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| courtesy of @lazzytom on Instagram |
It was a dark and stormy night or a completely ordinary summer afternoon, whichever sets the mood better for you, and the usual suspect of interesting instances, Instagram, lies in my hand, cycling through a roll of pictures at a breakneck pace. Hell, with a single flick, I'll let it roll until the sun burns out or I see something without paint application, whichever comes first. Then like some grotesque emperor, drunk off wine and beef, I press the most slightest thumbprint against the screen at the first sight of something remotely entertaining. My patience is tested to the limit, but not really. In all actuality, I stumble my thumb across what I assume was the release of Street Shark MUSCLE. What a cool surprise, thought, while I sat a bit dumbfounded that I completely missed every announcement of this. A shoulder shrug later and I'm looking for the details on where to buy. Was it Super7 ? Are they sold on their website perhaps or am I looking at some rare set released in limited supply from a convention? Maybe Kickstarter rewards are finally reaching mailboxes. Nope, none of that. Despite Super7 really being the front-runner of keshi production nowadays, with dozes and dozens of sets from multiple franchises, all of which look identical to these Street Shark sets, this was not their work.
Ok, so who do I write this check out to then?
Ebay, apparently!
The blisters have the Mattel logo on the packing, as well as stamped on the figures, so it was actual for-reals Mattel MUSCLE product, but its world-wide summer blockbuster release found fans rushing to the toy isles of discount overstock stores. I suppose with the death of Toys R Us, where does one have a store release outside the big blue store or the big red one? But a slightly improved dollar store seems to be a rather strange pick for your premiere. And you can imagine what this did to the secondary market. For those who didn't have one of these particular stores in their town or perhaps weren't even randomly stocked with Street Shark MUSCLE in the ones they had, they no longer had an alternative webstore to empty their bank accounts on. It's like the wild, wild, west had returned. You know, back in the day, without computers and the Internet, where kids did their chores and went to bed, and didn't spend all day with their Hoola Hoops and skateboards. But just as these ultra rare three pack sets were selling for a hundo' a-pop, that bubble a-pop, finding these same sets reasonably sold around a reasonable retail price. What even happened?
The quick answer to that currently is that no one knows for sure. The sexier answer, however, is that smarter people than I have speculation why this happened.
EricNilla, independent keshi artist, member of the LittleRubberGuys forum, and unparalleled knower and collector of all things keshi, reached out to the founder of Super7 and this was his response.
From Brian Flynn of Super7:
"I don't know exactly, but I have theory based on conversations had with employees when we made the WWE MUSCLE. We talked about making Food Fighters into MUSCLE, and they had some scaled down figures that felt like MUSCLE figures. My guess is that much like us reviving MUSCLE, they tried to take a Mattel property and remake it in MUSCLE, as a test to see how people would react. Shortly thereafter, a management change happened, and the WWE project was essentially scrapped even though the figures were made, probably like the Street Sharks. Then they had inventory with no plan on how to sell it, since it was an old management project. So, you are seeing people slowly buy off the inventory from Mattel as big chains in test buys, which is what is happening now. Just a theory though."
Brian doesn't work for Mattel but his company Super7 has worked with Mattel, or at least, their licencing department for their MUSCLE products, so I have good feeling that, although what he is guessing happened isn't confirmed, things could have very well happened like this or similarly. Business is strange and all, but liquidating assets is something companies do all the time. A preliminary wave of keshi minifigures could have very well fallen victim to that. One management team could have seen potential in keshi minifigures, and wanted to try their hand at what Super7 has been doing well for a few years now. Then a following team has their eyes focused in a different direction and trashes their previous work to make space for their ideas. If this was the case or something like it, Street Sharks MUSCLE is lucky to have made it out alive in any form, even in such a strange circumstance as this one. Clearance rack be damned, they made it. Although, I guess the same can't be said about future Mattel keshi products.
Who knows where they are or even if they are still being stocked, but the next time you're kicking a can down a discount store isle, duck into the toy isle, maybe you'll get lucky. If not, there's always someone on Ebay, hoping their set still rakes them in three figures in clams.
Also, as a final-final note, check out Eric Nilla's work and website at the link below. He's to thank for getting or sharing what little knowledge we have on this strange situation, and the plug is the least I can do for the wholesale copy-paste of his forum post. Thank you, I'm sorry!
https://ericnilla.storenvy.com/
