There was some equally interesting stuff in Chris's latest parcel, some of it ID'd thanks to Shaun's excellent Fantasy Toy Soldier Blog (link below), my go-to for a lot of this stuff, although I probably don't consult it as often as I ought to!
My second Crackerjack space figure, there were ten, not twelve, which I know because soon after showing my first here, all ten were posted elsewhere by three different authors, well, fancy that, as
Private Eye would say!
These were the chaps ID'd on Shaun's Blog, here;
About 2/3rds of the way down the page, as Trendmasters' 'Rumble Wars', and there are many more on that page, but it's nice to have a reference sample, for future comparisons.
One of them however, the one on the right here, would appear to be a copy or second tranche figure, he's smaller, unmarked and a slightly different pose, to the figure he appears to be aping, on the left in each shot?
I don't know if the larger figure is a King Kong knock-off, or more of a monster-monkey-man, but standard 'zoo' fare, he isn't, and more of a Halloween-targeted 'rubber jiggler' item I suspect.
The cat might be from a board-game, while the two googlie-eyed critters might be from the same maker, despite being quite different subjects? The eyes are the same size, they are both the same dense PVC, they are both pencil-tops. Although one also has a charm loop, which could be for a tassel, and it could just be coincidence!
More anthropomorphic animals here, with a flocked bear, blow-moulded cat, and several of those 'small animal family' types, which predate Kinder's hard plastics by a decade or so. Particularly interesting are the two Tony-Tiger charms, as they are umpteenth-generation, much size-reduced, copies of the original sculpt also seen here as a larger key-ring.
The three-wise monkeys are teeny-tiny, and may be from a kit of some kind, they are 'styrene, and possibly too small for Christmas crackers? While the large black cat must be a Halloween thing?
Trolls! Two cracker/gum-ball charms, and what I think must be one of the
Wheetos premiums, there have been several sets over the years, having the coiffure'able hair of earlier trolls, the
Wheetos ones also have distinctive faces and props/costuming like this guy's fiddle and shorts.
A pair of
Sugar Puff's aliens, I used to think they were 'cutesy', as you might expect of kid's breakfast cereal premiums, but increasingly, they now seem to look a bit sinister?!
Barbarians ('Doomlords of Gulch' if
Tomy version) from
Crossbows and Catapults, I have mentioned in the past that there are different versions of these, and it's a future post to try and sort them all out, here you can see a clear size difference between two issuers' figures, with a probable
Tomy original on the left.
Blind-bag
Star Wars deform, a couple of novelty cracker/Halloween skeletons, and a damaged
Hilco spaceman, with two new to pile figures; a large (60mm'ish?) manga/anime type ninja superhero and a smaller figure who may be a Robocop clone?
A large robot, who has a mechanism underneath, which resembles that of a bayblade, and may indicate he was some kind of launched, spinning novelty? A pair of
Manta Force from
Bluebird/Tomy, and another
Buck Rogers 'C3P0' pencil-top eraser to be colour checked against the master sample, and that bloody beebly-beeble from
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century!
He's damaged, but fully marked, so gratefully received, as a sample, but I hate the little twat! I have a bagful of the Corgi ones and I hate them too - in fact, checking the Buck Rogers Tag, I've never had a good word to say about him, and always manage to insult him anew! He ruined an otherwise good TV serial!
Classic, big-box, TV-advertised, this-year's-big-Christmas-hit toy! I'd gone off to be grown-up, or as grown-up as I could manage, and missed most of them, but remember
"Tee-Cee-Arh . . . totalcontrolracing!", the
Star Bird one,
"Em-Be-Games!!!!",
Chutes Away, another with a helicopter and the exploding-bridge one!
This, originally from Tomy, was one of them, a bit big for me, and it will probably be offered-up as a swap (for other toys), but Chris explained it was only included as a space-saver/packaging. It ran up and down a track while two players fired ball-bearings at it, loser saw his bunker go airborne when the Terrible Tank reached it!
Finishing off with a few more of the Christmas cracker putti, it will be fun returning to them all one day and finding there's a whole, multicoloured orchestra, even if they have a limited number of intruments!
