Fisher Price Rescue Heroes Mission Select Ariel Flyer: A Girly-Man Rescue Hero
Written: Mar 10 '04 (Updated Apr 26 '04)
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Pros: one more Rescue Hero for your Mission Select collection!
Cons: incessant marketing, and who can tell she's a girl?
The Bottom Line: If you are itching to complete your child's Mission Select collection, then by all means add her, but no one will ever realize she's a girl!
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| pippadaisy's Full Review: Fisher Price Rescue Heroes Mission Select Ariel Fl... |
My son at age two wants to have everything his big cousins have, so like moths to a flame, my husband and I, along with my sister, indulged him by getting him Fisher Price Rescue Heroes for Valentine's Day and his birthday. In the interest of not just having boy toys (and giving his older sister the option of having a girl to play with if she was playing along with him, one of the Rescue Heroes I selected was the Fisher Price Rescue Heroes Mission Select Ariel Flyer.
~&~ The Basics ~&~
I'm not sure that I had ever seen a female Rescue Hero in my nephews' extensive collection, so Fisher Price Rescue Heroes Mission Select Ariel Flyer was bound to be a surprise no matter what showed up. Ariel is wearing a dark purple flight suit with brown and bright yellow accents. She has a silver sort of ammo belt of something (although I've never seen a Rescue Hero with a weapon) that includes the silver and black metallic Mission Select logo, a red belt, black gloves, silver knee robotics, and brown and black boots. Ariel has short brown hair that looks mussed and is wearing a molded black and red pair of ski goggles, or so it appears.
Also included with Fisher Price Rescue Heroes Mission Select Ariel Flyer is the enormous Mission Select backpack which is brown with black, silver, and bright orange accents. The water cannon apparatus (or at least I'm assuming that's what this is) is silver with black accents and fits into either of Ariel's hands, and there is a small bendable silver antenna on a black base, what appears to be some sort of silver radar equipment. At the bottom of Ariel's backpack is what appears to be a silver rocket booster, and there are two smaller rocket boosters on the side bottoms. On the back of the backpack is a neon orange triangle, and a neon orange dial. Spin the dial until the "mission" picture you want is in the viewing area (the rest is covered with a clear smoke grey plastic), press the red button in the center and Ariel will talk about the mission selected. There are six missions: a tornado, a fire, an erupting volcano, an earthquake, an avalanche, and a flood. Selecting the fire mission several times, Ariel says the following:
"Ariel Flyer here. Water! Put out the fire! Let's go!"
"Prepare for! Air drop! The fire is too dangerous!"
"We're surrounded by! The fire! Prepare for! Air lift! Standing by!"
"Fire! Alert!"
"I'm heading East! The fire! Is getting bad!"
"I can help the animals!"
As with all the Rescue Heroes in the Mission Select line, Ariel will interact with the others, as well as with the vehicles and structures in the line if you plug her into them. Her voice is pleasant and rather girlish, which really doesn't go with her very masculine appearance. Fisher Price Rescue Heroes Mission Select Ariel Flyer is articulated at the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, and hips.
Included with the Fisher Price Rescue Heroes Mission Select Ariel Flyer is a Rescue Heroes video. After a consultation with my sister, I found out that the videos aren't assigned to a particular character, but are included randomly. Unfortunately for us, that means we ended up with three of the same video as we got our Mission Select Rescue Heroes from Amazon, and Ariel came with the VHS tape that includes the episode "Edge of Disaster" about rescuing two climbers in an avalanche, and "Flood of Fear" about a flood and a dam bursting.
Fisher Price Rescue Heroes Mission Select Ariel Flyer requires two AAA batteries, which are inserted into her backpack via a Phillips-head screw locking a battery door. Batteries are included, but may be run down from use on store shelves.
~&~ Parent Perspective ~&~
In case you haven't read any of my other Rescue Heroes reviews, I'll get my first bit out of the way; I have a fit of the giggles every time I have to write about or refer to the Rescue Heroes. You see, someone at Fisher Price must have thought it funny to give them porn-star like names, and when you couple characters like "Gil Gripper," "Jack Hammer," and "Roger Houston" with overly developed muscles and the frequent 70s-era Burt Reynolds mustache, comparisons are bound to be made.
However, Fisher Price Rescue Heroes Mission Select Ariel Flyer certainly looks like no female porn star I've ever seen. Devoid of any feminine features with the exception of her overly red lips (she doesn't even have eyelashes or eyebrows!!!), she really does look more like a young man. The same oversized hands and feet that you see on the male Rescue Heroes are present here, and under all the gear strapped across her chest, I'm really not sure if she is supposed to have breasts at all.
Aside from that, I do have a bone to pick with the speech pattern. While I realize that Fisher Price wanted to make the Mission Select figures able to interact with each other and combine several short phrases into longer sentences, the stilted way that they are delivered grates on my nerves, especially since my son has a speech delay and I certainly don't want him talking like this when he does start to speak!
My last major issue is the incessant marketing. Not only is the video essentially a 22-minute commercial for the figures (of which there are ten in the Mission Select line), but also the vehicles, the Mountain Action Command Center, and a pamphlet is included that advertises Rescue Heroes: The Movie.
~&~ Play Value ~&~
The sheer fact that Fisher Price Rescue Heroes Mission Select Ariel Flyer can be plugged into what is essentially the Rescue Heroes doll house and the fire truck that my son also received makes her a big hit. However, my overly-PC thoughts of getting a girlie Rescue Hero so that my daughter had a corresponding sexed Rescue Hero when she played along with her brother (even though Ariel was a gift for him) were moot; I don't think either one of them even realize that Ariel is supposed to be a girl figure!
The Rescue Heroes stand up well to my son's constant attempts to destroy them, as he attempts with every toy in his path of wanton destruction, and I have seen my nephew's figures from this collection hold up well over time, with perhaps the only issue being that the paint does tend to wear away with time, as it does with most action figures.
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Check out my other Rescue Heroes Reviews:
Fisher Price Rescue Heroes Mission Select Billy Blazes
Fisher Price Rescue Heroes HydroTeam Billy Blazes with VHS Video
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 10.99
Type of Toy: Action Figure
Age Range of Child: 3 to 5 Years
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pippadaisy
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Divorce seriously cuts into the amount of time for reviewing.
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