E is for Eclectic!

Around the same time as Chris Smith's parcel, i.e., a few weeks before the Plastic Warrior show, the third 'spring break' was a parcel from Peter Evans, which has been in the queue for ages, and I'm happy to thank him now and share the contents with the rest of you.

I think we've since seen this BJ Toys set, because either Peter gave me another or I grabbed one, out and about, but either way it got Blogged, but that means I can open one and inspect the two Matchbox-clone figures more closely another day!

 

A pull-back-and-go, slightly 'deform' T62 type with a whacky paint-job, possibly from a larger set, but could equally be an open-carton shelf-pick type of thing, you do still find them occasionally in general/discount stores or on market stalls?

 

I think we've seen these before in a set of four, but nice to be reminded than even in the modern derth of decent rack-toy war toys, there are still a few gems to be uncovered, and a Tiger and StuG (albeit with identical running gear) are a nice diversion.

 

Green-eyed monster! There is a plan, one day, for a decent overview of 'King Kong's; we have seen a few here over the years, but there's probably over a dozen in the pile,. This very-male one is particularly mentionable, being neither the common 'Rubber Jiggler' silicone or latex, nor the semi-rigid PVC, you might otherwise expect, but is actually a rather solid lump of polyethylene . . . "You could 'av someone's eye out with that!"

 

Impro Dinosaurs, I have a tub of these and have meant to Blog them, but I think I'm still waiting on the rarest moulding, or only got one as they were going back into storage (?), but no matter, there's plenty about them on the Wibbly Wobbly Way, and the duck-bill here is another of the less common sculpts I think?

 

Paint variations of Pterodactyl, I used to kind-of ignore them, but in the last year or so, particularly with the donations from Jon Attwood, and a few Charity Shop buys, there have been quite a few come in, with copies and variations like these, so there may be an overview-post in the Blog's future as they are almost more amazing than normal dinosaurs . . . the world had flying lizards bigger that fridges, or even family cars, which could swoop down and pierce your spine with a four, six or eight-foot beak!

 

Potato, Onion, Apple

Carrot, Cucumber, Aubergine-Brinjal-Zuccini

 

Blackberry, Apple, Pineapple

Two Bananas and an Orange

A pair of Apples and a Pear

 

These have been given several names over the years, now collectively known as 'Munch Bunch', they were also sold as 'Mr. Fruity', 'Fruit & Veg' etc. Pencil tops, there are several versions, variants, piracies and issues, with examples of several seen above, you sometimes found them with plug-in cowboy hats (which unethical sellers would/will happily use on swoppet figures), plug-in greenery, painted, integral greenery or no 'top knot' decoration, even some with small charm-loops, and as you can see above, larger and smaller versions.

They are another thing destined to get a proper in-depth treatment here one day, and of which, again, there is plenty to read about them, online already. I think we got ours one year in a Christmas stocking, maybe three each, and we called them Pineapple Pol (and his mates), but I think that may have come from Mum, and be referencing the famous musical, which was big when she was younger? Note, the pear has lost its [her?] legs.

They are always waving with one hand, with the other arm down, often wearing clown shoes, Cuban heels or Dutch clogs and always wearing gloves. Some are clearly female (long lashes!), and the Banana is always top-knot'less, unless he has a loop, due to his starting to peel! And once you have a big collection, there are a couple which are hard to name as being obvious fruits or vegetables!

 

The difference between an apple and a tomato is a moot-point, but the tomato tends to full roundness. And please note, there are millions of them out there, so they are mostly hideously overpriced on evilBay!

A bunch of bits, they all have their place, with tubs of assorted traffic cones, road signs, general signs, two boxes of tentage and etcetera! Likewise, the tree zone has been growing for about 47-years! I think the above fir is a cake decoration, and the gun is from early rack-toys.

I think we've now seen the set the middle chap is taken from, or it's in the queue, but a loose sample is always useful, and the set of mechanics may have been ID'd in a shelfie, or, again, be in the queue, all good stuff!

