I wonder how much money could get for selling my blood?

This weekend while I was out looking for some Frankenstein goodness for the prize pack in my Halloween contest, I decided to hit a few stores that had surprised me last year with their Halloween schwag, in particular Toys R Us. Now I seem to remember there being a seasonal section back when I was a little kid, if only because I remember the rows and rows of Ben Cooper style costume packs, but I don’t tend to associate Halloween with toy stores all that much. Last year I was surprised by the size of their section, and was really happy to finally find some licensed Universal monster merchandise (namely the jiggly Creature and Frankenstein’s monster toys.)

When my wife and I walked though the doors and saw the Halloween section I thought it was going to be even better this year because there were actual displays and signs, which were a lot nicer than the previous year’s…

…but as we took a closer look we realized that this was probably the worst Halloween section we’d seen all year, anywhere. In fact, out local grocery store had a better set up and schwag. Most of the section was filled with your basic year round fare like Star Wars figures and Pokemon plush dolls. There was only a very small end cap of some run of the mill candy, and there were practically no real holiday themed items, and the stuff that they did have (like plastic candy pails and the like) was from last year or the year before. There was a small section of costumes, mostly for infants and very small children.

There was a pretty fun flashlight. It was one of those new fangled ones that looks like a little character with a handle on the back, and when you squeeze the trigger the mouth opens and the light shines. The one Toys R Us had was sort of a cross between a skeleton and a zombie, and was pretty darn cute…

There was also an odd little felt bag with a picture of Frankenstein stitched into it that looked strangely like Eddie Munster.

I was pretty disappointed, if only because the signage in the store was pretty fun (though not quite as awesome as the Frankenstein logo at Wal-Mart this year which is quickly becoming my favorite Halloween find this year.) There were signs everywhere (at least in this one corner of the store), hanging from the ceiling and plastering the walls…

I really liked the effort, design-wise, which reminded me a lot of the current independent art/vinyl toy culture (for a crash course, go to Kid Robot and check out some of the toys.) In particular I liked the look of some of the more detailed mascots like this mummy…

It has some very bold clean lines, which I like, as well as a touch of detail that puts the figure off symmetry (which I also then to find attractive.)

My favorites by far had to be this trio of figures…

As you can see in the signage though, Toys R Us is claming to be "your ultimate Halloween scene", which is just sad considering the lack of Halloween in the store.

I had all but given up on finding anything super cool at the store when I decided to look in the action figure section to try and find the elusive 25th anniversary G.I. Joe figures when my wife spotted some toys that completely made my weekend…

…a set of five licensed Universal monster action figures. These took my breath away for a second, as I had no idea that these were even in the works, let alone out on store shelves. If the little dollar store monster figures made me happy last year, you can get an idea of how awesome I’m finding these. Unfortunately, this being Toys R Us and all, the price tag was too much to swallow as $13 a figure. Even with the included pieces to construct a giant 14" Frankenstein, it’s still a little too steep for me, but boy I sure will be pining after these. Hopefully they’ll hit the discount bins eventually, though I doubt it.

There are five figures in this set (which is marked Series 1, so there might be even more on the way), all of which come with a piece of a giant Frankenstein’s monster as well as a mini poster, and are packaged in a nice looking coffin shape. The figures are kind of weird in that they both do and don’t resemble their original movie counterparts. The costumes are pretty close for the most part, but the features aren’t those of Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, or Lon Chaney Jr.

At the end of the day though, they are still pretty cool, I just wish they were more in the $7 range, which is pretty much my ceiling for action figure purchases. I could easily see myself dropping $40 on this set, but not $65-$70.