Family Multi-Pack (Simpsons (Jakks Pacific)) Review

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Family Multi-Pack (Simpsons (Jakks Pacific)) Review

Family Multi-Pack
Simpsons (Jakks Pacific) (Jakks Pacific)Despite all the merchandise Simpsons has gotten over the years, there's been a small drought of true action figures for a couple years, with only more stylized stuff like Funko POPs and Kidrobot's vinyl figures. Super7 took a shot at it with a varied selection of characters, and most of them was good, but lack of key characters and poor sales resulted in Disney pulling the license. Not long after the news came out S7 lost the license, Jakks Pacific announced their own line of Simpsons figures and other collectibles. Their offerings have been showing up since last month, and in good numbers, including a line of smaller-scale figures. There's a set of the main family out now, including a wave of single-packed characters.

When the line was first revealed (outside of the States), the packaging was a colorful blue, but the final product goes for something more simple, with a white and pink color scheme. The white background does have faint artwork showing off a crowd of characters, so it's not that simplistic, and there's clearer art of the family on the front and sides. You'll have to snip out a tie or two with some of the figures, but these were designed with collector-friendliness in mind, and everything can be replaced easily.

One of the main players here is Homer, and while these are characters that have been translated into three dimensions plenty of times, this one looks fantastic. Granted, Super7's sculpts for him were spot-on as well, but even in this smaller scale, the design remains easy to sculpt. He has a little smile, so it's not a completely blank stare, and the colors are decent. The paint for the hair and pupils is mostly clean, aside from some fuzziness on his hairline, and the color of the head doesn't match up with the skin on the rest of the body. These figures are meant to be in a 2.5" scale, but Homer is a little taller at 2 7/8", and most of the others are scaled to go with him.

Next up is Marge, and as of right now, she's only available as part of the family set (I can foresee a single release at some point). Because of the hair, she's much taller than the others, being 3 3/4" tall. Still, she scales well with Homer, and the sculpt is great, though I'm not sure her back's supposed to be curved like that. Most of her skin is colored plastic, with the eyes being separate molds, though the skin on the upper torso is painted onto green plastic, resulting in a slightly different yellow. The colors are pretty clean, aside from some bleed on the necklace, but in this scale, it's to be expected.

Going back to the individually available characters are Bart and Lisa. At about 2 1/4" and 2" tall each, they're a little large compared to the adults, but I'm guessing Jakks didn't want to make them too small, hence the somewhat off scale. As with Homer and Marge though, these are very accurate sculpts, and that in combination with the clean paint creates a good look all over, though Bart does have a noticeable mold line running down his right arm. While Lisa has some uneven edges and bleed on her necklace like Marge, the rest of the paint is good, even on Bart's shoes. The pupils are the main thing you'll want to watch out for as a couple of them, mainly the kids, suffer from being slightly googly-eyed. If there's more than one figure/set on the shelves, then it's good for those looking for the best ones.

The family box set offers three more exclusive characters, one of which is Maggie. At a bit over 1 1/2" tall, Maggie has a similar hairstyle to Lisa, but with less spikes, and is sculpted in a walking pose. The paint on her eyes and hands is very clean, but don't expect her to fit with the 5" figures; I compared them and she's just too small. The set also gives us the family pets: Santa's Little Helper and Snowball II/V. SLH scales about 2 1/8" long and 1 1/2" tall, and he's one of the best sculpts here, with a happy, blank stare as any dog would have. Snowball on the other hand, comes off as the weakest to me due to how big her feet are. Can't get them all perfectly, though, and she's a little smaller than SLH at 1 1/4" long and a bit under 1" tall. For a figure that small, the paint is very clean on her, so props to Jakks' team for that.

Since these are small figures, there's not going to be a lot of articulation, but what they have works well. The main setup is a swivel neck, swivel/hinge shoulders, and a lower body joint that allows them to sit down, which is good for the living room playset (which I'll go over soon). Maggie is cut down to just a swivel neck and shoulders, and the pets have six swivel points each: neck, shoulders, hips, and tail. The joints move fine, and you can get a few decent poses with what's available. Most of these figures have no accessories, but the single-packed Bart and Lisa each get a skateboard (with rolling wheels and a foot peg) and a saxaphone. Given how these smaller figures usually don't get any extras, I guess Jakks felt the need to pad out the $5 price a bit more with slightly smaller characters.

There's two characters in the first assortment that are only available individually, Ned Flanders and Chief Wiggum. Both standing about as tall as Homer, the sculpts and paint on both is fairly good, and I think Wiggum is one of the nicest-looking figures here. Flanders' glasses are glued onto the head, but suffer from a slightly crooked look. The paint on the hair and shirt collar is good, but don't expect any painted pupils behind the glasses. As for Wiggum, he has all his cop gear sculpted/painted onto him, and for a figure with more color variety than the others, the paint is well done. His shoulders look a bit broader than they should be, but I'm guessing that's to accommodate for shoulder movement. These have the same articulation as the others, and no accessories, but I wish Wiggum's club could be removed from the figure, since he has a hand sculpted to hold things.

If you're looking for a world of Springfield that fits in the palm of your hand, then you're in luck. The sculpt and paint on these figures is great considering the scale, and it's nice having both the core family and some B-listers right out the gate. The price is good too, being only $5 for the singles and $20 for the family set on average. Even though I'm more into the 5" stuff, I'll be happy to pick up these smaller ones given how well-made they are. A Krusty-themed second wave is coming out later this year it seems, and I look forward to anything else.

- 8/13/24