Honey Bee Acres by Sunny Days Entertainment

Well, this has been a bumpy month so far with the failed migration and then the massive shutdown at Enom.  Yikes.  I'm cautiously optimistic that there will be no more technical drama on the horizon for a while, but I guess these things can be hard to predict.  Thank you very much for being patient with all of the disruptions.  In the future, you can always get news from me even when the blog is down if you visit Twitter or Patreon.

One of the things I noticed when I started looking over this site back in October is that my Li'l Woodzeez vs. Calico Critters review still gets a lot of traffic.  It's neat to know that the information in a ten-year-old review can be useful.  Because of that post's popularity, I started toying with the idea of writing an updated comparison review between the Calico Critters and the Woodzeez.  Then, in November, when I did the Li'l Woodzeez Sunday Surprise post, Sar mentioned to me in the comments section that Walmart now has their own line of small flocked animal figures: the Honey Bee Acres collection.  That was exactly the inspiration I needed to follow through with a new comparison review--this time including all three brands of flocked mini animals!

I originally planned for today's review to be a comprehensive post looking at all three brands, but with over 240 photos, that got way too long.  One of my New Year's resolutions is to stop producing novel-length reviews.  Nobody has time for that.  So, I've split this massive review into two parts.  The first part will look only at the Honey Bee Acres animals.  Part two, which will be posted this Wednesday, will compare a Honey Bee Acres family to equivalent Calico Critters and Li'l Woodzeez characters.  I also have plans to compare a few playsets in the future (update: here's one of the playset reviews).

There's a lot to talk about here, so let's get started!

Honey Bee Acres Playground Pals characters, $19.97.

I'll start by saying that it was surprisingly hard to find the Honey Bee Acres characters and playsets that I wanted.  In the fall, I scoured three of my local Walmart stores to see if I could find the animals in person, but had no luck.  I finally decided to purchase a few of the sets online.  However, this wasn't easy, either, because many of the toys were sold out during the holidays.

The only Honey Bee Acres set that was readily available right around Christmas time was the Playground Pals collection, which includes nine child figures and no adults.  I bought this set right away, not really knowing what other options would be available:

Honey Bee Acres Playground Pals, $19.97.

This set costs $20 and includes Misty, the pink unicorn, who is the character I was most excited to see in person:

There she is--back and center!

There are no plastic windows on the Honey Bee Acres boxes, so it's easy to get an up-close look at the characters.  Here's Misty:

Look at me!

The downside of having no plastic window is that the characters can get scuffed-up pretty easily.  Misty has spots of missing flocking in her forelock and on her nose.  

I could see right away that the mouse, Pippa, has missing fur, too:

The back of the box shows all of the characters with their names:

It seems like the girl characters have eyelashes sticking out at the sides of their black plastic eyes and the boy characters do not:

I prefer the eyes without eyelashes, but both styles are cute.

The back of the box also lists the four family packs that are available in this line:

After seeing these families, I changed my mind about what Honey Bee Acres set I should look at for my comparison review.  The Playground Pals set has wonderful variety, but the figures are all children, and I couldn't find an equivalent set in the Calico Critters or Li'l Woodzeez lines.

All three brands have family packs, though, so I decided to organize my review around those.  To keep the comparison as focused as possible, I chose dog families from each line.  Here are the three families that I will compare in part two of this review:

Dog families from the Li'l Woodzeez, Honey Bee Acres, and Calico Critters lines.

These families were not necessarily the cutest or most interesting options available, though.  For example, I think the Li'l Woodzeez lion family is amazing:

And I love the new Calico Critters giraffe family:

There are limited family options in the Honey Bee Acres line, and none of them really stand out as being cuter than any of the others.  

I think Lulu the cow and Misty the unicorn from the Playground Pals set are the cutest individuals.  I wish they had families!

A family of unicorns would be epic.

Even though I won't use the Playground Pals directly in my comparisons to the Calico Critters and Li'l Woodzeez, it's helpful to see the variety in this set.  One of the things I'll be keeping in the back of my mind as I look at all three brands is how much diversity each collection has, and how tempting and creative the choices are.

It was also valuable to de-box all of the Pals to see which ones were the most appealing and which ones had defects.

Of the nine characters, four have glaring flocking defects.  Here's a close-up of the missing fur on Misty's cheek and forelock.  She also has a green stain on her cute little nose:

Sweet Lulu, who to me is the cutest character, has extra black on her face where the coloring from her spot has bled down towards her nose:

Also, her eyelashes are wonky.

