TOYS: JAWS COLLECTABLES

This is the final part of the Jaws articles. I was going to try and do a Jaws week and post them all in the same week (kinda like National Geographics Shark Week) but I took the rest of the week off to watch the football.  If Star Wars taught us anything, it was that movie related toys are a winner. With Jaws bulldozing through box office in the 70's it wasn't long before Jaws related toys and merchandise would "surface" (see what I did there) in stores.

There was so much Jaws merchandise available it was unreal. Today I am going to talk about the Jaws toys. There is a hell of a lot to go through so today I am just going to talk about the stuff that caught my eye and stuff I actually own.

If you are interested in finding out about ALL of the Jaws merchandise that was released then please go and check out this website Jawscollecter.com. It is an amazing site which is packed with awesome content.

MCFARLANES MOVIE MANIACS JAWS AND THE ORCA

Mcfarlane were the toy company that rose the bar when it came to making realistic toys and action figures. They started making authorized horror action figures in the late 90's with great success. The toys of Freddy Krueger, Jason, Leatherface, Michael Mysers and all the other top players in the world of horror, flew off the shelves and was a great success. In 2001 they released a model of Jaws taking down the Orca re-enacting one of the most iconic scenes of the movie.

The model came complete with a miniature articulated figure of Quint. The figure could be pulled into two parts separating the lower body and torso. When the figure is pulled apart Quints internal organs are put on display in the goriest of fashion.

The model is highly detailed to even the most tiniest of details like the inside of the boat is completely furnished with all the exact same arrangement shown in the movie. The shark looks incredible and Quint fits nicely inside the sharks mouth. This is by far the best and most detailed Jaws toy ever made. My cat knocked mine off a shelf a few years ago and certain parts have had to be superglued. I was almost in tears when that happened.

JAWS THE GAME

A short time after Jaws was released a Jaws home game was released. This one was kind of like Buckaroo but with a shark. They could have named it "Sharkaroo".. there's another reason why I never get asked back to marketing meetings!

The rules of the game were very simple, you had to remove items from the sharks mouth without triggering the jaws to close. I never actually played the game with others so I cant say wether the game was a classic or not. My mum was friends with some one who had one of these in their house and they used to let me play with it when I was a kid. I used to sit there for hours feeding GI Joes to it. Looking back that was a very happy time in my life. What can be better than feeding action figures to Jaws?

SIDESHOW'S JAWS MARQUETTE

In recent years Sideshow released a massive marquette of Bruce the Great White Shark from Jaws. The model is huge and is greatly detailed with a stand. Not as good as the Mcfarlane toy (in my opinion) but a very close second.

JAWS PLUSHY WITH SOUND

This Jaws plushy was also released in recent years. When you press the button on the fin it plays the music from Jaws. For an actual licensed item from the franchise this item is quite poor quality. The shark looks ridiculous and if it wasnt for the packaging you could mistake this one for a bootleg toy.

JAWS LUNCHBOX

Nothing says "lunch time" more than a lunch box with a giant Great White Shark on the front. Even though this may be the coolest lunch box I have ever seen I do see one flaw with this item. Try and imagine one of those really fat kids you see on American reality TV  carrying one of these without laughing.

THE IMAGES FOR THE FOLLOWING ITEMS WERE VERY GENEROUSLY DONATED TO LOST ENTERTAINMENT VIA JIM THE JAWS COLLECTOR FROM JAWSCOLLECTOR.COM

ADDAR SUPER SCENES JAWS HOBBY KIT

If you have ever read a model magazine, then you will know that horror movies and hobby kits go hand in hand. This one is probably one of the most unique hobby kits I have ever seen. Its a water bottle with a shark attacking a diver.

JAWS PADDLE BALL

This is an amazing paddle ball item with a Jaws design. Even if the shark looks more like an evil piraña fish its marketing items like these I love the most. Just simple ideas made into fun products.

OFFICIAL JAWS INFLATABLE SHARK

Spending a lot of my childhood growing up by a swimming pool I can honestly say I have owned (and punctured) 90% of inflatable toys ever made. The great white shark goes in the 10% category of inflatables I never got to own. Having 2 older sisters we always ended up having to get a dolphin or something. Once I got really screwed over in a beach hut by my mum and sisters when we ended up buying a giant ladybird one. When the day comes that I have children they will be getting as many blow up sharks as they wish.

