Collectible of the Week: Archie Bunker's Grandson (Ideal)

Collectible of the Week: The Black Hole “Assortment of Fun” (Western Publishing Company, Inc; 1979)

The year 1979 was one of my favorites in childhood, no doubt because it saw the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century, Alien, Moonraker, and last but not least, Disney’s The Black Hole.  I collected toys, magazines, model-kits, comic-books, novelizations and more from each of those productions.

But as a fourth grader, I really, really loved The Black Hole.  

This boxed set from Western Publishing Company, Inc., includes many activity books and paper toys based on the film including a “Little Golden Book,” “A Golden Poster Storybook,” A Golden Book of Things to Do,” “A Press-Out Book,” “A Coloring  Book,” “Crayons” and “2 Robot Puppets.” 

The two robot puppets, as you might surmise, are V.I.N.Cent and Maximillian  And the press-out book allows the intrepid kid to build paper versions of the Cygnus and the Palomino.

The back of the box describes the set as “an astronomical assortment of fun that’s out of this world,” and to a ten-year old kid, that’s precisely what it was.  

I remember that my (now-deceased) grandfather bought me this box set at a five-and-dime at the Jersey shore in the summer of 1980, and that during the whole week at the beach, I wanted to stay inside the rental and play with the Black Hole ships and robots.  My parents had to force me to actually go to the ocean.

I know…I’m a geek.  But one of my favorite parts of this toy is a paper backdrop of the Cygnus bridge, and small cut-outs of all the major characters, from Captain Holland and to Commander Reinhardt.

To this day, I remember that beach trip because of this very toy set, my grandfather's gift, and the time I spent imagining further adventures and sequels to The Black Hole.

Collectible of the Week: Joe 90 (Dinky): "Joe's Car"

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S.W.A.T. Action Figures and Playsets (LJN)

Collectibles of the Week: Battle of the Planets (Gordy International)

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Special Equipment

Terminator Week: Collectible of the Week: Terminator 2 Bio-Flesh Regenerator (Kenner; 1991)

The year 1991 brought a whole line of new Kenner toys -- including vehicles and action figures -- based on James Cameron’s blockbuster Terminator 2: Judgment Day.   One of the neatest of these toys was the Bio-Flesh Regenerator Playset which offered kids the opportunity to “Mold and Destroy your own Terminator!”

As the box describes the set, “The Bio-Flesh Regenerator was created in the year 2030. This awesome unit is used to completely cover the metal skeleton of the TERMINATOR with real skin to make him totally undetectable to humans.”

The Bio-Flesh Regenerator “Molds Ten Figures,” “Comes with six battle weapons,” and “Skin actually comes off in Battles.”  The box also notes that the set includes: one playset, two Endoskeleton Action Figures, two Cans of Non-Toxic Bio-Flesh Refills, one Trim Knife, and six Weapons.”

“Create your own Terminator…then tear him apart in battle!”

Return of the Jedi (1983) Presto Magix

Collectible of the Week: Yoda Hand Puppet (1980; Kenner)

Collectible of the Week: Space:1999 Commlocks (LJN; 1975)

Collectible of the Week: Star Bird: Intruder (Milton Bradley)

One of my favorite toy-lines of the 1970s and early 1980s is the “Star Bird” from Milton Bradley. 

 Today I wanted to remember the final toy in this “franchise:” The Star Bird Intruder.

The box terms this menacing ship “the electronic space raider” featuring “exciting engine sounds, firing photon beams, battle sounds and a special target.” 

Equipped with new “exciting electronics,” this toy features a pistol grip for dogfights with the Avenger but which takes away from the compact design and reality of the design a little.  One really awesome element, however, is the “skull” cockpit decal which suggests that the space raider is actually a pirate ship.

I also never liked the fact that this “villain” ship in the line features the same nose component of the Star Bird.  I would have preferred something entirely different or alien. 

