July 26, 2006

Fall Out Boy Toys: Dolls Of Bandmembers Coming To A Mall Near You

By James Montgomery (MTV.com)

Highly collectible? You bet. Inevitable? Sure. Fully poseable? Well, not exactly.

Whatever you want to call them, brace yourself for Fall Out Boy: the collectible figures hitting a Hot Topic near you this September.

California toy manufacturer SOTA -- best known in collectors' circles for their ultra-detailed figurines based on the "Street Fighter" video game franchise, the "Alien Vs. Predator" film and, um, the Insane Clown Posse -- broke the news at this weekend's Comic-Con in San Diego, previewing the figures to the masses in a glass display case.

According to a spokesperson for the company, the FOB figurines -- dressed in the sorta Sgt. Pepper's-inspired garb the band wore on their recent Black Clouds and Underdogs Tour -- are approximately 7 inches tall and boast swiveling necks and shoulders. At the moment, SOTA plans to sell each member individually (though there are thoughts of releasing them in a limited-edition four-pack, too), and they'll retail for about $14.99 each. And, yes, the plan is to release them for sale at Hot Topic.

Fall Out Boy are the latest in a long string of rock acts to have their mugs immortalized in plastic: just last year, My Chemical Romance received the honor via a series of action figures. And, much like their mates in MCR, the guys in FOB are pretty pumped to be seeing themselves in figure form.

"I remember playing with G.I. Joes back in the day, when my ultimate dream ever was to get the aircraft carrier. [So] to be approached to be made into one is absolutely amazing," Fall Out bassist Pete Wentz told MTV News. "To be honest, our only offense about them is people calling them 'action figures.' We feel safe in our own skin. Let's just call them 'dolls.'"

OK, then. Wentz added that some of the, uh, dolls will come packaged with special "golden tickets" that will give lucky fans a chance to spend the day with the band. And he said that FOB are working to find a charity to donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the dolls to (at the moment, he thinks it'll be the African Children's Education Trust).

And while most similar dolls, including the MCR figures, are fully articulated, the FOB toys are decidedly not -- which means that fans won't be able to finally see what's beneath Patrick Stump's omnipresent cap, or check if their Pete Wentz doll is anatomically correct.

Unless, of course, they're willing to get creative.

"Well, they're made of vinyl, so you can't really remove parts," Jed Haigh, product manager of SOTA, told MTV News. "But, collectors know that if you heat up vinyl, you can bend and remove parts. So I guess you could rip an arm off or something."