Shotglass Tardis Series

TARDIS Collector’s Corner: Underground Toys/CO Pen Topper TARDIS (Shotglass TARDIS series)

(An ongoing writing project in which I catalog and quantify my extensive TARDIS collection. Find previous entries HERE.) 

Shortly into Matt Smith’s run as the Doctor, I noticed that Underground Toys/Character Options began an onslaught of new Doctor Who merchandise. Not to say that there wasn’t plenty to be found during Tennant’s run, but the output was definitely stepped up. One of these products which found its way into my possession was a TARDIS ballpoint pen, with a rubber TARDIS on one end.

Now, this was not really an item that attracted my attention, TARDIS or no. I’d seen them in Books-a-Million before, usually in a big plastic cylinder of the pens, up near the check-out counter where it could be an impulse purchase. I never had the impulse. However, a friend who knew of my affection for all things TARDISy did and bought one for me. I had to admit, it was cute.

For years my TARDIS pen has lived in various pen jars around the two houses we’ve lived in during that time. It would be used once in a while, but never for anything important, like writing anything on which your signature needed to look good, because it wasn’t that great a pen. I mean, it laid down a line of ink, and all, but one could not ascribe any aesthetically pleasing qualities to that line, or anything.

After 10 years or so, the pen stopped working altogether, and this was where my real plans for this item came to fruition. I yanked the TARDIS off the end of the useless pen. It came right out with no argument, the decade-old glue giving way quite easily. Having greed the TARDIS, I then had another miniature TARDIS to add to my shotglass TARDIS collection.

Is it a great TARDIS? No. It’s the TARDIS equivalent to the pen itself: it’s fine, it does it’s job of being a small TARDIS, but due to the limitations of the rubber material it’s molded from and the manufacturing process, it’s not especially detailed. I mean, the door sign is gray, which isn’t to spec at all. And you’d need a jeweler’s loop to be able to read any of the type on it, if it is legible in the first place–my old eyes can’t tell. But whatevs. It’s a shotglass TARDIS.

In terms of shotglass size, this is maybe the 4th smallest TARDIS in the collection, following the LED Phone Charm TARDIS, the Baker-model Keychain TARDIS, and the Hornby Scaledale model Railroad TARDIS. It is also one that is still easily locatable in the wild should you want one for your very own. Amazon is selling them for a mere $9.99. Is it worth $10? Not at all. But if you want a miniature fair-to-middling Matt Smith TARDIS with a pen rammed up it’s hinder, that’s where you can land one. I give it 2.5 TARDi.

TARDIS Collector’s Corner: Big Chief Mini 12th Doctor TARDIS accessory (The Shotglass TARDIS series)

(An ongoing writing project in which I catalog and quantify my extensive TARDIS collection. Find previous entries HERE.) 

I’ve written here before about some of the White Whales of my TARDIS collection, chief among them being any of the Big Chief Studios TARDISes. Big Chief Studios is a toy company known for manufacturing larger to-scale figures of a number of different properties, Doctor Who being a major licensee. Their 1:6 scale figures are designed to be the ultimate fan version of any given character, with fully articulated limbs, painstakingly perfect likenesses, tailored clothing, multiple hands for multiple poses, and accessories that clearly have had a lot of thought put into them. They also run around $250 retail, sell out very quickly, and then become extravagantly priced on the secondary market. I own none of them, nor do I have plans to unless I just spotted a really cheap one somewhere.

Their figures are impressive. Their TARDISes are also no exception to the high-quality standards, and are far more expensive, running around $460 ‘merican. They are massive, cast in resin stone, and basically have all of the same light and sound features of the 10th Doctor Flight Control TARDIS (which, as I’ve mentioned, is my favorite TARDIS toy ever) and then even more features piled on top of those. Things like a removable roof allowing for interior TARDIS backgrounds to be swapped out, so that different TARDIS control rooms may be displayed, (important for the 11th and 12th Doctor eras, which had multiple control rooms and variations on the décor within those).