500 PIECE JAWS PUZZLE

This is another wonderful unique Jaws item, a 500 piece puzzle of a scene from the movie. I have seen Jaws well over a 1000 times in my lifetime and I am pretty sure this is not an official scene from the movie. I think the top half is from the scene where the fisherman are trying to catch the shark to collect the bounty put up by Alex Kintners mother. The bottom half looks to be just a picture of a real great white pasted in. Still this is an awesome puzzle.

MATCHBOX STAR CARS JAWS BUS

A few years back Matchbox started releasing the Star Cars line. This line of toys were of famous cars from movies and TV like for instance, the A-Team Van, the Starsky and Hutch car and even Chief Brody's jeep. After releasing a few lines of these they started running out of ideas and then they just started to make buses with movie posters on the side. This is the Jaws bus and the Jaws bus is hands down the coolest bus I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of buses.

THE JAWS RIDE 3D VIEW MASTER

The 3d View Master was a very popular toy that was released in the 70's and survived all the way to the late 80's. Before Game Boy's, Game Gear's and PSP's the view master was one of the only handheld entertainment toys available. The View Master was a red box with eye lenses and when you put reels of film in you could view the negatives. Now this may sound quite crappy compared to todays standards but it was really quite fun. The real fun was collecting the films and there were so many to choose from. Most TV shows and movies had view master reels released. Another awesome thing about the view master cards was that they made good ninja throwing stars.

Well thats it for Jaws this summer I hope you have enjoyed reading the Jaws related articles on Lost Entertainment. I would also like to say a huge thank you to Jim Beller the Jaws Collector for kindly donating images for this article. Please visit jawscollector.com and join his facebook page by clicking here.

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Along with Everton winning the FA cup and Simply Red Staying at number 1 in the charts which seemed like forever, the original Judge Dredd was one of the really crappy things about 1995. The movie had it all on paper with the amazing 2000ad storyline and Sylvestor Stallone taking the lead role but the movie sucked dick.. a lot of hairy dick.

This time round the Judge Dredd franchise has been rebooted and looks very promising. 2012 is the year of the comic book movies and this is a great addition. Heres the debut trailer

NEWS

Jaws week has been put on hold as I am taking the week off to watch the European Championships. Come on England!!

MOVIES: HESHER

Hesher is the story of a boy named TJ who lives with his father and grandmother. TJ has recently lost his mother and his whole world has fallen apart. One day he stumbles upon a vagrant with long hair and tattoos who stalks the young boy and ends up moving himself in his house. This is Hesher a metal head who is a complete psycho who goes through life trashing and setting fire to whatever he comes into contact with. TJ falls in love with an older girl who works at a local supermarket and the three of them embark on some very interesting events.

This is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. Powerful performances by all involved. This film will make you laugh and will make you cry. It has a raw power like nothing you have seen for a long time.

GAMING: VIDEO GAMES OF JAWS

Due to lack of creativity and a chance to cash in on something popular, the video game industry has always taken ideas from Hollywood. With movie franchises being the money making machines they are it is only natural to make video game spin offs. Some times the end results are good like The Warriors, The Matrix and Disneys Aladdin on the Super Nintendo, but 9 times out of 10 the end results are shocking. Seeing as this week is Jaws week here at Lost Entertainment we will take a look at some of the Jaws related video games.

KILLER SHARK

Although Killer Shark is not a video game about the movie Jaws it does have relevance to the Jaws movie. This is the arcade game the kids are playing on the beach during the film. The game was and old school point and shoot game using light discs and a hand gun attached to the front. 

MANEATER

Oh oh there she goes she's a man eater! This crappy black and white video game was released soon after Jaws and has nothing what so ever to do with the Jaws franchise. It has a brilliant arcade cabinet though so I will let it off. They used to have one of these near an ice cream stand on a beach in Malta when I was a kid.

JAWS THE NINTENDO GAME

Just after Jaws the Revenge was made Jaws the video game landed on the NES console. The game was made by LJN a company which made amazing wrestling figures but shockingly bad video games. LJN made many awful games to cash in on movie franchises. They made awful games of Terminator 2, A Nightmare on Elm Street (click here for my review) and even Friday the 13th. 

