They fight…and bite…they bite and fight and…okay, that’s the wrong cat and mouse duo. Tom and Jerry are the spiritual ancestors to Itchy and Scratchy, and their action figures took the world by surprise.
When esteemed beardlord and celebrated Youtube toylebrity Robokillah posted a handful of promo shots of Tom and Jerry figures around a month ago, I was surrounded by cartoon question marks. Who or what was Dasin Model? Why were these figures only available from a single foreign retailer? Were these legitimate, or were they strange knock off bootleg type of things? Am I going to hand over 42 dollars to a completely unknown entity in the hopes of getting a cartoon cat and mouse? Was I going to lose 42 dollars? Was I going to end up with a box full of dead mice and a few stray cat hairs? Was this some new method the Triads had of funding their operations, by dangling the prospect of fully articulated action figures of beloved cartoon properties in front of stupid Americans?
I have trust issues.
I bookmarked the page where these were being sold and waited until the last possible moment to finally relent and fork over the cash. I was intending on waiting until some in-hand reviews popped up, but I didn’t want to miss out.
Having them in-hand, I am so glad I didn’t.
The pictures looked good. They looked well-articulated, but you never know. They looked on-model, they looked fun, but was I going to be paying for a bunch of loosely-connected plastic that fell apart faster than a MAFEX C-3P0 at a rave? Did I just pay 42 dollars for anger figures?
Nope!
Except for a few quibbles, I am very, very happy with these figures. I am ALWAYS in the market for excellent versions of classic cartoon characters from the so-called golden age, and Tom and Jerry hit that sweet spot as hard as a baseball bat. Of the two, Tom makes for a more successful toy just by virtue of his size, but a couple of cheats allow Jerry to be more than just a pre-posed chunk of plastic, which I appreciate quite a bit. Let’s take a top down overview of each figure and look over their strengths and weaknesses.
Tom’s heads
Right away, just with heads, I almost feel like the price of this set is a steal. These are not small figures with small heads. Tom stands at about 5 ½ inches tall, so all three of his oversized cartoon heads are large chunks of plastic. Toss in a fully articulated Jerry with two heads of his own and some decent accessories and 42 dollars feels like I cheated the system.
As I said, Tom comes with three heads. One is a standard happy, smiling head, the type of marquee head that would show up on a title screen or poster. It looks great, with excellent, smooth sculpting. The eyes are tilted slightly to the side, as if he’s looking at Jerry. I love the playful exuberance they gave him, as if to say he’s not a relentless mouse-killing machine all the time. Just…most of the time.
Head number two is a full on demonically malicious head. The brows are down the mouth is open, the eyes are pointed directly ahead. This is Tom in full-on Jerry-murder mode, ready to pounce, leap or otherwise moidalize the unsuspecting mouse. This is Tom right when he thinks he has the drop on Jerry. But it will never work out, because then there would have been one cartoon, and it would have been Tom chewing jerry for seven minutes. Nobody wants that.
Head number three might be my favorite. The first two are excellent representations of Tom’s moods, but the third head has this quietly evil glint that serves several purposes. First, it is a good milk-drinking head, because Tom comes with both a straw and a saucer of milk. More on those later, but that is awesome. But in addition to simple milk-drinking, this head has a slightly offset lower lip that, to me, adds a ton of character to Tom. More than just the simple happy and evil type heads he comes with, this head makes you wonder just what’s going on in that cat brain of his. It’s a plotting, planning, twisted expression that has a bit of determination and pride locked away in it. Am I overthinking a head? Maybe, but expressions are 9/10ths of what make up the character of mainly silent characters like these, and this was an excellent choice for a third head. The other two are necessary, but this one is the punctuation.
All three heads attach by a simple ball-and socket. The attachment is pretty snug but rotates and allows for a small tilt of the head, which adds that much more expressiveness. The peg is attached to the torso by a disc joint that gives him a good range of back and forth. He does a good job of looking down at his prey.
Tom’s torso
Tom’s torso is solid with no articulation. I probably would have liked a ball-jointed torso about midway, but I understand that the sculpt is preserved without a cut breaking the torso up. I am one who favors a bit more articulation over worrying about the sculpt, but he’s not lacking too much without it. The shape is great, flaring out at his gut, and the white part is sculpted, so it’s not just a flat paintjob. It does a good job of getting across his cartoony proportions
Tom’s arms
Tom’s arms feature an impressive range of motion. He has ball-jointed shoulders with a bicep cut, ball jointed elbows (these do not swivel) and ball jointed wrist. The elbow can get 90 degree bend. The wrists have plenty of clearance so his hands can get almost 90 degrees in most directions. This is excellent for batting poses, or for grabbing Jerry, or for traditional cat-poses. The nature of the biceps doesn’t quite allow him to reach across himself much, but he can just barely put his hands together., and he can touch his face adequately. Some type of swinging extension in the shoulders would have been ideal, but not completely necessary.