But, when I was a kid and played with this toy, the “pretend” story-line involved the fact that the bad guy “space raiders” had cannibalized a derelict Star Bird and re-purposed it.  I wish I still had my Intruder today, but I only have a few pieces, the nose cone sans the outer shell, and a piece of one of the engine casings that came off.

Still, I love these Star Birds toys, and as a reader suggested not long ago, someone should come along and turn these toys into a great space movie.  The design of the Avenger and the Command Base still hold up, and even the old Intruder could make a cameo appearance.

Collectible of the Week: Star Bird Command Base (Milton Bradley)

One of the greatest of all Star Wars knock-off toy lines came from Milton Bradley in the late 1970s.  The Electronic Star Bird (Milton Bradley) came first, and later the The Star Bird Avenger and The Star Bird Intruder.  

The designs for these plastic, interactive starships were fantastic, and the vessels could even come apart and re-form in new combinations, not entirely unlike the Micronaut Hornetroid or the Mattel Eagle One that I covered here last week.

My (now-deceased) grandfather drove me all over New Jersey in 1979 in an effort to find a Star Bird.  We finally found both at Willowbrook Mall in what I believe was a Radio Shack.  He purchased the ship for me at a price of thirty dollars, and then took me to lunch at Roy Rogers.  It was a day I’ll never forget, and which means a lot to me, especially now.

From the same Milton Bradley set comes the Star Bird Command Base, a huge “action control center” for the Electronic Star Bird. 

As the back of the box describes it: “The command base is a fabulous, fun accessory for more great excitement with your Star Bird.  Assemble the strikingly detailed fiber board and action plastic parts.  When you’re done, you have a specially equipped elevator base and control tower.”

Features of the base include:

“Anti-invasion laser guns: Set the turret bases into the corners of the tower cap. Mount the anti-invasion laser guns into any two of the bases and you can rotate them to return enemy fire.”

“Real working crane and hoist: Fit the working crane and hoist into any one of the four turret bases.  Pick-up the transport vehicle and swing it into the maintenance tunnel.”

“Transport vehicle: “You’ll have lots of fun with the transport vehicle.  It has four rolling wheels and a special carrier unit designed to hold the laser guns, Star Bird’s escape pod, its power thruster engine, or interceptors.”

“Interceptor landing deck: Star Bird’s interceptors sweep onto the Control Tower’s special landing deck.  Rush them over to the main landing platform on the transport vehicle using the multi-purpose carrier.”

Requiring assembly, the Star Bird Command Base is absolutely huge at a height of over 25”.  I had one of these for the longest time, but then in a fit of over-generosity gave mine away to a friend’s child in 1997.  I’ve regretted being so nice ever since. What was I thinking?

Just kidding!

I recently got my hands on the very Command Base you see pictured in this post, and Joel and I assembled it together. 

Go Ape Week: Planet of the Apes Village (Mego)

In the 1970s, Mego held the Star Trek, Planet of the Apes and Marvel and D.C. superheroes licenses, and created some absolutely amazing toys that have now become prized collectors items. 

Growing up, I absolutely loved Planet of the Apes. I avidly read the magazines and comics from Marvel, and played with the action figures and play sets from Mego. As a kid in the 1970s, I could find many of these toys cheap at garage sales. I still remember the time I purchased a boxed POTA tree house and Forbidden Zone play set for one dollar a piece. 

Best. Saturday. Ever.

One terrific and much beloved Mego Planet of the Apes toy from this era is the Planet of the Apes Village, a "giant 3 foot play set, headquarters for all Planet of the Apes 8 inch action figures." 

Truth be told, this play set is highly reminiscent of Mego's Batcave play set, but what the heck.  It's still cool.

The Planet of the Apes village folds down into a small carry case, and also opens up into this huge diorama of Ape City as seen in the 1968 film starring Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowall.  There's a "secret entrance" to Ape City, plus plenty of accouterments.  These include a "laboratory table" (for dissecting humans, no doubt...), a flip-up "weapons bench," a "capture net and carry pole," a "detention pen," "3 control sticks" and "3 rifles."

