Invisible Bilbo Baggins - From Bridge Direct

Despite the well warranted hatred of the company Bridge Direct for their poor handling of the Hobbit license, this was the last one I needed to get to complete the collection. Funny thing is, I bought one in the early days of the pandemic (when there was not much else to do) from a seller in South America. Unfortunately, his postal service basically shut down for several months. I lost contact with the seller. Unfortunate, but then I saw this one pop up for $10 by a US seller. Score!

Bridge Direct Hobbit Collection - 3-3/4 inch

Right now, this is my whole Bridge Direct Hobbit collection. I am only missing Thranduil (that comes in a ridiculous 5 pack which contains four figures I already have) and Invisible Bilbo. I purchased Bilbo from a seller in Costa Rica but customs still can't ship it due to Covid restrictions. 

 

Unpackaged UK Azog and Radaghast from Bridge Direct

From a post way back in October, I managed to track down the UK release of Azog and Radaghast figures from the Hobbit. Here are the unpackaged photos along with the current collection I have. My Invisible Bilbo is still stuck in Costa Rica (they can't mail anything here), and I haven't pulled the trigger on the 5-pack that includes Thandril, because that would mean I would have another copy of Fili, Kili, Legolas, and Tauriel...which was one of the problems that killed the line in the first place.

A Return to The Bridge Direct Hobbit Figures

If you collected the figures from Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy, you may be aware of the utter disaster the line became, which is very unfortunate. The Bridge Direct had no previous experience making action figures - other than a Justin Bieber doll - but they had two guys on staff who worked for Toybiz during the epic Lord of the Rings line. 

Bridge Direct rolled out two scales for the movie - 3-3/4 and 6 inch. They were in Toys R Us, but could not get into Walmart or Target. Not sure why - potentially because they were a relatively unknown in the boys action figure industry. They eventually ended up in KMart and were clearanced right away. 

Bridge Direct had displayed the entire company of dwarves at Toy Fair. In the end, we only got five: Thorin, Balin and Dwalin, and Fili and Kili. Almost every figure was packed as a single, a two pack, or a five pack. So often you would end up with three of a figure in order to get the whole set. 

The fact that 13 dwarves were shown and never released leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of fans to this day. Hence, why at least once a year, someone will pipe up in the Bridge Direct Hobbit forum on CoolToyReview and remind us how much Bridge Direct sucks. Whether it was in their control or not can be debated. 

The epic journey can basically be described as: Who they hell is Bridge Direct -> Oooo! These look cool! -> I can't find them -> They are on clearance at KMart -> series 2 has awesome stuff coming -> series 2 is canceled -> Bridge Direct - you suck!

I went through my boxes and pulled out the small collection and purchased a few missing items. I did not realize that the 4 inch Azog, Radagast, and invisible Bilbo were actually released in the UK. I managed to buy Radagast and Azog off AmazonUK.  Invisible Bilbo I found with an Ebay seller in Dominican Republic but he can't ship it to me until they are allowed to ship to the US again due to Covid.

So here is the current collection. The packaged photos are what I just purchased to complete the line.