Convention Recap with Brad Filicky on New York Toy Fair 2026

This is Kevin Conroy, and I am the goddamn Batman.

Hi, this is Dan Gilbazan, and you're listening

to the Geekcast Radio Network. Jazz here, and

I am so digging the Geekcast Radio Network. Cliffjumper,

commence countdown. Five, four, three, two, one.

ToyCast. Oh, yes. Listen in to the only toy podcast

you will ever need. Hello and welcome to an all

-new generation of ToyCast. This is episode 196.

I'm, of course, Tio Joe and Mike, and joining

me for the first time on this podcast, anyway,

I'm pretty sure... For the New York Toy Fair

2026 recap is none other than Mr. Brad Fliggy.

Hey, Brad, how are you? Hey, man, I'm good. I'm

good. Dealing with a lot of snow over here, but

other than that, I'm good. Yeah, I think we have

something like a half an inch on the ground.

I kind of see grass and leaves and things, too,

here in Indiana. But yeah, over there in Jersey,

it's like BlizzardCon. Yeah, it's like two feet

of snow. It's intense. Yeah, how do you get to

work in two feet of snow? I don't think you get

to work in two feet of snow. Well, you know,

that's what's good about working from home. And

also, today they opened up things again. I think

they got the streets cleared off enough and everything,

so people are getting into work. Trains are running,

buses are running. That's good. Brad's a good

buddy of mine, folks. He used to run... What

did you used to run? You used to run a bunch

of stuff. You used to be a guest on a bunch of

stuff. Yeah, I like guesting. I was one of the

contributors to the DC Comics News dot com podcast.

I'd still like to keep that going. I've been

on a few of the... Oh, what was that network

with the superheroes for dummies? I was on a

couple of those episodes. Um, and then a couple

of podcasts with you. Uh, so yeah, just some

writing for, um, uh, Josh Rainer's, um, website.

So yeah, I've been, I've been around, I've been

here and there. Here and there and everywhere.

Absolutely, absolutely. Brad's done a bunch of

recaps for us for convention attention. This

is ToyCast's first convention attention. Convention

attention usually is done over on GeekCast Radio.

We did a convention attention last year in 2025

for New York Comic Con. We did one for, I think

that was the first one we did. Yeah, that was

pretty much the first one we did with you, I

think. But convention attention has been a thing

that we've been doing for years. I just started

calling it convention attention. It finally had

a name. And yeah, so we put it over here because

I have a specific thing that we're doing with

Geekcast Radio. Episode 360 is going to be like

a special. three it's not really a gcr this is

your life because we've done that to death already

we've done that like three times in the last

almost 17 years that the podcast has been around

but it's going to be like this thing where steve

and i go back in time and talk about various

episodes that we've done on the podcast in the

past and that thing and whatever else and then

episode 361 to 366 i think is going to be our

top 100 animated series the 15th anniversary

tour since it has been 15 years since we did

the original top 100 animated series uh countdown

project so that's why i'm not doing much with

geek cast radio currently because that's where

all of that content's gonna be but since new

york toy fair is toys and this is a toy podcast

why not put it here So here we are with convention

attention. As always, only on the GeekCast Radio

Network's Totally Tubular ToyCast. It's time

we started talking more toys here on ToyCast.

