that was her first ever trade haha!

Now let’s get to the event! I got to work at 7:45 AM and there were about 40 people in line! I saw so many familiar faces as I made my way inside! We had a large fixture set up in the front of the store with trays and trays of Furry Friends! We ended up opening the store an hour early around 9:00 AM to let everyone buy their trays to get in line for the signing!

The first guests making their way into the store to purchase Furry Friends!

There was a steady flow of people coming into the store purchasing Vinylmation to get signed. Guests were also purchasing Villains 2 to get signed as well! I was very happy to see guests who knew nothing about Vinylmation asking questions, getting into it and actually purchasing their first Vinylmation! I love that having the Vinylmation Events in the mall makes more people come into the store and get excited about it!

While everyone was waiting, the Home Base Disney Store team brought our store a present! My manager told Michelle (my Vinylmation loving co-worker) and I that we would get the honors of using our brand new 24 Mystery Trading Box!! And we would get to keep it in our store! Yay! I was SO excited first of all to see the trading box, and also to be able to trade with others! I am usually on the other side of the trading box so I was way too excited about this.

Ashley, Michelle and I waiting for everyone to come trade with us!

Finally the artists arrived and everyone got their figures ready to go! The artists on hand at the event were, Jim Valeri, Gerald Mendez, Enrique Pita, Quincy Sutton, and Matt Chittavanichprapa. Quincy and Matt are new to the Vinylmation world and I was very excited to meet them!

Jim and Enrique signing for fans!

The event went awesome! Each artist was constantly busy chatting with fans, taking pictures, talking about the series, signing figures, and sketching!

My Grandma and I getting Patch signed by Gerald Mendez!

One of the artists in particular, Matt Chittavanichprapa had a great idea. He had only designed one figure for the series, his FIRST EVER VINYLMATION Marie! In my opinion, Marie is definitely my favorite from this set. She looks absolutely fabulous! Since he only had one figure to sign, he brought out his sketchpad and starting sketching pictures for fans of Marie! It’s funny because I was worried he would have a short line since he only had one figure but he had the longest line that even went past the 1:30 end time of the event!

Matt sketching a picture of Marie for a fan!

Luckily I got off work at 1:00 so I was able to go into the store and buy 2 blind boxes to get them signed. I got Marie and Oliver! I was so excited because Marie was the one I wanted the most! I went to Matt’s line first so I could get Marie signed and a sketch!

Matt is great! While he was sketching a picture for me I asked him a lot of questions about designing his first ever Vinylmation! He said he was thrilled how the figure turned out and he was ecstatic they were able to make Marie’s bow out of ribbon! He joked and said that when he presented the idea for Marie they told him “we will see what we can do” and he assumed that meant “no” but to his surprise they were able to pull it off and it turned out fantastic!

I also asked him how each artist is assigned which figure to do. If they come up with the character themselves or how that whole process works. He told me that usually there is a team who comes up with the vision for the set, and then they assign each artist a character and then see what they come up with. I asked him if he was excited when he got assigned Marie. He laughed and told me that he didn’t go to work the day that the figures were assigned, and came back the next day and was told he got Marie. Now getting the girliest figure in the Furry Friends set wasn’t going to stop him from making it the BEST Marie Vinylmation. He told me that he looked at the other Marie Vinylmation and wanted to make sure it looked nothing like the others, which is why he opted for the extra large pink bow and I think he nailed it!! He was such a sweet guy and talked to me for a good 20 minutes, I’m really looking forward to seeing more from him in the future! Oh and you better believe I begged him to suggest a Princess set.. We will see what happens! (haha)

The picture that Matt sketched for me!

Overall, I think the event was a huge success! Over 200 people showed up, and the artists really had a great time. I was sad to read when I got home that many people were having problems with their set, such as scuff marks, fingerprints, and bad paint jobs. I checked out my figures again and they all seem just fine. Didn’t notice any mess-ups, or dirty spots but maybe some people got a bad batch.

I had a great time at the event, seeing all my Vinylmation friends and familiar faces! I hope everyone enjoyed themselves.

Furry Friends; Furious Fans

WDWNT on January 18, 2012

The release of Furry Friends has caused a ton of commotion across the web concerning the production value of this Disney Store release. From poor paint jobs, to stains to the seeding of cases, it seems like the issues were not localized to the Costa Mesa store. At this point it we recommend collectors hold off on purchases until this matter is resolved. Here is a compilation of website comments, Emails, Tweets, Facebook posts, pictures and Disney Store responses. Please feel free to add your experiences.

