Following right on the heels of the final yokai review, comes the final Motion-ette review...the elusive Mummy!

It's not often that I lose my composure and make a purchase without reading the specifics of an auction, but the Telco Mummy Motion-ette made me do just that. I remember crawling out of bed on a lazy Sunday morning one day and heading on over to Ebay as usual. It was one week after I had already passed on a Dracula Motion-ette and I had been feeling a little bit of remorse about it. So even though I traditionally did not search for these items frequently, they were on my mind at the time. So I looked...and there it was. The Mummy.

Despite not having much experience in monster collecting, I remembered reading at the Gallery Of Monster Toys that the Mummy was "nearly impossible to find". And the fact that it was absent from nearly all the monster collections I'd seen to that point seemed to confirm the notion. And yet, there it was staring me in the face. And with a $35 Buy It Now, no less! "Click", "Confirm", "Bought". Now, time to read the item description!

Fortunately, there was nothing alarming about the auction and the seller was cool. In fact, he also had the Dracula I had passed on the week before, AND a set of Frankenstein and his bride. All 4 Motion-ettes I needed, including the rarest, all in one fell swoop to complete the set!

Like the rest of the previously reviewed Motion-ettes, The Mummy here is 17" from the bottom of the base to the tip of the head. Like the Creature, The Mummy is made mostly out of vinyl. Actual cloth wrappings might have been better, but I like the way this looks, too. Nothing new as far as features is concerned. Moving head and arms compliment the light and sound effects.

The Mummy was released in the second wave of 17" Motion-ettes, presumably in very small numbers. There was also a 24" version released and I think that is even rarer. He came packaged in the same box as the rest, with a clear cellophane window on the front. Although considered rare, I'd bet that this is exactly the kind of item that is out there, waiting to be found at a flea market or a yard sale of someone who doesn't know what they have. Keep your eyes open!

No series of Halloween decorations would be complete without the lord of the vampires!

Despite having a friendlier than normal look for a vampire, I like the Dracula Motion-ette. It might be one of my favorite Dracula items in my collection so far (next to my 42" lawn ornament of course!). In fact, I like it much better than the more popular 24" Dracula/Vampire motionettes that were released by Telco and other copycat companies. The costume is simple but elegant and does not restrict movement of the arms, which can be posed by bending the interior wire armature.

The hands seem a bit over-sized and each finger has black, pointy fingernails. The head sculpt is nice and there is a subtle touch of red on the otherwise purple lips. Perhaps his slight grin is a result of contentment after feeding.

Dracula actually measures about a half inch short of 17", making him the shortest of the smaller series of Motion-ettes. But it's a minor difference. Speaking of minor differences, I think the color of the skin is slightly different, more blue-ish, from the first release to the next. But I only have this series two specimen and haven't seen a series one up close. Either way, they are nearly identical and I can't say one looks better than the other.

As with all the 17" Motion-ettes, Dracula has a small compartment in the base that takes two C-size batteries and he features movement, light and sound.

While I didn't care too much for the Frankenstein Motionette, I think his Bride makes up for any of his shortcomings.

While I didn't care too much for the Frankenstein Motionette, I think his Bride makes up for any of his shortcomings. Much like the Wolf Man, the Bride Of Frankenstein captures more of the essence of the character than the actual look. And frankly, I'm surprised at how much I like the look of this one. It has a sort of faux gothic punk, "I got this at 'Hot Topics'" sort of vibe working. And yet, I like it anyway.

The Bride of Frankenstein was added for the second series of 17" Motionettes along with the Mummy and so far as I've been able to tell, these seem like the two rarest of the set. While Frankenstein looks sad and weak, The Bride looks completely maniacal. She looks like she could kill you with one look of those wide, bloodshot eyes.

Telco could have easily taken the easy way out with her costume and just had one long cloth draped over her, but she does have a sort of gauze shirt on underneath that adds just that extra layer of depth. The hands have molded bandages on them and the left index finger is painted red at the tip. I'm not sure if this is supposed to depict blood or what, but it adds just the right drop of color to the otherwise all white ensemble.

Same gimmicks as the other Motionettes; moving arms and head, light up eyes and sound effects.

I think old Frank here is probably my least favorite of the Telco Motionettes.

Although he's arguably the greatest of the Universal Monsters, I think old Frank here is probably my least favorite of the Telco Motionettes. Although the character has much greater depth than just a shambling monster, the sculpt on this one strikes me as being more pathetic than sympathetic.

