Completing my Childhood: Kinder Surprise Monster Hotel

Before Hotel Transylvania, there was Monster Hotel. This might be one of the simultaneously most niche and personal toy memories I discuss here. 

As a kid, I was introduced to Kinder surprise chocolate eggs by Polish friends of the family. Kinder eggs, produced by confectionary mega-corp Ferrero, are extremely milk-chocolate eggs (seriously, like 70% milk, 30% chocolate) wrapped in foil, and the gimmick was that they were not just chocolate--they were hollow and enclosed a plastic capsule inside with a toy you could build! Kinder capsule toys fell into several themed product lines, and the capsules themselves went through multiple designs and colors (solid aqua and solid yellow two-part pill eggs, capsules with textured sides or hinged lids, clear capsules, etc.) and were functionally the European young-child answer to gachapon machines, since the toys and their themed collectible ranges were often similar to gacha trinkets.

I don't know how many Kinder lines were original creations or how many reflected licensed themes. All of the Kinder toys I ever got appeared to be in-house Ferrero/Kinder IP, but who knows if some of them were based on a European children's property an American would never be exposed to. Looking on eBay at Kinder toys was an explosion of nostalgia as I recognized various series I had pieces in--and I was excited to see new things I'd never known about!

Kinder eggs are infamous for being banned in the US for choking-hazard concerns, which felt fairly ridiculous. The plastic capsules in the eggs were large and especially if you were a child, you weren't likely to unhinge your jaw and bite down so hard you opened the capsule inside the egg inside your mouth and end up with a toy in your windpipe, but so it went. Perhaps the concern was that the capsule and toy pieces inside would be confused for food items by unattended toddlers, not understanding that only the egg was edible. Regardless, they were unavailable where I was. I thus got the eggs fairly infrequently through my Polish hookups (thus making them my first experience with contraband!), but I got a healthy collection of Kinder toys in my day and for ages, kept them in a box together, losing certain pieces as time went on. (I got almost no duplicates within series, if you can believe it!) Kinder toys could have crafts applications, like hidden stamps or watercolors, or else had simple mechanical functions when a character figure was assembled, and they were legitimately rewarding. In that way, in addition to gacha toys, they're almost like miniature Happy Meal toys from when those were worthwhile. 

Today, the Kinder toys are crap. At least, going from what I see in the Kinder Joy alternative sold in the U.S, which features an egg container in two enclosed halves, toy on one side, candy on the other. Modern Kinder toys I've experienced tend to just be solid lumps of plastic with minimal printing or even stickers you have to apply. I'm a grumpy old young man, sue me, but going on available data...back in my day, it really was better!

And the highlight of my Kinder experience was a collection called Monster Hotel, which was really just a spooky monster cast contextualized in a hotel for the branding. While it comes before the Hotel Transylvania animated film franchise, the toys themselves have no hotel theming. The line all blurred together in my mind, but looking it up reminded me that Monster Hotel as I knew it comprised two waves or collections--one of fully standalone character figures, and another more eclectic wave with some new monsters and several adaptations of the wave 1 characters in a new context--most of them paired with a vehicle. I had a few toys from both waves, but I only have one complete today, and with some paint scuffed off. As a kid still completely lacking perspective on how much of a spooky fan I was, these toys were magical. I adored the Monster Hotel toys as a burgeoning horror fan and lifelong spooky kid, and I even took the figures to the park where a friend and I would play "Monster Hotel" in the sandbox--an activity which mostly consisted of collecting water from the fountain to sculpt tunnels and buildings from the sand. I don't recall the figurines being especially involved, or my friend having any idea what the toys were about, but it was something we did! I never forgot the Monster Hotel toys, and regretted only one of them surviving complete as of now. Others got damaged or lost pieces and eventually disappeared.

I was suddenly, very belatedly struck with the thought that people might be selling these toys where I could get a complete collection today. So I went on a journey as I did last year jumping back into Playmobil, and discovered a similar land of low-cost nostalgic opportunity! The toys were mostly just all there for cheap prices, and I recognized a lot of things I'd encountered. I mean, I'm not super surprised these toys aren't a goldmine or anything, but still, I was delighted to be able to snap collections of both full sets of Monster Hotel toys up. It's shockingly meaningful to me to have these completed. 

[And turns out, there was actually a small third collection of plastic toys under the Monster Hotel line, as well as a series of jigsaw puzzle Kinder Surprises based on the IP! And there was also a cartoon of some duration! How far does the rabbit hole really go? Which came first? I ultimately decided to be satisfied with having the full sets of the series I knew.]