The little bear, Shadow, has something stuck in the flocking on the left side of his face that makes the fur feel stiff and hard:

In addition, five of the characters have neck joints that are stuck and won't move, and one of the characters has legs that don't flex all of the way.

To me, the most interesting animals in the bunch are Lulu the cow, Willow the fox, Hoot the owl, Shadow the bear, and Misty the unicorn. 

My favorites.

While I'm on the subject of the Playground Pals, I should mention that they all have essentially the same body shape:

So they can all share clothing:

Playground Pals swapping outfits.

The ungulates are easier to dress than the animals with paws.

So, that gives you some idea of the variety of animals that are available in the Honey Bee Acres collection.  I'm almost always coveting at least three of the family sets from Calico Critters or Li'l Woodzeez, but I have to say that there aren't too many of these Honey Bee kids that grab my attention.  To be fair, though, the brand is much newer than its competition.

But now let's shift focus away from the Playground Pals and take an in-depth look at the dog family from the Honey Bee Acres line.  

This family is called The Barksters and includes a mom, a dad, an older brother, and a baby boy:

The Barkster Family from Honey Bee Acres ($9.94).

The Honey Bee Acres families are priced equivalently to the Li'l Woodzeez four-character family sets, which are either $9.99 or $10.99, depending on the animal.  Calico Critters families cost at least twice as much.

The hexagonal shape of this box is really unique, and I like how it references honeycomb!

The back of the box has a photo of the Barkster family with each character's name:

I don't want to live next to a family named the Barksters.

There's also a blurb about the family:

I like how the Calico Critters characters come with personalities or interesting little facts.  For example, the father of the giraffe family, Egbert, always forgets how tall he is and runs into things!  It's too bad that the Barkster family members don't have anything specific written about them.  I might have to remedy that.

The side of the box opens and a hexagonal backdrop pulls out:

When I first got the Barksters out of their box, I was struck by how lightweight they are.  They feel and sound hollow--like ping pong balls--and they don't have the same satisfying heft that the Calico Critters and the Li'l Woodzeez have.

Fresh out of the box, I couldn't get any of the Barksters to stand up on their own:

100% fail.

The legs on these guys were really sticky and hard to move at first.  I thought I was going to break one of Cooper's legs the first time it tried to bend it.  I was finally able to maneuver the legs enough to get everybody to balance and stand up straight:

From left: Cooper, Poppy, Gus, and Theo Barkster.

This little family is really sweet and deserves to have individual personalities.  I'm going to make up my own character descriptions for each of them.

Cooper is the dad of the family.  He's an absent-minded professor of linguistics who has been thriving in the Zoom world because nobody ever needs to see below his shoulders.  He's been wearing the same outfit for the last two years:

And it's a little worse for wear.

This beloved outfit has an 80s academic-meets-clichéd farmer style.  It includes a checkered shirt with an oversized collar paired with jeans and blue ribbon suspenders.

Cooper's little white tail sticks out through the back of his jeans:

Cooper is white with a few cream-colored spots on his head.  His black eyes and pink nose are plastic:

He doesn't have any missing flocking on his face, but there's a small brown mark under his right eye:

The midline seam on Cooper's head is rough and easy to see, especially on the left side.  Also, notice how the spots from the front of Cooper's head don't extend over the midline.  The back of the head is solid white:

Also like a ping pong ball.

Cooper's outfit is stitched together into one piece:

The edges of the sleeves and collar are not finished, and so the fabric is starting to fray.  The left arm of the shirt is especially bad.

The back of the outfit has a small velcro closure:

Underneath his outfit, Cooper has a pure white body with six points of articulation:

I really wish that the cream spots continued over Cooper's whole body, not just his face.  It almost looks like he's wearing a mask:

Cooper has some faint molded writing on his back and two holes above his tail.  The flocking on his upper torso is very thin.  You can see the shine of the underlaying plastic:

All of Cooper's joints are simple points of rotation.  He can turn his head all of the way around:

His arms would be able to spin all of the way around...if his head didn't get in the way!

There's molded detail in Cooper's hands, and it looks like he might be able to grip something really thin and small:

Cooper's legs can spin around, allowing him to sit on the ground:

...although that big head makes him tip over a lot!