Tom’s hands
Tom comes with three sets of hands plus one. He has a set of neutral hands, a set of clawed-aggressive type hands and a set of holding hands. The hands pop on and off easily—it does take a bit of force, but you won’t herniate yourself, and stay on once they’re on, so you shouldn’t have to deal with them popping off while in use.
The neutral hands are serviceable. They’re not too exciting, but they’re good for a wide range of things, from smacking to offering a handshake to holding something up and so forth.
The grabbing hands can double as fists. They are a little stiff. I had to heat up the hand to get the baseball bat in, but it’s possible they could loosen up over time. Once they’re holding the bat they hold it well. It’s annoying when hands either pop off or won’t hold their accessories, so I’m in the pro-tight camp.
The clawed hands are excellent, and do a good job furthering the threatening shtick he’s got going on. They go very well with either of his “evil” type heads, and work well in counterpoint to Jerry.
The plus one is another gripping hand, but this one much wider, for a very singular purpose: to hold a Jerry prop. This Jerry is much smaller than the Jerry that comes with the set. While it’s no doubt a bit more in scale than the Jerry figure itself, you can just chalk it up to cartoon physics. This Jerry is mainly a head and tail, with a shapeless cylinder that slides neatly into his grip. Jerry has a worried expression, and works great with Tom’s evil faces. They really thought of everything, because it’s very cool inclusion and adds to the overall value.
Tom’s hips
Tom has ball-jointed drop-down hips. With the drop down feature, Tom is capable to doing a split, and can put his legs out in front of him. It also helps with running poses.
Tom’s legs
Tom has ball-jointed knees that can get a 90 degree bend, and dual-ball jointed ankles. Mine are a little looser where the ball inserts into the foot itself, but I could probably tighten it up if I need to. They get a good range from side to side and front to back.
Tom’s tail
Finally, Tom has a ball-jointed tail with a swivel, so you can position it in any number of ways, depending on what you’ve got Tom doing.
Jerry is going to be limited, but he can still get away with quite a bit due to certain articulation choices that, while not quite on par with Tom, let him be more than just a figurine.
Jerry’s heads
Jerry comes with two heads. He’s got the happy head to go along with Tom’s happy head, and his own version of malicious/scheming/determined expression. This one has the side-eyes going on, as if no dumb cat is going to get the better of a mouse. Like Tom’s heads, the sculpting is sharp and the character behind the expressions does a great job of giving life to Jerry. These made me a bit nervous swapping, but everything feels sturdy. It’s a standard ball joint, and he gets a decent range of motion.
Jerry’s arms
Jerry’s only arm articulation is at the shoulders. They are a swivel-pin joint, meaning he can move his arms in and out, and all the way around. The pin is to facilitate the folded-arms he comes with. I had a bit of an issue with the arms popping out too easily until the arms loosened up a bit, but then they moved much better and the arms stayed in. It’s not a perfect system—I would have sacrificed the extra arms for a little more stability—but it works well enough.
The extra arms are a simple set of folded arms. They’re good for him to stand around and look smug. They pop on and off easily, and are a nice inclusion.
Jerry’s body
Jerry has a static torso, with sculpted in lines, and the proportions here are good as well. He has ball-jointed hips and ankles. The hips are a little stiff, and takes some working to move them around into the right pose. They’re limited in range, so Jerry’s not going to be able to do the splits or have the same level of dynamic range, but for limited running poses or standing around, they work ok. I don’t know if drop-down hips would be feasible at this size, but they would have ratcheted up the motion considerably.
His feet have a tendency to pop off when attempting to move his hips, but they pop back on easily enough.
Overall Jerry is a little more limited but does enough of what he is needed to do. Tom is the more exciting figure, obviously, but the two of them together make up for the slight dings Jerry takes.
Accessories
The two figures would probably have been enough, but they came with some pretty good accessories. First, there’s the baseball bat. It’s got a good cartoony look to it and sizes well with tom. His articulation let’s him hold it convincingly in a variety of different ways.
There’s a standard mousetrap with oversized cheese. The cheese can be used with the trap, or Jerry can cart it off somewhere else. Again, both are excellent cartoony sculpts that work perfectly for these two.
The final accessory is a saucer of milk, with a hole for a straw, so Jerry can drink like a slightly more civilized cat. I mean, he’s still drinking his milk out of a saucer on the floor, but maybe he’s doing it with his pinky out or something.
A stand is included. There’s a small articulated arm for Jerry, and a larger one for Tom. The arm itself is articulated in a couple places. The pegs on the arms don’t quite slot in snugly into the holes in their backs, so if you go that direction they’re more for a little extra stability than it is for load-bearing. They do come with the standard two-prong claw if you want to grip them a little better.
Tom and Jerry are the surprises of 2018. I’m not sure if anything can top these two, coming from a company I had never heard of and only available through an online retailer I had never heard of. That they are excellently made toys with a ton of play value only caps off how unexpected these two are. If more cartoon properties can just appear out of nowhere with toys of this quality, I will be a very happy animation fan. The 42 was an introductory price, but you can still get them for the low low price of 45 dollars. If you have even the slightest bit of interest, take the plunge. Worth it.
You can order them from China Model Toys
