Last year, Toy Fair 2004 was the event of the century for All Nerd Review. It was the first year where we weren't depending on some ex-girlfriend's mom's boyfriend to get bogus passes, since we'd established media credentials in our year of operations. Last year, I'd assembled a wacky team of co-pilots to back me up on my Spaceship to Toy Adventure and let them sleep at my house. We played Heroclix for prizes, we watched bad superhero movies, and we made a thrilling adventure of it. For anyone dealing in pop subculture, looking to establish friendly communications with various companies in all walks of production, and especially looking to create some entertaining discourse on the incredibly bizarre and exciting, Toy Fair is the place to be. Maybe, just maybe, I can turn ANR into something profitable alongside it being a labor of love. Wouldn't that be nice?

So, the unofficial start to ToyFair 2005, as far as I'm concerned, is when my co-worker reminded me on saturday the 19th that I wouldn't be coming into work on sunday the 20th. Deep inside of me, something asked, 'Why? I never take days off! I'm an obsequious toady!', only to be answered moments later by, 'You have to go to Toy Fair, you moron!'. This was followed by a brief pause, and a refrain. 'But... but I don't know what I'm doing this year!'

This was true. I hadn't packed. I hadn't really written down where my hastily-made appointments might be between the three or four toy buildings. I hadn't graphed out a schedule or polished my boots with the huge holes in them. I hadn't purchased the necessary bottle of life-giving water to keep me hydrated and non-cranky. I didn't know what CD I was to listen to on the train, or for that matter, what train to take. My thoughts had been pretty much consumed by the fact that I really wanted to head to AC Moore and clean them out of their craft paints, which were on sale for 25 cents a bottle, and with prices like that, I could get any number of tremendously ugly colors to incorporate into the next robot painting that no one but me cared about.

I did buy new business cards, however, which seemed to delight the folks that I handed them out to. A handful of new small company people have heard of us from Google searches. A green business card with a robot and a clever name, which everyone seems to get a serious mild chuckle out of, will get you far. My preparedness extended this far and no further, but the little guy has rocket feet, so what more could you possibly ask for

After buying 40 bottles of paint for a scant 8 dollars after a borrowed employee discount, and a plush octopus for good measure, and living my real life, I started thinking about ToyFair. Two members of this year's team had already bailed out on me, Hasbro had ignored my requests for an appointment until it was too late to really fit them in, and I'd had to cancel on Mezco due to scheduling inflexibility on the parts of other toy companies who held more sway. It was a snowball of ill tidings, topped off with the discovery that three of All Nerd Review's media contacts had suddenly just packed up and left the companies that they were connecting us with. Lord, our synergy was collapsing before my eyes! Our synergy! So, after the break that I forced ANR into earlier this year, I was 100% casual.

It seemed like a majority of toy-centered news sites had already attended pre-Toy Fair and gotten the scoops on everything worthwhile. It's at this point that I remind myself that, well, ANR isn't a news site. And it's not about getting the info up there first, but we do, I think, do it smartest. They don't write songs for articles, dammit. The completely lack the prerequisite squid and robot fetish that drives any powerful site. So, welcome to the third year of ANR's Toy Fair coverage. Less action-figure focused that before, more 'wow... that's really neat'-centric. Joining me on this journey is Dan, a veteran from Toy Fair 2004, my Canon Powershot digital camera, and a right shoulder that would be rejected by my body by the end of the day and need to be reattached with the scraps of things gathered from the Metro-North train floor.

 
[Dan poses with a guy who's a little short for a Stormtrooper, and I get a wicked pose from a Tusken Raider before we catch the shuttlebus. That's my favorite kind of Tusken.]