Saturday, June 16, 2012

#161 YOLANDA – REAL GHOSTBUSTERS' CHEWING GUM'S FIGURES (1993)



I wanted to bring some more figures made by Yolanda, since the article I wrote about them has received many visits and was even linked by MinifiguresXD. Precisely in this blog, we started a discussion about how to identify Yolanda figures, as well as other related facts to this company. I copy almost literally what I wrote there:

"1st is that Yolanda has produced many figures in hard PVC plastic, but also many figures in a softer plastic, meaning the kind of plastic used by, for example, Bully or Schleich. A general rule is that painted figures (like the Supermonstruos I show in my blog) are always made of soft plastic, while the monochromatic figures (your Toxic Avenger) are made of harder plastic.

2nd is that Yolanda figures are always marked with the Yolanda logo with or without the circle. If you want to identify a monochromatic figure from a picture (without having it in your hands), pay attention to the colours: those "electric" green, purple, blue... are characteristic for Yolanda. Darker colours, like green, grey or brown are also available, and have some kind of shiny-pearl effect, also very easy to identify.

3rd Is that the figures were available in many different ways. As I wrote in this entry, painted figures (I guess they were more expensive) were exposed in glass showcases from which the salesman would take one out for you. But they were also available in countertop boxes, as you say. The monochromatic figures however were sold (in a couple of examples I know) in opaque bags. Some monochromatic figures with small size (maybe 1 inch) were often giveaways for chewing gums or candies. There are famous series from Real Ghostbusters, Dinosaurs, TMNT... In that case, the shopkeeper had a small bag with the figures and every time somebody came with a prized tag, received a figure."

Two of the "stickers": left a normal one, right the prized one taken from todocoleccion.net

This last example is exactly the case of these small figures: they were a prize you received if your chewing gum came with a prized sticker, instead of a normal sticker (well, they were not adhesive, so I guess “sticker” is not the right word). According to this prized sticker above, there were 8 different figures, so I own the whole collection. Each of the figures was available in all 4 colours: purple, red, blue and green. Some more stickers can be found in todocoleccion.net, but the prices these figures have are simply ridiculous (in my opinion, of course)… 

By the way, these figures are not marked with the Yolanda logo, they're too small for that. It's probably the only exception to the rule above (2nd point).
 
Here’s a picture of the bird-ghost in two different colour versions.


Last, but not less important is that these figures are copies of Kenner’s Real Ghostbusters ghosts… if you’re familiar with this toy line, you’ll be able to recognise the ghosts that came packed with the figures of the first wave. More specifically: 
  • Ghosts in the first row were packed (left to right) with: Ray Stantz v1 (1st, green), Peter Venkman v1 (3rd, blue) and Egon Spengler v1 (5th blue).
  • In the second row, the ghosts were packed with the Ecto-1 (2nd, purple), Winston Zeddmore v1 (3rd, blue or 4th, red).
  • The other ghosts (1st row: 2nd and 4th; 2nd row: 1st) are not based on Kenner figures, unless somebody tells me the opposite. 
  • The Ghostbusters’ sign and Slimmer are based on previous plastic figures made by Yolanda in colours (painted plastic), while the red ghost remains a mistery… I think I have seen it somewhere else, but where?
As a comparison between Kenner’s original Ecto-1 figure and the “shrunk” version, I took this picture. They are similar, but not the same!


Hope you liked this article!

FACTS AND FIGURES:
  • Name: REAL GHOSTBUSTERS CHEWING GUM FIGURES
  • Toy Line: Real Ghostbusters
  • Year: 1993
  • Company: Yolanda (Spain)
  • Size of the figure: Around 2 cms.

12 comments:

  1. Fascinating post - nice to learn more about Yolanda, nice to see some figures over here (more figures = more comments!!), I have a third set of these, being bigger than the Yolanda and smaller than the Kenner ones, but made of transparent plastics in red, blue and pink...anybody know anything about them, I assume some sort of cereal premium or gum-ball thing (but a bit too big for most gum-ball dispensers)?

    Hugh

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  2. Thanks for the commennt, Hugh!

    I left a message at MinifiguresXD, so maybe this entry receives more comments and, hopefully, interesting discussions.

    What are those figures you mention? can we see a pic of them? The ones I know are the bigger Yolanda figures in painted plastic (mentioned above, now with link): http://www.gbfans.com/real-ghostbusters/yolanda/

    cheers!

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  3. I think they are cereal premiums? I will put them on the blog one day, but they are in storage at the moment!
    H

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  4. Esas mismas figuras tambien salieron en colores mas fosforitos (amarillo, verde, rosa, naranja) y esas si van marcadas yolanda.
    Saludos

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  5. Hola Mr. Dunkin, gracias por tu comentario y por aportar ese dato. Jamás las he visto en esos colores, ¿sabes de qué promoción/serie/producto eran esas figuras alternativas?

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  6. Hola, lo siento pero no lo se, lo curioso es que solo las he visto a la venta una sola vez, pero te aseguro que son identicas a las metalicas, pero deben de ser anteriores a las metalicas. No tienen el año grabado. Aprovecho para decirte que tambien hay una version en miniatura de los monstruos, e igual que los cazafantasmas los hay en los mismos colores metalicos y en los colores fosforitos, venian en la tipica bolsita termosellada transparente sin publicidad ninguna, pero estos son solo 12. Tambien encontre en un mercadillo una minifigura de monstruos pero en pvc transparente..

    Me alegro de colaborar en la difusion del juguete español.

    Saludos.
    Misterdunkin

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  7. hola otra vez, veo que pones como fecha de la promocion 1993 pero en los cromos pone 1986, cual crees que es la correcta? Saludos.

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    Replies
    1. 92-93 con toda seguridad. 86 es el copyright de la serie de dibujos de la que estan sacadas las ilustraciones de los cromos. Saludos, Juan

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    2. Muchas gracias Juan, nunca te las di. Saludos.

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    3. Hey, hola, cuanto tiempo. No hay de qué.
      Hace tiempo que no me paso por tu blog, a ver si luego le echo un vistazo.

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  8. Yo no tengo ningún blog, creo que te has confundido.

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    Replies
    1. Ah, pues seguro que te confundo. Me suena mucho tu nick, pero igual sólo de verte en la lista de seguidores de este blog. Saludos.

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