Nerdy Orlando: Review - The Mighty Toothless Build-A-Bear

Today, a mysterious box arrived on my doorstep!

I wonder what it could be.......

(internal screaming)

Ok, for those of you who haven't heard, Build-A-Bear created a Toothless plushie in honor of HTTYD 2 coming out next week. Naturally, I ordered one because it looked cute. Little did I know this was going to become the next big thing (luck that I decided to buy it right away I guess.....). The plush sold within DAYS both online and in stores, and while the Build-A-Bear company has announced on their Facebook that they will have them back in stock by Fall time, the demand for these things have attracted Ebay auctioneers to up the prices triple- some are now being sold at $200!

So is this plushie worth it? Are people making a big deal out of nothing? Do the pictures do him justice? Let's take a look!

First, the negatives:

As you can see, the string used to sew Toothless up is very visible in the back. This can be easily fixed with a trim, but I wish they had used black string to hide it a bit better...

The wings are the biggest complaint I have. They are removable (to put clothing on Toothless), but are very cheaply made. It looks like they would bend easily, and I wish they had gone the extra mile to put some cloth over these "vinyl-like" wings. Speaking of going the extra mile (or lack thereof...)

The flaps on the tail...

...and the side spikes on the face are also made out of this material. I'm fine with them using it for small details (such as his little front claws which are (yes) made out of this stuff too...) but I wish they had used actual cloth for the bigger chunks on the tail and head piece.

Now for the Positives!

As with my prior experience of Build-A-Bear products, the company really shines at making these beautiful embroidered eyes. As you can also see, they decided to add Toothless' awesome scale pattern to the fabric as well. It's the little details like this that I love, and this is easily the nicest, most professional official Toothless plushie I've seen on the market.

Final verdict:

Four stars out of Five

****

I would love to give this plush five stars, but the cheap wings knocked the rating down a peg. If you (or your little ones) love Toothless - this thing is awesome! (and definitely worth your hard earned cash).

I would, however, wait until these plushies become widely available in the Fall. They should cost (at most) around $30, and the ridiculous prices Ebay is selling them at should be ignored.

I'm very happy to add Toothless to my collection of cute things!