Dr.
Stephen Hawking, as respected a physicist he is, doesn’t spring to
mind when someone says, “Action figure!”But it should now with his Simpsons appearance immortalized in plastic.Let’s face it, books about the origins of space and quantum theary are
great, but true greatness is measured by the number of action figures
you have under your belt.
This
figure is one of the most interesting Simpsons figures to look at.Dr. Hawking’s chair is just like its cartoon counterpart,
complete with boxing glove, jet attachments, and free-spinning
helicopter blades.The only
parts that need to be installed are the jet attachments, as the boxing
glove and blades are completely attached.By default this makes Dr. Hawking a flying toy, although I
wouldn’t really recommend throwing him as he’s not that durable.
(Besides which, you’ll probably lose his glasses since they aren’t
attached to his head.)His wheels allow him to roll freely so spinning him around on
the floor is a good option.
At
first I thought he wouldn’t be compatible with any Intelli-tronic
Playsets.How can he be
attached to a playset?Simple.At the back of the chair there’s a small lever that slides the
attachment level to the ground.This allows Dr. Hawking to be installed in any base (although
he’ll only “talk” if it’s a compatible base).
Poseability,
as you might imagine, is limited.He
can’t be removed from his chair but his neck and arms are articulated.His left hand is sculpted to “grip” objects so you can get a
bit of variety; otherwise, he’s a display piece.Maybe the best example I’ve
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seen of Dr. Hawking
on display is
at one of the local universities, in the Physics department, rigged from
the ceiling to replicate flight.Very
cool!
For
play options, you’ve got the entire Simpsons line to play around with.Plus, you can get creative with games like Simpson’s Bowling.This requires
Dr. Hawking and 10 Simpson figures set-up in a rough triangle.I think you
can figure it out from there.But
as I mentioned before, Dr. Hawking isn’t super durable.His durability can be somewhat improved by removing his jet
attachments first because, along with his glasses, they can be lost
quite easily.The copter
blades can be snapped off, but since they can fold into one blade the
chances of this happening are reduced.
Dr.
Hawking should be high on the list of Simpson’s collectors and fans,
because it’s probably safe to say, we’ll never see another figure
like this.