MEGO National Lampoons Christmas Vacation Clark Griswold 8" Figure
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00:00Mego wants to make sure you have the hap-happiest of Christmases. Here's your
00:04Christmas spot on the Mego Toys National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation Clark
00:08Griswold 8-inch action figure.
00:11Clark Griswold joins the Mego lineup. This official edition 8-inch tall action
00:34figure features 26 points of articulation and a real cloth outfit. If I
00:38woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet I wouldn't be more surprised
00:41than I am right now that Mego finally released a National Lampoon's Christmas
00:45Vacation Clark Griswold. He's not perfect. He has some problems but we're gonna get
00:49down to the details in a moment. First let's grab the tape measure and see how
00:52tall the figure stands. Clark Griswold with a Santa hat on his head is about
00:56eight inches in height or the figure is gonna be about 20 centimeters tall. I had
01:00reviewed a couple of Clarks years ago from the folks over at NECA Toys.
01:03Unfortunately though I had a friend of mine that loved National Lampoon so I
01:07gave it to him but I can't bring in at least someone that represents the
01:10holidays maybe not as much as Clark Griswold because he hates the holidays.
01:13Here's what the figure though looks like with Billy Chapman from Silent Night
01:17Deadly Night. One release obviously from Mego, one release from NECA but you can
01:20see that they can stand on the shelf similarly in size. I don't know who I can
01:25finger point at but somebody's been a tad bit naughty. Listings of Clark
01:29Griswold vary depending on what site you look at. I had ordered this from a place
01:33called Retro Festive. It's my go-to place when it comes to Halloween and
01:36Christmas decorations and things that we look at on this channel. I always tend to
01:39go to their site. Not a plug at all to them. I couldn't help but though notice
01:43when I went to Big Bad Toy Store and this is not at all a plug to Big Bad Toy
01:47Store. They have a completely different figure than the figure we're looking at
01:50right now. A completely different head sculpt and a different sweater. The
01:54figure itself does have first of all removable hats. That's one good thing
01:57that you can actually do with this. You can remove it. Unfortunately though
02:00nowhere on the hat is Clark's famous little jingle bells. I think he actually
02:04has like three of them. They're not here at all. I mean they spent so much time
02:07putting in these ugly looking buttons on the side of Clark's sweater. You think
02:11though that they would probably have done something similar and put little
02:13tiny bells. How much how affordable would be a bell just to add a you know a
02:17couple of them on the side of Clark's hat? But unfortunately the figure doesn't
02:20have it. I'm glad though it they didn't glue this in place because that would
02:23have been a complete bummer the fact you wouldn't be able to remove Clark's hat.
02:26But it's fairly removable. It's a decently large sized hat. A good frill
02:30there on the front. Clark has a very large furry rim there on the front of
02:33his hat. I obviously though for displaying this guy on the show for
02:36Christmas time I'm gonna be wanting to display him with the hat. But I like the
02:39idea that you can remove it. We're gonna actually just take this off right now.
02:43Now again some of the sights. Now I can only speak to really BBTS, Big Bad Toy
02:47Store, short in that obviously. The head is completely different than the head
02:50that we're looking at here. Retro Festive sure enough had the accurate head. But I
02:54just want to kind of warn you guys if you are ordering this directly from BBTS
02:58don't go by the imaging that they show on the front. It's a much different. I
03:02would almost maybe even say it's a little bit more realistically looking
03:05like the actor. I mean obviously like Chevy Chase has a very recognizable
03:09face to him. It was also a much shinier face that we're actually getting here
03:12too. This head sculpt I think is passable. I mean he doesn't even have a little
03:16cleft chin down below. He's got a big smile on his face. He doesn't obviously
03:19have cousin Eddie over yet destroying things in his house. Obviously things are
03:23full and he has to dump some of his sewage out in the front yard. That's
03:25that's not gonna make anybody happy at all. The thing that's also different too
03:30is some of the listings. And again I only have like one to one to compare this to.