Unfortunately, the $450 average retail price tag, which jumps far higher in secondary markets, is just more than I can really justify spending on a toy. (Actually, I could rationalize such a purchase just fine. It’s my wife who would definitely have something else to say about it.) I mean, I recently saw a really nice-looking full-size old school TARDIS replica on sale for $550, which also had working lights. It looked amazing and far better than most home-made TARDIS props turn out. If i was going to spend that kind of money, it had better be for a TARDIS I can step inside, right? (And if I didn’t live on the other side of the continent from its location, and have no practical place to put it, I would have had a hard time not buying it–though don’t think I didn’t start looking up shipping companies all the same.)

While $100 cheaper, the Big Chief TARDIS even at 1:6 scale would still take up a massive chunk of real-estate in my office that might otherwise be devoted to, say, a pickle bucket. (BTW, I already have a pickle bucket in my office. I use it as my recycle bin, but it is, in fact, a prop from a play I wrote.)

Just watch this video of the Big Chief Studios 1/6 scale 11th Doctor TARDIS and you’ll see what I mean.

While this entry might be the closest I ever come to writing a personal review of any of the 1:6 scale Big Chief Studios TARDISes, it is fortunately not the only review I can write of a Big Chief Studios TARDIS that I own. As I mentioned, the Big Chief Doctor Who figures always come equipped with very thoughtfully chosen accessories. The Peter Capaldi 12th Doctor figure, for instance, comes with quite a few extras many of which are in-jokes and props from the show. He has: two sonic screwdrivers (the green one he inherited from Smith, not the blue light one he later adopted, with one version closed and one open) a few extra hands, a rubber glove, a spoon, the psychic paper, a pocket watch, a jelly baby case with little mini-jelly babies inside. He also comes with two mini TARDi both of which came from one of my favorite Capaldi stories, “Flatline.” One is the cube-like Siege Mode TARDIS, which the TARDIS went into after an assault from beings from another dimension which were wrecking havoc on its dimensional stabilizers, causing its exterior to shrink in size; and the other is one of the miniaturized versions of said shrunken TARDIS that Clara had to carry around in her purse and which the Doctor later had to drag around from the inside by reaching his hand through the tiny doors, Thing from Addams Family-style. If you’ve not seen the story, it’s wonderful and inventive and I wish someone would give Jamie Mathieson more to do on that show.

I happened to spot one of these mini-purse TARDi accessories for sale, loose, on ebay and snatched it up. I can’t recall what I paid for it and my ebay history doesn’t go back that far, which is disappointing, but I seem to recall getting a good deal on it. (No surprise, though, of the last ten purchases ebay displays, three of them were TARDISes and five others Doctor Who-related. I may have a problem.)

The Big Chief mini-TARDIS is every bit as cool as you would hope a tiny TARDIS would be in terms of its look. If you get a magnifying glass, you can probably even read the letters on the door sign. Where this one goes above and beyond, in order to match the details of its appearance in “Flatline,” is to have opening doors which can reveal a variety of backgrounds. These are printed on thin cardboard strips that can be switched in and out via a slot in the base of the TARDIS. One is the standard TARDIS control room; one is a closeup of the face of the Peter Capaldi toy, so it can peer through the doors from within, and one is a medium shot of the Capaldi toy reaching its arm toward the POV, with a hole in the center of the picture into which one of the extra hands can be inserted to show the Doctor reaching through the doors, as he does in the story. Like I said, Big Chief puts a lot of thought into these things. This toy could have been far less cool than it is and no one would ever have complained. Thankfully, Big Chief wouldn’t settle for a lesser TARDIS.

If I had one complaint about it, the doors are a little difficult to get closed again once they are open. Not so much when there are no backgrounds within, but that thin cardboard background is enough to make the doors stick open. The door space is so small that getting a finger in there to close them manually is also difficult. And while you could use a tool to get one door closed, the other would still be open. The best method I’ve found for getting them shut is to lightly whack the face of the TARDIS on a table, knocking the doors into closed position. Also, the strips themselves are kind of tricky to get in and out. They are a tight fit within the slot provided, are difficult to remove without tweezers, and, once in place, sit just outside of the slot itself, destabilizing the base and causing the TARDIS to sit at an angle. Still not enough to get me to drop it in the ratings, though, especially since it’s probably the only Big Chief TARDIS that I’ll ever own. Five TARDi all the way.

