One of the problems with researching or collecting 'Kinder' (inverted commas used for a reason), is that, firstly they have been mythologised, especially by the more fastidious German collectors, to the point it's not even clear if they were the first company to the genre?
William Salice, who along with Michele Ferrero has been credited with 'inventing' the eggs, stated before his death that he was merely the "material executor" - 'exploitation' being an acceptable way for companies to find a way around intellectual property rights, on existing designs, but more especially, on existing ideas.
Secondly, they carried a lot of stuff which was either pre-existing as mini-novelties (like the Mattel 'Zowees', from Hot Wheels, which had been issued in 1972 (the first Kinder Surprise eggs were '74), and already carried as a Shell Petroleum premium/giveaway), or which was, on the little accompanying paper sheets, branded to someone else, often someone (like Marajà) who had their own capsule-eggs at some point.
The subject of today's post is a perfect case in point, as they are considered Kinder by those overly-intense collectors, yet are usually accompanied by Menotti Giocatolli papers, and still seem to be out there somewhere. So I'm going to try and put them in a sort of order-of-evolution, without the narrative having much weight!
Possibly the first iteration, maker/issuer unknown, but many of these humanoid figurals were issued back in the 1970's and early-mid 1980's, these were probably branded to
Menotti Giocatolli, at the time of issue, if only because of what follows.
Definitely
Menotti Giocatolli, someone has given them robotic torsos, a robot horse body, and angelic, mechanical wings, which one suspects are death dealing, they would have been in my toy universe, the alternative would have been too 'girly'!
Still with
Menotti Giocatolli, and someone has said
"Lets give the robot horses, robot horse-heads with a saddle for a full robot, who can dismount and act independently of the horse" . . .
"Make it so", said the design department!
And it is in that iteration that they seem most numerous (these may not be
Menotti Giocatolli, nor, necessarily,
Kinder?), with at least four sculpts of horse-body, horse-head, mini-robot and robot weapon, which, while usually issued in an 'egg specific' configuration, can get mixed up, in a sample of the size seen here.
A couple which have (who have?) come-in over the last couple of years, both 'believed to be'
Kinder, by me, but with no empirical evidence, they are another of the many
Kinder (or similar) which have been rather distributed to the four corners of the stash, by dint of their bittiness, and the lack of serious sorting over the last few years.
But it'll give me an excuse to return to them, when they are all in one place, for a box-ticker on poses/colours, and hopefully, I have a blue robot to replace the incorrect red one, in the spares/bits bags?
Where
Kinder are definitely involved in the evolution, is in these cartoony Wild West, who follow the same basic format (cartoon horse, element of 'swoppet' or plug-in, mini-rider) who are getting very brittle now, which suggest further, that
Res Plastic (
RP, not 'LP', nor
LB!) were involved in the production, as a lot of their stuff suffers from the same brittleness now.
Note the 'Pharaoh-head' from the previous collage is on a green-bot's horse, with another horse waiting a rider, it'll be fun getting all the bits bags together and sorting out a better sample!
Two other
Menotti Giocatolli designs, which have been credited to - and may well have been carried by -
Kinder, the upper following the designs of the
fantasy muscle-men and monsters we saw here, and the lower R2-DBot looking like the
Bluebird Toys Manta'bots!
Another Internet image here;
