Cool Toy Of The Week: Today Is His Birthday!

Today, Sir Paul McCartney turns 64, and the mainstream media is awash with ironic headlines snarking about how the lyrics to "When I'm Sixty-Four" don't apply to Mr. Macca this year, in light of his highly-publicized tabloid fodder divorce.

Which is a shame, because by most accounts, Sir Paul is a nice guy, and he's written some of the best music in the world--music that will last long after the tabloid hacks are forgotten. To observe McCartney's birthday here in PopCult, we're making him the "Cool Toy Of the Week." You see, McCartney has been immortalized in plastic by the folks over at McFarlane Toys a few times in recent years, and these are some of the best action figures that McFarlane has put their name one.

Many years ago, McFarlane created a toy line based on The Beatles Yellow Submarine. There were two series of figures, one depicting the Fab Four as themselves in the animated classic, and the other showing them disguised as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. These were so well-received that McFarlane released them again in different packaging a few years later.

Those re-released figures sold so well that McFarlane Toys came up with a set of action figures based on the goofy, low-budget Beatles TV cartoon, from the heyday of Beatlemania. The sculptors at McFarlane managed to perfectly translate the 2-D designs for the cartoon into a workable three-dimensional object. These are cool toys, and quite collectible. And any birthday with toys involved, has to be good.

Happy Birthday, Paul!