You're a vinyl designer toy, Charlie Brown!

Peanuts is no stranger to plastic. Over six decades of licenced merchandise has seen Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts gang moulded into tens of thousands of different plastic renditions – from decorative figurines, to Kinder Egg toys, action figures, Fisher Price People, and more series of McDonalds Happy Meal toys than possibly even Ronald is aware of.

But we now live in the age of designer toys; precision crafted and painted often by human hand instead of by machine, made from superior quality materials such as vinyl (but not records), and typically produced in limited quantities. They’re also automatically expensive, at least in the western world, under some hidden tax based upon the implied belief that they’re more acceptable to own as an adult (to those who may frown upon such things) with the pretence that they’re collectables or for display, as opposed to a child’s plaything.

That’s not to say you can’t play with them, nor that they can’t be enjoyed by children (age permitting). For the most part they are simply toys with added awesomeness.

Thankfully Peanuts has not been left behind in this bold new frontier establishing toys as an art-form. Medicom Toy Inc. of Japan are one of the foremost manufacturers of designer toys. Their success is largely down to their popular Lego mini-figure influenced Kubrick and Be@rbrick figure series which have featured designs covering a wide selection of pop-cult characters from the realms of Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars.

In 2006 Medicom moved on from the world’s most famous mouse to the world’s most famous beagle and created the ‘Snoopy Showcase’ series for it’s Kubrick line.

There doesn't seem to be much information in English on the series, and neither Medicom's official site (in Japanese) nor Snoopy.co.jp chronicle the full line, so I’ve painstakingly researched it all for the good of the internet.

Kubrick Snoopy Showcase

The Snoopy Showcase series is made up of 6 volumes (or sets), plus an additional pre-launch variation of the first, incorporating a total of 11 different figures.

Each volume includes a Snoopy (well, it is Snoopy Showcase after all) plus another character or, in the case of Volume 2 and Volume 6, a version of Snoopy’s doghouse.

Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt, Linus Van Pelt, and of course Snoopy’s faithful avian friend Woodstock are all featured. Only Woodstock is depicted to scale (to the comic strips) in relation to Snoopy, and is a fixed smaller size figure as opposed to a standard Kubrick. In keeping with the Kubrick format the human characters are the same height as Snoopy.

Snoopy is famous as the dog of many guises and the series covers some of his most well-known personas including The Literary Ace (complete with typewriter), WWI Flying Ace, Astronaut Snoopy (with transparent helmet), Joe Cool (with eponymous shades) and The World Famous Attorney (with hat and briefcase). The iconic pose of ‘normal’ Snoopy lying on his doghouse is also catered for.

 

Snoopy’s doghouse has two iterations: one that accommodates Snoopy (or any other normal Kubrick figure for that matter) sitting down – which is appropriately bundled with a WWI Flying Ace Snoopy figure (Volume 2) – and another that accommodates Snoopy lying down that has a curved depression designed to fit his head (Volume 6). Both doghouses are hollow with the roof removable - ideal for storing secret things!

Like most Kubricks each figure (Woodstock excluded) measures approximately 70-80mm in height and features some basic points of articulation. Arms are attached by rotatable (albeit loose) ball joints, legs can bend forwards independently, and heads can turn and pivot slightly. Each Snoopy has a tail that is attached by a ball joint. For the smiling Snoopy included in Volume 6 to be able to rest on top of the doghouse correctly his tail must be detached. Snoopy’s ears can also rotate in the figures that feature them. Woodstock’s only point of movement is that his head can twist direction.

 

Unlike most Kubricks the Snoopy Showcase series is a deluxe special edition packaged in pre-stated windowed boxes and not blind-boxed (sealed in a solid box without the figure inside stated).

In addition to the figures each volume also includes an accompanying A5 size short edge binding booklet with 20 or so full colour glossy pages. The typical content of these booklets includes Peanuts strip extracts, interviews and comments from Japanese celebrities and popular culture icons, and a showcase of Snoopy merchandise available in Japan at that time – including some very lavish and exclusive goods. Obviously all text featured, minus character names, is in Japanese.

