Most of us are, by now, aware that Seth Rogen’s remake of The Green Hornet will be out in theaters on Friday, January 14, 2011. And you’d think that a die-cast of the masked hero’s Kato-driven Imperial would be a shoo-in for the toy aisles. Right?
Well, sort of.
There is a Green Hornet car miniature out there, but it’s not at your favorite toy aisle, and it’s not made of metal. (And no, we don’t mean the Johnny Lightning one that showed up about a decade ago.) The regional Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. burger-store chains are offering a variety of Green Hornet-themed kid’s-meal toy prizes this month, including a mask – but for our money, the winning toy is this 3-1/2-inch pullback Imperial.
There’s no interior or chassis detail. The all-plastic construction makes it impossibly light. Those cheap-looking wheels are molded-in – they don’t roll. (A set of dummy wheels, mounted behind the ones you see, allows it to roll.) Those two silver things on the hood are guns, not some sort of revolutionary air-induction device. And there’s that pullback feature that allows it to scurry across the kitchen floor, enthralling the kids and annoying the cat.
So what? It’s the Green Hornet‘s Imperial. And, as a bonus, you don’t have to buy a kid’s meal to buy the it – most Carl’s Jr. locations we visited would let the toys go alone for a buck each.
There is also an HO-scale all-metal keychain sold through Hardee’s and Carl’s.