What is your history with Toy Fair, sir? So,

you know, I think the last time I went to Toy

Fair was in 2020. Was it? Really? Yeah, because

that was... Before things shut down. So there

was a toy fair in 2020. You know, I would usually

go for like one day. I went a few. I think I

went like 2018 and 2019 as well. It's for DC

Comics News to cover the DC stuff. But generally,

because I'm not, you know, I'm not a big toy

collector. So I would kind of go grab pictures,

get a few appointments because the toy fair,

you have what they call. appointments where you

go in and somebody walks you around to show you,

you know, certain things that are out or coming

out. So, you know, that was with like Diamond

Selects and, you know, the statue companies,

Arlen, one year. So, but this year was a little

bit different because I brought my girlfriend

with me who is big into toys. Not even so much

collecting, she just likes to really see what's

out there. So spent like the entire, It's funny

you call it a convention attention, but this

is more of a conference than a convention. It's

very business -oriented. A lot of toy stores

go there and try to decide what they're going

to buy. So these toy companies come there and

try to get these stores to order their products

and things like that. Now, one thing that to

me seemed a little different was... There wasn't

a whole lot. There was some certain stuff that

was coming out in Christmas, but a lot of it

was stuff that was either already out or, you

know, coming out soon. When other years, there

would be stuff that was coming out months ahead,

you know, like, you know, at the end of the year.

Yeah. And especially with Funko Pop. Oh, boy.

Yeah. Now, this is the first year that I've experienced

having to set up an appointment with Funko Pop.

Usually you could just walk through the booths.

And it was, I'm going to say it was a little

underwhelming. Not that the stuff that they have

wasn't cool, but it was a lot of stuff that was

either already out or, you know, very soon to

come out. One of the big things they were focusing

on, and this was certainly a big license that

was around the con, was K -Pop Demon Hunters.

so they had a lot of displays for their line

of k -pop demon hunters pops and i'll give you

this like they had um like a three pack of toy

story four uh pops which is fine but where's

the toy story five stuff that movie's coming

out soon and you know there's gonna be uh funko

pops for toy story five whereas i feel like in

past years they would have had that stuff there

um they were also You know, they were focusing

on a lot of their minis. So they're having these

like little houses and play sets. The bitty pops.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think those are catching on.

Now, they do have one of the favorite pops that

I saw there was the Joker from Batman 89. When

he goes into the museum, he has the white, like

the white face paint. And the little cane. That

one, I think, was my favorite. And I didn't know

this, and this may be common knowledge, but I

didn't realize that Funko owns Loungefly. Yes,

they do. Yeah, they also had a display of some

of the backpacks coming out, like K -pop Demon

Hunters. And they do look nice. It's not necessarily

my thing, but it's still kind of cool to see

them. And another license that was all... um

over the entire conference was stitch for some

reason stitch is super popular there was like

this ditch plushie that has these like computerized

eyes that won i think the toy of the year for

the convention i had some interaction with that

so Yeah, licensing is always a big issue. I think

one of my personal favorite things was the Bandai

Namco booth. They have this line of Godzilla

toys coming out that are interchangeable. And

they're kind of minifigures, but not too small.

I really enjoyed those. And, yeah, they're called

Godzilla Scramble. They showed for the first

time this Wolverine figure that was part of their

really upper echelon action figure line. It was

like a retail price of $100, so that was kind

of a reveal. A crazy Gundam that is like $600,

but it is beautiful. Wow. And you build it from

the inside, so you have to build the frame, and

I guess it's really involved. But it was just

great. It was just incredible. Yeah, and they

have a line of Dragon Ball figures coming out

in that same expensive line. McFarlane had some

fun stuff. They had some Mortal Kombat figures.

They have, as far as the DC, what do they call

it, the multiverse line. they have a mr pig they

have a joker from dark knight you know heath

ledger joker they have a penguin and his uh you

know that like big rubber ducky machine that

he drove in batman returns yep they have they

have that coming out so yeah that that that was

kind of fun yeah and you know anime was huge

they have a line of um mascots from sports teams

like the Philly Fanatic. Oh, cool. Yeah, so that's

kind of cool. They have a line of Helldivers

figures coming out. And one of my favorite things

was they have these really nice line of Avatar

figures with one of those flying dragons. They

look really, really good. Yeah, so that... So

that was kind of some of my favorite stuff that

I saw. Disappointing is that I could not get

in. Now, Mattel was one of the bigger sponsors.

Mattel had to have an appointment and tried and

tried, but couldn't get in. So I think there's

a few things I'm going to do different next year.

I'm going to try to set up those appointments

earlier. Because I kind of arranged for my pass

a little bit, slightly last minute. So I think

that will be a change that I can do next year.

