The Funko Wishlist

I'm now more than four years into collecting POPs, and the range that's on the market has absolutely exploded since those early days. Still, there are some figures that I would love to see them produce. Granted, many of these are highly unlikely, and are probably best relegated to customs, but Funko have managed to surprise us before -- so I'll throw the ideas out there and hope for the best.

Rat Fink

In their early days, Funko produced a very extensive range of Rat Fink Wacky Wobblers and other miscellaneous merchandise -- the company had different owners at the time, and their releases were very heavily based around the weirder side of Americana, particularly pop culture mascots. But when Funko was sold in 2007 to its present owners, there was a bit of a shift in focus to more mainstream pop culture, which has only been heightened since the POPs came to the forefront of their range.

So by doing some Rat Fink POPs, Funko would actually be coming full circle. But even more than POPs, I'd love to see a Mystery Minis set that incorporates Rat Fink and some of his Weird-Oh buddies -- along with their vehicles too.

Carl Jung

Funko has dabbled in real people from time to time, though they have primarily been sportspeople and musicians. But what if they branched out to other fields? Along with Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung is one of the two grand old men of psychoanalysis -- and he'd be a great addition to my shelf, though I concede that market for old dudes in suits may be a limited one, the success of the Bernie Sanders figure notwithstanding.

It seems likely that if Jung ever was done, he'd be part of a two-pack with Freud, given the two men's close association earlier in their lives. But if they ever do make him, ideally it would be based on Jung in his older years, when he really did become a senex. Ideally he'd be paired with his pipe, and possibly his Red Book/Liber Novus.

Egyptian Mythology

Though we've had a POP from the original Universal Monsters film The Mummy and there are more on the way from the 2017 remake, I would love an Egyptian mythology-themed line from Funko. The POP! Asia line has already demonstrated that mythical creatures can work -- and Ancient Egypt's animal-headed deities would be ideal for the format. Anubis, Osiris and Horus would be the bare minimum -- but imagine an Ammit, or a POP! Ride of Ra on his solar barque? This could be an amazing range, it wouldn't even need licensing costs, and you could have more obscure deities via simple repaints.

Naturally, such a line could be expanded to other ancient cultures -- why not also have a Zeus, A Cernunnos or a Thor? Or even go a bit left of centre, and produce something from the Aztecs or Sumeria? The sky is the limit (ha!) on this one.

Hellraiser 

Pinhead is the face of the Hellraiser franchise, but the franchise has a ton of interesting Cenobite designs. NECA has been the only company to ever really capitalise on these other characters, and their action figure line was released more than a decade ago.

Customisers have already given a few characters a whirl, and they seem to work in the format. So what's stopping Funko? Probably a couple of things -- licensing costs are bound to be one, but I suspect another reason is that Hellraiser is a graphically violent film series.

Pinhead's design is fairly unsettling, but it's probably the least gruesome of any of the Cenobites -- specialist retailers won't care that much, but mass market stockists might not be so keen to risk the prospect of little Timmy accidentally picking up Chatterer or Angelique, and the bad press that could follow. Nonetheless, it would be good to see Funko expand beyond just Pinhead variations.

So who or what would you like to see Funko make in future? Throw your two cents in the comments below.