I got a complete set of both Monster Hotel series I had gotten pieces from previously. Both were ordered from the same seller, so they arrived simultaneously in one package.

So let's look at the toys!

Here's the collector's sheet for the original series, which all of the capsules included. These sheets were always folded and rolled into the circumference of the capsule, wrapped around the toy parts while lining the capsule. The front shows a 2D illustration of all of the characters in the hotel lobby to demonstrate who's available in the series.

This leaflet is a German edition. I don't know how many countries and languages these released in, but I know Italian and (UK) English editions also existed. The back has an image of the corresponding toy and would also diagram its assembly and functions when necessary. The characters named and given short bios, but I only got the one sheet in this set for the character Wolfy. 

As a creative myself, it should be no surprise I believe AI should not be given the ability to create...but it has its wonders. The ability to highlight and roughly translate printed text in a phone photograph you took is absolutely magic. It's not perfect, but here's how my phone translated the Monster Hotel concept bio, adjusted for accuracy.

Monster Hotel

An eerie building: the shutters clatter, the doors squeak, but bravely you ring: Ding-dong! In the light of his lantern, the hunchback opens the door for you: "Welcome to the Monster Hotel! Don't be surprised by the weird creatures that live in this strange place, or you'll go crazy...with laughter! Come and see our guests at the Monster Hotel!"

And here's how Wolfy's character bio panned out. Keep in mind that this might not be his name in all languages the toys were released in.

Wolfy

Wolfy is a cute little werewolf who sucks on his thumb while sleeping (which would be the horror of any vampire!). He likes to be a real monster, but he's way too fond of it. ["He wants to be a really scary monster, but he's too nice?"] The only thing that craps is in his stomach[?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!] [I'm certain this is meant to be "the only thing about him that growls is his stomach."] He often sneaks around at night to plunder the hotel pantry.

That's actually rather sweet, though I don't understand what a vampire would be horrified by? Is sucking his thumb repellent, or just that he's a werewolf who's so soft and thus "disgraceful" to a vamp? Not sure what the joke is.  Now I wish I could read the other bios. I stumbled into outright archaeology in the form of an Angelfire site listing all of the names of the Series 1 characters in the English release, and Wolfy's is one that's the same in English and German. Here's the site, and I will be using the other English names as they come up. I was glad to find it!

And because the leaflet was so nostalgic to me, I wanted to build a display set to re-create the hotel lobby where I could stage the collector-sheet artwork with all the monsters just so. I did this with a rudimentary LEGO model after disassembling some buildings which were collecting dust. The adaptation of details is rather loose, but I included the central staircase and elevator, the railings and banisters, the curtains and windows, the lighting to the right, and the front desk and shelves behind it. I made the upper-level walls dark orange while the low wall to the right is blue, since that's how the Hotel itself was colored in the second series. We'll get to it. Here's the diorama.

I put a red paper behind the elevator to fill the space, and used a red light over it to make it glow. Here's the full emulation of the leaflet.

We'll start with the toys I had first!

Monster Hotel 1

Ogrebear

Childhood copy on the left, new copy on the right.

I always just called him the "red ogre" myself, so apparently the character design was very well communicated! Apparently, he's a vegetarian despite his scary scowl. This was the only Kinder toy of mine to survive from the original era, and while I overall regret that, I find it correct that he's the survivor because I like him so much. The others, I mangled and discarded or lost entirely or lost pieces from and then discarded. My old Ogrebear himself has some paint loss on his nose, but I always loved his caricature. The newer Ogrebear has more focused pupils than the older one.

On the leaflet, Ogrebear appears to be a hotel desk manager or concierge. The toy has some design differences--on the leaflet, he has a yellow tunic and a happier face, and the hair on the side of the toy's face is depicted as hair sprouting within his ears on the leaflet. I like the toy more.

Most Kinder toys of this era, in order to be substantial, were made of multiple parts that disassembled to fit in the eggs, and he's is two pieces, with the legs plugging into the torso separately. 

His other feature is that his top jaw is on a springy hinge, letting you pull back his head to open his mouth, which returns to closed when you let go, but not in a harsh snappy motion. 

The hinge seems built on a peg disguised in his mane of sideburns, and the peg is darker and more translucent than the color of the painted sideburns around it.

The new Ogrebear has intact nose paint, but he came with a blue spot on his jaw that I had to scrape off. Might have been paint from something else.

I'll always love this little figure.