I wanted to get, GI Joe is what got me into all

of this stuff. And I wanted to get into Hasbro

to see the new line of the GI Joe classified,

which is like go with a dinosaur. And it looks

like they had this toy line called cops. back

in the day, and they're bringing one of those

characters into the G .I. Joe classified line.

Cops. Central organization of police specialists.

Fighting crime in a future time. Protecting Empire

City from Big Boss and his gang of crooks. So

I wanted to see those, but I didn't get to see

Hasbro. I'm going to try to tune... to rectify

that next year as well. So that was, that was,

uh, kind of an overview. Yeah. Very cool. Very

cool. How many days was this? Was this just one

day? I forget what. No, it goes pretty long.

Badge pickup and setup is on Friday. Then it

goes Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. So

how many days were you there? I did not. I went

in Friday, but I couldn't really see much because

it was just badge pickup. So I picked up my badge

on Friday. Saturday, I had a lot to do here in

town, in Rutherford, where I live. So we didn't

go Saturday, but we went all day Sunday, all

day Monday. and uh all day tuesday okay so what

was your favorite thing from each of the days

oh man i think um the first day honestly was

um for my girlfriend like she's a big sanrio

fan so i think my favorite thing was seeing all

the different sanrio stuff because Sanrio's pretty

good with their license, and you can't go wrong.

I mean, you do Hello Kitty, and it's like printing

money. And we would go... There was this fun

little lawn dart game, but the darts were suction

cups, so you could play it on your TV or on the

ground. That was kind of a fun thing to mess

around with, so that was the first day. The second

day was... We were able to get an appointment

with Crayola, of all things, and seeing how they're

trying to integrate certain adult things with

the adult coloring books. The upper -level crayons

were kind of cool, and they have this little

thing where if you're a kid, you can do a drawing,

put it on this thing, and speak into it and tell

the story so that your drawings can come to life.

So little things like that. Really cool on the

second day. The third day was where I got into

the Funko and the McFarlane booth and things

like that. So that was more of a nerd thing.

And went back to more of that stuff on the last

day. The last day also was fun going to the Lego

booth. They had this thing where you could go

in and make a free lego rose so we did that yeah

so and uh also in the last day was the bandai

namco tour which i really really enjoyed and

then they ended up inviting us to this pop -up

dragon balls um display thing at american dream

mall which is just down the street so before

the blizzard hit on sunday we went down there

and that was that was cool so i want to give

shout outs to uh bandai namco for for that hookup

because that was a lot of fun yeah that's awesome

yeah yeah folks hopefully by the time you hear

this episode hopefully i'll have this up as soon

as i possibly can but currently as of this recording

the entire northeast of the United States is

being sponsored by Dairy Queen because it's BlizzardCon.

It's like Dairy Queen just turned the entire

northeast of the U .S. upside down and just started

shaking it. She's hoping the spoon doesn't fall

out. Oh, boy. Yeah. Toy Fair, it's always been,

like, I've always loved seeing, like, I've always

loved being able to cover it and see the pictures

online and talk about it with people like you

and people like other people. Like, just, you

know, it's always been that looking in from the

outside kind of thing. Yeah, that's how I always

was because, you know, I'm not a store. Yeah,

exactly. You don't own a store. You don't run

merchandise. You don't do this. You don't do

that. And I'm not saying you specifically. I'm

saying you in the general sense of the word.

None of us, none of my friend group, most of

them, have ever had any reason to go. So we would

always just sit here and watch the things trickle

down, the news trickle down through whichever

website. Like that Mattel booth? Oh, man. Like,

if you could have gotten that Mattel, this podcast

would be so much longer. Yeah, dude, I'm sorry.

Next year, next year. No, no, no. Well, this

year would have been perfect because, hello,

somebody lost a license and somebody gained a

license this year. Well, they'll get it. at the

end of next whatever but uh playmates lost tmnt

and mattel got tmnt and it's like oh interesting

okay so how many times are we going to cross

turtles with masters probably more than 10 you

know you're gonna have you already had turtles

of gray skull you already had that and you're

gonna do more of that probably and turtles of

snake mountain and You're probably going to see

Shredder in Dimension X. You're probably going

to see Skeletor in Dimension X. You're probably

going to see Shredder in the Fright Zone or something.

