#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 (1^st, green), Peter Venkman v1 (3^rd, blue) and Egon Spengler v1 (5^th blue).
• In the second row, the ghosts were packed with the Ecto-1 (2^nd, purple), Winston Zeddmore v1 (3^rd, blue or 4^th, red).
• The other ghosts (1^st row: 2^nd and 4^th; 2^nd row: 1^st) 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.