I’ve got a few work-in-progress prop replicas I’m chipping away at in the background, so in the meantime I thought I’d try something different and review a recent Labyrinth purchase I made. Hopefully since this blog is chocked full of Labyrinth related items ya’ll won’t mind if I indulge myself a bit.
I used to be way more into action figures in my High School/University days, although having to pay for said university prevented me from going too deep into the hobby. One of the treats I allowed myself were the original NECA Labyrinth figures released in the mid 2000s. We got two unique Jareth sculpts, one of which came as a two-pack with Hoggle, and one of the Jareth’s was later re-released as an 12 inch talking version.
Why yes, this IS my way of humble bragging about my Labyrinth action figure collection, thank you for noticing
The line didn’t do particularly well, judging by how quickly it petered out. Over 10 years later McFarlane Toys picked up the Labyrinth licence, and we got two more Jareth’s (Plus a little Goblin accessory). All that to say that we haven’t really had a line of Labyrinth action figures that delivered on variety. As much as I love Jareth and would love to have at least one action figure of each of his outfits, it’s a bit crazy that between two different companies spread across 20 or so years we’ve only gotten one non-Jareth figure. It was at least nice that, intentionally or not, McFarlane didn’t duplicate any of the NECA outfits.
That brings us to Plastic Meatball, an Indie company who specializes in “Retro Style” action figures. The idea of “Retro Style” figures is pretty brilliant if you ask me. It’d be impossible for an Indie company like Plastic Meatball to compete with the highly articulated, realistically detailed sculpts and paint applications of a larger company like NECA or McFarlane Toys. So why not lean into your limitations in a fun way, and create simpler, stylized figures that tap into childhood nostalgia?
Plastic Meatball has released three Labyrinth figures at the time of this post: Jareth, Sarah, and Hoggle. Each figure comes in their own blister card with images pulled from the movie on the front, while the back shows off the complete collection of figures. Each figure has an ID number associated with it, which is located on the top right of the front of the blister, so let’s use that to dive into each figure in this first wave.
Figure LB1001 is what I’m sure will be the first of a few Jareth’s Plastic Meatball with provide us. Plastic Meatball is dubbing this “Throne Room” Jareth, the outfit he wears while singing Magic Dance in his throne room. While the paint details are minimal on the figure itself they put a lot of detail into his face, giving Jareth different coloured eyes as a way to try and mimic Bowie’s infamous mis-matched pupils. I’m pretty impressed that they went ahead and sculpted the pattern on Jareth’s tights, that almost feels like it’d go against the economic, vintage style these figures are designed for, but thinking about it more maybe a detailed sculpt is easier to do than additional paint apps? Regardless I do appreciate that the sculpt allows for the pattern to continue on the back of Jareth’s tights. Jareth stands at about 3 3/4 inches tall, and is the tallest figure out of this first wave.
Jareth’s hair is always a conundrum to solve when he’s made into solid form. How do you translate that very wispy hair–do of his to plastic? Plastic Meatball simplifies it quite a bit, making Jareth’s hair blockier and a bit more stylized, which works pretty good for this style of figure. I do wish that his bangs were just a bit longer though, my Jareth looks like he tried to cut his own bangs and has some regrets.
Jareth comes with his crop, and surprisingly he can only hold the crop in his left hand. At first it seems that the crop would be interchangeable between the two hands, but at least on my Jareth the right cuff prevents the crop from fitting cleanly into that hand. Personally I don’t see a reason why you wouldn’t have Jareth be able to swap his crop between his hands, so that’s one slightly nitpicky negative I have to say about these figures.
Next up in the line is figure LB1002, Sarah, which is very exciting as this is the first Sarah action figure we’ve ever gotten! For a good long while Sarah felt very under-represented in Labyrinth merch. Sure she might have appeared on a t-shirt, or anything else that had the movie poster slapped onto it, but it’s only been in recent years that we’ve seen more Sarah-centric merch that had a bit more pizazz to it. Off the top of my head we’ve had a Sarah Funko Pop, Broken Toad’s Labyrinth miniatures, the recent WETA Mini Epics statues, and WETA’s statue showing the final confrontation between Sarah and Jareth (Which uh hey WETA, if you ever feel so inclined to send me a free $2000 dollar statue, that’d be great).
Sarah wears her casual outfit, the vest and jean combo she wears for the majority of the film. Sarah comes with two accessories, the first being the poisoned peach, and the second being the worm. I’m noticing a trend with how often Sarah is paired up with the worm in Labyrinth merch, which I thought was funny at first but thinking about it the worm never interacts with anyone other than Sarah, so I guess there’s really no other choice who to pair him up with (And he’s such a fan favourite you gotta include him somewhere). The worm is obviously not in the right scale compared to Sarah, which I’ll admit I think looks a bit silly, but a teeny tiny in-scale worm would probably be immediately lost the second the package was opened.
I’ll admit Sarah’s paint threw me off a bit when I first saw the figure. Jennifer Connelly is a very dark brunette, but this figure has very light brown hair, which felt off until I realised that they used the same brown as the detailing on her vest. This is very much in tune with the “Retro Style” that Plastic Meatball is going for, how companies would simplify paint applications to try and use as few colours as possible. The “Retro Style” really deflects a lot of criticisms I might have, like Sarah’s lip colour for instance. It feels a bit off to have it so bright red, and yet I can totally see a vintage toy company making that same choice as well. Sarah is roughly 3 1/2 inches tall.