When fully assembled (with a green mat bridging the two ends,) the play set is a pretty impressive thing, but I love the fact you can fold it up and carry it with you so easily.   

The play set itself is made up of laminated cardboard, decorated with some expressive art from the Apes saga (including vistas of the Statue of Liberty and Ape City itself). 

I'm not sure how much kids of today would love this retro play set, but for me the Planet of the Apes village just absolutely takes me back to the disco decade, and some great times spent in the company of Zira, Cornelius, Zaius, Urko and the rest.

Collectible of the Week: Willow Miniatures (Tonka; 1988)

Collectible of the Week: A Nightmare on Elm Street Talking Freddy (Matchbox)

You may not be old enough to remember this arcane bit of Americana, but there was a spell in the late 1980s of...Freddy-mania. 

Okay, perhaps the movement wasn't as big as Beatlemania in the 1960s, but it was still a considerable commercial force. 

Specifically, three A Nightmare on Elm Street pictures starring Robert Englund were released between 1987 and 1989, along with rap songs about this famous bastard son of a 100 maniacs. 

Also, toys of Freddy (and his notorious finger-knives) were hot items. In particular, I always like to remember one particular statistic from 1988 that showed more five year olds of the day recognized Freddy Krueger than they did Abraham Lincoln.  

You can imagine how that went over with the Moral Majority.

Ah, the good old days...

This gruesome representation of Wes Craven's horror movie icon (intended for ages "8 and up") stands a whopping 18-inches all, and comes adorned in the character's trademark fedora and ratty red-and-green sweater.  

And yes, he's wearing his finger knives.

The figure also features "poseable arms and legs," but best of all, croaks out juicy (and evil...) bon-mots, just like his quipping, silver-screen counterpart.

"Each time you pull Freddy's string, he has a special message just for you!" notes the legend on the back of the box. 

Among Freddy's catchphrases:  "Hi, I'm Freddy," "Pleasant Dreams," "Let's Be Friends," "Welcome to Elm Street," and "Watch out, Freddy's back!" 

Imaginatively, the interior of the Talking Freddy's box is designed to look like Krueger's boiler room, the very place he stalks and traps his prey.

It's a little strange to think about America's eight year olds playing with a large action figure of a notorious (fictional) child murderer, but on the other hand, children have always had a real (and I'd argue, healthy...) fascination with cinematic monsters. 

Seen in that context, Freddy was merely the latest iteration of that fascination, after Dracula, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Godzilla.  After all, his TV series, Freddy's Nightmares (1988 - 1990) even made Freddy a regular fixture in living rooms for a while, a "hosting" job that softened his more horrific movie image.

By 1994, Wes Craven himself was commenting on the yin and yang of Freddy-mania in his Pirandello-esque re-imagination, Wes Craven's New Nightmare.  I think he found a pretty good answer about the whole situation, likening Freddy to the witch from Hansel and Gretel. 

In other words, there's an appropriate place for old Pizza Face in our culture, and that place emerges from our long cultural tradition for enjoying the macabre and the terrifying. 

Here are more details about the toy from original sculptor, Rich Roland. 

He writes:

"I took a few photos for you to see the original size of Freddy's head, close up and un-painted."

"It's my artist's proof casting at full scale of the polished wax sculpt super-master I created, that eventually would be burnt out of the mold, lost wax method. This way they have bunches of seamless vinyls to use as masters and go into production. Castings shrink 3.5% each time, so by the time it gets to market it's 7% smaller than my original."

"At the risk of boring you any more with this techno talk, just imagine how washed out and small Talking Freddy doll was by the time it was bought out from Matchbox and sold at Spencer Gifts by a new manufacturer years after the toy was banned from the shelves because of the AFA and conservative mentalities you mentioned. Right on. It was a first! Ha. The news even made it to Entertainment Tonight. I have the event somewhere on VHS packed in the attic somewhere..."

I want to thank Mr. Roland for sharing with me and the readers some more history behind the creation of such a memorable 1980s collectible...