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.
Decades: 1990s
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.
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!
Jurassic Park by Kenner: Alan Grant
One of the things that becomes patently clear when one looks at action figures of as recently ago as the mid 1990s, is that kids were clearly far less demanding about having their spin-off toys actually look like the actor in the film. This 5 inch Jurassic Park action figure with the standard five points of articulation was issued by Kenner in 1993 at the height of Jurassic Park movie mania and was an enormously popular figure in a line that leaped off toy store shelves as fast as you can say “T-Rex”! The fact that the facial sculpt didn’t even come close to resembling the actor Sam Neill who played Doctor Alan Grant in the movie didn’t seem to matter one bit! He’s recognizable more than anything by his hat!
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!
Toy Story: Disney and McDonald’s Happy Meals
As somebody who has been a vegetarian for the last 23 years I haven’t seen the inside of a McDonald’s for quite some time, or likewise, collected any Happy Meal toys directly in a McDonald’s restaurant; their action figures do seem to pop up regularly on market stalls, however, and that’s where I found this Woody the other day. Love them or hate them, the McDonald’s Happy Meal action figures have clearly cornered a slice of the collectors’ market – earlier this year UK newspaper the Daily Mail reported that an entrepreneurial 11-year-old had sold his entire collection of McDonald’s memorabilia for over £8,000 sterling!
From 1996 through to the end of 2006, Disney films were often promoted via the free gimmicks and toys given away with Happy Meals, until their relationship with McDonald’s finally ended in 2007. Whilst there’s nothing officially on the record by the Disney company about the real motivation for its distancing itself from McDonald’s it would be easy to imagine that growing criticism blaming the fast food giant for childhood obesity may have played a part.
Hulk Hogan with Hulkster Slam!
After a great August break we’re back in the saddle here at Vintage Action Figures with a bit of 1990s wrestling nostalgia with this vintage WWF Wrestling Action Figure of Hulk Hogan made by Hasbro under license from Titan Sports.
Hasbro took over production of wrestling figures when toy-makers LJN – responsible for the enormously popular Wrestling Superstars line – folded in 1989.
This particular Hulk Hogan is the fourth of 4 different Hulk Hogan figures that Hasbro made, and as with others in the line, features a trademark action move – the Hulkster Slam! This loose figure was originally sold as part of the Blue Card Series 5 and although the figure is in reasonable shape, it has seen a bit of paint wear, with the yellow Python Power transfer on the red bandanna having suffered the most. In spite of small defects, I was powerless to resist the power of Hulkmania, and snapped this one up at a market stall.