It is the start of another Toy Fair, the venerable institution in which toy companies trot out their wares for buyers and media. Only this time no one is quite sure where to go or what to do. The Toy Building, where most companies had showrooms for decades and decades, is closed for the most part; the action has moved to Javits and a smattering of other showrooms around the city. However, just to make it more fun, some companies still have their showrooms in the Toy Building, and others haven’t really moved.

With that in mind, here’s what we saw Saturday:

Spider Spud waddled out to meet us over at the Hasbro showroom (housed in a giant studio across the road from the Javits.) We would have called it “Spuder-man” but maybe that name wasn’t approved or something.

Spi-dogs in Evil and Good varieties. These little critters thrive on music, and ours is now jigging around to Arcade Fire.

Super Pal Spider-Man! He’s cuddly! But check out his awesome packaging!

Adults are paid to write this for a living.

And this! “Cuddle-web.”

A closer look at Spuder-Man.

Some of the neat toys rolling out for SPIDER-MAN 3, including black-costume Spidey. The toy press was quite concerned about Hasbro going from a 6″ to a 5″ line of figures. Hasbro defended its switch by saying that testing indicated actual children liked this size better, but the collectors weren’t satisfied. We’re coming down on the collector side here: it is never good to go from 6″ to 5″.

More Spidey 3 toys. There were also several variations on the “web shooter” using silly string or water.

And some old favorites.

There was a very small display of FF 2 toys and a single Ghost Rider flaming chopper, below, but in general, Hasbro’s Marvel assortment was quite modest.

But over on GI JOE, it’s a celebration of the 25th (!) anniversary of the war on Cobra, and the triumphant return of the Kung-Fu Grip.

Star Wars Attacktix. This is a fun tabletop game that comes in many varieties where you collect mini-figs and shoot things at each other.

With Star Wars 30th anniversary the focus for ‘07, the emphasis was just on more and more cool toys, like this mini AT-AT.

Some Marvel Attacktix.

Star Wars Transformers!!!

Darth Vader Prime! He turns into the Death Star. Sweet.

Some figured from the Force Unleashed game. Note what appears to be a half-naked bloody demon Padme?

Does evil wear clothes?

So this is the plan then.

A few more.

I-dogs are popular apparently.

Doesn’t that say it all?

Some kind of game where you get to wear a small, green external brain.

Monkey? Puppy? Pants?

Then it was off to Transformers. This might as well have been in Chinese as far as we were concerned. There are two kinds of Transformers? Autobots and Decepticons? Who knew? Anyway, we did like this cool Optimus Prime standee.

10-4, good buddy! We weren’t allowed to take pictures of most of the Transformers line, but it includes just about everything, from bedsheets to video games. But wait a minute, the main hero of this line is called Bumblebee? All our pictures of Bumblebee came out bad, but our friends at action-figure.com have all the pictures you could want.

Then it was off to the Javits Center to get a badge holder. It was peaceful and empty…we don’t expect to be seeing it like that during New York Comic-con!

Then off to the Lego Media Reception. This is always one of the highlights of Toy Fair thanks to the great models and good food they serve. JUMBO SHRIMP COCKTAIL! This year it was held at a midtown hotel. Big thanks to Julie Stern for the invite and making us feel welcome. Here we see some of the Batman assortment.

But the BIG BIG BIG news was the unveiling of the BIGGEST LEGO SET ever, the Ultimate Collector’s Millennium Falcon™!

This is it – the biggest, most spectacular LEGO® Star Wars model ever! Straight out of the classic Star Wars movies comes the Ultimate Collector’s Millennium Falcon, Han Solo’s famous smuggling starship. Every detail of the modified Corellian Engineering Corporation YT-1300 freighter is here, all constructed to scale with LEGO minifigures. At almost 3 feet (90cm) long, it’s the ultimate centerpiece to any Star Wars collection!

Yes ULTIMATE, with over 5000 pieces, it retails for $500! And God knows how long it will take to put it together.

Our favorite Lego Designer ,Jens Nygaard Knudsen was also on hand to explain his baby…

…and show how portable it is.

In keeping with the celebration of Star Wars 30th Anniversary, they had a bunch of models on hand, including a couple of Stormies, a Darth, and this rarely seen 3PO. Our pal Micki poses with the protocol droid.

Besides the jumbo shrimp the best thing about the Lego reception was the HOT ANAKIN.
____
That may be all we have to report from Toy Fair as we’re currently down for the count with bronchitis. Instead of looking at toys, we think we’ll just stay in bed with our cuddle-web today.