Continuing our coverage of the return to prominence of the classic retros style wrestling figures, we bring you a look at the Mind of the Meanie two pack from Chella Toys. This set comes on the old school tag team style packaging that the Hasbro WWF figures would come in and features bWo member The Blue Meanie along with his podcast partner Josh Shernoff.
When I first heard of this pack, my initial reaction was who’s Josh Shernoff? But when I found out he was the co-host of the Mind of the Meanie Podcast I was all in on this. It’s a cool idea that even wrestling Podcast hosts can get their own retro fig now, and if the guys at Chella Toys are reading this I want to be the next wrestling podcaster to get a fig 😉
As we noted in our review of the retro style Nick Aldis figure form Chella, this is absolutely a collector’s piece and I should imagine that 80% of these sold will remain in packaging for display purposes along side the classic Hasbro figures, and Mattel WWE retros. As such, the two figures feature posable limbs, but do not feature any spring loaded actions.
The Blue Meanie figure’s arms are posable arms in the classic slam manoeuvre style. The ‘Real Megastar Action’ advertised is that you can make the Meanie do the Blue Meanie Dance which is achieved by articulating the arms up and down and ‘girating accordingly’ which is a funny inclusion on the packaging. Chella once again show their humour with fun touches like this.
One thing which is a shame is that because the Blue Meanie has his long blue beard it prevents there from being a movable head which would have been nice for collectors who like to pose and photograph their figs. This puts the Meanie into the same realm as the Hasbro Andre the Giant figure as one who has a fixed head. The classic Jim the Anvil Neidhart had a similar pointy beard and could move the head, but this Meanie figure instead captures the classic Blue Meanie expression where he sucks his face and mouth in and looks like he’s been caught in the headlights.
The Josh Shernoff figure features movable head, arms and even has a mini microphone in his hands that can be removed or added for interview style poses. Mattel have shown off an upcoming Mean Gene figure, but Chella here are the first to release a retro figure to fill that interviewer role.
I’ll be honest I had to look up Shernoff photos for the purposes of this review, and think this design comes right form the Mind of Shernoff as much as it is from the mind of the Meanie. I say that in jest as Shernoff’s figure stands taller than either the Blue Meanie or Nick Aldis figures, and is more hench than I expect is true to life. This doesn’t take anything away form the figure as obviously the retros back in the day were rarely to scale to the point that the various Hulk Hogan figures would differ in size.
The detail on both figures is excellent with the printed mind of the meanie logos on both Meanie’s shirt and Shernoff’s mic, and detail on Shernoff’s tie. The Meanie figure features Da Blue Guy’s face paint around the eyes, but again, as with the Nick Aldis figure before I feel the Shernoff figure needs a dark line around the top of the eyes to show eyelashes and definition to the eyes as we got on the Hasbro and Mattel retro figures. Chella is a new line in the wrestling figure business, and as impressed as I was with their Nick Aldis figure, I think these figures show great progression and improvement in design. With so many more announced from Chella including the upcoming Dynamite Kid, Adam Bomb and Haku I’m sure this line is just going to get better and better with each release.
Conclusion
Over all this is another great addition for collectors of wrestling figs to get their hands on, and the first tag team two pack of this type to arrive in decades. This is the first retro fig released to start filling in the ECW roster in our collections, and hopefully in the future another two pack could arrive with Nova and Big Stevie Cool.
For more action figure and collectible articles check out the Toys Section of the site. Also check out our weekly streaming show Geek Battle on the Extreme Improv Xstreamed YouTube Channel.
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