Funko has thus far produced a generous amount of these so-called Mystery Mini sets based on various properties that I, so far, have managed to resist. Not that I haven’t looked at them and nodded in appreciation, but I either haven’t felt like I needed them, or they’ve been of properties that I’m not terribly interested in. But that changed with the reveal of the Warner Bros. Mystery minis. Anything like that immediately pushes all of my buttons.
Now, I will start this entire thing off by getting something off my chest. I know I’m not alone in this feeling, and it’s yet another reason I have stayed away from the Mystery Mini thing; a large part of collecting these is sorted around blind boxes, chase variants, rarities and so forth.
I hate chase figures. I hate rarities. I hate blind bags, blind boxes. I basically hate anything that doesn’t allow me to know what I’m buying up front. I hate the ratios of these things, where 1 out of 72 boxes might net you a unique figure. Hate hate hate. Some people might like the thrill of the hunt, but I am not that person. I’m not even related to that person. I just don’t like guesswork in my hobby.
But some things supersede my disdain, so I bought a full set of 12 in the hopes that I would get somewhat lucky. I kind of did, but as with all things built around rarities, I’m left with an incomplete collection of these things. How this is fun, I have no idea.
Worse still is that there are store exclusives being thrown into the mix. Aargh. Ok, enough complaining, on to the good.
The figures are scattered among the following ratios:
1 out of 6: Yogi, Daffy, Bugs, Marvin
1 out of 12: Huckleberry Hound, Fred Flintstone
1 out of 24: Tom, Jerry
1 out of 36: Boo-boo, Dino
and finally, the hardest of the hard, 1 out of 72: Quick draw McGraw and Foghorn Leghorn.
He’s, I say, he’s a hard one to find, he is.
I did pretty good, considering. I did resort to eBay immediately after opening my figures because I couldn’t leave one partnership broken on the off-chance that I didn’t get lucky twice, but otherwise I’m not sure if I’ll try to get the pricier variants or not.
Since I bought a full box of 12, I managed to get all the 1/6 figures and the two 1/12 figure. The odds were in my favor. Luckily the two I wanted the most out of all of them — Bugs Bunny and daffy duck — were at a more forgiving ratio. I’m assuming they knew that making them rare would have caused a riot.
Capturing a single pose for characters as expressive as these is a difficult decision, but I think these do a great job at presenting the essence of the character. Bugs looks smug, Daffy looks outraged, Marvin looks like he just conquered our planet, and Yogi is carrying a pic-a-nic basket. They’re all just right.
I do wonder how they chose the ratios for the characters after the 1/6ers. Was it arbitrary? Was science used? Who knows. Either way, Fred and Huckleberry Hound are excellent additions to the group. I need a Barney Rubble to hang with Fred now.
I managed to get Jerry, but not having Tom to go with him seemed very wrong, so I grabbed one off of eBay for a decent price right after opening them all. It’s a little sacrilegious to not have the pair of them together. I got lucky enough just getting one of them.
Speaking of sacrilegious, luckily I got a Boo-boo to go with Yogi, so there’s no need to resort to inflated prices to complete that set. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a Dino to go with Fred, but I got pretty lucky with the 1 out of 36 odds once, and of the two I’m happier having Boo-boo to go with Yogi, so I got pretty lucky on that one. I like how Boo-boo and Jerry are both shorter than the others, really taking the “mini” aspect to a whole new level.
The 1 out of 72 figures both eluded me, but at least neither of them are crucial components of a duo, so I’m a little more at ease over not having either of them than I would if it was a Yogi without a Boo-boo or something like that.
Overall I’m really happy with the whole aesthetics of these. I’m a total soft touch when it comes to Hanna-Barbera or Looney Tunes or pretty much Saturday Morning-themed stuff in general, so these make great display pieces for me. Now begins the internal struggle of just how much I want those hard-to-find ones …
You can buy a box of them at Big Bad Toy store, or try your luck with a single blind box.