I don't know. Whatever. I don't know. Yes. What

I could peek into from the... They did have a

big, and this makes sense, they did have a big

Masters of the Universe display. That's going

to be a very valuable license because the movie's

coming out. Did you see the, and they debuted

these at New York Comic Con. Yeah. The knockoff

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that are all weirdly

shaped. They're kind of poking fun at the knockoffs

that used to pop up. Yes. And they were in that

short. Yes. Just no, please. But those, they

had those around. So I think those are actually,

but yeah. And there was, and I, and forgive me,

I forget which booth, but they had a mashup between

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Godzilla. Yeah,

TMNT X Godzilla is a big thing. I don't know

which booth it was, but yeah, because they've

been doing that. It may have been Funko, but

that was kind of fun to see. Yeah, I don't know.

But yeah, no, TMNT Godzilla has been a thing

because I know that they were doing that in the

IEW comics recently. They have a whole miniseries

or a whole separate multi -part. series for for

that i don't know if i want to read that because

i've never been a godzilla fan like my buddy

joe and i we've been covering the idw turtles

comics since january 22nd of 2014 and he pulled

me in by saying because my my biggest beef with

the car because i i was a cartoon kid because

i was seven years old when I saw the 87 cartoon

and, uh, I, I saw that first. I'd never known

about, like, I knew I found out about the comics

later, but I was cartoon movie, movie, and then

movie say what you will about the third movie

or whatever. I don't care. But, uh, you know,

your opinions, your opinions, opinions like assholes.

We all have them. But. I had never gone back

and never really, like I had known that it had

come from a comic book. Like I, I always knew

that in the back of my head, but I had never

gone back and read any of the original comics.

So when he says, Oh, by the way, Mike, IDW has

this turtles comic and it's this, and it's this.

And he shows me this and he shows me the, he

tells me to go seek out the first issue and I

seek it out. And I'm like, Red bandanas. Nope.

Don't care. He's like, wait, just, just wait.

It's going to be okay. Keep reading. Actually,

it wasn't even the first issue. It was the first

trade. Cause it was already. So it was the first

trade. Cause it was. By that time, it was 2014.

They had already had it for a couple of years.

Yeah, they started in 2012, I think. No, it was

2011. 2011 is when IDW got the license. I'm misremembering

the things here. Anyway, but I remember it was

January 22nd, 2014 when we first put that Volume

1 podcast online. The Volume 1 is for the trade

paperback. Anyway. So this is whole other. Sorry,

folks, it's not toys, but I'm on a tangent here.

Just let me run with this. So when I first read

the volume one trade, I went out to get it and

I read it. The first thing I'm like, as soon

as I got to the red bandana, I put it down. I

messaged Joe and I said, if you had me get this

and it's nothing but red bandanas, period, period,

period. I send him the message on Facebook. He's

like, nope, just wait. Keep reading. It's going

to be fine. Just trust me. Keep reading. Like,

okay. But if you hose brain, if you walk me into

this trap of all this red bandana stuff, and

you know, I don't care about the red bandana.

Like, because again, I come from multicolor,

yellow, orange, red, purple. He's like, nope.

It's a thing. It's a story point. It works. It's

fine. I'm like, okay, fine. Here we are. What

is this? 2026, 2014, 2020, 12 years later, we've

covered nearly everything. Literally nearly everything.

