Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas in July, everyone. Tonight I’m taking a closer look at the brand new 2021 Magic Sound "Recon Plan Charlie" ornament inspired by the classic army man birthday party reconnaissance scene in the original Toy Story. This was released just a couple weeks back—on July 10th to be exact—as part of Hallmark’s Keepsake collection.
Like a lot of you I'm sure, I look forward to Hallmark’s yearly Keepsake ornaments release every July (and then again in the fall) mainly to see what new Disney/Pixar ones get made. Even though my wife and I don’t really put many (if any) Pixar ornaments on our actual Christmas tree (as I've mentioned here before), there are some like this one here that are SO cool that I can’t resist getting them even if it’s just used as a display piece on one of my Pixar shelves. And what’s really fun for me is that Hallmark’s keepsake release always seems to happen when we visit my in-laws in Maryland every July and, since they have a hallmark right down the street from them, I’ve made it a tradition to pop over there to document all the new Disney Pixar ornaments in person and snag a fave or two. And that's exactly where I picked this one up! Good memories.
The ornament is all plastic and, while the green army men are pretty much perfect and look just as they do in Toy Story, you probably already noticed that the baby monitor itself is only INSPIRED by the one seen in the film and isn’t completely accurate (due to rights issues with Playskool, I’m sure). It’s like the Hallmark team was tasked to come up with a generic design that captures the overall vibe of the monitor seen in Toy Story without totally replicating it and I think they did a really good job. I honestly didn’t even notice right away and then I was like...wait a second. The main differences are this monitor doesn’t have the gray speaker area, the little red right is on the opposite side, there’s no blue tip on the antenna, the blue power on-dial has been replaced by grey button and obviously it doesn’t have the Playskool logo.
Now for the best part—press the grey button on the side to hear the sounds! There are five phrases from Sarge, who's audio is taken directly from Toy Story (hear it all in my YouTube video below). The ornament requires two LR44 button cell batteries, which are included but not installed.
As far as size, the baby monitor itself measures 5” tall (that’s including the antenna), the crouching army man is about 2” tall and the standing one is close to 3” tall. So yah, even though the army men are basically movie scale (or even bigger), don’t expect the monitor to be movie scale cause it’s definitely not even close. This is a relatively small ornament. Overall the sculpt is awesome for what it is as it really captures the moment, the sounds are fantastic and I highly recommend picking this up for your Christmas tree or as a display piece for your Toy Story shelf.
Retail price is $19.99. You can pick this up at your nearest Hallmark store or online HERE while it's still available! I highly recommend it. What are your thoughts? Did you pick this up for your collection?
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