03:33The one that at least where I ordered this from had the sweater kind of
03:36crossed over. Actually the image that I saw on Retro Festive had the buttons
03:40accurate like this. These large buttons I think are absolutely ugly. If the sweater
03:45isn't gonna match the material that's fine. But to add these buttons even if you
03:48want to believe to the idea that Clark Griswold is supposed to look like a
03:51figure that you may have bought like in the 70s and 80s. So therefore like large
03:55buttons would be like part of the territory that would go with that. I
03:57personally would think I would just even end up just removing the buttons. I think
04:01they're way too large for my liking. And yet though listing other listings had
04:06the sweater crossed over and had silver or I think it was actually gold buttons
04:10running down the side. So there are a fair couple of inaccuracies depending on
04:13where you're gonna be buying the toy. The one thing though that seems to be
04:16consistent is the shirt and this really ugly tie. The tie is green. It's not the
04:21most accurate at all. I think actually in the movie he has more darker green or
04:24even black tie that's got some details on this. They went for instead just kind
04:28of very simple looking tie. At least though the tie isn't glued in place. It
04:32does look like somebody maybe with tiny little hands tied this themselves. I
04:36probably may even want to tie this a little bit tighter than what it is out
04:39of the packaging. Can I even bring this up? No, I can't bring this up. Probably just
04:43gonna leave it alone. The tie sits a little on the looser side but at least
04:46it's actually a done up tie rather than again just one that was made
04:50already and then they just glued it in place. Sometimes they also use like a
04:52little elastics and then obviously this one they didn't. So I have to at least
04:56give them points for the fact that they did at least make the tie. They did the
05:00work. They didn't just simply phone this in. The shirt underneath though, the
05:03sweater, I suppose you probably could take this off. The sweater actually, I was
05:07expecting this to be a completely bare arm. I was really surprised to see that
05:10they actually put a full sleeve in there. Again for me displaying this guy, I would
05:14rather really just display him with really honestly the sweater. I would love
05:18to maybe see them release it down the road with also as well the jersey. NECA
05:21has released two Clark Clarkers as well to my knowledge. One that look very
05:25similar to this. I've done reviews of these if you guys want to go and check
05:27that out and also the time where he's cutting down the tree and he's cutting
05:30up with the chainsaw. He's got the hockey mask. I also looked at that also as well
05:33but maybe like down the road between either Migo or NECA, yeah release a
05:37jersey version of Clark Griswold. I think the head sculpt again is good. I mean
05:41whether you want to go with this one or the weird choice of head that they went
05:46with for again some of the other listings, this one still looks pretty
05:49good and it looks a lot like Chevy Chase. Down below he's got himself of course
05:53the slacks. He does have boots. These shoes are always something that flops
05:57around on the figure because of course the idea in mind is that the the feet,
06:00the footwear is always something you're gonna be removing. Migo always really was
06:04a toy line. The idea that you could dress down the characters. You could always
06:07dress them back up. So I mean like that, I mean if you look on the back of the
06:10figure's body, he does have a velcro on the top of what would normally have
06:14been his belt. Once you unfasten that, simply just slide the slacks down on
06:18Clark Griswold's legs. You basically can undress this guy if you really want to.
06:22The only thing that's also a little bit disappointing is that this character
06:24didn't come with any accessories whatsoever. I mean if you look at his
06:27hand, it almost really kind of looks like he should have the little moose mug in
06:30his hand. Maybe he's surfing up like one of his famous nogs. Unfortunately
06:35though, he doesn't come with any accessory whatsoever. The moose mug would
06:38have made the most sense. I'm trying to think of other things maybe he could
06:42have had of this size. I can't really think of anything else. The moose mug
06:45right away would be the first thing I would think of. Or maybe even like just a
06:48little voucher indicating that he's part of now the Jelly of the Month Club.
06:52Anyways though, for the figure's articulation, going back to Clark's head,
06:55all you're really gonna be getting with him is just a standard swivel. So it
06:58allows the head to rotate all the way around. Migos are kind of finicky when it
07:02comes to shoulders. You can bring them out at about 90 degrees. You can bring
07:05them forward and you can bring them back. The figure does also have a single hinge
07:09in the elbow. One thing I will say though is be careful when you are getting this
07:12guy the packaging. Let's just roll up his sleeve. When I first removed him from his
07:15plastic prison, I noticed that the hinge was facing this way. Of course, not
07:19knowing that at all because the sleeve was just over top of that. I went to bend
07:22the arm and then I noticed there was resistance. Why can't I move this arm?
