Adult Swim: Sealab 2021 Quinn and Debbie action figure review by Andrew Lenahan
Figure: Quinn and Debbie
Property: Adult Swim
Series: Adult Swim Series 1
Keywords: Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Sealab 2020, Sealab 2021, Dr. Quentin Q. Quinn, Debbie DuPree, "White Debbie"
Company: Palisades Toys
Release year: 2005
Series Overview:
With a wide array of diverse characters ranging from trial lawyers to alien mantis to sentient meatballs, Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block of programming seems like an obvious choice for an action figure line. And Palisades Toys, creators of the legendarily good Muppets line of figures, seems like an obvious choice to pull it off. Palisades had an excellent idea to sell the figures as two-packs, in hopes of reducing peg-warmer syndrome by offering obscure characters paired with popular ones. Unfortunately, this also brought the price up considerably, at some stores well into the $15.00 range.
Character Overview:
Dr. Quentin Q. Quinn is probably the smartest Sealab crew member (with the possible exception of the scheming Sparks), and certainly the most capable of actually doing his job. This might be due to the fact that he's actually a robot, however.
Debbie DuPree is Sealab's resident marine biologist, and is sometimes in a relationship with Quinn. She's probably best remembered for a first-season episode where she became obsessed with having a baby and had to decide which crew member to procreate with. That episode is also the reason for the dolphin and clock accessories in this set.
Action Figure Sculpt and Paint: 6
Unfortunately, both figures offer somewhat underwhelming sculpts, especially by Palisades standards. Quinn's facial likeness is the low point here, which bears only a slight resemblance to the cartoon version. The cartoon quinn has fuller hair, thicker eyebrows, a wider head, broader nose, bigger lips... overall, the figure looks far too caucasian and otherwise different. Debbie's facial likeness is by far the better of the two, but still not perfect. It's a good thing these guys are sporting their distinctive orange jumpsuits, because nobody would recognise these figures based on their faces alone.
Both figures have decent enough body sculpts, but both are too skinny and Debbie has much larger breasts than in the cartoon. The paint job is competent but without much in the way of detail, though this is excusable since the cartoon versions don't have much detail to them, either.
Articulation: 6.5
Quinn and Debbie move at all the same places: neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, and hips. Though this isn't terrible, none of the articulation points are of the ball-joint type, and knee joints would have been much more useful than the twistable waists.
Accessories: 8
Accessories are definitely a high point for these figures. There's a TV, underwater camera, three liquor bottles, a shot glass, can of Mingus Dew soda, Debbie's dolphin "baby", and Debbie's biological clock. I like the liquor bottles as they have huge potential as diorama props, though I wish they'd put some more effort into the bottle labels: for example, one just has "WHISKEY" in white letters on a plain black label. I know they can't have used real liquor bottle labels due to license issues, but they could have done lookalikes a la Todd McFarlane's "Strange Brew" figures from way back when with their "Hosehead" beer. Other than the bottles, the best accessory is the clock, which is stickered to look just like the one on the show.
Packaging: Slightly Above Average
The Adult Swim figures some in clamshell cases with paper inserts showing a background environment for the characters.
Overall score: 7
While the quantity of accessories keeps their overall score out of the mud, I'd still say these figures are somewhat of a disappointment, especially at their $15 price point. The line still has a great deal of potential though. Let's hope Palisades manages to recover during series 2.
Availability:
Probably the best place to find these is in Hot Topic stores. Don't let the high price worry you, as Hot Topic seem to have put their Adult Swim figures in their clearance section at around 50% off. If you can't get to a Hot Topic or just can't stand shopping there, try eBay instead.
Property: Adult Swim
Series: Adult Swim Series 1
Keywords: Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Sealab 2020, Sealab 2021, Dr. Quentin Q. Quinn, Debbie DuPree, "White Debbie"
Company: Palisades Toys
Release year: 2005
Series Overview:
With a wide array of diverse characters ranging from trial lawyers to alien mantis to sentient meatballs, Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block of programming seems like an obvious choice for an action figure line. And Palisades Toys, creators of the legendarily good Muppets line of figures, seems like an obvious choice to pull it off. Palisades had an excellent idea to sell the figures as two-packs, in hopes of reducing peg-warmer syndrome by offering obscure characters paired with popular ones. Unfortunately, this also brought the price up considerably, at some stores well into the $15.00 range.
Character Overview:
Dr. Quentin Q. Quinn is probably the smartest Sealab crew member (with the possible exception of the scheming Sparks), and certainly the most capable of actually doing his job. This might be due to the fact that he's actually a robot, however.
Debbie DuPree is Sealab's resident marine biologist, and is sometimes in a relationship with Quinn. She's probably best remembered for a first-season episode where she became obsessed with having a baby and had to decide which crew member to procreate with. That episode is also the reason for the dolphin and clock accessories in this set.
Action Figure Sculpt and Paint: 6
Unfortunately, both figures offer somewhat underwhelming sculpts, especially by Palisades standards. Quinn's facial likeness is the low point here, which bears only a slight resemblance to the cartoon version. The cartoon quinn has fuller hair, thicker eyebrows, a wider head, broader nose, bigger lips... overall, the figure looks far too caucasian and otherwise different. Debbie's facial likeness is by far the better of the two, but still not perfect. It's a good thing these guys are sporting their distinctive orange jumpsuits, because nobody would recognise these figures based on their faces alone.
Both figures have decent enough body sculpts, but both are too skinny and Debbie has much larger breasts than in the cartoon. The paint job is competent but without much in the way of detail, though this is excusable since the cartoon versions don't have much detail to them, either.
Articulation: 6.5
Quinn and Debbie move at all the same places: neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, and hips. Though this isn't terrible, none of the articulation points are of the ball-joint type, and knee joints would have been much more useful than the twistable waists.
Accessories: 8
Accessories are definitely a high point for these figures. There's a TV, underwater camera, three liquor bottles, a shot glass, can of Mingus Dew soda, Debbie's dolphin "baby", and Debbie's biological clock. I like the liquor bottles as they have huge potential as diorama props, though I wish they'd put some more effort into the bottle labels: for example, one just has "WHISKEY" in white letters on a plain black label. I know they can't have used real liquor bottle labels due to license issues, but they could have done lookalikes a la Todd McFarlane's "Strange Brew" figures from way back when with their "Hosehead" beer. Other than the bottles, the best accessory is the clock, which is stickered to look just like the one on the show.
Packaging: Slightly Above Average
The Adult Swim figures some in clamshell cases with paper inserts showing a background environment for the characters.
Overall score: 7
While the quantity of accessories keeps their overall score out of the mud, I'd still say these figures are somewhat of a disappointment, especially at their $15 price point. The line still has a great deal of potential though. Let's hope Palisades manages to recover during series 2.
Availability:
Probably the best place to find these is in Hot Topic stores. Don't let the high price worry you, as Hot Topic seem to have put their Adult Swim figures in their clearance section at around 50% off. If you can't get to a Hot Topic or just can't stand shopping there, try eBay instead.
posted by Andrew Lenahan at 9:56 AM
1 Comments:
I thought the sculpts were adequate for what Palisades was working from. You must make note that Sealab was pretty crudely animated...looking almost "Hana Barbera-ish". The Muppets on the other hand were live action puppets...More detail in the overall show to work from. I'll have to look at them closer to form more of an opinion.....but I also LIKE the generic whiskey bottle....It's cute.
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