Fix-It Felix Jr.

Does Bob the Builder know somebody's stolen his catchphrase? The titular star of Fix-It Felix Jr., Niceland's hammer-wielding maintenance man is a beloved local celebrity and helpful friend to Wreck-It Ralph. Wait, Felix is a maintenance man? So he lives in the basement, never answers his door, and can't be bothered to do anything about the elevator when it stops working? That's a rather mundane job for a videogame hero, isn't it? Game heroes are meant to be exciting things, like space captains or jungle adventurers or super spies! What's next, a fry cook? A plumber? Go back to your tenements, where the O'Briens live next to the Goldbergs, who rub elbows with the Antonellis, and the only thing you have in common is the squalor of your chamber pot! Felix is voiced in the film by Jack McBrayer - 30 Rock's Kenneth Ellen Parcell, the moon-faced goon from the page program. The character's face is somewhat modelled after McBrayer, just with darker hair and something resembling a chin. If 30 Rock did an animated episode like Community did, you could definitely see this being Kenneth's model. The figure stands 4⅝" tall, which is a little taller than he should be to be in scale with Ralph, but it's close enough. It's not like videogames - particularly old 8-bit games like Fix-It Felix, Jr. - sttuck to human proportions, so we're not really sure what scale to say Felix is in. Is he meant to be six feet tall? Four feet? There's no way to tell! The sculpt on Felix is just as detailed as it was on Ralph - but since all those details are applied to a smaller body, he looks more intricate. They're closer together, you see? He's wearing dark jeans and a blue work shirt with his name on a patch on his chest. The buttons on his shirt are sculpted and painted, and the collar of a white t-shirt pokes up from under the shirt. The gloves, boots and toolbelt he's wearing are all painted the same beige/tan color, and his belt buckle is gray. The FF logo on his hat is clearly for "Fix-It Felix," but it looks like it could be for a tractor company or something. Felix's articulation is slightly hampered by his action feature: press the lever on his back, and he swings his golden hammer. That's not a euphemism, by the way - it's a literal golden hammer (apparently a gift from his father, who we can only assume is Fix-It Felix Sr.). It's molded as a permanent part of his hand, rather than being a separate accessory, I guess so kids don't lose it, but it's still weird. The only joint in the action feature arm is the shoulder (a swivel/hinge), which limits the display options. Other than that he was a swivel neck, swivel/hinge left shoulder, hinged left elbow, swivel/hinge hips and hinged knees. Like Ralph, Felix comes with a section of wall to play with - and like Ralph's, it has a play feature in it. Of course, he's not wrecking things, he's fixing them, so his action works in reverse: you start out with broken bricks, and upon striking the action button, they swiftly flip around to become whole. Yes, we're left with big gaps around the moving pieces (room necessary to ensure the feature works the way it's designed), but the idea is there. The "button" is the window in the center of the wall, and it's sensitive enough that Felix's hammer can activate it. The wall measures 4¼" x 3⅜". As of this writing, I still haven't seen Wreck-It Ralph, but the friendship between Ralph and Felix is obvious even from the trailers, to the point where it really doesn't make sense to get one of them without the other. Felix is somewhat encumbered by his action feature, but he's still playable, and still looks great next to his big pal. -- 11/17/12

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