I have a very wide
knowledge of children’s playthings, but if I see a toy – especially an action
figure - that I think’s cool I’ll buy it whether I recognise it or not, and
that is how you end up with no money and no space despite living in a terrace house.
For instance, this tiger:
This art to me. Ok that’s a
little exaggeration but not by much, I have no idea where this little bloke
came from, he was just on a table amidst various other toys and something about
his crudity spoke to me the way antique furniture never does and I wanted him
in my house. The thought that he was probably going to end up chewed and thrown
away upset me, so now he sits in the box with all my other cheap animals and
dinosaurs and has friends and someone who cares about him. Of course I still
want to know who made the toy and what line it was released under, that is
often harder than it seems (I still haven’t I.D.d Tony up there), even in
today’s internet age with forum threads and Facebook pages solely dedicated to
identifying toys – they still rely on people who visit them knowing what the
fuck your thing is after all. Sometimes though I stumble upon the identity of
total stumpers by accident, usually in unrelated Google Images or eBay
searches, this post has five action figures(ish) who were I.D.d that way. I’m
not saying this is the only place on the web where you can find info on these
lines, that would be presumptuous and quite ridiculous (anyway even if it was
true it would only be true for about a day before someone posted the info
somewhere else), but these have a small enough internet presence that it felt
worthwhile doing this. So are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin:
Atomic Ranger
Warriors
1995, Lanard
Of note is that there are 3
¼ inch versions and one of those was packaged with a water blaster, this is all
about 5 inch versions. It’s really weird to see Lanard’s name on a toy that
isn’t The Corps and a reminder that just because The Corps has become an
accepted brand by us internet dwelling toy nerds it was still a knock-off line
from a company that made such things. But it’s also a nice reminder of why the
Corps became so accepted and have lasted so long – quality and creativity; the
Atomic Ranger Warriors are one of the, if not the, best made vintage Power Rangers knock-offs with thick plastic
and a whole heap of joints, these motherfuckers have ball joints, ball joints, on a knock off figure, in 1995! And while
most companies were happy to just produce near exact copies of the Power
Rangers suits just with enough changes to the chest design and helmet to avoid
a lawsuit, Lanard stick with the basic design elements of the Mighty Morphin’
ones enough to confuse parents into buying their wares but go off into their
own Lazer Tag meets Rob Liefeld world, these guys could just has easily have
fought Darkhawk or been playable in a poor selling NES game as be rip-offs of
Jason, Kimberly et all. Some of that may come from Lanard reusing parts (look
at my Atomic Ranger, you can clearly see the vest sculpted into his torso) to
approximate a Power Ranger but hey, it works, take the praise where you get it
Lanard.
The Last
Warrior
Madison Ltd
I tried to find out more
about these things but they’re a bitch to search for, Google’ll just give you loads
of stuff on The Warriors film and Skeleton Warriors, so all I really found out
was that I still don’t own a Mezco Baseball Fury and the bloke with the beard
from October Toys still irritates me and both of these things made me sad. I
can’t even be sure I have the right company (they were listed as being by
Madison on an old eBay auction) however I’m pretty confident that eBay seller
was right, as well as them owning the damn things on card, three of the figures
share heads with Madison’s Wrestling Champions and their construction’s the
same as Madison’s Wrestling Champions (hard body and softer heads) – mind you
neither of those things are unusual amidst knock-off lines so maybe I’m talking
shit.
Regardless these are pretty
sweet, the ‘sergeant’ head on the figure I have (Sgt Peppard) is a decent
soldier head and is full of character – he looks like he’s going to bust your
balls for falling out of line, then fall out of line to save two of his men
stuck behind a rock half way up some god forsaken hill. Plus if you can find
‘em carded (good luck sailor) they come with a ton of accessories including
random futuristic helmets and look, more ball joints! Going by the basic
descriptions on the back of the cards we have both a heroic and villainous set
of armed forces here – one made up of Sgt Peppard, Dr Thor and Captain Matador
(the heroes, who all have original heads) and the other made up of Skarvski, Lt
Cameron and Talos (the villains, who all share heads with Wrestling Champions),
I enjoy it when even the cheapest toys provide play patterns for the kids, and
it works too – before I knew this
Skarvski was just a Wrestling Champion in a bandoleer but now I know he’s the
evil counterpart to my figure I need
to own him. Nowadays all that’s gonna result in is some eBay seller making too
much money but back when these were out (whenever that was) that would have
gotten Madison (or whoever) another sale.