The one pictured here is the second series 17" version. The first series had a greener complexion and probably looks a bit better for it. I do like the costume though. It's a nice dark shade of moss green (although I just noticed my pics tend to make it look more brown-ish. Trust me, it's green) and there is some padding underneath to give the figure a bit more girth.

The arms are very poseable and the chain is an attractive feature, although it's a little bit silly since it's attached to his sleeves, not his arms. But hey, this is just a Halloween decoration and not exactly intended to be the world's greatest, most accurate Frankenstein figure.

Like the rest of the Motionettes, there is a housing for 2 C batteries in the base and the figure moves his head and arms when activated. His eyes light up and he makes noise as well. All the Motionettes, including Frankenstein, came packaged in cardboard boxes with clear plastic windows on the front.

Another Telco Halloween decoration, the Wolf Man is the closest thing in my collection to a Muppet!

Even though it's a far cry from looking anything like he does in the movie, I really like the look of this figure. Although the sculpt of the face is somewhat simple, it does have an elegance and personality to it that is appealing to me. I love that they added so much hair to this thing. It's got a really wild look on the one hand, but it also sort of reminds me of a Muppet, too!

Although some might consider it excessive, the hair protruding from his sleeves and pant legs is another nice touch. But honestly, it sort of makes me wish I had a nice, creepy looking scarecrow one. Telco did release a scarecrow in one of their earlier batches of Motionettes, but it's more cute looking than scary.

This Wolf Man figure has much more poseability in the arms than the Creature did. You can actually bend the arms to whatever pose you want basically, as beyond the vinyl hands the arms are just a flexible wire armature.

You know what else is great about this one? That bright yellow shirt! It's a welcome change in a genre dominated by gloomy blacks and greys. It's the closest thing to sunshine that the Wolf Man will ever get anyway...

You get the same features here as on the other Motionettes...light up eyes, moving arms/head and sound effects. The sound is much more appropriate to the character this time around, too. 17" tall to the top of the head, it actually looks more like 18" with all that hair standing up. The Wolf Man was included in both series' of 17" licensed Universal Monster Motionettes, but I don't think there's any significant difference between the two. My favorite part of this thing? I got it for a measly $5 on Ebay! When the last time you bought a Japanese robot for $5?* ;)

SEE! The Gill-Man move!

SEE! His eyes burn with fury!

HEAR! Godzilla's roar?!??!!

When I recently started focusing my collecting habits more on monsters than robots, one of the things that immediately captured my fancy were motionettes. Motionettes are basically moving statues that are usually released as holiday decorations. Naturally, I am focusing entirely on the Universal Monsters, but all sorts of characters have been made from generic witches to Santa Claus.

The original and most famous motionettes were made by a company called Telco. The first releases they made were unlicensed and were 24" tall. Later, Telco would release officially licensed Universal Monsters in both 24" and 17" sizes. All of the larger sizes are harder to get and much more expensive than their smaller counterparts. 24" Motionettes come with a power cord, while the 17" ones function using two C batteries that are stored in the bottom of the black circular base the figure stands on. The figure is permanently attached to the base.

Even the 17" Universal Motionettes were broken up into two releases. Among the first releases were Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man and The Creature From The Black Lagoon. The Bride of Frankenstein and The Mummy were added for the second series. Each figures comes packaged in a cardboard box with clear cellophane on the front. I had the hardest time actually getting most of these back into the boxes for pictures, so here's Frankenstein instead of the Creature, just to give you a look at the box. Consider it a preview of a future review..

Front Of Box

Side Of Box

Side Of Box

So, what exactly do the Motionettes do? Well, nothing too exciting really. The base has a switch with three settings, "on", "off" and "sound". Setting the switch to "on" makes the head turn and the arms raise and lower. Move the switch over one more spot to "sound" and the character keeps moving but now the eyes light up red and it makes noise. Now, the noise it makes doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the character itself. For instance, the Creature here actually produces a roar that sounds almost exactly like that of GODZILLA!

The Creature is made primarily out of soft vinyl, cast in green with red, white and blue painted highlights. Naturally, vinyl is the best option for a character like this, but many of the others in the series have clothing much like a doll would, as you can see in the Frankenstein picture above.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon seems to be the easiest from this series to get. It's certainly the one I've seen most on Ebay.