The Eyes Have It: See Why Some FunKo Pop Figures Look Different

Ron Ruelle hobbyDB

Close your eyes for a moment and think about what a FunKo Pop figure looks like: Kind of squarish, marshmallow-shaped head, tiny body that can barely support that head, no mouth to speak of, and a pair of beady, circular, black eyes.

What big, round, black eyes you have, Big Boy!

Now, open your eyes to this: There are quite a few Pop figures that bend those rules in different ways, but the most disruptive is via the eyes.

If you’ve ever painted or drawn a caricature of someone, you realize that the eyes are extremely important to the unique look of a person. By limiting designers to round black pupils, other cues become much more crucial to making the figure recognizable. Here are some Pop figures whose eyes don’t quite look the same as the rest.

This list is by no means exhaustive…. It doesn’t include transparent “invisible” or single color figures, or similar variants. Also, characters whose eyes are hidden behind a mask or goggles are generally not on this list. There are lots of sci-fi monsters, aliens, and robots included here.

Different colors

Reptar, the star of TV and commercials within the “Rugrats” world gets vivid red lizard eyes. The Basilisk, the giant snake monster from the “Harry Potter” universe has shiny gold eyes. The Lizard, a giant humanoid lizard from Marvel, has yellowy eyes. And while you may remember the green slimy creatures on “Land of the Lost” having big black eyes, their more evolved leader, Enik, the Golden Sleestak, had red orbs. Reptiles should always have colorful eyes.

Billy, the charming puppet from the “Saw” movies kind of requires those crazed red eye rings to offset his other delicate features. Pennywise, that cuddly clown from “IT,” actually has different colored eyes depending on which figure you choose.

If you’ve ever played “Five Nights at Freddy’s,’ you may have noticed that black eyes don’t show up well in the dark. So all of the Pop characters from that game feature correctly hued eyeballs. Definitely scarier that way.

Robots

Many robots have humanoid proportions, so it makes sense that their designs have some sort of eye like device. FunKo shows them several different ways.

Eve, the sleek counterpart to Wall-E’s clunky analog boxiness, has a black screen with surprisingly expressive blue eyes, and her Pop figure honors that look. FunKo also uses different shapes and other tricks depending on her mood. Bender, from “Futurama,” has a black void around his eyes, so they had to go with white, and made them angry as well. (He really looks weird without a mouth, doesn’t he?) Data from “Star Trek: TNG” has gold eyes that somehow look more lifeless than regular beady black ones. And Geordi La Forge, from the same series, is not a robot, but his eyes are permanently hidden behind a robotic device, so why not mention him here?

Crow T. Robot (“MST3K”) has correct yellow eyes with diamond pupils. His pal Tom Servo, as well as Robot B-9 (“Lost In Space”) both have has glass bulbs for heads, so they don’t really have eyes at all (as opposed to Benson from “Regular Show,” who has peepers on his gumball head).

Different Quantities

Mike Wazowski from “Monsters Inc.” of course falls into the single eye category, but he is one of the few who shows white in his eye as well. That’s probably because a giant black eyeball would probably suck all the light out of the room. Turanga Leela (“Futurama”) of course, only has a single eye, but in her case, she looks annoyed, which is key to her character. Don’t forget, in the very first episode of the show, she identifies herself as “Agent 1-BDI” and then groans at the joke. Bill Cipher, the Illuminati pyramid character from Gravity Falls not only has a single eye (as most pyramids do), but there is a cosmic space version in which that eye is white. If you have to ask, you probably wouldn’t understand the show.

Of course, the Xenomorph (“Alien”) and Demogorgon (“Stranger Things”) have no eyes to speak of, although the Alien has some vestigial bumps where eyes could evolve. There is also a Pop figure wearing an Alien Facehugger, which has no visible eyes and is really gross.

Going the other way, Rick and Morty generally fit the standard, but their alien counterparts have a third, different sized eye on their foreheads. Speaking of Rick, Morty, Facehuggers and Aliens, there is a version of Rick being hugged by one for some reason.

Different Shapes

Further speaking of “Rick & Morty,” Summer Smith’s teenage petulance is nicely summed up by her sarcastic, downcast eyes. You can just feel the cold shoulder she’s giving the world. Napoleon Dynamite and his pal Pedro both feature half shut eyes that convey the understated slackadaisical tone of the movie.

And since we’re talking about Pop eyes, how about, well, Popeye? He’s either missing one eye, or is permanently winking. Meanwhile, his other eye is closed partly from below, obscured by his cheek. Quite frankly, he’s such a strange looking character, you would have thought the spinach industry would beg the studio to stop showing him eating their product. But he would look stranger with two round black eyes, wouldn’t he?

There are many more that defy the main trend. What are some of your favorites? Let us know in the comments!