To give more of the spotlight to the worm, I think they did a decent job with him! The worm is such a hard sculpt to recreate… he’s somehow old and young looking at the same time, with a not-traditionally cute face that is somehow the cutest. I wish that the blue paint on his back was also covering the back of his head, but maybe that also falls under that “Retro Style” defence.
The peach is pretty plain… just a peach, nothing more… though it is nice they tried to give it a bit more detail with the addition of a little leaf. You can kinda balance the peach on Sarah’s hand, but of course since she has minimal articulation it’s not going to look very natural and will immediately fall off unless you secure it with a bit of sticky tack. I’ll admit, I’m not fond of the peach accessory! I don’t see much point in including it if the characters can’t hold it, that just means the peach is just going to awkwardly sit on the shelf next to the figure, waiting for it’s opportunity to fall to the floor and never be seen again. I wish instead of a peach she can’t hold Sarah came with her little red book, which could slide into her existing sculpt. Maybe if this line does well enough they can make a figure of Sarah in her green ren faire dress, with the red book as an accessory for that outfit.
Lastly we have figure LB1003, Hoggle, which if you remember is the second Hoggle action figure we’ve ever gotten. I really appreciate the colours they picked for this Hoggle, they made his clothes very orange in tone which makes his blue eyes really pop. There’s a paint application across his chest for the little strap that goes across his body, it’s much wider than the strap itself which made me think it was a mistake a first. Checking the promotional material, this extra wide paint app is there too, so I guess it’s intentional? I’ll admit I wish this was a bit tighter to the sculpted belt, but then again wonky paint apps are hand-in-hand with old figures. I’m very happy to see the little face on the back of Hoggle’s vest was faithfully recreated here! Hoggle is the shortest figure in the set, just over 2 3/4 inches tall.
Hoggle doesn’t come with any accessories, which I think is a bit odd considering Jareth and Sarah both came with at least one. I almost wonder if the peach was originally Hoggle’s accessory, much like it was for the NECA Hoggle, though even with Hoggle’s larger hand he still can’t hold the peach convincingly. Personally I would’ve liked to have seen Hoggle come with his sprayer, and maybe even a little fairy? The sprayer could’ve fit into Hoggle’s hand, and if the fairy was relegated to limply sitting on the shelf beside him you could at least pretend that she’s one of the fairies that Hoggle sprayed (Plus she’d be less likely to roll off like the peach is).
Hoggle has a hole on the bottom of each foot, I’m not sure if this was an intentional bit of design or maybe a left over from part of the molding process? It reminds me of how some figures would come with little stands you’d plug into the bottom of their feet, though I’m happy to report Hoggle stands pretty good all by himself.
Each figure has the basic five points of articulation: The legs, arms, and neck can all swivel. The arms have full 360 degree rotation, and the legs obviously can only rotate so much before they’re blocked by the hips… and the neck? Well unfortunately at least on my figures the necks really don’t have any articulation. Sarah and Jareth’s long hair restricts movement of the head, which I frankly was expecting, but even with Hoggle’s short hair style his neck doesn’t want to swivel. Maybe the head was put into the neck before the paint was dry and it’s become stuck? I might be able to unstick it if I put a bit more muscle into it, but I don’t want to risk damaging his paint so I’m just going to leave things be. To be fair it may also be that the head joint is less about articulation and more about making it easier to mold and cast these figures.
“I told you to watch out for that icy patch!”
Overall I’m really happy with these figures, criticisms aside they’re all very charming. It’s also fun to see merch that attempts to mimic what kind of stuff would’ve been made had Labyrinth been a bigger success when it was first released. These figures make me wish that I was a miniature painter, as I think it’d be fun to give these guys a make over and paint them a bit truer to how everyone looked in the film. There’s a decent amount of detail in the sculpts of these figures, and a touch more paint would bring that out very nicely (Though it’d definitely break the “Retro Style” vibe).
Plastic Meatball has hinted that there are additional waves coming, and I really hope that comes to fruition! I’d love to see more Labyrinth characters get their action figure debut, Ludo would look absolutely adorable in this style. I’d also love to see how Plastic Meatball would handle Sarah in her ballgown, as a former 90s kid I picture those old style Polly Pockets where they still gave Polly a huge waist joint even when she was in a dress. There’s an odd charm to that kind of design, I know it might not be everyone’s cup of tea but I’d get a kick out of it at least.
I’d also love to see a line of Goblins, maybe a multi-pack of small un-articulated figurines? It’d be nice to give Jareth an army of Goblin’s, NECA actually had plans to do that back in the day but they never made it to market. A Goblin king needs his subjects, and I think having them as un-articulated figurines in this “Retro Style” would look really cute.
If all the above wasn’t a big enough clue, I’d definitely recommend these figures. You can purchase them directly from Plastic Meatball’s website, or from Big Bad Toy Store here (Though at the time of this post, BBTS’s listing is just or pre-order).
“Don’t ever talk to me or my son again”
KOMakesThings 