With Halloween nearly upon us I thought it would be a great time to share another vintage figure from my Universal Monsters collection. I’m a huge fan of these classic horror movies produced by Universal Studios during the 1930s, movies which turned actors such as Bela Lugosi (Dracula), Lon Chaney, Jr. (The Wolf Man) and Boris Karloff (The Mummy and Frankenstein), into legendary Hollywood figures. Whilst the Remco Mini Monsters are the focus of my movie collection, I can never resist buying just about any action figure with a Universal Monsters theme, even if I don’t necessarily recognise the toy line.
Manufacturers: Simba
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.