Deluxe Boogie Homer

A company called Gemmy is doing a wide range of unique pop culture collectibles, including the Simspons. They did all those obnoxious Dancing Hamsters that you see at KB, along with the dancing James Brown.

They've added a couple Homer items - a basic dancing Homer, a deluxe dancing Homer, and also the Hula Homer I reviewed last month. This is a review of the deluxe dancing Homer, with 19 phrases and two songs.

Homer sings, dances, and gets down with his bad self.  Most of the phrases are unique to this character, although some of them were also written on the Homer pewterisms.

Packaging - *1/2
Homer comes in a standard window box.  Nothing exciting, and very minimal graphics and descriptions.

Sculpting - **1/2
The sculpting isn't too bad, but the lower jaw is hinged so that it moves as he speaks some lines.  This means that at certain times the jaw position looks better than at other times.  Depending on when you catch his look, he could look great or terrible.

Paint - *1/2
Unfortunately, this is a case where a decent sculpt is obliterated by a bad paint job.  While the face sculpt looks decent, a sloppy job on the eyes and mouth end up making Homer look pretty weak.  On my figure (and all the ones I saw) his right pupil is off to one side, while the right pupil was fairly well lined up.  It ends up giving Homer a really dopey look - more dopey than usual.

Articulation - **1/2
Normally I wouldn't give an articulation rating for a toy like this, but because they jointed his jaw for movement, and jointed his arms so they can be positioned in different ways, I thought he was well deserving of a few stars here.

Besides, he's got a wicked pelvis wiggle.

Boogie/voice feature - ***1/2
Here's the part you're going to really like - watching Homer swing his hips, move his arms up and down, and turn his head from side to side with the two songs (Rapper's Delight and Shake Your Bootie) is going to make you laugh.  Really.  You won't be able to help yourself, even if the overall figures isn't the best in the world.

The quality of the movement feature is pretty good, although Homer's mouth doesn't move with every line or phrase.  The hip swing is very similar to the Santa Claus, but something about Homer doing it just fits so well.

The arms hold their position well, and I don't think you'll break him too easily.  The figure can be operated by pressing the button on the base, or with a motion detector. There's also an AC attachment for a power cord if you don't want to suck up the batteries.

Value - **
The suggested retail on this is $40, and at that price it's a pretty poor value.  Let's face it, it really is just an oversized dancing hamster.  However, if you can pick it up for $25 or less, you're at least getting a passing value..

Overall - **
The dancing and singing here is the main feature and best feature of this toy.  Don't go in expecting the greatest sculpt or paint job, and just enjoy the hilarious gyrations.  I wish the price wasn't so high - at $15 or so it would be a much better item.  Aren't those damn hamster ten bucks though?  With Homer being so much larger and complicated, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the price point.

Where to Buy
I picked mine up on sale this week at JC Penny's (Father's Day Sale!) for $24.99.  You can also find it on-line:

- Incredible Gifts has it for $28.99 plus shipping.

Figure from the collection of Michael Crawford.