Dragogator

This is a pretty classic green dragon, but he's quite warty and hunched, with a yellow underbelly.

His head and tail are separate pieces, and the tail attaches to be fixed in its position and cannot rotate.

Dragogator has wheels underneath that move the neck peg when they turn, allowing you to roll him across the floor while his head bobs back and forth.

I remember my original copy losing some paint through abrasions, and the last piece of him to survive was his head, which might also be vanished now after the rest of him disappeared. I'm glad to have him back, though he's less personally appealing to me.

Double-Face

These characters (treated iffily as one guy going by the name, which feels incorrect) mix a conjoined body plan with a Jekyll and Hyde duo, manifesting as a shared body with two heads and split skintones.

The gent on the left is skinny and lively, and is holding his top hat off in a greeting gesture, while the gent on the right is green-skinned and grumpy, hat on head. 

The legs and the arm holding the hat are separate pieces, with the legs working like the ogre's. 

I remember my original Double-Face not staying together well, and while the legs and arm aren't the strongest connections here, they do feel more stable than the older one as I remember it. The original copy survived in my possession without the arm for a while. 

The green gentleman's skin glows in the dark and is achieved with luminous paint that has a matte chalky texture in light and a unique glowing blotchy look in the dark.

Double-Face was the last figure I had from this first series back in the day, so now onto the ones which are fully new to me!

Dracool

This is the resident vampire, and he's highly caricatured with a goofy grin and big eyes and spiky swept-back hair. His name isn't a clunky pun on "Dracula" at all, given that you could take it as a pun on "Dracul", as in Vlad Dracul, father of the "Impaler" whose name "Dracula" became famous as Bram Stoker's defining vampire. On the leaflet drawing, Dracool looks paler.

Dracool is assembled from three pieces--head, torso, and squat legs. His pieces do not permit rotation.

The novelty of this figure is that he has googly eyes! His eyeballs are tiny little beads inside clear outer shells that hold them in, allowing them to roll back and forth and jiggle inside!

It's a fun silly feature, and remarkable for its tiny scale.

Freakieboss

I prefer the German name "Quasimo", but the English name, clunky as it is, makes sense since he seems to be the innkeeper and caretaker of the hotel, so he might also be sole proprietor. This is a classical hunchback archetype inspired by Quasimodo, but also perhaps the Igor archetype. I'm pretty sure this horror archetype is ableist and should not be played straight anymore, but Freakieboss is small potatoes in the grand scheme of things and he seems to be a friendly character.

His face and hair and skintone are similar to Ogrebear's in a way where I think one of them could have afforded more divergent coloring. On the leaflet, Freakieboss's skin is lighter than Ogrebear's.

Freakieboss is four pieces--head/torso, legs, and the two arms. Like many other figures, his parts are all fixed in place when connected together and offer no posing potential.

The hunchback's lantern has the same chalky glow paint as the Double-Face green gentleman's skin.

Mummyboo

I got one of this character's Monster Hotel 2 renditions, so he's somewhat familiar to me! He's a blue-bandaged mummy with an appealingly narrow silhouette and a tin-can cylinder head shape. His bandages are sculpted into a tunic shape around his waist, and he's wearing a belt. He's one of the tallest figures in the group.

He's two pieces and splits apart at the waist.

This figure has a mechanical action-- pressing his head down raises his arms in a zombie stance, though the motion is a little janky and wobbly. 

Cute.

Stupidstein

I prefer the alternative name Funnystein, but that wasn't given to his English release. Stupidstein is a classical Frankenmonster. He never got a mad scientist or bride to pair with. I had his Monster Hotel 2 figure, so I'm also somewhat familiar here. I like the detail in the sculpt, with the heavy brow and scars on the forehead and chin, and the paint defining the eyes and jagged high mouth is pretty strong.

This is a very tall figure in the range, and I actually had to modify the hotel diorama when I realized I built the elevator doorway too low for him!

Oops.

Stupidstein is three parts--head, torso, and legs. All three are on cylindrical peg connections, allowing his head and waist to turn.

The figure has no action features, and the arms are static by the sides. I think they could have easily given Mummyboo's gimmick to him, because I expect a Frankenmonster to have a raising zombie-arms feature far more than I do a mummy. The hands also look like they should be able to grip something, but he has no accessories.

His skin is luminous plastic that glows in the dark, with a typical glow-toy effect. It's different from the luminous paint on the gentlemen and hunchback, and the hands and uncovered portions of his legs also glow--not just the head.