TARDIS Collector’s Corner: TARDIS Rotating LED Cell Phone Charm (The Shotglass TARDIS series)

(An ongoing writing project in which I catalog and quantify my extensive TARDIS collection.) 

The very smallest of the shotglass TARDISes in my collection is the TARDIS Rotating LED Cell Phone Charm.  It’s a tiny tiny TARDIS encased in a plastic bell jar dome that screws onto a plastic base bearing the Doctor Who logo used during the David Tennant era of the show.  While mine hangs in my car from my rear view mirror, the device is meant to attach to a cell phone.  The base has sensors within it that can detect incoming cell signals which activate the device to cause the TARDIS within the dome to spin and LED lights in the base to flash, signaling you that you have texts or calls when your phone is on silent mode.  Sounds mildly handy, no?  Turns out, not so much–at least in the way that I used the device.

The first time my TARDIS charm ever activated was at night, as I was driving home.  There I was, driving down the straightish stretch of highway near my house, preparing to turn onto the lane that leads to my neighborhood, when unexpectedly I am blasted at eye level by flashing blue lights seemingly from somewhere on the road ahead.  In that instant my brain became convinced that, at worst, I was about to be t-boned by a police cruiser coming out of the neighborhood to my right; or, at best, said police cruiser was not in motion but had turned on the blues in order to pull me over for some unknown infraction.  It was startling and I screamed aloud, much like a little girl. Then I heard my cell buzzing and realized what was going on and felt the kind of shame one only feels when startled by tiny sparkly lights. And this happened on more than one occasion as the days went by.  I also learned that the effect wasn’t that much less startling during daylight hours.

Fortunately, the batteries in this device didn’t last very long, no doubt owing to it having sat in on a shelf and/or in a warehouse for years before I purchased it.  I have yet to replace them, nor are their any plans in place to do so.

As far as TARDISes go, I cut this one a lot of slack on the detail side because it’s so tiny.  It also gets extra points for looking cool under the dome.  It’s almost like the Master was able to somehow use his Tissue Compression Eliminator on it to finally trap it in some sort of time-travel-proof bell jar.  It’s a novelty item with a lot of novelty.  I’ll give it four Tardi.

TARDIS Collector’s Corner: Die Cast TARDIS Keychain (The shotglass TARDIS series)

(An ongoing writing project in which I catalog and quantify my extensive TARDIS collection.) 

The die cast TARDIS keychain was the first TARDIS keychain I purchased and I like it a lot.

As a TARDIS it’s a lovely representation of the Pertwee/Baker era flat-roofed, dark door-signed TARDIS, though this one has a much better paint job than the TARDIS of that era ever did.  (Not a chip to be seen.)  It’s also pretty well in scale with the modern era TARDIS keychain, showing the size differential between the two models, even though they’re made of entirely different materials.

As a keychain I think this would function pretty well, too, as the metal die-cast nature gives it a satisfying weight and sturdiness to withstand the wear and tear keychains often go through.  As with all my other TARDIS keychains, I ditched the chain early on.  But I have kept the ring, which pokes from the top of the roof lamp itself, in case I ever want to use it for another purpose.  It could make a nifty ceiling fan or lamp chain pull, for instance, though is probably too heavy for, say, an earring.

TARDIS Collector’s Corner: Hornby Skaledale Blue Police Box TARDIS (The shotglass TARDIS series)

(An ongoing writing project in which I catalog and quantify my extensive TARDIS collection.) 

This “shotglass” TARDIS used to be the smallest TARDIS I owned, and was for a few years.  This particular police box was made by the Hornby company (R8696 Skaledale Blue Police Box 1/76 Scale) and is meant to be scenery for a model railroad setup.  As such, it’s more to the specs of an actual police call box than it is to the various props from Doctor Who.  You can find them online, often on ebay, though they’re starting to get more expensive than the one I bought.  (I seem to recall it being fairly cheap when I bought mine, under $10.  The ones on ebay now start at nearly $30 before shipping, which is a lot to pay for a chunk of painted resin in my book.

