Super Mario Bros. Magnets! January 12, 2005

I work at the 3rd St. Promenade, a somewhat artsy outdoor mall in Santa Monica, CA. It's a section of 3rd St. that's been closed to cars, and filled with tourists and street performers. This Kid Robot store opened back in early November '04, and I took some pics of it, because it just looked so fun, in a sleek, trendy designer way. It's nothing but hipster and retro-feel toys.

Don't get mad if you notice through your forensic sleuthing that these first 3 images weren't taken today, as the rest were. These are from November 18 of last year. I provide them here simply for a view of the store.

Despite walking past the store every day, and always being interested in what I saw, I've never bothered to go in. By the end of the work day, I just want to get to my car and get home. Today I walked to the parking garage with a coworker, and for some reason, we both felt like checking it out.

I didn't think I'd recognize anything. For the most part, that was true, but when I did find something I recognized, I found it to be awesome, and handed over some cash.

The problem in my view of "urban" designs and toys, is that though they look really great with their sharp angles and minimalist packaging with an accent on vibrant colors and solid designs, they feel empty, somehow. Maybe it's their vector quality, which lacks the warmth of shading and texture. Maybe it's the attitude in a lot of the toys - that "street" confrontationalism. It could very well just be that I don't know these characters. They did have a few toys I recognized, like the 20th Anniversary retro Tron figures/vehicles, Super Milk Chan (whom I know from Cartoon Network), and some Kubrick toys, which are often highly stylized versions of famous characters (they had Kubrick Shrek and Army of Darkness toys, for instance), but most of the store was filled with enigmatic figures that looked like I'd enjoy finding them, if only they had some kind of backstory for me. I guess trendier people would know. I mostly know what's handed to me by the media. I ended up buying a few of the more mainstream things for myself.

This postcard entitles me to a free "minifigure" on my next purchase of $25 or more, provided I can remember the secret password at time of checkout ("DUNNY").

So here's what I bought myself. The old 8-bit sprites of the NES era called to me through the layers of unrecognizable creatures, much in the manner that in a crowd of voices, you'll hear your own name above them all, and instantly lock your full attention onto the one who uttered it. Of course, these little boxes are designed like the blocks from the NES game "Super Mario Bros." I included that line just in case you're my mom reading this.

Some of the other panels show the various Mario magnets you can buy, and though they had several on display behind glass (yes, it's that trendy), I could only find 3 varieties, made all the harder by the fact that the lids are all glued down, and there's no distinguishing marks on the boxes. I had to dig in a little to find what I wanted, and by the condition of most of the boxes, I wasn't the first.

The box top says "NINTENDO DOTGRAPHICS MAGNET FIGURE." Right at the fold, it says "©1985 Nintendo." I'm wondering if that pertains to the magnets, or the characters. I can't imagine these things have been sitting around for 20 years now, so I'll guess the copyright is for the characters.

The inside flap revealed even more characters I need to find and own now. I love the fish. Those things were brutal in the game, flying in from out of nowhere at high speed. Kids today have it soft. I wonder if that question mark is part of a sentence comprised of character images, or if you can buy a black magnet with a white question mark on it.

Here's the Mario magnet. It seems a little ridiculous, him being in the duck pose. I was kinda hoping for the standard running forward with one hand up pose. I also found a small folded instruction/warning(?) sheet, but it's written in some ancient moon-man language..

And there they are! a winged Koopa, a growth mushroom, and Mario, ducking. Each came with a coin.

I put the characters on my fridge, because that's what Americans do, but for whatever reasons, the metal surfaces on the backs of the coins are non-magnetic. They'll stick to the magnets, but not to each other, or the fridge. The guy at Kid Robot told me they had, and will again next week have the playsets for these, so I can only assume it has something to do with how they work with those. (pictures)