What Are They Trying To Do To Me?!

 

Ever since I’ve started to chronicle my action figures, I’ve been finding great new toys popping up everywhere. I think this is because I have been sharing my pictures with my friend Tom on Facebook; it’s obviously put me into some algorithm. Not that I mind, but it leads me into the path of temptation.

Particularly tempting lately is this Brian Blessed 7-inch NECA figure as Vulton in the 1980 film, Flash Gordon. Though I have or had some merchandising from the movie, I’ve never been able sit down and watch the whole film. But I have become familiar with the career and enormous personality of Brian Blessed, whose catchphrase from the movie (“Gordon’s alive!”) greets the 86-year-old actor from London to the depths of the Amazon forest.

My favorite anecdote of Blessed from the movie is when they were filming one of the laser fight sequences, and, in the heat of the battle, the director had to stop the cameras. He called out to Blessed, “We’ll provide the effects, thank you.” The actor, a long-time fan of the Flash Gordon serials, had been enthusiastically yelling “Pew! Pew!” as he ‘shot’ his laser weapon.