Vinyl! Two Smurfs, an astronaut, a Gormiti Egyptian (?) and a Kinder Santa, join a little lady in a princess suit, who I did find on that there Interweb the other day, but I've lost the reference, she's a current kid's TV character.

Post-Giant mouldings of Wild West foot figures, an Airfix kit figure of an RAF ground crew firefighter, who - unlike the refueling set figures - was not later issued in the soft polyethylene figure set, and two piggy-wiggies! The smaller from Hong Kong, the larger, an early Britains with a damaged tail.

A box of Airfix HO-OO, painted and with some damage, because everything was going to storage by that point, they will be cleaned and sorted another day, a little project on the back-burner! Thanks to Peter for all these, it's all grist to the mill, always something useful, or Blogable, and there's a bit of everything above!

K is for Kong, The King . . . of The Apes! The Jungle, The Weird, Whacky Island, He Was Just THE King, of Everything, But He Couldn't Sing 'Hounddog'!

This set is new to me, seen in my collection, by Ideal of Hollis, NY (anyone know that town? Answers on a postcard, I don't care) dated 1976, and if I ever saw it anywhere else I must have just clean forgot it, in all the excitement!

Everyone loves a board-game at Christmas! This would have been under people's trees in 1976, the box is printed with some weird ink with is just rubbing-off now, and which also reflects flash inordinately, so I shot it twice to get something useable!

 

The Twin Trade Towers, funny what survives a cataclysm like '9/11', you actually get the one, but shooting it with and without Kong, makes for a poignant juxtaposition of the two images. I have some book-matches from the Restaurant at the Top of the World somewhere, as well, not quite the same as Titanic pillow-cases, but close, in a way?

 

 

Figural playing pieces include four 'special force' players who have to chase The King up the tower and try to kill him without getting knocked of, while Kong just needs to get to the top . . . but a game for 2-4 players, so presumably 'the bank' moves Kong?

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10306/king-kong

The rest of the paraphernalia! That's it, box-ticked, and in the tags, which - I suspect - is what this is all about . . . just be honest!

B is for back to B&M

Except these were shot months before the ones we saw this morning (yesterday), being the other, larger half of the stuff in the lost folder! It's mostly this modern trend for blind-bag collectables and nothing for toy-soldier purists, but it is what it is, and we shoot this stuff so you don't . . . err . . . you know what I mean!

Rainbow unicorns . . . "Rainbowcorns"! Two types of packaging, a starter set with multiple blind egg capsules and top-up bags in a counter-display carton. Zuru, they're 'up there' with Moose on this stuff!

"Bunnycorn" . . . yeap, you guessed it! Really; it's nasty stuff, in fact, it looks like it's been designed by Douggy Pledger or Dr. Knorkles [Artistic Oddities] in AI!

 

Playmates are chucking-out these Miraculous'ly like Pokémon figures, I know nothing else about them, and probably don't need to!

 

I can see these having more mileage than the above trio, and with larger play sets, there's the whole dolls-house thing going on here, but they will turn-up in mixed lots soon, especially those colourful Charity shop bags, so, if nothing else, it will help list them accurately on evilBay!

 

Not even close to the parameters of this Blog, action figures from the pink/purple end of the spectrum, but I shot them, so they're here! Licensed to Character Options.

 

I've seen these around a few times, and they are squidgy-stretchy types, but not something I'm tripping over myself to seek out! Branded to Jakks Pacific, who I thought had folded a few years ago, Google says I was probably confusing the death of the founder with the death of the company!

 

Another Playmates product, quite a nice set of totally out of scale (with each other) figurines from one of the recent movies, but was it a Godzilla movie or was it a King Kong movie, and does anyone except a hard-core fan give a shit?

 

These 'franchises' are being thrashed to death now, aren't they? Planet of the Apes, Alien-v-Predators, there's supposed to be a new/third Bladerunner on the way . . . sigh! I want new visions, not hackneyed old ones with their arses torn-out of them.

