Totally Topical Post: Several Topics

 A bunch of random stuff for this blog post so let's get started with the topics:

What happened to Wow Pods?
The short answer seems to be 'they were not quality'. The longer one is still unknown. You'll remember the WOWpods from Amazon (most notably) they were like a hexagon shaped mini shadowbox 'shelf' with a figure pre-installed and they lit up and they could fit together.
As with many decor companies or etc. that do this sort of thing, they had lots of franchises including classic and modern Sonic to work with. So you could mix n' match characters from multiple games by stacking/fitting the hexagons and have a cool wall piece. But then they vanished from sales.
Importantly- they vanished in a hail of terrible reviews because apparently the lighting feature would randomly quit and even more importantly they'd been shipping the pods out WITHOUT the figure! The whole point was the Sonic (or whoever else) display figure in there and having a stupid hexagon arrive with nothing in it, or a broken thing like waaaay too often seems to have ended these. 

Sonic n' Friends
Or whatever the new cute mini whatever style is going to spin off. What's interesting about this is it was created by whoever worked on those Sonic Boom Emoji plushes. Those things were the first 'look' merchandise that was that way. Of course Boom was a big fail, but that 'n-friends' style or emoji or whatever they're going to call it did stick around, it's in use today for 'chibi plush' that are on shelves now (But that are not Boom) and now Sega CG'd it into this thing then announced it on Twitter. (It's always going to be called twitter because the letter x is too vague) 
Good idea?
Unknown. The designs are cute and Sonic-like enough, it seems like it might be a simple thing for babies or something? The cutie emoji plush seemed to have an ok reception as long as they weren't boomstyle. If this ends up having merch (likely) it'll probably get corralled off into its own part of Gear. And on that note...

Prime Gear is coming-
The title card is made, and it's going to end up like Movie & Boom. The style and characters are all different enough that it too needs cordoning off from the rest of everything. The likely categories it'll start with are the 5 inch and 3 inch toys. It depends on how much merch comes of it how many categories it'll end up with.
Prime controversy- It's greatest asset/idea is also what's causing fights: that it's a bunch of different dimensions where anything's possible (excellent idea) but declaring "everything is cannon now" was....probably not the best idea. The asset was to be able to 'dismiss' things that didn't go well about the show (fan flops, scrappy doos, dead end ideas) because "that was just that other dimension" and then simply never go back there or refer to it. It allowed easy mistake erasure, and easy to bring back cool stuff/things that are a hit without creating plot holes or problems. But the "its all cannon" damps that down so people are fighting.

Hint of Heroes:
Their new twitter posting seemed to suggest they might remake Sonic Heroes, which would probably be pretty cool so long as it didn't take the place of something new. 

What is a rash?
These so called "rash guards"...what the heck rash are they guarding against? Is the word sunburn now somehow taboo or doesn't sell products? This I super do not get, but every company just keeps bringing up the word 'rash' with their swimwear. The only thing that's rash is not wearing sunblock. It's the sun. The sun is the problem people! It burns you!

Pop Shadows-
They're clearly putting good thought (glow gimmick) and effort (stands/different poses) it's just too bad the design of those blank eyed little goblins is so....not.

Item(s) of the week-
Phenom sports stuff. Isn't this an interesting bunch! The same design is essentially applied to everything, but it's a good and tidy one. The S&K theme looks good on all their items, and everything seems to be quality. The 'put the gloves together to reveal' is also a clever idea. It appears some of the stuff has already sold out.

Good to see more out of PowerA again because they sell to EU and US and their stuff is generally pretty nicely designed. 

SDCC-
Yes the popup cafe will get covered soon, the photos are in, but since there was lots it got pushed back. It seems the best showing there was apparently Lego because they had like maximum Sonic stuff. Their sets must be doing really well.
Hopefully figpin and moose will decide to re-release (with alteration like glitter or something so the people who bought there don't feel bad) their pin & goo figure to the regular buyers because you know nobody's giving up that Eggman pin they got there so like...pin collectors won't be able to complete their figpin Sonic pins if that doesn't happen.

Next week:
It'll be an update with more stuff than usual (again) to help catch it up. For reasons unknown Walmart seems to really be turning up the Sonic stuff recently. First Target, then them--nobody's complaining, more to go around!