He can also do solid front-to-back splits:

Cooper's sixth point of articulation is his little tail.  It can spin all around and wag back and forth:

Cooper's outfit is pretty easy to take off, but it's hard to put back on.  It took me a while to pull the legs of the pants over Cooper's feet.  This would be frustrating for a little kid:

No wonder he left it on for two years.

Cooper can pose freely when he's dressed, too:

The mother in the Barkster family is named Poppy.  Poppy is the local veterinarian and probably the smartest animal in town.  Despite her modern education and shrewd intellect, Poppy continues to dress like a pioneer.  Incidentally, it was Poppy's lifelong struggle with sarcoptic mange that inspired her to go into medicine:

Poppy has alopecia (missing fur) around her nose and chin.  Mange will do that:

We can tell that Poppy is a girl because she has eyelashes.

She has some scratched flocking on the back of her head, too...and a little bit of a wardrobe problem:

Good ventilation, though.

There are two really big hot spots on the backs of Poppy's ears:

She needs an Elizabethan collar.

She's wearing a floral dress with a lopsided checkered apron that matches Cooper's shirt:

The collar and sleeves of the dress are unfinished, as are all sides of the apron.  Thankfully, there's not quite as much fraying as we saw with Cooper's outfit:

The dress closes at the top with velcro (opens generously at the bottom...) and is easy to put on and take off:

Poppy has the same six joints as Cooper, and all of them are functional:

Her body is cream-colored with brown ears.  She has some white spots and red blushing on her face.

Poppy has several more flocking defects on her body.  There's a gash in the fur on the back of her head, which you can see in the previous photo.  

In addition, her right leg has a patch of fur that's discolored and partially rubbed-off:

And her left arm has a big scuff:

Poppy and Cooper have the exact same body.  It's nice that they are different colors, because I can easily tell them apart even when they're undressed:

Cooper (left) and Poppy Barkster.

The older son in the Barkster family is named Gus.  Gus has just started kindergarten and has a bit of a crush on Lulu the cow.  Don't we all.  When he's not at school, Gus collects trains and eats poop.  He dreams of being an entomologist:

Delightful young lad.

Gus' outfit includes a floral shirt attached to jeans with ribbon suspenders.  The suspenders tend to be crooked and slip off Gus' shoulders, especially on the left side.

Here is the outfit on its own:

As we saw with the other two outfits in this set, many of the edges are unfinished and there are some dangling threads.

Gus' outfit is hard to take off and even harder to put back on again.  Each foot has to be carefully guided through the tiny pant legs.  I didn't enjoy having to dress and undress Gus.

Not fun.

Gus has all of the same points of articulation as his parents--including the tail joint!  However, I was unable to get his left leg to bend, so he can't sit down:

Maybe Poppy can fix that?

Gus has a cream-colored body like his mother, with brown ears and a few white spots on his head:

There are no markings on his back:

As an aside, the characters in the Playground Pals set are the same size as Gus.  The dog in that set, Calvin, could be used as Gus' sibling or best friend:

Playground Pal Calvin (left) and Gus Barkster.

I like Calvin's bibbed overalls and rainbow shirt!  I also like his coloring--he makes Gus look a bit wan.  Unfortunately, Calvin's head is stuck in place and can not turn.

The baby in the Barkster family is named Theo.  Theo isn't house trained yet, so he's still wearing a diaper.  He wants to be a vet like his mom some day.  He enjoys turning on Doc McStuffins and then burying the remote in the backyard so that nobody can change the channel.

I'm confused by the fact that Theo has eyelashes.  Judging by the Playground Pals, none of the boys have lashes.  Maybe all of the babies have lashes?  Maybe Theo is a girl?

It's extra confusing because the Theo on the box does not have eyelashes:

In fact, several things about that photo do not look like the actual Barksters.  Gus and Theo are the wrong colors, for one.

The promo picture on Walmart's website gets the colors right, but Theo still doesn't have lashes:

I searched some eBay auctions to find real-life photos of other sets.  Most of those Theos are lash-less, too:

That means either I got a special Theo who is a girl...or maybe sometimes boys have eyelashes (shocker).

In my quest to figure out what was going on with Theo's eyelashes, I discovered that there are Honey Bee Acres webisodes on YouTube.  I watched an episode involving the Barkster family.  It was gratingly bad.  Also, the kids have the wrong coloring here, too!

