After several days of anxious waiting, my Club Ecto-1 March figure has arrived – in the form of a canine pet to a demi-god! Its Louis Tully Vinz Clortho! Writing this one is going to be a little difficult. Not because the figure itself is hard to write about, but because Louis Tulley/Vinz Clortho is such a distraction for me as a character, it is going to be hard to stay on point. For me, he is the most quotable and, often times, the most hilarious character in the entire Ghostbusters universe. Rick Moranis was a force in the 1980s and his portrayal of the heath-conscious and lock-challenged accountant was given to us by the supportive grace of John Candy (who was originally wanted for the role until he himself suggested Moranis) and made it okay to wear a colander on your heard. Kinda.
I love my Ghostbusters, I really do. I am also glad to be getting figures of the movie GBs (though now I want some new RGB figures too) but I have to admit, anytime a figure rolls out in this line that is NOT one of the four main guys, I tend to hold more anticipation for the release. I think that right now, the biggest weakness of the Ghostbusters line is lack of variety for anything past the busters themselves. I mean, the last time we got a non-buster figure release in the line (not counting pack-ins) was last May with Walter Peck. I know that there are considerations for this kind of thing, tooling expense and what not, but I really hope that Mattel starts to put more focus on getting us at least two “other” characters from the movies each year. So, being able to add Vinz Clortho (Key Master of Gozer) to the shelf is a welcome breath of fresh air.
I think this will be better handled in a series of pictures mimicking famous Vinz scenes from the movie, but before I get to that, there a just a couple of points. First, as we learned previously, Vinz was sculpted by Mattel’s in-house talent, not by the Four Horsemen and for the most part, everything is pretty well done. We do get a couple character appropriate accessories in the pizza slice and popcorn canister but we also get not one, not two but TWO AND A HALF (one is actually a “mask”) heads for the figure. The first is only what I can describe as “normal” (used lightly) Vinz. This plain and unadorned head captures the perpetual disheveled feel of the character and I have to say, the likeness is actually quite good for me. I will go as far as saying that while I don’t think it is on the level of Peter or Winston, I do like it better than Ray’s current head sculpt. It does look like Moranis and I think it rings even truer in hand than in pictures. I wish the rims of the glasses were a little thinner (as this is main reason you might think he looks slightly “off”) and a little “dirt” paint on the face might have helped, but that could have also ended in disaster. The second head is actually a “mask” of the Terror Dog statue head from the end of the movie, that fits over the standard head. It is serviceable as the sculpted detail is nice and very accurate, but it is a touch undersized to my eyes, but correct me if I am wrong. It is made of a very soft plastic so you need not worry about dinging Vinz’s noggin when putting it on him.
The final head is by far my favorite as it is representative of my favorite Vinz scene from the movie – the colander helmet-doohickey thing. This is the head that I will have displayed on my shelf, I just have never been able to hear “Yes, have some” without busting a gut so being able to recreate this look is golden. The colander seems to help the likeness too (I can’t explain it) so even if this were not my favorite head, I would still call it the best of the bunch.
The body sculpt and articulation is pretty standard for this line too and I have no beefs with anything save that the knee cuts are too high and look awkward. At first I thought this might be caused due to using the shin piece from the suit body (which is noticeably taller) but that is not the case, his legs are all new. He has the (now dubbed) Mattelbows (you know, Matty’s version of Elbros?) like his Ghostbusters counterparts and I think all of the rest of the articulation points match up as well. The body is appropriately skinny, and again they sculpt captures the disheveled look of the character but (again) some paint to dirty him up would have helped here too. A nicety to this unique body is that it give opportunity for some real scale to the line, and Vinz is quite a bit shorter than the rest of the figures that have been release so far, befitting of Moranis’ slight frame.
So enjoy the pictures, I know I will be enjoying reciting all of the best lines delivered in poor facsimile to the original – You will perish in flames! It is always a nice turn when you end up liking a figure more than you thought you would. Holy poop, I have a Vinz Clortho figure! Never thought I would, but my Key Master cannot be alone for long, Matty – bring on the Gate Keeper!
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