Annemarie brought this Flickr album by “pokermanuel” to our attention. It shows close up shots of a Patch figure purchased by a collector:

Patch arm
Patch head
Patch spot
Patch eye
Patch dent

Sophie took these screenshots directly from the DisneyStore.com website that is advertising the product for sale online. They show obvious paint issues. Since these are official Disney photos, they back up the photos we are seeing by collectors:

Screen shot from DisneyStore.com
Screen shot from DisneyStore.com
Screen shot from DisneyStore.com

Here are some more comments about quality from our Facebook page:
JoAnn – They look terrible. Some are a little better than others, but not by much. They all have smudges, paint blobs, spots where the paint is thin, and some look just plain dirty like they have been through a trading box a million times! Very disappointed

Lysette Marie Wittmann (Tucson, AZ) – We got our case and overall not too happy. Ranging from bent wings on one of our Pegasus to a dent in a few of the vinyls. I woulda preferred a recall and to wait a few weeks then open what we did. I hope Disney does something about this.

Here is a picture from LP1983 on the Vinylmation Kingdom forums of his poor Pegasus with scratches and broken wings:

We found one account of a purchase here in Orlando at the Florida Mall by Thimble on the Vinylnation forums. It was a mixed review:
At first I purchased 2, opened them right there in the store. First one I got was patch..he’s cute but on the back of his head, there was like a small bump/glob that had obviously been painted over, with white paint that was brighter than the rest of the head (almost looked like liquid-paper-white) And his ears had rough edges. Second one I pulled was the pegasus. He had perfectly attached, straight wings so I was happy with that. There’s what looks like half a finger print on the back of his head, and the ears are cloudy. THEN I decided to get ONE more and pulled a Marie The Marie was perfect, no spots or anything. Except her arms won’t move. So all in all I was happy with my trip

This email is from AK who purchased his Furry Friends in NY:
Just got back from my local Disney Store. I purchased 6 Furry Friends blind boxes. Packaging is great but the paint job on these Vinyls is HORRENDOUS. Worse than Cutesters Like You. One gentle touch on Marie’s paw and white paint chipped off. Tramp looks awful — as if only a preliminary paint job had been done and it was only 3/4 finished. Lines and paint quality on all the others I got were sub-par. When I was at the store, a cast member said a little kid bought a blind box and got the winged Pegasus but the wings were broken. The very accessory that made that piece unique was defective! I was so excited about Animation 2 and Light It Up. I hope this is not a sign of things to come.


The issues are not only about the quality, but also with the seeding of figures in the sealed cases. Annemarie sent us a photo of the side of her Furry Friends case. All previous mystery series have had this same guarantee printed onto the side of the case:

But unfortunately this seeding was not true in many cases with Furry Friends. Caz sent us this email from the UK:
We didn’t have 2 sets in our case. It had 4 Max, 3 Pluto, and 3 Oliver. We saw other people had missing ones so it wasn’t a one off.

And Penguin left this comment on our website:
I purchased a new tray of Furry Friends from the Bluewater Disney Store (UK), inside there was a full set of 12 including the chaser (which is the main reason why I buy a tray) but instead of another set of 11 I got a set of 9, with an extra Pluto, Meeko and Chaser. Also what was strange is one of my figures had no foil and the box was open (Not ripped open) however it was a brand new tray.

Although the issues were discovered in various locations across the US and UK, not all experiences were negative:
David Lessor (Montgomeryville Mall in Pennsylvanya) on Facebook – I bought a case this morning and they all look good, no problems

Nick Branch wrote an article about the UK release and had this take – We managed to get all 12 vinyls and the paint jobs are amazing in person. Almost looking flocked and giving a furry appearance.

Lisa from NJ commented on our site – No complaints. They look fine to me except for being able to see through the collar paint job on ones like Oliver.

And Disney North commented – Picked up 3 blokes: Tramp, Meeko and Percy. Percy was the only one with “serious” quality issues: his ear had some errant paint. All else were good. I’m happy with my pulls

Of course, there has been a fury of Tweets about Furry Friends:

The Disney Store was quick to respond:

As of this post, we do not know the planned solution, but Disney accepting the complaints via the email address personal.shoppers@disneystore.com.

Matt from Vinylmation Kingdom had this to say on his own forum:
Disney is trying to apologize and contacting ppl who send them tweets about the crappy ones. Not good enough. Somebody at Disney has to have the stones when they see this crappy production to say “No, we can’t sell these.”

The Disney Store has been contacted by DV and we are awaiting an official response.

For more on Furry Friends, please listen to our Podcast Ep. 054 Blue Monorail where Annemarie gives a hands on review, read Annemarie’s review and check out Nick Branch’s article and pics from the UK release.

