Evening all! It’s the official first Thursday Night Highlight of the New Year! Hope everybody had a safe holiday. I spent some of it waiting an hour inside a small Chinese restaurant for food that I was told would be ready in ten to fifteen minutes! Then I’m pretty sure I fell asleep on the couch and woke up in time to watch the ball drop on TV. Ah the joy of being an adult and a parent. Anyway! Thursday Night Highlight is brought to you as always by Esbjo_Figs over on Instagram. For those of you just joining me it’s an exclusive to Popvinyls.com and it’s a way to showcase a few photos I took during the week and give a little description about how these photos came into fruition. You like that word? Fruition. No… I wasn’t given a “word of the day” desk calender for Christmas… that one just came to me. Let’s move on with the photos shall we!
“Friends Don’t Tease Friends About Their Pop Collection.”
Mighty Morphin Red Ranger (#23), Mighty Morphin Pink Ranger (#24), and Mighty Morphin White Ranger (#22) from the Pop! Television line (featuring the S.H. Figuarts counterparts). The inspiration for this photo came to me because I was sitting around thinking about how the other rangers would react to not having Pops made of themselves. Seriously Funko! I believe they lost the license to the line, but having the Red, White, and Pink ranger without the Black, Blue, and Yellow just feels like there’s a hole in my life that can never be filled. Sure I’ve seen some pretty awesome customs out there, but that’s besides the point! Hopefully one day down the line with Funko becoming as big as it is they’ll get the rights to finish the set. Can you imagine the possibilities? Besides finishing the rangers off we could get a Green Ranger, Rita, Lord Zedd, Goldar, and maybe even an Ivan Ooze! We could even get Hot Topic in the mix and have an exclusive of the evil Green Ranger holding the Sword of Darkness. Come on! Look how upset the rest of the teenagers with attitude are in the photo. I hope I’ve captured just how upset I am about it, but alas… life goes on….let’s get on to the next photo…BACK INTO ACTION!
“Under his nose the entire time.”
Hank Schrader (#164), Walter White (#158), and Heisenberg (#162) from the Pop! Television line. Poor AC Schrader… he was great in his line of work, but couldn’t see that his brother-in-law was becoming a drug lord crime king pin right in front of his eyes. The inspiration for this photo was to take Walter White at the beginning of his journey and and at the end of it and place it on both sides of Hank to show what Hank was missing out on in his quest to obtain fine minerals. They’re minerals MARIE! For some reason whenever I look at this Pop in my collection I always think of that one scene. They’re minerals! Hilarious. Sadly things didn’t end well for these two guys, but with a show like Breaking Bad what could have happened? It ended with one of the best series finales of a show that I’ve ever seen. Also, side note do you see how far Funko has come with the television line? The first photo had the Power Rangers numbered in the 20s, and these over a hundred more than that.
“Snap into a pimp bomb…oohh yeah. Wait. Don’t do that. Never do that.”
CM Punk (#02) *HT Exclusive* and Macho Man Randy Savage (#10) *WWEShop.com Exclusive* from the Pop! WWE line. The inspiration for this photo actually came to me while I was rearranging my Pops the other day. I saw that CM Punk was wearing his Macho Man attire, and well… I had Macho Man wearing the same colored attire and it seemed only natural to put the two together. This CM Punk was actually the first WWE pop I purchased at the beginning of last year. It’s great to see them at series 2 already and the Macho Man joining the collection with his exclusive variant. Unless you live under a rock you know that CM Punk is no longer associated with the WWE and is joining UFC some time next year. Good for him I guess. Chris Jericho will always be the best in the world though, and hopefully he gets the Pop treatment some day. I’ll go with the Hot Topic exclusive idea again and say a variant with his arms extended out wearing his light up jacket and it glows in the dark. Boom!
That’s all the time I have tonight. That Frozen picture up top is just one I did at the beginning of the week when it snowed briefly at night. I liked it, but didn’t want to look up the numbers and what not. Ah well. You know you have a Pop and Toy Photography problem when you stop cleaning your basement to take pictures of pops in the snow. Thank you once more for joining me on Thursdays and of course for all the likes and support. Like this article? You can find more of my work over on Instagram (www.instagram.com/esbjo_figs) or click the link in my signature box below… that’s probably alot easier. I also post other photos on the Funko Trading Facebook page so you can find it there. Here’s to an awesome 2015! Be kind to one another, have a great night, and as always… Free the Pops!
Matt Norris