The game is a mish mash of an RPG adventure and a side viewed shoot em up. In the game you travel around the map in a boat which constantly stops due to a message which reads "you've hit something". You then have to shoot Jellyfish and collect shells to level up. When you level up it gives you more of a chance to land more devastating blow to Jaws (yeah they named the Shark Jaws in this game). 

The life bar of Jaws is ridiculous and it takes forever to level up to fight him. You encounter the Shark all the time and will have countless boss battles with him to no avail. You must continue collecting shells and shooting Jellyfish until you lose the will to live.

Once you have leveled up enough you then get to the final boss stage where you have to stab Jaws with the front of a boat. The ending is just like the ending from Jaws the Revenge. This game is also like Jaws the Revenge in the sense that Jaws the Revenge was the worst film in the series and Jaws the video game may have been the worst game EVER on Nintendo.

JAWS UNLEASHED PLAYSTION 2 AND XBOX

Now this is one game that I feel is very misunderstood. If you read a review anywhere it will get ridiculous scores of 1/10 and even got voted "the worst game that everyone played in 2006" by Gamespot. I personally think Jaws Unleashed is great fun and should not be taken to seriously. In this game you are the Shark in an open sandbox world just like Grand Theft Auto. You can feed off of hundreds of different sea creatures as well as chomp on humans.

The game has a Great story mode which actually makes the Shark a hero where he ends up fighting pollution. But don't think that Jaws has gone all hippy on us though, as there is an incredible level of gore in this game like nothing you have ever seen before. The game has some pretty cool boss battles including fighting a Killer Whale in Sea World and a Giant Squid in the ocean.

  

The game milks as much as it can from its license and makes many nods towards Jaws and its sequels. There is a great level where you have to escape from Sea World via the glass tunnels just like in Jaws 3. This game is just good fun and if your a fan of the movies then you will definitely enjoy this. This game can be picked up for like £2 online and it is worth every penny. As I said earlier don't take this one too seriously and just enjoy it for what it is. Grand Theft Auto with a Shark.

JAWS FOR THE IPAD, IPHONE AND IPOD

A new side scrolling Jaws game has recently been released on the Apple store and it is good fun. once again you play as the Shark and must eat everything in sight.

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MUSIC: NEW SONIC MASS EP RELEASED

The EP from Sonic Mass is now available for download as of today. Sonic Mass are an outfit from East London which bring a journey of dark, psychedelic, doom straight to your door with piercing vocals and enough distortion to make your lawn die. Their songs are are tight with amazing vocals which take you on a journey through the occult and other related subjects.

Tonight they are playing at Ballyhoo in New Oxford Street and will be on stage at 10 pm. These guys are not to miss and a big favorite of mine on my past rock shows.

The EP is available for free download but if you could contribute any coin toward these guys it would be money well spent. Enjoy

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JAWS: THE RIDE UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

With the re-release of Jaws in the cinemas this Friday I thought it would be a great idea to dedicate this week to Jaws. The discovery channel have shark week and now Lost Entertainment has.. Jaws week!! Jaws will always stick with me as one of the greatest horror films of all time. It wasn't set in a mystical forest or a creepy old castle but a sunny beach where the young, the old and even pet dogs were at risk. It struck such a nerve with so many people that you will never be able to attend a beach again without hearing the word shark.

So in the late 70's Universal Studios started up the worlds first movie themed theme park with huge success. They created some of the most unique rides and attractions all based around famous films such as King Kong, Earthquake and of course Jaws.

Like the movie the Jaws ride it self had difficulties with mechanical Sharks not working and a lot of the time this ride would be under maintenance on a daily basis. The ride was shut down in January but today on Lost Entertainment you can ride the Jaws ride one last time on this virtual tour!

So they created a mini Amity Island area on the theme park to house this ride. The area covered is quite large and has lots of references to the movie with hanging Sharks and other paraphernalia. You follow the path down to Jakes Boating Tours where you begin to line up.