Like we're up to. issue i want to say 146 wow

in in the overall arcing of the original run

that they did uh so we've been behind because

of my uh on our nerve surgery last year and uh

we've covered all the all the crossover stuff

that the turtles have done. So I guess at some

point I'm going to have to, if I'm going to have

to cover the damn TMNT stranger things thing,

I guess I'm going to have to cover the Godzilla

one too. That's the whole, there you go, folks

brought back around the TMNT Godzilla. So TMNT

Godzilla toys. Yay. Yeah. I, I, you know, I guess

I'll go on attended for a second too. It's like,

I'm with you. I don't really dig those kinds

of crossovers because so many times it's just

like, who could beat up who? And I, that's just

not interesting to me. Yes. Yeah, true. But I

will say that, and I can point you to the crossovers

that we've done so far, just the crossovers without

having to have you look at all the other, the

main books issues that we've done. I gotta say

though, like, we haven't liked all of the crossovers,

but they haven't just been who can beat up who

they actually have been good storytelling because

all of everyone that's touched the TMNT license

at IDW, all the writers. All the artists, they

all care about it so much. And you have Bobby

Kernow as the chief editor in chief. He was gone

for a little while, but he's back now currently.

But even when he was gone, everybody still cared

because you still had Tom Waltz, who was the

main writer on the main main book that they still

care so much. I would be. I'm probably going

to eat my words and I hope I don't ever eat my

words with this. I would be shocked if IDW ever

lost that license because they take such care

with it and it's good stuff. So I'll, I'll send

you a couple of those podcasts after the show.

Okay. Yeah. I, uh, I, I do like what they've

done with it and everybody really liked the Batman.

Oh, yeah. Team Batman 1, 2, and 3. Really good.

Yeah. People love that. Very good. Yep, yep,

yep. Alright. Toys. Toys, toys, toys. So this

is Toy Fair, not a toy convention. Toy Fair.

How do we... So normally when we do convention

attention, we're actually talking about a convention.

How would we approach the negative part? Because...

negatives at conventions I would think is different

than negatives at a thing that's supposed to

be for business people. Yeah, well, I think even

though I don't collect toys, it's something that

I like to live vicariously through. I like to

kind of keep up on it. And I kind of touched

on this before, but I think one of the negatives

for me was that they didn't seem to have the

super advanced or super early stuff, I should

say, before it comes out, just to take a look

at. Okay. In the years past. And Diamond Select

seems to be shrinking. They used to have a whole

booth, and now it was part of, I think, Entertainment

Earth's booth, so they might have got bought

out. So that was a negative for me, because I

enjoyed seeing what statues they would have.

And the displays were always really nice. That

was kind of a negative. And a negative where

there were such sticklers about not granting

appointments to some of the places. Although,

I am happy that we got into Bandai and Funko,

so I do have to give them props for finding room.

But I guess that's more on me. I guess I may...

Well, I'm definitely going to try to... uh, apply

earlier, uh, next year so that I can get contacts

and get appointments for things like Mattel.

So, um, that's more on me though, than, than

the actual conference. Uh, and it's just, it's,

it's kind of funny too, is that everybody, when

you would come up to talk to somebody, they would

always expect you to be a store owner. Um, I

was asking, I forget what it might've been. It

might've been the tie booth, the beanie baby

booth. Yeah. Uh, And I was asking, oh, so when

will these be out? When what stores are they

going to be out? She said, why do you need to

know that? And I said, well, what if I wanted

to buy them? And she was, see, I'm press. Oh,

oh, you're press. Oh, OK, I'm sorry. It was so

many. It's like press is almost like a non -existent.

It's like, yeah, that's me here. Like what? What

you just said, all I heard in my head from the

lady was, ew, press, keep them away. Why would

we want press? And that kind of fits in with

Beanie Baby in my mind because, ew, Beanie Baby,

keep them away. And how anyone, I swear to God,

the next person that compares Funko Pops to Beanie

Babies, I'm going to dropkick them off the planet.

Yeah, that's not even close. Yeah, no. Uh, well,

as far as your preparedness for next year, February

20th to the 23rd, 2027 is when the toy fair will

be. So you have one year. Yeah. Yeah. I think

I want to start hitting the website in September

to see if press, uh, press reg is open. Um, you

think we're always kind of weird. about that.

It seems like they will let you in, but you have

to jump through more hoops, and if you can't

jump through those hoops, it doesn't matter.

