New Familiy groups on Direct Order

[Little Jo]

If it's the same as in the UK, you have to login as if to buy and then search on the item number.

Nop: 've been logged in and switched to new; nothing. I searched for the number (when logged in); nothing.

[Timotheos]

In Japan and China, artistst, cartoonists, and toymakers never depict themselves as being slant-eyed, but give themselves normal eyes or even extremely round eyes.

Hey, I was wrong about this.  I was watching a Chinese cartoon with my kid today about the adventures of the five Olympic mascots, when out of the cartoon water bounded an hour-glass shaped heart-breaker of a lady with eyes that made Playmobil's "ethnic family" look conservative in comparison.

It was weird animation. 
1) Before this I'd never seen a person in a Chinese cartoon with eyes drawn slanted like that (it was poorly drawn and out of proportion).
2) I have never (and probably will never) see an Olympic swimmer with an hourglass figure like that!  That aspect was not poorly drawn!

Wow!

But, if you aren't familiar with China's five olympic mascots, count yourself spared.  While in Beijing, those creatures followed me around like the Erinyes.  Every toy, every advertisement, everywhere.  And then, every single friend of the family gave us a gift of them.  I should start my own store.   



 

[Martin Milner]

But, if you aren't familiar with China's five olympic mascots, count yourself spared.  While in Beijing, those creatures followed me around like the Erinyes.  Every toy, every advertisement, everywhere.  And then, every single friend of the family gave us a gift of them.  I should start my own store.     

OK, maybe that IS worse than the universal shame, outrage and embarrassment caused by the unveiling of the London 2012 Olympic Logo, designed at the cost of about £1/2 million. I'm not going to insult anyone by reproducing it here. Suffice to say, since the Olympic committee couldn't bring themselves to admit it was awful, we may be stuck with it, but we can all ignore it.

[Timotheos]

OK, maybe that IS worse than the universal shame, outrage and embarrassment caused by the unveiling of the London 2012 Olympic Logo, designed at the cost of about £1/2 million. I'm not going to insult anyone by reproducing it here. Suffice to say, since the Olympic committee couldn't bring themselves to admit it was awful, we may be stuck with it, but we can all ignore it.

China apparently held a contest for the mascot design.  I'm wondering if the guy / woman who designed these got a handshake and $100 before the government turned the mascots into a billion dollar merchandising line.

You may have seen China's infamous logo.  It's is supposed to be the character for "capital" (jing, as in Beijing) stylized to resemble a marathon runner.  But, if you look askance at it, it resembles a kneeling coolie in a Manchu hat.

Uh, I just looked up the London logo.... hey, you guys can't... do that...
   

[Martin Milner]

China apparently held a contest for the mascot design.  I'm wondering if the guy / woman who designed these got a handshake and $100 before the government turned the mascots into a billion dollar merchandising line.

You may have seen China's infamous logo.  It's is supposed to be the character for "capital" (jing, as in Beijing) stylized to resemble a marathon runner.  But, if you look askance at it, it resembles a kneeling coolie in a Manchu hat.

Uh, I just looked up the London logo.... hey, you guys can't... do that...
   

We didn't even get the pretence of a competition, the only people who got the £££ for this were the fancy design agency.

Our abomination has been likened to [censored].  with apologies to Lisa Simpson.

Tim, I'll pm you.

[surfergirl]

Hi guys,

just wanted to let you know that i received all these sets this morning from UK DS and can confirm that the chinese klicky eyes on the kids are not printed....they look like moulds. it appears that the adults faces are printed though.

whether this indicates a chinese theme in the future remains unseen but surely they would not make a mould for children in a DS only set that cannot be found on DS without searching by part number!! we shall wait and see i guess.

claire

[Sylvia]

just wanted to let you know that i received all these sets this morning from UK DS and can confirm that the chinese klicky eyes on the kids are not printed....they look like moulds. it appears that the adults faces are printed though.

Thanks for confirming this, Claire!

whether this indicates a chinese theme in the future remains unseen but surely they would not make a mould for children in a DS only set that cannot be found on DS without searching by part number!! we shall wait and see i guess.

Well... I don't like to get my hopes up either, but I'd say the likelihood of this seems quite strong given the new head mould. It would have been more economical to print the faces if the Asian family set was just planned as a one-off.

Most of us certainly would not have expected a complete Egyptian theme to be in the works for 2008, so we might be in for some even bigger surprises in 2009.