The waist peg that pops into the torso is a similar color to his skin, but is not luminous plastic. Makes sense; it didn't have any reason to be.

Wolfy

This is one of the figures who's just a little figurine with no special features. He's a hunched werewolf with a nearly spherical torso, and he's quite cute with his purple fur and white face, goatee, red nose, and wide eyes. His shirt is yellow and his spine comes through the back in a spooky detail.

Wolfy is three parts that plug into a fixed position.

Yo-Yeti

From first visual read, I thought he was some kind of giant or Bigfoot, though the yeti thing took me by surprise since I'm so familiar with the cliché depiction of the yeti as white-furred. Not necessarily the case originally! The figure has shaggy brown head hair and a beige body with a piglike nose and tusks. The body has a humanoid shape and nipples, while hair sculpting appears on the limbs and indecisively on the belly. With the torso, it's a little hard to tell what areas we're meant to see as hairy. His back has spinal texturing like Wolfy. For such an imposing monster in the leaflet, he's not especially large as a toy and Mummyboo and Stupidstein are easily taller than him. On the leaflet, he's all a solid golden color, while the toy (which I prefer) is tan with brown accents.

His legs are both separate pieces, as is his head, and I was shocked by how long the peg for his neck was! It fills his whole torso! 

While the pegs aren't shapes that prohibit rotation, the sockets the pieces nestle into essentially hug the pieces into their intended pose so they don't move.

I like this figure's sculpt.

Of Series 1 in this collection, I think Ogrebear is still my easy favorite. I love his design and he's very nostalgic to me. Of the monsters I never had, I'm very charmed by Wolfy despite his lack of play features, and I'm impressed by the execution of Dracool's feature.

Most of the figures in this series have a hunch or a slouch. Only Mummyboo and Stupidstein have fully upright bodies. 

Monster Hotel 2

The theme of this series was "getting around the Monster Hotel"...or for a snappier title, I suggest "Monster Hotel on the Move". Here's the collector's sheet showing off the series. Several of the Series 1 characters are repeated with new editions, even up to two times!

And my loose recreation of the image.

While I got every individual leaflet for this set, none of these figures had official names or bios printed on the back, so it's not really worth showing them all. 

The names I give these toys will be my own this time as a result.

Mummyboo Sarcophagus

This is one of the toys I had from this set--it's a grey speckled stone sarcophagus containing a tiny Mummyboo, and the lid has hooks that pull the figure upward to "rise" when the lid is retracted!

This is as far as the lid slides and as far as Mummyboo rises.

Mummyboo's lost some paint, but this appears to be common. I remember that happening with my childhood copy, too.

The hieroglyph designs were stickers on clear backings, but came pre-applied on this copy. The toy is three parts--the lid, the Mummyboo, and the base.

You can see the hooks on the lid and the blocky protrusions on Mummyboo that they interact with.

This toy is a really clever design, and it's a great idle fidget, too. You can slide the lid back and forth very easily in one hand.

Here's the two Mummyboos together. Each of the repeated characters is rendered with lower paint detail in Series 2.

I think this sarcophagus toy is so clever.

Stupidstein's Convertible

This was the other toy I had from this series, and the first vehicle toy. It's Stupidstein again, but crouched into a car which is comically small for him!

Kinder toys are kind of amazing at capturing a visual gag in a static sculpt, and this is one such example. I love this. 

Stupidstein is one of the vehicle toys in the series where the character is a separate full-bodied figure. He fits into the space of the car and clicks in, hands around the "wheel" portion, and he consists of four pieces--the hair, the head, the torso, and the legs. The car is also four pieces--the body, the chassis, and the two wheel axles, which can rotate and roll. Stupidstein's head and hair have connections that don't rotate. The head is on a round peg, but the shoulders are sculpted to nestle it snug facing forward.

I like that the wheels look like hex bolts without tires--it suits the Frankenstein look. 

Like the older figure, Stupidstein's head here is glowing plastic.

Here's the two Stupidsteins together. The driving one is way smaller and has less coloring and detail. His hair is also brighter while his pants are darker. His head can rotate a little, but fits most snugly when facing forward. I wonder why the hair on the Series 2 figure is separate--was it to save on paint by just casting it in red plastic instead?

I love the comical proportions of monster to car here, and I appreciate that the figure is a full character. 

Driving Dracool

Now for the first fully-new one to me. It's Dracool in a bat-winged car, and with his hair unpainted and the addition of triangle shades, he looks pretty different.