Galaxy
Trooper
1996, Wing
Sang Toys
The aliens in these sets
are easily one of the coolest alien action figures I own, these four armed
Xenomorphs with two heads taken
straight from Dr Seuss and painted like Sectaurs. I’m of the opinion, an
opinion based on the title and general design of the two figures in each set,
that this is one of those ‘twofer’ knock-off lines where dodgy toy companies
put out a line that apes several popular/semi-popular things at the time – in
this case Power Rangers, Kenner’s Alien toyline and maybe Star Wars – in one
‘original’ concept, of course it’s always possible it’s just an original
concept drawing influence from one genre (sci-fi) but my cynical heart has
trouble believing any cheap toy isn’t a knock-off. There’s a whole bunch of
different colours of these – there’s at least three flavours of the alien and
two flavours of the Galaxy Trooper which just makes me happy - a small rainbow
of Dr Seuss Kali Xenomorphs!
Gladiator
Warriors
1993, PMS
Ok, PMS only distributed these in the U.K. according
to their packaging, given that the costumes of the figures resemble the
American Gladiators more than any other I’m guessing they were made by someone
else and distributed by someone equally else in the US/Canada/Mexico. Owners of
the least fortunate initials since the Central Underground National Travel
agency closed down PMS distribute a load of cheap toys here, including a lot of
the soft toys caught (or not, depending on how dickish the owner’s feeling that
day) in our UFO catchers, they’ve got a factory on the Southend Road.
This is the first time I’ve
talked about Gladiators on this blog and I’m ashamed of that, I remain a huge
fan of the UK Gladiators TV show, which was a cross between Professional
Wrestling and an obstacle course, as a kid I was all in on it and we went to
see a semi/quarter/final each year it from 1993 to 1996. 1993 was the beginning
of the show’s peak popularity and if American Gladiators was half as popular as
Gladiators were they were absolutely worth knocking off, which these do. This
is why they figures are in those weird ‘riding a motorcycle or possibly
shitting while using a zimmer frame’ pose, because that’s the post the official
Gladiators and American Gladiators toys were in (I think it was to allow for
some of the playsets that represented the various games in the show,
specifically The Duel) but there are Gladiators knock-offs that use the
standard Galaxy Warriors-style body too, they’re usually sold under some
variant of the name ‘Challengers’. Yes there are multiple Gladiators knock-off
lines, I told you: this show was hot shit once upon a time and in my little
world it still is – so don’t fucking diss.
*ehem* sorry
Star Attack
2001
Star Attack may be one of
the greatest bootleg toy lines ever – the regular cards mixed Colorform’s The
Outer Space Men with fucking Gerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds on a card that mixed
Star Wars with The Last Action Hero (possibly unintentionally) and then they
painted all the toys, which are roughly the size and quality of something you’d
get out of a fairly expensive Christmas cracker, in metallic colours!. They
turned one of the best designed –and expensive- toylines into inexpensive
mini-figures then mixed them with one of the greatest kids shows of all time,
and then coloured them like sculptures from Tomorrowland. I just…this is…if you
can’t understand why this is cool just from a description you probably never
will so maybe I should stop but…it’s very hard to not be enthusiastic about
something made up of these things.
I can’t quite put my finger
on where the space ship in the playset pack comes from though but I know I’ve
seen it before, I mean that may have been because I saw Star Attack in stores
so I may in fact remember the Star Attack playset from Star Attack but I’m
pretty sure that’s not the case, whatever it is it’s not from Mighty Max or
TMNT: Mini-Mutants, it kind of looks like one of the Attack Pack, only without
the tentacles and teeth.
And there you are, now you
know where these figures come from, and knowing is the half the battle
remember? Sgt Slaughter taught you that, and if you can’t trust a man who’s
named after horrible murder who can you trust? And that’s why you should trust
me: Mr Massacre.
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