07:25Sure enough, what it was, I had to roll up the sleeve and I noticed that the hinge
07:29was facing inward. So you just want to course correct that. Just put the
07:32sleeve back down so you know exactly where the hinge is gonna be. Again, single
07:36hinge in the elbow. The hands rotate all the way around. Clark does also have just
07:40a straight... well he has an upper... like he has a ball joint. So there's some
07:43mileage with actually what you can actually do with the figure. You move it
07:47up and down. You can also rock it back and forth as well. Legs split out. They
07:50go forward. They go back. A little bit of a swivel at the top of the thigh. I
07:54wouldn't really budge it too much. The figure does also have a single hinge in
07:57his knee. And then of course he does have the ankle articulation. Floppy, floppy
08:00feet. Floppy shoes go with the territory of Mego. So again, while you are
08:04moving the ankle around, you may notice though periodically that the foot may...
08:07the shoe may slide off completely. Just make sure you don't lose it though
08:10whatever you do. Not a bad-looking figure. I mean obviously they had to
08:14cheapen some of the aspects of Clark here. So like for example, he's
08:17missing the bells on his hat, which isn't a bad... it's not a big deal-breaker at all.
08:21I think the hat looks pretty good. Let's get over top of his head here. Face
08:26sculpt is also really good on him as well. Places where I feel they phoned it
08:29in were probably like the buttons on the sides of his cardigan. I either
08:32would have made them either smaller. If they didn't want to make them
08:35smaller, I just would have probably left them off altogether. I'm almost really so
08:38tempted just to pop off all those buttons and have just Clark Griswold
08:43without them instead. And obviously the other thing too, it's like his tie is
08:46pretty cheap-looking. They could have probably put in a little bit more of a
08:50pattern, but I will at least give awarded points to Mego that at least they did
08:54their... do their best to actually make a tie that looks like some small
08:58individual. Maybe tiny little hands. Maybe not hands that small. Probably would have
09:02done that and tied that up themselves. It's a good-looking figure. I mean
09:05obviously like if you are... if you're one that doesn't like collecting Migos,
09:08looking at a figure like this, you're probably gonna think to yourself like, I
09:11don't know. I think there's better ones on the market. Yes, realistically there
09:15were the retro cloth releases that we got from NECA, but it would say are
09:18better than the one that we get here from Migo. But I think Migo still is a
09:21fine-looking figure. One that could find itself very easily under the tree if
09:25you're a big fan of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I think if you're a
09:29fan of Migo, you can kind of overlook some of the inaccuracies that Clark
09:33Griswold has here. The oversized black buttons. Maybe the incorrect color of his
09:37tie. And the fact that he's clearly missing his sleigh bells on the side of
09:41his hat. If you're already collecting Migo, you already know. I mean I collect
09:44enough of these things that you know you sort of get for the most part the way
09:48that the characters look. If you don't like Migo at all, I mean anything that
09:52I'm talking about in this review won't be a sell to convince you guys to pick
09:55this one up for yourself. When there clearly are better examples out there.
09:58Maybe ones that we've got from NECA for example. But I did want to get my hands
10:01on Clark Griswold here. Again I probably have maybe about half a dozen, maybe two
10:05a dozen versions. Different characters from the Migo line. This one's gonna fit
10:09in nicely. Probably one I'm only really gonna be putting out during Christmas.
10:12Migo in fact during this holiday season, in fact we're gonna be looking at all of
10:16them this this year, have put out a couple of cool treats to put underneath
10:20your tree. One of them being the Krampus. And they also have done as well a Creep
10:24from Creepshow. Also in a Sand inspired suit. So we're gonna be looking at those
10:28in upcoming videos. But what do you guys though think of Clark Griswold? Do you
10:32think there's enough here that looks like Clark? I think at the end of it what
10:35we do want though are the things that it does. It has an accurate head. It looks I
10:38think enough like Chevy Chase. Has the Santa's hat. It does have the sweater. And
10:42it does have a tie. It could have used maybe like a moose mug. Yeah I think a
10:47moose mug would have gone a long way. I mean it's a small accessory. But clearly
10:50I mean you can look at his hands and think that there's something that's
10:52supposed to be in his hands. Whether it be that. Whether again it'd be the
10:55voucher for the Jelly of the Month Club. It needed something more than just the
10:59hat that's on his head. But again what do you guys think of this figure? Let me know
11:01down below in the comment section. If in the meantime you guys did enjoy this
11:04video make sure you hit it with a like. You guys want to stick around for more?
11:07So ho ho I hope so. Of course we aren't just gonna be wrapping up things with
11:11Christmas spots. There's definitely a lot more coming your way. So making sure you
11:14coming back here on a regular basis. As always thanks for watching. See you guys
11:18next time.