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We Opened the Official “Shark Week” Mystery Box and Here’s What We Found Inside

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Ahead of the Discovery Channel’s 30th Anniversary “Shark Week” beginning on July 22, the annual event’s merchandising has kicked into high gear, with a whole display of plush sharks, toys and other goodies waiting for you inside your local Walmart. If you’d rather order some cool swag without leaving the house, you might want to consider the Official “Shark Week” Box, a mystery box-style offering that’s loaded with exclusive “Shark Week” goodies!

Naturally, we got one. Because how the hell could we resist?

Billed as a $100 value and being sold for $59.99, the 30th anniversary “Shark Week” box has eight items in it, and they’re all housed inside of a box that resembles a wooden crate. What’s especially cool about this particular box is the box itself, which actually transforms when you turn it inside out and add on the provided bells and whistles: the box turns into a shark!

Here’s what you’ll find inside, if you don’t mind spoilers…

First up, you’ll find four laminated sheets that allow you to play “Shark Week Bingo” as you watch along on Discovery later this month, each with different items intended for you to mark off once they appear or are mentioned during “Shark Week.” Things like “petting a shark,” “sting ray,” “drone footage” and “unlucky seal” appear on the cards, which should add some extra excitement if you’re watching along with friends and/or family. Alternatively, the cards could be used to play a “Shark Week” drinking game, which would probably be even more fun.

My advice? Go all in and track down some shark-themed beer while you’re at it.

You’ll also find two sheets of “Shark Week” magnets, one sheet allowing you to “dress up” a shark and the other a “word magnet” sheet for creating fun and/or ridiculous and/or oddly politically charged sentences. Currently, my shark is wearing an adorable pink dress, and I may or may not have the sentence “The Megalodon was a fin-tastic President” on my fridge.

Yes, there’s a “president” magnet in there. They’re just asking for trouble.

No good mystery box is complete without a giant bag of candy, and the “Shark Week” box indeed does include a massive 14 oz. bag of one of my favorites, Swedish Fish. In case you didn’t hear, Swedish Fish is (naturally) the official candy of this year’s “Shark Week,” and you’ll find bags in stores now that are marked with the event’s logo. Weirdly, the bag of Swedish Fish included in the “Shark Week” box has no actual “Shark Week” branding, which is upsetting me more than it probably should. You had one job here, guys. Literally one job.

Next up is a container of soft, stretchy, vibrantly blue “kinetic sand,” which has been re-branded “Shark Sand” and comes inside a plastic bust of a Hammerhead. For the uninitiated, “kinetic sand” is basically the hybrid love-child of sand and Play-Doh, and it’s a total mess. If I had any art skills, I’d mold out a recreation of that scene from Deep Blue Sea where LL Cool J hides inside an oven. Alas, I do not, so I’ll probably throw this crap out and keep only the amazing Hammerhead container. My hands are blue now. Fuck.

There are three big ticket items inside the “Shark Week” box, the first of which is an exclusive t-shirt; when you place your order, you’re asked to provide your size, this way you don’t end up with a shirt that you can’t actually wear. The shirt isn’t very cool and it’s officially now the saddest thing in my closet, depicting an artistic representation of a sad seal who’s about to be devoured by over 40 sharks. The seal looks like an earless cat. Now I’m gonna cry.

The second of the big ticket items is a fun “Shark Week” heat-changing mug, which reveals what’s lurking beneath the surface when you pour a hot coffee into it. The heat of the coffee activates some hidden images on the mug, turning the formerly black surface into an underwater paradise filled with seven different shark species. This gimmick will never not amuse me, and one can’t argue against this being the most genuinely useful item in the box. After all, who among us doesn’t require coffee to, like, even operate on a base level these days?

The biggest of the big ticket items, you ask? That’d be the official “Shark Week” 30th anniversary collectible bobblehead, individually numbered and hand painted! Only 5,700 of these bad boys have been produced, which would lead me to believe that the “Shark Week” box will be officially sold out once 5,700 of us order them. Am I doing that math correctly?

This is no doubt the coolest item in the entire box, depicting an open-mouthed shark breaching the surface and bobbing around for your amusement. The bobblehead also comes with a tiny seal that can be placed inside the shark’s mouth (a peg secures it in place), which is a pretty genius addition. As it turns out, a shark eating a seal is way less depressing when the seal isn’t staring into your eyes and boring a cavernous hole into your soul with a sad “I’m about to die and you don’t even care” kitty cat look on its face. Go figure.

Oh and 1 in 20 of the boxes contain a special gold-painted bobblehead variant, I’m told. Hopefully you’ll have better luck than I did, because that sounds pretty killer and brag-worthy.

I realize that $60 is pretty steep for a mystery box, but given how limited the “Shark Week” boxes are, combined with the fact that every item (aside from the Swedish Fish) is exclusive to the box, I’d have to call this offer a win for big time “Shark Week” fans. The event only happens once per year and these will be gone before ya know it. Treat yourself.

If you want one, grab your own “Shark Week” box while you still can!

Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

Toys

NECA Shows Off New Leatherface Toys for ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ 50th Anniversary

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NECA Leatherface

It’s a big year for Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, as the 1970s horror classic celebrates its 50th anniversary. In addition to a new map in Gun Interactive’s video game, which is launching on March 28, we also know that a 50th anniversary 4K set is on the way.

Additionally, NECA has previewed two brand new Leatherface toys that will be releasing this year, both of them based on the horror classic that started the franchise back in 1974.

Part of the Toony Terrors line, they’re based on two different Leatherface outfits.

The company previews, “Bring the fun of Saturday morning cartoons to your horror collection with the adorable little creeps of Toony Terrors, NECA’s line of stylized horror icons!

“We are thrilled to kick off the 50th anniversary celebration of the 1974 film Texas Chainsaw Massacre with two new Leatherface 6-inch scale Toony action figures. Get a fresh take on our classic Leatherface figure with this version featuring new bloody deco and updated chainsaw deco. Also available is an all-new, fan requested version of Leatherface in his “Pretty Woman” look, complete with chainsaw and iconic armadillo display base.”

Both figures come in commemorative 50th anniversary blister card packaging with cut-out cardbacks featuring original art by NECA painter Geoff Trapp.

The 50th anniversary toys are set to begin shipping in June 2024.

NECA Leatherface texas chain saw massacre

NECA Leatherface toys

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