The kids are basically miniature versions of the parents: same markings and everything.

Somebody dropped the ball here.  The animated characters should match the toys, no matter how simple the show is.

Back to my version of Theo, though.  Here he is from the back:

The diaper is very simple, but it's easier to put on and take off than Cooper or Gus' outfits.  It has a velcro closure and even a little hole for Theo's tail:

Theo has a white body like his father, with brown ears and some cream markings (like his mother) on his face:

The flocking on his back is very sparse:

Theo has six points of articulation (including his tiny tail), but neither of his legs can bend very far, so he can't sit any better than his brother:

Maybe it's a genetic problem?

All of the Honey Bee Acres family sets come with a baby character like Theo.  In addition, it's possible to go to the Walmart website and order a blind box baby.  Each of these characters comes with a different accessory:

Those are really good accessories!

I ordered one of these so that I could compare it to Theo.  I really wanted Binx, the baby dog, so I could add her to my dog family.  I also wanted Lucky, the baby unicorn, because he looks adorable.  I think the cat (Mimi) and the owl (Hooty) have the best accessories. Also, why isn't Hooty a blowfish?

The characters don't actually come in blind boxes, it's just that you aren't allowed to select which character you want when you order online.  I got Sadie the baby rabbit:

Honey Bee Acres baby Sadie, $4.97.

It's interesting to me that Sadie costs half as much as the entire Barksters family.  I think she's worth more like $2.97.

The back of the box has photos of the other babies, and a character description for Sadie:

I guess the babies get to have personalities.

Sadie comes with a plastic rocking horse:

Sadie should have eyelashes, but she (he?) doesn't:

They should have just given all of the characters plain eyes and avoided all of this confusion.

My Sadie has a scuff in the flocking of her left leg:

Poor Sadie skinned her knee!

And some missing fur under her right eye:

Sadie's head should move like Theo's, but it doesn't. You can see that there's a lot of glue or some other white substance clogging the neck joint:

Here are Sadie and Theo together:

And here's Sadie trying out the rocking horse:

Theo wanted to ride, too, but he can't sit up:

The Honey Bee Acres characters are between 1.75 (Theo) and 3 (Cooper and Poppy) inches tall, which is approximately the same size as the Calico Critters and Li'l Woodzeez.  I'll show you lots of comparison photos in the next review,  but in the meantime Lina stepped in to give some size perspective:

Which one of you eats poop?

The last thing I did with the Barksters was to give one of them the scratch test.  In this test, which I also did back in 2012, I use my fingernail to scratch at the bottom of one of the characters' feet to see if I can remove the flocking.

Since the flocking on many of these animals was defective right out of the box, it came as no surprise that I was easily able to scratch off some of Poppy's fur:

That does not fill me with confidence about the durability of these animals.

Here's a Barkster family photo, including Calvin:

Honey Bee Acres Barksters family plus Playground Pal Calvin.

After looking at the Barkster family, all of the Playground Pals, and baby Sadie, I've formed a pretty solid impression of the Honey Bee Acres figures--especially their shortcomings.

First of all, the majority of the characters that I looked at have a defect of some kind in their flocking.  Some of the characters, like Poppy, have multiple, glaring flaws.  Poppy's fur also came off easily with the scratch test.  This gives me no confidence that the flocking will stand up well over time.

Second, while the six points of articulation on these little figures is impressive, many of the characters have joints that are stuck and either can't move at all, or can only move a little bit.  Half of the Playground Pals can't move their heads, and neither of the Barkster children can sit down because of defects in their legs.

Last, the clothing is very simple and has a lot of unfinished edges.  Some of the outfits, like Cooper's, were already starting to fray pretty badly before they'd even come out of the box.  In addition, the outfits with pants are very difficult to put on over the paws of the dog characters.  This could be incredibly frustrating for little kids (it was for me).

But the characters are cute, which makes them easy to like.  I especially enjoy the variety of kids that come with the colorful Playground Pals set.  I also like how these kids (and the blind box babies) can be added to the family sets if more siblings are desired.  I hope Sunny Days Entertainment has plans to make more family sets, especially if those plans include a cow family and a unicorn family!

I have a lot more to say, of course, but this is where I'm gong to take a break for now.  I'll be back on Wednesday to do an in-depth comparison between the Barksters and the other two dog families (here's a link to that review).  In the meantime, let me know your thoughts and if you have any specific comparison questions!