Potterheads Rejoice! SDCC 2018 Harry Potter Funkos Announced

Image from Funko

This year’s Harry Potter San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) Exclusive Funkos are mostly ghostly. Two of Hogwarts most famous haunts are commemorated in special full-sized glow in the dark collectible figurines: Nearly Headless Nick and Moaning Myrtle.

To celebrate these phenomenal phantoms here are some fun facts about everyone’s favourite bathroom dwelling Ravenclaw:

An Outsider From the Start: Myrtle Elizabeth Warren (yes! surname!) was born in 1920 to muggle parents.

MOM Knows Best: After Myrtle’s mayhem and revenge got too much the Minister of Magic permanently confined her to Hogwarts lavatories and washrooms.

Numbers Game: Myrtle was 14 when she was killed by the Basilisk. Actress Shirley Henderson who portrayed Myrtle in the Chamber of Secrets film was 36 years-old at the time of filming! Henderson was the oldest actor in the history of the Harry Potter film franchise to play a Hogwarts student.

Vintage Threads: Costume designers Lindy Hemming and Judianna Makovsky tweaked Myrtle’s Hogwarts uniform to reflect the time period she died in, the 1940s. The material is rougher with smocking by her collar.

The trivia fun continues with our favourite Gryffindor ghost, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington whose botched beheading sets him apart from the other Hogwarts dwelling spirits:

More than a Knight: Sir Nicholas was officially appointed wizard for a royal English court in the 15th century

A dentist he is not:  Casting a spell to fix the crooked teeth of a lady-in-waiting he fancied, Lady Grieve, ended in disaster. Grieve’s teeth transformed into TUSKS (oops) and Sir Nicholas was arrested and beheaded (well, kinda) for it. 

Sir Comedy Skits: Oscar-nominated actor John Cleese who plays Nearly Headless Nick in Harry Potter in the Sorcerers Stone and The Chamber of Secrets is also known for performing with the British comedy troupe Monty Python

Peevish Pals: Nick isn’t a fan of the raspberry-blowing Poltergeist Peeves, but in the Chamber of Secrets book he convinces Peeves to cause a distraction to give Harry a chance to escape Filch’s office and punishment. Harry’s crime? Tracking mud into Hogwarts. Peeves ends up smashing a vanishing cabinet. The very same one that reappears in The Half-Blood Prince, where Draco Malfoy mends it to give the Death Eaters passage into the castle.

Sir’s Style: Nearly-Headless Nick’s flamboyant fashion was influenced by John Cleese himself. He reportedly told one of the head costume designers and seamstresses, Judianna Makovsky to “go to town” with his Elizabethan and Jacobean-era outfit. Makovsky crafted the outfits, each accurate to the Hogwarts ghosts various time periods, out of a mesh fabric woven with copper wire. This means that Nick’s, Myrtle’s and the other Hogwarts haunts wore clothes that were more detailed and solid versus the sheer and billowy fabric that often makes up ghostly wardrobes in films.

There you have it, some not-so-terrifying trivia all about two spectacular school-dwelling spirits.

This summers SDCC takes place this July from the 19th to the 22nd. Don’t fret if you can’t make it to the SDCC via floo powder or apparation, in the past Hot Topic and Barnes and Noble’s stores have received a limited supply of these SDCC exclusives to sell in their stores for reasonable prices. They should be available for purchase in late July.

Currently, Myrtle is also available as a Barnes and Noble Exclusive  Series 3 Mystery Mini with a different design and as a smaller version and a non glow-in-the-dark Nearly Headless Nick is sold in all stores and online.  

So friends and funko fans, what are your thoughts on these two exclusives!? Are you going to add both ghosts to you collection, or just one or the other?!  

Sources

All gifs from giphy

Pottermore's Ghosts of Hogwarts 

John Cleese IMDB page

Shirley Henderson IMDB page 

The Character Vault by Jody Revenson

Harry Potter Page to Screen the Complete Film Making Journey by Bob McCabe