Before getting on board we must check the safety warnings. These things really make me chuckle especially the heart condition and expectant mothers part. I guess Universal have to cover them selves but the mind does really boggle at such situations. I wonder if there ever was an incident where a guy came in and complained because his mother had a heart attack and his wife had a miscarriage when the rubber shark burst out of the water? Still safety first I guess.

It is a 25 minute wait but that is bearable really. If you have ever been to a theme park in the UK you will understand why 25 minutes is not so bad. Most UK theme parks have 2 hour plus waits and if you pay another £5 you can cut that down to an hour.

So while you wait you get to see the people who were in front of you in the line make their sea born voyage. They are all smiles and waving now but they wont be in five minutes when that giant rubber shark gives them some abuse.

This is on the wall during the line. Alex Kintner was the little boy who got chomped in the first Jaws movie while on an inflatable raft. Maybe if he had listened to his mother when she told him to come out of the water when his fingers were pruning then he would still be alive today. He would also be about 45 now.

So it is now time to board the ride which is a boat like the one Willy Wonka has and is captained by an awful actor. I must say though my heart does go out to these people who every 15 minutes have to pretend they are petrified of a rubber Great White Shark they have seen about 20 times that day.

Before the ship makes its voyage the skipper informs us how he is prepared for any shark attacks by holding a grenade launcher above his head. Imagine if you got on a bus or a plane and just before it departed the pilot/driver pulled out a giant gun and told us how he would stop any would be hijackers. It would put my mind at ease and would also be a great addition to the safety instructions from the air stewards.

While giving us all a tour and making everybody wave at Chief Brodys house the captain gets a mayday call over his radio. The mayday call isn't to inform him that Chief Brody died from not wanting to take part in the God awful Jaws: The Revenge but something even worse. 

HAHA it turns out the boat in front that waved at us earlier got all kinds of messed up by a giant shark. Oh dear lets hope no pregnant elderly women were on board that also suffered from epilepsy and back problems. Note the Orca from the original Jaws movie in the background. Didn't that sink?? I don't know what kind of messed time warp is going on here but I likes it.

The iconic "duh nah" Jaws music starts playing and a giant fin pierces the surface of the water. Everyone on board the boat looks on without any fear or caution what so ever.

The captain decides its time to give the shark some grenade launcher action. So I guess even though this must be a grueling job having to do this act over and over again the use of a grenade launcher must be a plus.

The grenade shot missed so this guy is no chief Brody. I have heard many stories from people over the years of this part of the ride glitching where the grenade launcher is fired and there is an explosion on the other side of the boat.

We are then taken to a boat house nearby but we are not in the boat house alone. And would you believe it, the engine breaks.

Barrels start exploding, paint tins come flying off shelves and Jaws makes a lunge for the boat. Does Jaws have psychic powers to make all of these things happen?

We manage to escape the boat house and chief Brody radios in to tell us he will be there in ten minutes. I guess thats how long it takes him to come back from the afterlife to fight massive sharks.

With that the shark pops out to say hello once again and swims past. Everyone on the boat laughs and no one screams. 

With that even more disaster strikes when loads of gas cylinders explode near a gas station. Its almost as if the rides designers are saying "if the giant rubber shark doesn't scare em then lets blow some shit up! everyone loves explosions and fire".

The captain drives the boat to a nearby dock where we can all escape with our lives and our dignity. However I do believe there will be another shark attack in the coming moments.

With that Jaws pops up again but this time he takes a chunk out of a nearby electrical cable. If anyone has seen Jaws 2 then you will know where this ones going. The shark takes a grenade to the face for good measure.

The charred remains of Jaws pop out of the water for one more fright before the boat docks and then another load of tourists can endure five minutes of slapstick grenade launching/shark madness. The boat docks, everybody cheers and the captain tells us to keep this whole shark episode on the down low. Well I have just broken that promise by sharing the whole incident with the world.

On January 2nd of this year the Jaws ride closed forever and this caused an uproar with fans all over the world. Even though it was a tacky as hell theme park ride it was something which so many people loved going on as a kid and something they enjoyed taking their own kids to experience. 

The Jaws ride during the 1970's.

If you thought the recent footage of the Jaws ride looked bad check out the 1970's version of the ride. When the ride closed its doors Universal made a big deal of the event and it was packed with people wanting one last ride through Amity Island. Here is footage of the final night of Jaws the ride.

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