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.