When I apply for Comic -Con, you never have to

supply a business card. With Toy Fair, they want

you to supply a business card and things like

that, so it's always a more annoying process

to apply. Vistaprint .com. This statement is

not brought to you by Vistaprint .com. So I would

just send bylines and things like that, and that

seemed to satisfy him. Yeah. Wow. That's crazy.

That's kind of one of the reasons why I was hesitant.

Yep, yep, yep. All right. Any final thoughts

and what other conventions are you going to this

year? Well, I'm definitely going to go to New

York Comic Con. That's way in the fall. Yeah,

but it's never too early to prepare. That's right.

My niece lives in San Diego, and that gives me

a way to stay there for free, but it always coincides.

my family has a little i think i've mentioned

this on the new york podcast of the new york

comic -con podcast but um my family has like

a big get -together christmas in july always

on that same weekend so i have not i made it

to san diego i don't think i'm gonna go this

year to san diego um there might be a few little

cons uh the big apple comic -con uh i try to

go to and that's that's even further that's in

december but that's like for those really old

guys that remember you know timely comics and

uh you know the same guy god bless him he does

the captain marvel uh panel about you know what

happened with the captain marvel and dc and marvel

and who owns what and that's that's there like

every year so that's kind of the old crusty convention

but i like it um So yeah, and anything else that

comes, oh, I'm definitely going to try to make

it to NYC Anime, and that's in August. So that

always kind of kicks off con season to me, because

that's when things start getting busy. Because

beyond that, New York Comic Con is right after

that, and then the other ones. So yeah, I think

as of now, that's going to be the cons for the

year, unless I'm lucky enough to get out to Chicago.

uh, for C2E2. Um, but that might be a next year

thing too, at this point. Well, if you get out

here, let me know. Yeah. Yeah. Do you go to,

are you going to go to C2E2? No, but Anderson,

Indiana is only an hour and three hours South

of Chicago. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I'll definitely

keep you posted because if not this year, maybe

next year. So. Oh man. I wish. Just to go visit,

I'd love to get back to Chicago. I haven't been

in Chicago since 2019, but that's a whole other

discussion for another day. I guess just real

quick, are there any cons local to you that you're

going to? I don't even know, and I don't go to

conventions. I don't leave. I don't leave the

podcast cave. It just doesn't happen. I spent

about, I don't know, four hours walking, doing

various things and chores and other stuff the

other day and whatever else. And I'm still paying

for it today. And that was like, Two days ago.

I'm like, no wonder I don't leave my house. Yep.

Yep. But toy collecting folks, New York toy fair.

I have to make sure to keep saying toy fair,

not New York comic con, uh, New York toy fair

happens, uh, every beginning of the year. Uh,

usually in February, most of the time. So February

20th to the 23rd, 2027 is next year's Toy Fair.

You can head on over to their website. I will

put that in the show notes for you all to click

on to check out all the information for New York

Toy Fair. If anyone's interested in taking a

look at all their policies and procedures and

all that stuff. Uh, I don't think we're going

to do an ad break this time around. It's not

that I don't want to promote to people. It's

just that I'm old and I'm tired and I want to

get this podcast online as fast as possible.

So for now, Mr. Brad, do you have anything you'd

like to promote? Uh, you know, uh, just keep

your eyes on dccomicsnews .com. Um, you know,

that's, I would say at this point, that's, uh,

that's it, but I'll keep you posted. Very cool.

Very cool. All right, folks, that's going to

do it for us here on ToyCast. If you'd like to

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You can find us there. Next time on ToyCast,

I have no idea what's going on next time. As

always, I don't have a plan. All I know is this

is episode 196. We are four episodes away from

200. It's taken us almost over a decade to get

to 200 episodes. For now, I am TF2 and Mike with...

Brad Flicky. You'll hear us next time when we'll

be talking more toys here on ToyCast. It's a

pity you Autobots die so easily, or I might have

a sense of satisfaction now. You got the touch!

Optimus Prime. Optimus.