It's very rare that I feel I grew up in the wrong decades.  I love the entertainment goodies that the 1980s and 1990s brought us, from classic games like Mega Man 2 to Super Metroid, to television like Night Court and Perfect Strangers, all the way to movies like Ghostbusters and Back to the Future.  I spent my formative years with a Commodore 64.  Cable TV was an amazing new thing, although my father insisted on a satellite dish for many years (one of the big ones, not your package deal DirecTV).

Then there were the toys.  I had (and still have in storage) a massive case of Lego bricks.  I had (and, again, still have in storage) most of The Real Ghostbusters action figures.  Nintendo toys never quite lived up to my expectations though.  I had a few Mario-related items and most of them were horribly off-model and wrong.  As much as my seven-year-old self wanted Mario and Peter Venkman to team up in the great Action Figure Wars of 1988, it just wasn't possible.  I say all of that as preamble to these photos of new Super Mario toys action figures that are in the works from Corgi.

Sure, Corgi has your basic Mario, Luigi, Wario, Yoshi, and Donkey Kong figures, but they've gone the extra mile with Shy Guy, Bullet Bill, Koopa Troopa, Goomba, Paragoomba, Boo, Lakitu, Bob-omb, Toad, Princesses Peach and Daisy, Waluigi, Bowser, Diddy Kong, and Dixie Kong.  Best of all, they actually look like the characters they are meant to be.  Kids today may not appreciate the purity of 8-bit graphics and blast processing, but they sure get better toys than my generation.  Meanwhile, when gamers my age want to spend money on this kind of thing, we have to buy big and expensive like a responsible adult should. 

(via Poison Mushroom)