 

Poppy Playtime figures from Phat Mojo, some sort of happy-horror-anime? Wiki' says "Poppy Playtime is a horror video game where the player plays as a former employee of Playtime Co. who returns to the abandoned toy factory of said company . . ." So now I know!

 

These Among Us are of interest both as being boarderline useable space-aliens, and because we saw the same figures without the keychains, as similar blind-bags from Poundland recently? While . . . 

 

. . . these have just been seen WITH keychains (and no bases), in Poundland? The suspicion is, both were poor sellers in whatever was the earlier guise, and are now being cleared any way the wholesaler's can come-up with, and that subsequently the 'Series 1' they both march under will prove to be the only series for either? Both are on-line, multi-player, 'party' games.

 

And it was needing to make/highlight the twin-format point (keychains/no keychains) which led me to realise there was a missing post somewhere, and find it earlier today/yesterday, now. Both from Toikido, the Gang Beasts further branded PMI as manufacturer.

 

And three more, all from the above companies, the Goo Jit Zu from Moose having a window bag rather than being blind, a far more civilised way of doing these things, while both Brawl Stars (PMI) and Pet Simulator X (Phat Mojo)are kids video-games, although why they are still called video-games now technology has moved so far from VHS/Betamax is anyone's guess!

M is for Monkey Business!

It's serious stuff, these are big monkeys; they tip-up tanks and swat bi-planes like gnats! It was going to be a 'T is for Two . . . ' but then I remembered the last image, which is a plethora of great apes!

This came in a few weeks ago now (feeBay I think?), branded to Imperial, but not one of their 1970's King Kong knock-offs, this is a modern issue (can't remember if it had a mid-to-late 90's date or a 2000's), although with a near constant stream of remakes, it's still probably a Kong knock-off!

Also it's that weird sort of clammy silicon rubber with what feels like a mixture of plastic pellets and slime inside, meaning it can be distorted by stretching or squeezing. Also; unlike the Works rhino we looked at a couple of years ago, the pose means you can change his stance quite a bit within the bounds of realism - have him straining forward, holding back, or arched opposite to the taken shots.

03-05-18 - I've checked them both and the monkey is 2009 (Imperial) the rhino from The Works was Toy Major (2005), all other consumer data on both bodies was identical, so they came from the same place!

Also interesting in its own way - as a minor curiosity - this came in a couple of weeks ago (Charity shop biscuit tin, I think - there have been several bulk farm and zoo come-in recently!), and while it looks like a bog standard counter-box generic from the 1970's; dense polyethylene, burst of spray-paint (silver tummy!), red mouth and dotted blue eyes, it's actually clearly marked 'CHINA'.

I would imagine the counter-top dispenser and generic bits are about right, but it must date from around the time of the handover (1997), or just before and may well be from older moulds, maybe a HK version will turn-up? You may remember Terranova sent us shelfies of dinosaurs I recognised from the 70's, but in pretty current packaging (were they dated to 2007?) for a Rack Toy Month, so there are still some old mould-tools soldiering-on in production banks.

Speaking of Terranova, Brian sent this to the Blog ages ago, and it was waiting for this post to materialise out of thin air! Lucky it did then! No, if the other two hadn't come in, I would have used it elsewhere, he sent some interesting celebrity statuettes in the same image-set; one of whom may soon be sharing the Nobel peace prize with Kim Jong Un (who will have succeeded in peacefully splitting the two Korea's for ever and guaranteed his dynasty's continuation before he's even had kids!); you can't make it up . . . the world really is going mad!

The main man; King Kong, bothering the Empire State building! It's interesting to see the different takes on realism and finish, although it would be better if the apes were in 'movie scale' clinging to the top, rather that oversized as these all are.

There's a couple of Crysler's too (New York tourist shop!), and I vaguely recognise the multicoloured cartoony one but can't place it . . .Nicolodeon? Comedy Central? MTV? Opening credits or brand mark for something I'm sure, but previously without a giant ape!

I'm guessing they are all poured resin, but the Chrysler on the right looks good enough to be die-cast alloy? Thanks Brian - they'll all get used in the end