I think the lack of hair paint is pretty inexcusable. The Dracool figure is basically just a bust that plugs into the top of the car. The car is seven pieces--the red part of the body, the yellow part, the two wings, the chassis, and the two wheel axles.

Dracool's head does not turn, and the wings nest into the sides of the car in a static position. The toy is overall awkward, incohesive, and not very fun, in my opinion.

Here's the two Dracools side by side.

I know who I prefer.

Vampire Bat

This could be a fully-new monster, or it could be a second depiction of Dracool, transformed partially into bat form. Jury's out, and I have no preference toward either interpretation. 

I really like the bat's caricature, and the indigo and yellow contrast is appealing. This toy has the wing/ear pieces loose on a peg so you can pinch the ears together to flap the wings up and down. I couldn't record this because it doesn't really work to do this with one hand, but it's a cute enough feature. He's five parts--the tail, the legs, the two wing/ear pieces which nest together, and the face.

While the play function is just okay, he's one of my favorites in the series for being a new (enough) monster and a standalone figurine. 

Dragogator Dragster

Dragogator returns, and he's in a fun vehicle that looks like an egg he's hatched from!

The car came with four stickers--two headlights for each end. I couldn't apply them very evenly by hand (tweezers would have helped), but it turned out okay.

The toy is seven parts--the two chassis shells, the two spike arcs, the two wheel axles, and Dragogator. He's tricky to thread through the top shell, and can't pull out from the top once nestled in.

The shell glows in the dark.

Here's the two Dragogators. As ever, the Series 2 one is smaller and less detailed. I don't think the sculpt is super successful at making his figure clear, especially because it appears to include the steering wheel with no color delineation.

Ogrebear Cart

Ogrebear's vehicle of choice is a glorified wooden wagon and the steering is made of bone! Very medieval punk.

Ogrebear is one of the drivers in this series who's a full-bodied separate figure.

What I like about him is that his sculpt and posture allows him to free-stand on his feet when removed from the cart. However, his four pieces (arms, torso, legs, and head) don't stay connected very tightly, which is problematic when trying to place him in the wagon. He also doesn't appear to fit in the cart precisely or snugly in any designed way, unlike Stupidstein in his car, so it's hard to place him in a way that feels stable. Pushing him in just stresses the weak connection of his body parts and risks him flying to pieces. I wish the figure was tighter or the cart had a more obvious fit with him. 

The cart is four pieces (steering, body, axles), bringing the whole toy to eight pieces. The cart also has a sticker for a scowling face. 

Ogrebear's head can rotate on its attachment point.

Here's the two renditions of the characters compared. There's many differences.

The Series 2 figure is more caricatured and less painted, and wears a green costume instead of red. He's also smaller and more orange, but both stand freely with the same basic posture, which is nice.

If this figure stayed together more securely and plugged into his vehicle more tidily, he'd be a strong contender for favorite.

Hairy Thing

This might be my favorite of the new monsters debuted in this series. It's a purple hairball monkey thing with skinny limbs coming out of a humanoid head, and the face is fleshy and sticking its tongue out. It's a bit like the Pokémon Mankey, but more ghoulish. I love a generic boogity hairy monster like this. This figure's arms are on a pivoting lever, and when you press it down the arms come up in a "boo!" pose.

The figure is four parts--the face, the mane, the arms, and the back half.

I really like this one.

Mummyboo Motorcycle

This is Mummyboo's second appearance in the series, and he's the only character to undoubtedly have three figures at the end of Series 1 and 2. 

Mummyboo here is driving a motorbike with an Egyptian-eye headlight (a sticker) and a blue wrapped body that matches him exactly. 

The figure is a full-bodied separate entity (the third and last case) and is three pieces--head and shoulders, torso, and legs) sculpted in a seated pose. He goes onto the seat and his hands can go over the handlebars, but this attachment is not secure or plugged/clipped in and he can fall off very easily.

There is a raised portion under his feet that can press between the feet to hold him in, but Mummyboo cannot reach this if his hands are over the handlebars. You have to wedge them under the bars for his feet to nest into the bike and the figure to be securely attached.

This is very frustrating to me. I wish he was sculpted so his feet plugged onto the base while his hands were over the bars. 

The bike consists of five pieces--the front wheel assembly, the handlebars, the front body, the seat, and the rear wheel assembly, making for a total of eight parts and a sticker altogether

The rear wheel also has a static "kickstand" section allowing the bike to stand up on a flat surface.

Mummyboo cannot stand on his own, but he can sit on other things.

