Here we have Homer Simpson in-hand, being generally accurate to the character design as well as a toy based on the cartoon art style can be. You have the physical appearance right with the tubby body, the shape of the head is proper with the space between the eyes and the strands of hair still in his head, not to mention the way it's shaped with a curve at the back. Paint apps are mostly reserved for the head, which it and parts of the arms are seemingly molded in a PVC-like material while the torso and legs are ABS. Thankfully, the eyes have not been painted deeply or looking weird, especially knowing how basic paint apps can be for these in addition to the lower quality control standards. The arms look broken due to how they usually remain positioned while in a vanilla pose (facing inwards than forwards), but beyond that, the rest of the figure looks about as natural as possible. One thing I will say is that some figures have their copyright info or serial numbers stamped in the backs; thankfully, Homer's is merely sculpted rather than painted in plain sight, I always question why they can't be in the feet.
His articulation is mostly shared with the rest of the characters in the line, with neck rotation, shoulder rotation, outward arm movement, bicep rotation, hinged elbows, wrist rotation, inward hinges, a diaphragm joint below the shirt, ball jointed hips, hinged knees, and slight ankle movement. His accessories include a box of dozen donuts, with one of them actually for him to hold and be posed as if eating it with the bite marks. You can easily use this for almost any other action figure and make whatever toy photography you please. He doesn't hold the box that great, but at least it can balance on the arm as he offers any to his friends. I swear, after seeing the Simpsons Movie promo art of him eating his donut, I usually go for the strawberry frosting with sprinkles at my Dunkin Donuts or 7-Eleven despite liking chocolate frosting more. For other versions of Homer Simpson out there, you have the Hulked Out version from the Stan Lee episode, Baseball Homer, Sick Homer with that moldy sandwich, and King Kong Homer with seemingly the same head sculpt as Hulked Out Homer (which makes sense given it's the same dude). He really was a Kwijibo this whole time, huh?
Up next, is Marge Simpson. And despite being shorter than Homer, her taller hairdo at least gives her some height of some extent without betraying the price these go for. That being said, my photos either make her blue hair appear brighter or they are always like that. Regardless, we at least have the proper shape needed for it, not to mention that the green on her dress is still accurate even with my photo set changing things. Her proportions are generally accurate to the show, with a sort of hourglass build for a mother of three, though her blouse is very rigid and is moreso for form than function. Naturally, Maggie is included with her because why sell just this tiny baby figurine by herself if you can include her with the one family member most commonly seen with her? Maggie's PJs are the right color, if using a very slight teal tint than the usual baby blue, but it still does the job. Sadly, her pupils are a bit wonky compared to her mother, who has hers applied right. On the bright side, Maggie's legs are sculpted in a walking pose to make her sculpt less static since she otherwise has a bit of a diaphragm joint, rotation at the shoulders, wrists, and neck, and outward arm movement. Marge's production info is stamped on the bottom of the dress, which is annoying but it does remind me of when she had a tramp stamp for a couch gag. While the articulation is generally consistent with the other characters, her legs are practically useless due to the rigid nature of her blouse. It's as limited as the skirts we had for the female Power Rangers figures from around Jungle Fury and RPM to the ones from Super Megaforce and Dino Charge. I guess it could have been possible to make the bottom area of the blouse a flexible material, though I can theorize maybe Jakks didn't want to risk aesthetic issues and they wanted to keep everything looking consistent. She can hold Maggie in her arms, however it is not entirely easy to do given the balancing issues that pop up with her tiny feet and just being somewhat top heavy. If we were to get any variants of Marge, hopefully they're in a different dress altogether and possibly a different hairstyle. On a positive note, their eyelashes are painted properly.
While Maggie was their third child, Bart is naturally the firstborn kid of the family, and is this the next one to focus on. Once again, we have the general proportions of the character design right, and I always like how Bart's head shape makes him look like a work whistle with how cylindrical he is in addition to the overbite. Honestly, a character design like this definitely has that troublemaker feel, especially given how he used to behave in the past versus his later years mellowing out compared to different characters like Stewie Griffin from Family Guy. The blue seems right to the shade he has in the show, but the shirt appears to be more red in my photos than it should be; he's generally known for having an orange shirt (or salmon in Bart Gets an F), and while it still looks fine on him, I always get this "make up your minds" feeling everytime I see merchandise choose either red or orange for the shirt color. Amusingly, the copyright info is nearly hard to see with the text being washed out on my photos.
With articulation being the same, let's talk about his sole accessory: a skateboard that he can ride on no problem; hope you like it because it ends up being reused twice for Blue Shirt Bart and Bartman. I kind of want to get those two along with hoping we get a Pieman Homer. Hockey Bart is kind of cool, and hey, he is at least ice skating and not skateboarding this time.
And finally, we have Lisa Simpson. Arguably the least interesting of the family apart from her high IQ and overall focus on solving problems, though as much as I hate to admit it, Ned Flanders calling her "Springfield's answer to a question nobody asked" is accurate to her know-it-all nature. He indirectly predicted how flanderized she became past Season 12, so maybe that's where they got the term from. Her head shape is accurate to.the show, though she always came off like a duck-billed sun in 3D compared to the mouth shapes on the other characters. Her dress is kind of a reddish orange or an orangish red, though it doesn't quite match the same promo art where it does appear orange. Could be worse like the confusion I have with Bart, but to be fair, you're likely going to see Lisa in that podium meme than the average merch where Homer or Bart are present.
Her articulation is slightly better than her mother's, but the diaphragm joint is ridiculously loose on my copy; she ends up having a hard time standing because of her small feet and due to the inability to disassemble her and tighten the joint. It sucks too because she also has an issue holding her saxophone. It's possible to get her posed playing with it, but even the small C-clip hands make it difficult. Though technically not the right scale, I do want to point out a 2.5 inch Cool Lisa figure that has her in hipster drip, complete with a skateboard to go with her carefree attitude. I bring her up because it's a potential retool I'd like to see Jakks come up with, and with that Bart Simpson skateboard already present, why not make this a reality for the 5 inch scale?
Speaking of which, for a size comparison, here we have Homer Simpson next to fairly prominent 1/12 and 1/10 scale lines, with Christopher Reeve Superman and Renew Your Vows Spider-Man as some of my examples. While they may be a bit taller than the other offerings in the McFarlane DC Multiverse and Marvel Legends lines, Homer Simpson is still too small for either franchise as a whole, and you may be better off sticking a larger version of the character with him or putting him with other lines that are meant to be 5 inches. That being said, you can always do what that one guy does and pose Abe Simpson beating other characters up, which will always be the style no matter what time we're in.
Overall, I think this set is pretty decent if you just want to own the Simpsons family or are looking to get a test drive and see if you want to continue the rest of the line. I mostly like how they turned out, but I know that you're better off getting this set at $20 if Target still has them. Not only is it easier to get everyone in one swoop, but paying that price versus the fluctuation between $13 to $17 per figure times four makes me happy I didn't get them individually. They are not worth the midway price point between $10 and $20, because not only are they kind of cheap, but the articulation isn't always great, and the scale doesn't give them that much to work with for other lines compared to the Nintendo and Sonic merch. D'oh-n't pay nearly $50 for the standard releases and find this set if you haven't. Also don't have a cow, man.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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