What is U.B. Funkeys?
U.B. Funkeys was a toys-to-life video game by Mattel, and developed by Radica Games, that was active from 2007 to 2010. Players would purchase a large "hub" Funkey, which plugged into the user's PC, and several small Funkeys, which would sit on top of the hub. They could then play as those Funkeys in game!
The game itself consists of minigames (each Funkey unlocks a new game), which reward players with coins. Coins can then be used to purchase furniture for the user's crib. Playing the games enough will unlock shards, which form together to make gems, which progresses the game's simplistic storyline.
A guide to playing U.B. Funkeys on a modern PC can be found here!
My Crib (as of 17/08/23)
Click for a better look!
My Collection
Here's my current physical collection of U.B. Funkeys (excluding hubs):
Although I would love to have a larger collection, I don't intend to buy any more Funkeys than I currently own. Nine of the Funkeys above were owned by me as a child, with the Funkiki Island Adventure Pack (the Dorito shaped dudes) being the only Funkeys I've purchased as an adult. There's something kind of lovely and nostalgic about that, not to mention that buying Funkeys second-hand these days is a bit of a nightmare. It's easy to run into inflated prices or bulk sales of Funkeys which include several repeats. Not great if you want a varied collection.
That said, U.B. Funkeys are still decently collectible, despite the game servers being shut down. This is for two major reasons: They're robust, unique art toys (they are made of vinyl and have minor articulation in their heads) and they each come in three different colour variations (common, rare and ulra rare). You can see in my collection above that I was lucky enough to get a rare Berger.
That said, there is still one item I'd love to add to my collection...
My Holy Grail
Image courtesy of @theSpeakEasy, an amazing U.B. Funkeys blog
Feast your eyes on the greatest speakers invented by man.
I have no doubt that the audio quality is hot garbage from these bad boys, but I would absolutely use them regardless. I wouldn't stop using them until they completely exploded. They're designed to look like Scratch, a DJ Funkey, and even light up when in use!
Getting specific Funkeys online is hard (and expensive) enough, so you can imagine how rare Funkey accessories are.
But there are even rarer Funkeys to be found...
Unreleased Funkeys
U.B. Funkeys was cancelled in 2010, with the servers anti-climactically closing in January of 2011. The final realm was added in 2009, Paradox Green. Paradox Green, like every realm, came with a whole series of new Funkeys to collect (some of the hardest to track down, in my experience), but one Funkey would never arrive on store shelves.
The Funkey that would allow you to "change the gay music" (the iFunk) never materialised, despite having a whole advert dedicated to it. But it wasn't alone!
Image courtesy of @theSpeakEasy, yet again!
A full DC expansion pack was shown off during SDCC 2008 and the Consumer Electronics Show 2009. Unfortunately (and annoyingly), it was set to release mere weeks after U.B. Funkeys died. Most interestingly, the expo featured a Joker Funkey in packaging!
The NY ToyFair in 2009 would give us even more glimpses into unreleased Funkeys. This time, it's two adventure packs. Adventure packs were special packs that featured Funkeys with a funky shape, eschewing the usual Funkey anatomy, instead being modeled after NPCs and enemies in the game. They would usually give some kind of in-game reward rather than a game to play.
Image courtesy of @theSpeakEasy, once more. Higher quality photos can be found on the blog
Here, you can see Goya and Dali from the Dream State expansion and Kane and King Sidd from the Hidden Realm expansion. That Tumblr Sexyman in the fedora in the back is Marshall, the in-game guide for the Dream State expansion. Interestingly, he has an alternate white version, perhaps implying these adventure packs would have had a rarity system like regular Funkeys.
Now, this is not an exhaustive list of unreleased Funkeys. Occasionally other unreleased designs will pop-up in in-game art or behind-the-scenes production images. However, they rarely go beyond the design stage, so I've focused here on the ones that actually breached into our physical reality. That way, I can dream about holding them for my own :'o)
Design Your Own!
Here's an official template to design your Funkeysona! This was originally hosted on the official U.B. Funkeys site, before it's closure. Click to open in a new tab to download.
Further Reading
Here's some other sites dedicated to U.B. Funkeys, worth a look if you're curious to learn more or just feeling nostalgic.
The Official U.B. Funkeys Website (Accessed through the Wayback Machine)