His size is very close to, if not the same as, the Series 1 figure. If his pose was upright, they'd be very similar. This figure has less paint, like usual.

And here's the Mummyboo trio.

I wish the biking figure interacted better with the bike.

Ghosts

These are the simplest toys in either series--they're a duo of two one-piece hollow figurines in one capsule, depicting sheet-style ghosts with cutout faces and cute sculpted and painted fabric patches on the sides. 

These are similar to two series of Kinder toys depicting fun figurines of sheet ghosts in various domestic cartoon gags, like hanging on a clothes rack, inflating on a bike pump, sewing a sheet from sofa fabric, or ironing oneself. I'd love to get those. These two ghosts are static figures which glow with luminous plastic.

They're classic, but also very basic.

Wolfy Wagon

Wolfy's back in an adorably bone-shaped car.

This car had stickers for the headlights and license plates, but I gave up on trying to use the headlight stickers because they were too small and fiddly and one of them didn't peel off correctly.

The car is four pieces (front and back half and axles) and Wolfy is three (head, arms, and torso). The torso piece is actually hollow behind the arms, and the toy doesn't quite get away with it. It's visible.

Here's the two Wolfys together. The Series 2 one is less spherical of torso and the loss of the white facial patch is noticeable.

The Wolfy car is better than the Dracool car and more charming than the Dragogator one, but I prefer the ones with the full figurines.

The Monster Hotel

This is a little figure of the Hotel itself--very obviously not to scale. I had thought it would just be a little plastic static piece, but imagine my confusion when I felt the top half of the building was made of rubber! 

Turns out, there are wheels on the bottom, and when they turn, they pull a hook inside that pulls and bends the top of the building, meaning you can roll it across a surface to see it bop and sway like a surreal cartoon!

The Monster Hotel is literally on the move! I think this could be to convey swaying in the wind, but I like the oldie-cartoon energy of the hotel just bouncing to a beat for no real reason.

The Hotel appears to be seven parts (I wasn't willing to take it apart and mess it up). There's the top and bottom halves of the Hotel, the red roof, a panel on the bottom half, and the wheels and the hook that scrunches the top.

Such a clever and surprising little play feature for this piece to have!

Of Series 2, I'm very much in favor of the non-vehicle toys because those were also the new entities in the Monster Hotel toy universe. I think my very favorite is the Hairy Thing because it's got a simple play feature, a classic fun monster design, and a very classic Kinder-toy feel to me. Of the vehicles, the Stupidstein car is my favorite because the figure is a separate entity and pretty nicely made, the visual is a clear cartoon proportional gag, the figure glows, and he plugs into the car securely. 

Here's all of the unique-character toys assembled in the lobby, if we're counting the bat as a separate character from Dracool. The Series 1 characters hold their canonical positions from the leaflet. I added the Hotel, framed as a model miniature, under the curtain on the upper left, and the sarcophagus is to its right. I put the ghosts, bat, and Hairy Thing on the upper right, using the lamps to hang the bat by his feet. He fell down constantly when trying to get the perfect photos, and this shoot took forever to frame and light to my satisfaction. I might have spent more time on this one diorama than I ever did getting a shoot for any toy previously. Small is hard to work with!

The vehicles, emptied, went to the lower right side.

And a more theatrically-lit version using green light. I declined to make this the cover photo because I thought the flatter lighting was more nostalgic to my past playing with these toys and matched the leaflet art. 

And some photos to demonstrate all of the glowing features of the two series assembled.

This feels like The Haunted Mansion!

I'm really happy to have both Monster Hotel sets assembled. It feels like finally answering a question I've had for ages. No longer does this have to be a fabled group of toys! They obviously aren't all winners, and the Series 2 conceit of repeating characters with vehicles doesn't do it for me, leaving the few standalone figures more interesting. But they're still all charming and meaningful to me after being an object of nostalgia and curiosity for so long.

But there was a problem. There was one Kinder monster in my small childhood collection who always hung with the gang, seamlessly fit the group, and who I knew for certain I wasn't hallucinating. How could I invent something so distinctively odd? And yet this toy I remember was absolutely, very obviously not present in either of these two series. My decision to put him with Monster Hotel was not canonical. Maybe I'd completely forgotten he wasn't part of this set. 

I was nostalgic for him. I dearly wanted him back to complete my group...but he wasn't Monster Hotel like I'd long believed. So where was he?

Thus begins my inevitable slide further into the Kinder Surprise rabbit hole. 

To be continued!