Collector’s Corner: Nathan

WDWNT on January 18, 2012



Name: Nathan Myers

Location: Ft Worth, TX

Collection Size: 76

3″ = 74
9″ = 2
Jrs = 0

How long have you been collecting?
I collect VM for the joy and memory’s I have from growing up in So Cal and going to Disneyland as a kid and now taking my son to Disneyland. My first VM was POTC that had always been my favorite ride a Dland so I bought a blind box not knowing about VM and pulled the Barbossa Chaser! That hooked me!

What is your favorite figure that you own?
That is a tough one at the moment I guess it is the SF Cable Car Tin.

What is your favorite figure that you don’t own?
Wow that is tough. So many I like and want. I really want the ETO Mushu and the Si Am Chaser.

Which of these is the best feeling: Pulling a figure you want… from a blind box you just purchased, from a great trade with another collector, from a mystery trading box at the park or from a clear trading box?
I think the best feeling is opening up a blind box and seeing that one VM I was wanting to get! Thank you for considering me for the Collectors corner!!!

Email us at DestinationVinylmation@gmail.com and get your collection featured in a Collector’s Corner Article.

Sanford, FL Disney Store Closing (for Refurb)

WDWNT on January 18, 2012

Update: 1/18/12 According to Stitch Kingdom, an announcement by Disney at the National Retail Federation’s “Big Show” in New York City revealed plans for a second Orlando Disney Store at the Mall at Millenia. No mention of the Sanford store was made. Still not 100% sure if the Sanford location is closing for good or for refurb. Thanks to Chris for the heads up.


Update: The sign made it seem forever, but our friend Chris just tweeted us: “The Sanford Mall is changing over to the new “magic” store.” So it seems this is just a refurb and it will open up again one day.

In our never ending competition for best athlete on the DV staff, MC felt he had to out-do my WDW Half Marathon triumph by climbing through the tree top obstacle course that is Zoom Air in Sanford, FL. To relax after his workout, he appearntly decided to stop by the Sanford Mall and check out the Vinylmation scene at the Disney Store there. And although the store was open today, it had this ominous sign outside.

In case you can not read the fine print, Peter Pan is telling guests that this location will close it’s doors “on or before January 24, 2012.” The “Never Say Goodbye” doesn’t seem to refer to the store coming back, but rather sending guest to DisneyStore.com. What does this mean for Central Florida collectors? We will have no choice but to brave the tourists and venture to Florida Mall on Orange Blossom Trail.

ZoMG: Furry Friends Photoshoot

WDWNT on January 18, 2012

by Zoe

When I got home last night, I took my Furry Friends out of their carriers and let them explore their new home.

First I found Trusty was going through my bags and found my Lady and The Tramp lithographs that I got at the Disney Store for pre-ordering Lady and The Tramp! He decided this was his favorite, obviously since he is in the picture!

Then I found Patch drinking some of Belle’s water! (Belle is my puppy!)

I then went into my room and saw that Max had found his good friend Ariel. She was so excited to see him!

Oliver made his way into my Vinylmation collection and found his friend Dodger!

I looked all over the house for Marie and I couldn’t find her anywhere. I thought to myself, where would a fabulous feline like Marie want to go? I went straight into my room and opened up my jewelry box and found Marie playing with my jewelry! She’s a girly girl, she can’t help it! I think Marie found her favorite place in the house!

Disney North: Cutesations Review

WDWNT on January 18, 2012

Well, the Disney Design group has done it again. Released today were the new Cutesations. As you have seen from Mike’s post from last week, the Cutesations are 5″ plush that are sold in Blind Boxes at the Disney Store. Since I was already in the Disney Store to pick up the new Furry Friends Vinylmation, I opted to purchase a couple of the Alice in Wonderland Cutesations to check them out.

I was not disappointed. They did a really good job on the series. I ended up with the White Rabbit and Mad Hatter, both great designs. They are basically minis of the large plush that are already of good quality. The faces look great and really capture the characters well. The boxes were also nicely done, especially on the inside where there were some nice quotes. The only drawback with the boxes was how difficult they were to open; I was hoping to keep them in good shape, but the glue used to seal them damaged them slightly. The only drawback to the series is the size of the tag:

As you can see, the tags are almost as big as the entire figure! I did see the entire set on the mushroom. It was nicely put together but sort of takes away from the fun of buying blind boxes (bloxes…).

Overall, I really like the series. As with Vinylmation, I would buy one or 2 from each series but would not buy an entire set. At a price point of $6.50 each ($7.50 Canadian) they are a good value. I say take the chance and buy a couple to check them out.