The Action Figure and Toy Collecting and Discussion Thread!

[cooleddie74]

^


Give those two their own stop-motion Web series.


Hey, did anyone here collect the 3.75" ST:TMP action figures from Mego (1979-80)? I have six (the Enterprise officers). Apparently the aliens including the Klingon didn't make it to American retail, but Italy seems to have gotten him.

[cooleddie74]

New sales on 3.75" Star Wars figures this weekend:

TRU - Vintage and Movie Heroes figures for $4.99, Clone Wars characters for $5.49.

Target - Vintage Droid and Villain 3-packs (Power Droid, Snaggletooth) marked down as low as $7.48 each. Some Vintage Collection figures are as cheap as a whopping $2.98 apiece, which would be great for army building if your store has any leftover Clones, Droids or Imperials.

[C.E. Evans]

cooleddie74 wrote:

---

Hey, did anyone here collect the 3.75" ST:TMP action figures from Mego (1979-80)? I have six (the Enterprise officers). Apparently the aliens including the Klingon didn't make it to American retail, but Italy seems to have gotten him.

Oh, Lord in Heaven, yes! I spent countless hours playing with those figures as a kid, re-creating TMP (I didn't have a USS Enterprise back then, so I flipped the original Star Wars Landspeeder upside down and pretended that was it).


Because I didn't have any of the aforementioned aliens, I used some from Star Wars. I think I had Greedo as a Romulan and Bossk as a Klingon.

[cooleddie74]

I'll say this much for Mego's figure sculpting around 1979: at least McCoy looks like DeForest Kelley and Scotty has a very good resemblance to James Doohan in the first movie. Most of them looked pretty good considering the limitations of action figure design and technology at the end of the seventies.

I won't say Decker looked just like Stephen Collins, but it was a fair resemblance all things considered.

[cooleddie74]

If anybody here was wondering if those new 12" Star Wars figures in the green Yoda window packaging were of impressive quality, they're probably hollow plastic, some details aren't even painted and they retail for just $10 each, almost the exact same price as a much smaller 3.75" action figure with super articulation and far superior sculpting.

The Anakin does come with a removable blade lightsaber and left hand that can do the two-finger "Force point" if that sweetens the pot for anybody....but if initial reaction to these in the collecting community is any indication, I doubt it does. Still, they're out there and in good quantities if you or your kid want a simple 12" toy to bash and throw around or let the pet play with.

[OdoWanKenobi]

I saw those with my own eyes at TRU the other day. They looked even more horrific than the pictures. How could Hasbro release those to the world with a clean conscience?

[cooleddie74]

The Darth Vader in the second wave assortment is a hundred times better looking, but do we get it in the first wave? No.

We have to wait until the fall toy department resets before those start showing up in stores. I'm no business expert, but something tells me releasing disappointing product and then making consumers wait six more months for the better product is a really stupid idea.

[OdoWanKenobi]

I don't know, seems to work for Apple.

[cooleddie74]

Zing (nods and winks in full agreement)....

One thing that made me chuckle about the new 12" figures was that they don't have any clear plastic window on the box. It's just an exposed box you can stick your fingers into to touch and fiddle with the figure. I know Hasbro's been on more of an environmentally friendly kick the past year or so with more recycled packaging and less metal and unnecessary plastic (for instance, those old metal twisty-ties that have been the bane of toy collectors for eons are now gone in some product and replaced with soft brown or black elastic ties that have the strength of a large rubber band) in their marketing strategy, but boxes that allow dust and other crap to get inside the packaging and all over the product you're selling was a bit of a surprise. It's one thing with plush, soft toys like the talking Yoda and other dolls, but plastic action figures are almost never treated this way, at least not in the Star Wars line.

I guess even Hasbro realizes how inferior and disposable these new 12" characters are.

[OdoWanKenobi]

Yeah, it did strike me how conservative the packaging is. Part of me likes it, though. No huge wasteful bubbles, no appendage warping extreme action poses. If it could be done easily while still ensuring a safe figure, I would want to see more companies go to this kind of slim packaging. Well, except the lack of plastic window. That really is necessary.

[cooleddie74]

Yeah, I don't mind smarter packaging, but please put plastic windows over product like this. I don't need some little kid's wad of bubble gum or a dead fly in my package when I buy it.

Thankfully the boxed packaging for the 6" Black Series figures will have a plastic window to protect the characters inside. The less dust and extraneous crap on a store-fresh collectible the better.

[cooleddie74]

Oh, it turns out that the current sale on Star Wars 3.75" action figures at Toys "R" Us will last for an entire month and not just a week or weekend. The current price for Vintage Collection and Movie Heroes characters is $4.99 each while Clone Wars figures will ring up for $5.49 for the next few weeks.

Good luck finding something cool if you decide to take advantage of these offers.

[OdoWanKenobi]

I'm so sorry. The idea popped into my head, and I couldn't shake it until I did something with it:

[cooleddie74]

That was great, man. Thanks for making and posting it.

[Kira's Mom]

Thanks, I needed a laugh today.