Two years ago, American toy company Funko collaborated with Jollibee for the first time to pay homage to the food chain’s 40th anniversary. “…[a] symbol of Filipino pride, the Jollibee mascot represents the company’s mission of spreading the joy of eating around the world,” wrote one Funko article. Fans got a real buzz out of it that it brought long queues to its first public sale at AsiaPOP Comicon. There are seven releases under the Jollibee line so far with the 2-pack featuring Hetty Spaghetti still available in select branches.
Our Pinoy pride was fed well enough with last year’s follow-up: our anthropomorphic honeybee best friend donning the Barong Tagalog, which has a separate glow-in-the-dark version, and one that holds a bucket of Chicken Joy. If you’ve deemed the line to be over and done now, that it can no longer get any cooler, well—surprise, surprise! Jollibee is coming out with a figure we never thought we needed: a Funko Pop! Ride. (Funko Pop! Ride is a series featuring figures in a vehicle. Popular ones include Cinderella’s Carriage, Batmobile, Daenerys riding Drogon, and Hogwarts Express.) Our main red guy will be found on the food chain’s lifelike, equally red-hot delivery bike! Loryn Stone of toy-wizards.com has shared a closer look at the line’s bee’s knees with us:
Funko seems to have figured how to keep the Filipino hype alive. To commemorate the 70th anniversary since the character’s first comic appearance, they got Darna fly away with her own Pop!, Manny Pacquiao, and Aswang, White Lady, and Siyokoy from the Legendary Creatures & Myths line.
The restaurant-exclusive Funko Pop! Rides #90 Jollibee was supposed to be released by now, but it never happened. This probably has something to do with Funko reporting that some of the products would be put on hold for now. They had decided to reduce the number of products for the remainder of the year as many of its retail partners had closed.
Let’s just get ourselves buzzed with hope nonetheless as the world gradually acclimatizes. Our doorsteps have always been yearning for a Jollibee delivery bike, anyway.
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