The Simpsons
Family Christmas Set
The Simpsons Family Christmas set from Playmates Toys is an exclusive to Toys'R'Us and retails for $39.99 USD. As with other Simpsons exclusives, it can also be found in online auctions and at some smaller online stores.
This playset uses Playmates' "Intelli-Tronic Voice Activation" to enhance the play value. Each figure (including Maggie and Santa's Little Helper) has a socket on the bottom that can plug into the base. There are three plugs that can be used, and once the figures are plugged in they can "speak" recorded phrases when a button near the plug is pressed. The phrases are chosen at random, and each character has several different phrases.
This set includes the five members of the Simpsons family, most of whom are dressed in holiday attire:
- Christmas Homer - dressed in a Santa suit
- Christmas Marge - wearing earmuffs and garland in her hair
- Christmas Bart - wearing a Santa hat (on the box, his shirt is a different color)
- Christmas Lisa - dressed for cold weather (on the box, her coat is a different color, more like a Santa outfit)
- Christmas Maggie & Santa's Little Helper - SLH is wearing reindeer antlers
It wouldn't be the holidays without extended family, though, so there is a picture of Grandpa Simpson hanging on the wall. Patty and Selma can be seen through the living room window of the playset, with lit cigarettes and the appropriate glowering facial expressions.
A note about the Maggie & Santa's Little Helper: Maggie is riding SLH and neither of them are articulated. The Family Christmas playset is the only "Intelli-tronic interactive environment" with which they interact. The other four figures in this set play lines when connected to other playsets, in addition to this playset.
Homer, Marge, Bart, and Lisa all have the same four points of articulation: neck, shoulders, and waist. As one might expect in a store-exclusive box set, there is some recycling of sculpts in these action figures:
- Homer - while his body is new, his head is the same as the Sunday Best Homer.
- Marge - her body is the same, but her head and arms are new.
- Bart - the same Bart as the regular Bart, but with the Santa hat.
- Lisa - Lisa has the same head, but a new body.
- Maggie - Maggie is all new, sculpted onto the back of Santa's Little Helper.
The only accessory included in the Simpsons Family Christmas set is a piano. Like Lisa's outfit, it is a different color than the one pictured on the box. The piano can be moved around, as it does not attach to the playset.
The instructions for the set list that the following figures can interact with this playset environment (in addition to the five included figures):
- Homer
- Bart
- Marge
- Lisa
- Sunday Best Bart
- Pin Pal Homer
- Kamp Krusty Bart
- Sunday Best Homer
- Radioactive Homer
- Casual Homer
- Bartman
- Mascot Homer
- Boxing Homer
- Alien Ship Homer
- Officer Marge
- Muumuu Homer
As fun as that sounds, each version of the same character says the same phrases as the Christmas versions. For example, regular Homer has the same four lines as the Christmas Homer. The default noise, heard when an action figure is not compatible with this set, is the ringing of sleigh bells.
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