For most of the years I’ve owned the Hornby it’s been on display atop an upside down clear Listerine measuring cup–which is the same size as a shot glass, hence the name “shotglass” TARDIS.  And while it was the smallest TARDIS in my collection for some time, that honor has gone to another for the past four years or so.

TARDIS Collector’s Corner: Funko POP! Vinyl’s TARDIS Keychain (The “shotglass” TARDIS series)

(An ongoing writing project in which I catalog and quantify my extensive TARDIS collection.) 

This is Funko POP! Vinyl’s version of a TARDIS keychain.  It’s meant to be a miniature version of their TARDIS POP! Vinyl Toy, albeit one without working doors.  (Or, rather, door, but that’s a complaint for the future.)  For those unfamiliar with the plague that is Funko POP! Vinyl, the toys are primarily figurines of pop culture characters with disproportionately large heads and black circles for eyes.  The figures are usually about four inches in height, but Funko made a series of keychain models that shrunk them down to around an inch and the TARDIS is just a smidge over that (unlike the larger toy version, which is nearly half again as tall as the figures).

I call POP! Vinyl figures a plague because, while I own around ten of them myself (of the Doctor Who, MST3k, and Portal 2 varieties) I don’t give the ass of a flying monkey about 90 percent of their output and kind of resent the fact that there are now layers of them under foot in all nerd/videogame/movie/music stores, where they glut entire walls.  I weep for our landfills.

Like all the other TARDIS keychains, I ditched its chain as soon as I was able to. It’s super-blocky size would make it inconveniently large to use as a keychain, though I must note that Funko’s choice of a rubbery plastic for the production would lend itself to durability.  (At least for the TARDIS, as most people I know who have bought and used any of the figure-model keychains quickly find they have nothing left but decapitated character heads dangling from their keys after the bodies snap off.)

Much like its larger counterpart, there’s not a lot of detail on this thing.  But that’s the POP! Vinyl aesthetic to start with, so one cannot complain about the lack of woodgrain or the fact that it’s super chunky.  (It’s so chunky, in fact, that I’m not sure it would actually fit very far into a standard shot glass.)  I t’s fine.  I’ll give it a full four TARDi and save the tale of the larger model for another time.

TARDIS Collector’s Corner: Underground Toys Keychain TARDIS (The “shotglass” TARDIS series)

(An ongoing writing project in which I catalog and quantify my extensive TARDIS collection.) 

The newest TARDIS in my collection is also one of (though not the) smallest. It’s one of three keychain TARDI that I now own and is one of my favorite among the three. (You can actually see all three, plus another, in the accompanying image, but we’ll get to the others later.)

These “shotglass” TARDI are so called by me because each of them could fit into a standard shot glass (though not any of the standard shot glasses that I happen to own, which are all either opaque or super tall and narrow–hence their inclusion atop a stack of CDs for scale).

The new TARDIS keychain is one made by Underground Toys.  It’s of the Matt Smith/Peter Capaldi TARDIS model.  It’s a hollow shell made from a very light weight plastic, but the sculpting on it is really nice.  No woodgrain, but I’m not complaining because it just looks like a tiny replica of the TARDIS USB hub sculpt.  Alternately, you could use it as the miniature TARDIS that appeared in the great episode “Flatline” from two seasons back, cause it’s about the correct scale when compared with one of the Flight Control TARDIS models. (Though you’d probably have to use it on the Matt Smith FC TARDIS, cause the blacked out windows won’t look right otherwise.)  The keychain model is beautifully made, though.

As far as its ability to be used as an actual keychain, though, I don’t know that I could recommend it for use in that capacity.  I am pretty sure the light and airy nature of this model would never be able to stand up to the kind of beating it would take in my pocket.  (The wife uses a pewter Serenity keychain that has already started to lose its fine detail.  And she only has, like, one key.  This plastic TARDIS wouldn’t last a week with all my keys.)   Since I’ll never use it as a keychain, I pulled the chain off it as soon as I got it out of the package, leaving a small metal ring located just behind the roof lamp which I’ll eventually snip off.  I’d like to give it four full TARDi, or maybe even 4.5, cause it really does look nice.  However, because I think it would truly suck when in use as its labeled function, I’m going to go 3.5.

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