Debs – Page 20 – Vintage Action Figures

Cornelius from Planet of the Apes by Mego

Cornelius from Planet of the Apes, a Mego classic!

As promised in last week’s post, here’s another of the Mego action figure treasures from the loft that were excavated on my last trip back home to visit family in the UK. Like the Fist Fighting Batman we looked at last time, this is another highly collectible action figure that my sister played with as a child. Of all her toys, this 8-inch Mego Cornelius figure is one that I remember in particular as being one of her absolute favourites. As kids we adored the Planet of the Apes TV show and would tune in every Saturday morning to watch it during the mid-1970s.

Mego Fist Fighting Super Heroes – Batman

Holy Fist Fighting Super Heroes, Batman!

I recently returned home to Rome from my summer holidays in the UK visiting friends and family. I managed to pick up a few action figure bargains in flea markets, but also made some exciting discoveries in my parents’ loft! As a kid back in the 1970s my younger sister had some pretty cool action figures. I vaguely remembered her having owned a Batman and Robin and a Planet of the Apes figure, so had been itching to send Dad up into the attic for some time to check if they were produced by the mighty Mego! It took some digging around to find them – thanks Dad! – but eventually a biscuit tin was found which proved to be a treasure trove of Mego figures in fantastic condition. Clearly, my sister played with her toys very carefully! I’ll share all of the finds over the next few weeks, but to kick things off here’s Batman, one of the Mego Fist Fighting Super Heroes.

Lando Calrissian: Show me your teeth!

When today’s toy manufacturers launch a new action figure with myriad variations it’s hard not to smile ruefully and picture the board meeting in which that decision was made and to hear the Kerching! of the cash register ringing in one’s head as collectors scramble to add every version to their set. It’s fun, therefore, to look back at vintage action figures with genuine oddities or variations depending on their country of origin or for reasons which are hard to explain. Kenner’s Star Wars action figures practically invented band wagon film tie-in merchandising and this smiling Lando Calrissian is an excellent example of the variations out there.

Skatin’ Raphael

Before taking a bit of an August blogging break I wanted to leave you all with a summery action figure, so what better than Skatin’ Raphael dressed up with all his sporting gear?

When Playmates Toys relaunched their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line in 2003 to coincide with the all new animated series they produced some truly wonderful and highly inventive action figures – robust articulation, impressive attention to detail and masses of exciting accessories for children to lose down the back of the sofa!

Creature from the Black Lagoon – Mini Monsters by Remco

I’m a huge fan of classic Universal Monster movies and consequently have a real weakness for any Universal Monsters action figures I happen to find. Luckily, these film characters have been revisited by toy manufacturers time and time again over the years and there are plenty of them out there for collectors to get their fangs into!

The Mini Monsters line is one of my absolute favourites – at 3 ¾ inches these were small, but perfectly formed, action figures that actually carried strikingly good movie likenesses.

Two-Face from Batman: The Animated Series

After our look at the Super Powers Robin last week, let’s stick with the Batman theme, but this time take a look at one of his greatest enemies – the crime boss and terrifyingly insane Two-Face. As fans of DC Comics will know, once upon a time Two-Face was Harvey Dent, the District Attorney of Gotham City, and fought crime alongside Batman. The horrible disfigurement he suffered during a trial when acid was thrown over the left side of his face, however, pushed him over the edge, his schizophrenic personality further empathized by his constant flipping of a coin – heads or tails to Two-Face meant life or death, good or evil!

Kenner Super Powers: Robin!

Scrolling back through recent posts I realised that this website is a little light on Batman, so let’s fix that right away with a look at his erstwhile sidekick Robin as he appeared in the first series of Kenner‘s wonderful Super Powers action figures from 1984. This 4-inch figure was a superb version of The Boy Wonder – given his more mature nickname The Teen Wonder on the packaging – and like the other figures in the line had his very own Super Power. Wait, I hear you cry, Dick Grayson may have have a whole lot of circus acrobatic stunts in his bag of tricks, but saying that as Robin he was possessed of super powers is stretching things a little!

Raiders of the Lost Ark: Toht

One of the secrets of the success of many movie spin-off toy lines is surely not only the popularity of the hero, but also that of the nemesis. Kenner’s wonderful 1982 series of 3 ¾ inch action figures – Adventures of Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark – is a case in point, where Indiana Jones has several seriously bad guys to face down during the film as he struggles to block Nazi efforts to get their hands on the Ark of the Covenant. I’m assuming that anybody reading this post has seen Raiders of the Lost Ark – if you haven’t, then I should alert you that this post might contain a few spoilers! Arnold Ernst Toht, the Nazi Gestapo agent sent to recover the headpiece of the Staff of Ra and who meets a spectacular cinematic demise in the grand finale, is just one of Indy’s enemies to be immortalised as an action figure.