T is for ♫♪♫♫ Tank Heavurn for Leettle Girrrls! ♫♪♪♪

Bit of an odyssey on this one, so we'll start with the 2000/2001 Archie McPhee catalogue, sent free when I purchased the YT re-issue Giant knights and Mongols from them . . . twenty years ago (where does it go?); a small, black and white image . . .

. . . but it peaked my interest, even though at the time I was 'small scale' only, clearly harking back to the rubber jigglers of past gum-ball vending machine capsule prizes, while also being scantily-clad 'babes' of some allure, what's not to like!

Fast-forward about twelve years and Brian Carrick put four in a bag of cheepies for me at a PW show - one of the first at the new venue - and I was holding them from the blog thinking there were eight in the set so four still to find, but the other day I saw the same four on evilBay and though "Oh. maybe it was only ever the four?", so shot them to Blog - here above; Draconia and Reptilia!

Here we have Sarapede and Tarantuella, they are all 'Stab & Hope' painted, which only really adds to their retro-charm, and are manufactured in a very soft silicon-rubber, so could be called 'strechies' as well as jigglers!

However I'd then found the catalogue and realised there were six pose and after scanning the catalogue, quickly found one cheap BIN on feeBay and fired-off some of my shekels to receive this a week or so ago! I'm not opening it, as I'll find the two missing ones loose at some point.

Note that it's actually branded to Accoutrements, Archie McPhee is the headquarters with a large store, Accoutrements is the retail branding, rather like our Tobar/Hawkin's Bazaar, but I don't think Accoutrements have a chain of stores like Hawkin's did - until recently!

But I did shoot them in-situ, to finish the article and this is Vampira, the vampish bat-lady, harbinger of Covid!

And possibly my favourite; The Scorpion Queen.

In looking into these, I realised I should have known there were six, not just because the catalogue was in the archive, but because Littleweirdos and Shean's fantasy Soldiers posted them ages ago and I've always followed both blogs, but just as you can't physically own everything, so too your brain doesn't retain everything! So, a shout out to them and I also found the designer of the follow-on product's artwork.

Little Weirdos Blog
Shaun's Fantasy Toy Soldiers Blog
Kurt Hanks, Designer

In a hobby-world where nearly all the product represents male figures, it has to be said that Archie/Accoutrements have flown the flag for women since their inception, with Rosie the Riveter, flying nuns, flick-nuns, grow your own hookers, nuns, tarts and girlfriends (well, maybe not always the high-point of feminism!) found in the catalogue over the years!

They also produced (or commissioned) the above; 70mm red-carpet 'fans', 70mm glow-in-the-dark zombie women and one of the few true action figures in my collection; the Crazy Cat Lady . . . for the six cats of course! And there's a set of B-movie panicking victims, with several females, somewhere, who go well with the zombies!