With Halloween fast approaching this seems the perfect time to dig up – terrible pun! – this Mummy action figure from the animated cartoon series Tales from the Cryptkeeper. Running for two seasons from 1993-1994, the Mummy character appeared in episode 11 from the first season – This Wraps It Up – which first aired on December 4, 1993. Created in 1994 by one hit wonder toy manufacturers Ace Novelty, who appear to have only ever produced the Cryptkeeper series, this 4 ¾ inch figure is pretty cool if you are into monster action figures.
Universal Monsters
The Wolf Man aka Midnight Wolf!
Midnight Wolf? Surely, that’s the Wolf Man as played by the great Lon Chaney Jr. in the 1941 Universal horror film of the same name?! Apparently not, folks, although I’ll admit that this 4 ½ inch action figure had me flummoxed for ages! I’m a huge fan of the Universal Monsters so when I saw him going for a song on an Internet auction site I couldn’t resist buying him, but once he had arrived and I’d peeled off the bubble wrap I could find no copyright information, COO or date of manufacture stamped anywhere on the figure. After trawling through dozens of websites I eventually lucked out and found the Universal Monster Army website and a post on the forum there quickly helped me discover the background of this figure.
Richard Roxburgh as Count Dracula in ‘Van Helsing’
With the month of October now well under way, let’s start the countdown to Halloween with the first post in a series dedicated to monsters and ghouls, with a few slayers thrown in too! Today’s action figure is a fresh lucky find that I picked up only yesterday in a mixed box of random toys on a market stall in Rome. Some years need to elapse before this becomes truly vintage, of course, but it’s such a fun figure that it merits its own review now!
Whilst Stephen Sommers’ 2004 action-movie-meets-horror-film Van Helsing starring Hugh Jackman as Gabriel Van Helsing may have divided critics, I thought it was a highly enjoyable if camp homage to some of my favourite all time movies – the Universal Horror Monster films from the 1930s and 40s. One of the high points of the film is certainly the amazingly versatile Richard Roxburgh’s performance as an extremely dapper Count Dracula.
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.
Lon Chaney Jr. – The original Wolf Man!
With Benicio del Toro currently starring in The Wolfman movie as the latest in a long line of cinematographic lycanthropes, I thought this would be a an excellent excuse to take a look back at the greatest Wolf Man of them all – Lon Chaney Jr.
I saw this Universal Studios Monsters action figure in the window of a second-hand store recently and could scarcely believe my eyes – although I’d known about this Sideshow Collectibles figure for years, it had sold out very quickly soon after release in 1998 and I thought it unlikely that I would ever happen upon one at a bargain price – certainly not in Rome, Italy! I’m a huge fan of those old Universal Pictures monster movies so this was a must-have!