Failure of a line.............

I had a unique experience the other day while shopping for new G.I Joe ROC toys and I must vent. As most of you might be aware, there is a new G.I Joe movie coming out and with the new movie comes a toy launch. This launch seems to have promise; cool figs and sweet looking vehicles which are a must for any military toy line. Anyway, most stores such as Target and Toys R Us have embraced this famed toy line.

The 2 stores mentioned above got it right. Release date equals new toys on the shelf. No, they did not skimp out; each had pre designated shelf space allotted to the line! You can go into any given Target and you will see not only a chunky shelf section but 2 end caps! Toys R Us has an 8-10 foot Joe section and will have a full blown feature shop in the front end by the 22^nd of this month.

As you can see there is one major retailer missing from this group.

Wal-Mart, too many, is the equivalent of evil in a retail format. These guys are pricks as a whole and here is why. First, Wal-Mart decided NOT to launch the toys on the new release date, instead they stuck to the old date of the 10^th

On the 10^th I decided to go hunting like millions of other eager fans who wanted to track down the items they missed at the other chains. This is what pissed me off: THEY HAD NOTHING! Yep, Wal-Mart as a whole did not put out their toys on release day**. During my travels on that crappy day, I discovered that Wally decided to leave the merchandise in the back because some thought it would not sell. How retarded is that I ask? I spoke to one manager and he stated that Joe did not have any recognizable characters but Transformers did…..WTF……Excuse me Mr. Genius, who the hell or you to say that the line has no one recognizable? Transformers have Bumble Bee and Prime, maybe Megatron and that is it.

All the other robots look the same. Joe has Destro, Duke, Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, Scarlett, Baroness and more! I even saw a kid walk by a display that the manager almost refused to put out and said, “Mom, look, Storm Shadow!”

I despise ignorant managers who think they know everything. I might not run a Wal Mart but I can say that I have ran a big box store and I have a degree to boot and I KNOW this stuff will sale if you give it a chance! Dumb asses like this need to go away. Your ignorance is foreshadowed by your stupidity. This same manager even stated that a majority of the Joe merchandise will clutter his clearance aisles.

Transformers have 8-12 feet aisle space, 2 end caps and a four way……..Joe has a shipper box. Yet, this chain will push the hell out of this stuff and ignore the fact that there were huge amounts of clearance merchandise well after the first movie. Yes it sold great and it was a new movie and no one had a clue on how it was going to perform…..yet they gave it a chance. Over the last 12 months, Joes were a constant sell out at retail (Wal-Mart included) yet they fail to see that.I think Transformers will own the clearance alies come January.....just look at the current stock levels!

By the end of my day, I convinced 2 managers to put out the shipper display and one store set up a 4 way at my request. As a shopper, I want to see this merchandise as it will not sell in the back room. 3 stores refused and 1 store knew nothing about Joe; absolutely ridiculous. If the line fails at Wal-Mart it will fail due to managers such as these idiots.I have decided that Target and TRU will be my Joe headquarters for the conceviable future.

**Note, some stores did put out merchandise on release date or before. In my area, out of 25+ Wal-Marts, only 1 had them out before the old release date and 1 store had the shipper out by the time I got there.

If everybody's got a price, then I'm sold

For the past several years the WWE shows have had General Managers on each brand. These GM's "ran" the show. Currently though the Raw brand has been without a GM for a few weeks since Vicki Guerrero decided that she wanted to end her successful run on WWE TV.

So when Donald Trump "bought" Raw, he announced that there wouldn't be a GM anymore, but rather there would be a different guest host each week. Certainly an intriguing concept. Now when Vince "bought" Raw back from the Donald, he kept that concept alive.

The first week we had Batista guest host. But last night we had a true legend of professional wrestling be the Host, The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase. I must admit I marked out.

But from what I saw from good ol' Ted, he still has great mic skills and a presence in the ring. Heck the crowd ate up his appearance with the Million Dollar Belt in tow.

So after last nights stint, I think it's time for Vince to offer the GM Job to him. It's fresh blood in the GM role and he could truly bring a different take to the part. The Million Dollar man was always a great character and I think he could provide an interesting foil to the Raw superstars.

Snikt!

By Joe Milone

The X-Men have appeared in animation many times over the course of the last twenty-something years from a guest appearance in Spiderman and his Amazing Friends, to the failed pilot known as Pryde of the X-Men.

But since the 90’s there have been 2 Long running X-Men shows, the Fox kids Classic X-Men, and the odd (at least in my opinion) X–Men Evolution, which cast most of the main characters as teenagers. I’ll gripe about that show in a later column.

But this past January (well at least in the US), a new chapter in the lives of our favorite animated mutants debuted, called Wolverine and the X-Men.

This series starts out with the X-Men disbanding after an explosion occurs at Xavier’s institute resulting in both the Professor and Jean Grey disappearing. This causes the team to disband and Cyclops goes all Emo. A year later the MRD (Mutant Response Division) starts to hunt down and imprison all the mutants. This prompts Wolverine to take charge and reform the X-Men, first bringing Beast back into the fold. Then we get a few more recruits back to the mansion, including Emma Frost. I do believe this is the first time The former White Queen has been animated, but I could be wrong

I won’t ruin the rest of the plot of the first season for those who haven’t watched it yet, because it is on par with the Fox X-Men show and has the potential to be even greater. The whole first season has already aired in Canada while we have only gotten to episode 13 here in the states.

The animation, voice acting and stories are top notch. Even considering that it is being produced by the same team who brought us X-Men- Evolution. Personally I can’t wait to see how the first season ends, and I hope that this show could run for a long time.

Any how, if you want to see this great show click here Wolverine and the X-Men
They have every episode that has aired on Nicktoons thus far. If you have ever been an X-Men fan in your lifetime, you owe it to yourself to check out this show. You won’t regret it.