I should've mentioned this earlier, but I'm back in ToyFare with a multipage feature on The Real Ghostbusters, mainly covering the basics of the series and toy collection. Notably, there's a ditty on Ecto-Cooler (nothing I haven't already said, but oh how proud I am to put Ecto in glossy print) along with a neat interview I did with the show's head writer, J. Michael Straczynski. You might recognize his name from a thousand other things, but for many of us, his greatest achievement is giving Egon funny things to say. If interested, it's issue #124, which I believe has a giant Predator head on the cover.

Also, I've already begun one of my favorite holiday traditions: Mindlessly browsing Amazon Dawt Cawm, breezing through page after page of potential gifts for family, potential gifts for friends, and potential gifts for MEEEE. A few years ago, Amazon was pretty decisively the best place to buy Christmas presents online, and even though most department store chains have caught up and are supplying the goods in a very competitive way, I still can't let a year slip by without an Amazon purchase. Mainly as a continued thanks for the time they sold Darth Sidious figures for ninety-nine cents back in 2001.

They've just launched something called The Holiday Toy List, which features all of 2007's hottest kid gifts with motion video demonstrations. This is admittedly useful for things like video games and whatnot, but when it comes to some of the other toys, it's absurdly hilarious. Check out this one, for a Spalding basketball. Man! If you were on the fence about buying a basketball, that video will blow the fence UP.

Many of the toys' videos are just webified versions of their original TV ads, but some are totally custom, and really help portray the playthings in ways still photography could never accomplish. Take this Fisher Price Sesame Street Pizza Party Elmo doll, which looks only mildly ridiculous until you watch the video and realize that Elmo's pizza is both alive and capable of singing.

In other news, I was going to cover this dealie in yesterday's entry, but while it's indeed under the "stocking stuffer" umbrella, it's a little too incredible to lump in with the likes of a simple bendable Santa Claus figure and novelty coal. From the Geddes Company, it's the amazing 5 in 1 Holiday Pen!

Like a Santafied Swiss Army knife, the pen is packed with five fa-la-larious special features, which are listed on each package. They run for $1.50 a pop, meaning that the pen's five features cost only thirty cents each. This is clearly a bargain, and my only regret is that I didn't buy nine hundred of them.

Because I'll theoretically increase my chances to make an extra thirteen cents by getting you to click into another X-E page, there's a photo essay on each of the pen's features, after the jump.

Feature 1: Polystone Figure! The figure had a bit of shrink-wrapping around it, and once I removed that, I was surprised to find that it had no way of ever rejoining the pen as one solid entity. I'd say that they just used crappy glue, but if it was glued on even with crappy glue, why'd they go through the trouble of shrink-wrapping it?

So, I'm a little miffed. This isn't a 5-in-1 mega pen. It's a 4-in-1 mega pen with a free Christmas figure in each package. There's a difference. The figure appears to be Santa Claus, but with a closer inspection and a little imagination, it seems more like a very pale bear impersonating Santa Claus, likely as a means to lure gullible children close enough to grab and eat.

Feature 2: Bubble Wand! Arguably the pen's neatest feature, you can untwist its ass-end to reveal a miniature bubble wand, which works quite well considering its size. The pen's "torso" (sorry, I'm a little rough when it comes to naming the various sections of a pen) is full of bubble juice, and there's enough of it to last for at least a month. Since you'll grow bored of the 5-in-1 super pen in mere minutes, you won't need to be conservative with the bubble juice.

Feature 3: Self-Inking Stamper! Hidden in the tip of the pen is a little rubber stamp, which apparently has an inbuilt ink well, as you won't need to dip it into anything to make it stamp weird little Santa Clauses on the nearest piece of paper. Not entirely useful, but if you were thinking about charging the people in your neighborhood a cover to see the plastic nativity set on your front lawn, this is a good way to keep track of who paid and who is a freeloading asshole.

Feature 4: Lights Up! Yes, the pen lights up as you use it, giving off a nice, cozy red glow. I thought I'd have more to say about Feature 4, but I guess that's it.

Feature 5: Ball Point Pen! Whether it was cheap or just "literal" for Geddes to include the fact that the pen actually works as a pen as one of its five features, I'll leave up to you. I'm torn. On one hand, yes, it's a pen and I guess being a pen is technically a feature. On the other hand, if I ran into a room bragging about how I got this *incredible* pen with five amazing features, I'd feel like a total dick if someone called for proof and I had to argue that its ability to work as a pen was one of its features. On the third hand, I'm not going to fault the Geddes Company for anything, because it's unreasonable to expect that they'd prepare for such scrutinizing reviews from people twenty years older than their target demo.

Speaking as someone who so often looks down at his various pens and wishes they lit up or blew bubbles, I wholly endorse the 5-in-1 super pen as the official writing utensil of the 2007 holiday season. Mazal Tof.

Posted by Matt on 11/05/2007. E-mail me!