Knowing how big a fan of the show my son is I bought him one. The packaging looks great and out of the box the toy looks true to the show. It’s scaled nicely to the included Mickey Mouse figure that comes with the set. The Mickey figure will say phrases from the show if you place him on the pegs inside the clubhouse (He’ll also move his arms up and down which is cool). Also, if you purchase the other characters they will interact with each other while they are positioned in the pegs. This is a feature that is part of all sets in this line of Mickey Mouse toys.

The Clubhouse looks very close to the one on the show which includes the big mickey head at the top, the slide, the shoe door, and it even comes with Toodles. The mickey head at the top opens up and you can fit a figure or two in there. There’s various other sounds, lights, and accessories included.

My problem with this toy is that although it looks great it is poorly made. The shoe door and slide will not stay attached. The door on the mickey mouse head constantly comes off the hinges. My son got frustrated always having to put the slide and shoe back in place. It got to the point where he just played with the Mickey and Toodles figures. For a retail price of around $39.99 I can’t recommend this toy if your child is only going to play with the accessories. Sorry, but i’m giving this a 2 out of 5 stars.

The good news is I got most of the exclusives that I wanted to get and then some. This includes the G.I.Joe Cobra Commanders, the Lightning Storm McQueen, and the Lego Indiana Jones exclusive (only 500 made). We also brought home the Batman exclusive from Hot Wheels, the He-Man “King Greyskull” from Mattel (both the normal and bronze color variant), Lobo (also from Mattel) and a gripload of free swag.

My family was so exhaused after Saturday that we decided to skip the con on Sunday and head home. As soon as we got home we unloaded all our loot and organized them. Going through all the stuff you got from the con is one of my favorite things. The con had less swag this year but some of the stuff they gave away was much better than years past. This year Mattel was giving away inflatable He-man swords, Disney gave away Tinkerbell Fairy wings which my daughters got a kick out of, Hasbro gave out Stormtrooper masks and Lego had this cool scavenger type of game where you had to go find 3 pieces of a lego “Joker” from the Lego, DC, and WB booths. At each booth you had to try a demo of the upcoming Batman Lego Video Game. Once you have all the pieces you turn them in and you get a Lego Batman, the completed Joker, and a collector box.

The lines to buy the exclusives were incredibly long. The Hasbro line was probably the worst. It was about a 2-3 hour wait. For those that complain about paying 2 to 3 times the retail price of an exclusive on ebay let me tell you this… YOU ARE GETTING AN ABSOLUTE BARGAIN! If you wanted to pay retail, be my guest to take a day off from work, buy convention tickets, wait 1-2 hours before the convention opens. Once it opens run to the booth where you want to buy, and then wait in another line for 3 hours to purchase. That was our experience on preview night.

For me, going to the con isn’t just about getting all the convention exclusives. I also enjoy seeing all the new and upcoming things in the toy industry. I’ll write more about that later. What I also love doing at the con is checking out all the people in various costumes. Some of the famous people I saw at the con this year was Hayden Panettieri (from one of my favorite shows, Heroes) and Neil Patrick Harris who was promoting the latest Harold and Kumar movie. I also got an autograph from Natalie Morales from that new TV show The Middleman. I took a bunch of pictures this year and I hope to share them here on the site in future posts.

My family and I have been going to the con every year for the past several years now. This year we significantly reduced our expenses. Thanks to my buddy Jay who let us camp in his vacant studio condo we saved a ton on hotel costs. We also packed our own sandwiches for lunch at the con. Not only are the food lines long but the prices are ridiculous. I’m talking airport restaurant ridiculous like. This year I was also pretty choosy about the items we bought at the Con. My wife and I are getting pretty good and knowing what will sell and what will sit on our storage shelves for a very long time.

Anyway, I’ll have more on the con in future posts. I’m exhausted and I gotta finish listing stuff on ebay and amazon.

Anyway, I still love taking photos and perhaps I’ll do some photoblogging like I did before. This blog will be mostly about entertainment and fun stuff that I experience with my family and friends.

After RoguePinoy.com was retired I started doing a lot of eBay and Amazon online selling. Most of the stuff I sold and still sell are toys and collectibles. You’ll probably see some toy reviews and such in the blogs ahead. You see, even though I’m married with 3 kids now I never really grew out of toys. In fact, having kids only grew my love for toys even more as now I’m able to share the fun with them.

I’m looking forward to blogging again. Thanks to my friend Jay who helped me get wordpress up and running.