WOODY BOYD

CHEERS (MEGO)

“Hey Mr. Peterson, there’s a cold one waiting for you.”

Cheers had a few major characters that weren’t actually with the show from the beginning.  Perhaps the most successful of those was Kelsey Grammar as Dr. Frasier Crane, who despite being one of the show’s most popular characters and leading his own spin-off that ran for 11 seasons, wasn’t actually a member of the Cheers cast until Season 3.  Though perhaps not quite the same level of fan-favorite, Woody Harrelson’s character Woody Boyd was in a similar boat, joining the cast in their Season 4 premier, as a replacement for the late Nicholas Colasanto as “Coach.”  It’s a roll best known for getting Harrelson into the public spot-light, and now there’s an action figure!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Woody is our third Cheers figure in the re-launched Mego’s TV Classics line, shipping in the third wave of product in late 2018.  Amusingly, it’s actually actor Woody Harrelson’s third figure from last year, following his two Beckett figures from Solo.  The figure stands 8 inches tall and he has 16 points of articulation.  Like most of the line, he’s built on the standard Type 2 male body, with a new head-sculpt.  Of the three Cheers sculpts, Woody’s is definitely the weakest, due largely to Harrelson’s more subdued features, which don’t lend themselves to caricature in the same way as George Wendt or John Ratzenberger.  This makes it a touch harder to tell who it is at first glance.  That said, it’s not a terrible attempt, and he’s certainly still got more than a passing resemblance to Harrelson.  The paint on the head is also a slight step down from his predecessors, mostly due to one odd choice: the streaks in the hair.  Harrelson did have some lighter sections in his hair while on the show, but they certainly didn’t look anything like this, and I think the figure would have been far better suited leaving them off entirely.  Woody didn’t have a uniform or anything in the show, but he did have a fairly standard set of attire, a collared polo, and jeans, which he’s wearing here.  He’s got the usual Mego-style tailoring on those two pieces, plus a generic set of plastic shoes.  Woody continues the trend we’ve seen with all of the Cheers figures so far and includes a mug of beer with the logo on the front.  Presumably, this one’s for a patron, not Woody himself.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Woody proved to be a little scarcer than Norm or Cliff, so he took me little more time to track down.  I actually grabbed him on the same trip that got me the new animated Poe figure.  As I noted above, he’s probably the weakest of the three Cheers figures we’ve gotten, but given how nice the other two were, that doesn’t mean he’s awful by any stretch.  Woody was a favorite of mine, so I’m glad to add him to my collection, and I hope we see more of the characters.