 

All volumes retailed at a recommended 1,980 yen, pre-tax, which is roughly £15.36 (or $23.76 / €18.26) at time of typing. As with all Kubrick collections the Snoopy Showcase series was produced in limited numbers and is never to be re-released.

Joe 0

To kick-off the series a special pre-launch Volume 0 was released. Kubricks are limited edition lines as standard but production of Volume 0 was restricted to just 2000 units (although not individually numbered).

Volume 0 is identical in contents to Volume 1 aside from two differences: the Snoopy figure has a black collar instead of a red one, and the included booklet is also different (and shorter at 12 pages compared with the usual 20 or so).

It was only available from a specific retailer, FamilyMart convenience stores, and for a limited time from September 28th 2006 – roughly a month prior to the release of Volume 1 on October 26th 2006.

From what I can gather it was sold from a selected 700 of FamilyMart’s 6900 stores at that time. Were the stores picked at random or known/advertised to customers? Was it a random or lottery based prize for those who had pre-ordered Volume 1 at each store? Or was it for the first couple of customers to get their pre-orders in? Unfortunately I haven’t been able to ascertain the nature of how they were allocated.

The mysterious disappearance of Peppermint Patty

Medicom’s concept art and the back cover of the booklets included with both Volume 0 and Volume 1 (shown below) depict an 12th Kubrick figure for the series in Peppermint Patty.

There’s not a scrap of evidence that she was released to consumers at all - whether at retail or as an ultra rare promotional special. These are the only images or text where she is included.

Unless the booklet photo is a mock-up she must’ve existed at least in prototype form. It is not uncommon for Medicom to alter their production line-ups so it may simply have been a case of removing a less known/liked character based upon consumer feedback as production started, or perhaps a need to restrict the line to 6 releases.

All other figures shown (in the concept art above) are accounted for so if we were to assume all other Snoopy plus another character sets remained unchanged it could be suggested that perhaps Peppermint Patty was to be bundled with WWI Flying Ace Snoopy, with a ‘normal’ Snoopy originally to be included with the sitting version of his dog house as depicted.

Thoughts

Although many a Kubrick series finds its way through import to specialist UK high-street retailers such as either of the Forbidden Planet chains only the first and second volumes of the Snoopy Showcase series found our shores and have long since disappeared. This said, Volume 1 and 2 are still available (at time of typing) from the UK-based online designer toy emporium Dinkybox. Volume 1 is also still available from the equally cool France-based store artoyz. Both shops are well priced and will ship worldwide.

My personal collection includes all of the volumes except volume 6 (if you’ve got one available, please let me know). Yes, some of them are open. Yes, I have had them out of the boxes to well, play with them! I’m quite happy to admit that they are pretty darn superb. Spindly arms aside they respond quite well to poses and look ace when displayed. Paintwork isn’t perfect, and the joins/mould lines are not always seamless but for the price they were originally sold for you can’t really expect much better.

It’s a great shame both that they are so hard to find, and that the line was not extended to include further characters such as Sally, Marcie, Schroeder, Spike, and Peppermint Patty if she was indeed omitted as I’m assuming. A Kubrick-size Woodstock would have been good too, even if the scale in relation to Snoopy would’ve been thrown off.

It also would’ve been interesting to see which of Snoopy's diverse array of alter-egos they would have gone for next. Beagle Scout Leader? Tennis Ace? Seasonal ones like the Easter Beagle and Santa Snoopy? Random ones like Vulture Snoopy? We’ll never know.

The good news is, although the Snoopy Showcase series may not have continued Medicom was not done with Peanuts yet. Their ‘WE LOVE PEANUTS!’ vinyl collectable doll range is much bigger, badder (as in cool bad), and best of all they are still available. I shall cover them in future.

Thanks for reading.