#971 MICRO ACTION/ FUNRISE – BIG RIG TRUCKS (1988)

APRIL IS THE MONTH OF THE BOOTLEGS and KNOCK-OFFs!

Funrise was one of the main competitors to Galoob´s Micro Machines at the time. Their models were great and had a variety that included many different vehicle types.
 
In this case we are showing four different cards with truck trailers, that, interestingly included two trucks but just one trailer, although other cards came with one, three or seven complete trucks, as well as other variations or as part of other sets. These are almost identical to the Semi-Truck collections of Micro Machines, but the Funrises do not have practicable parts. 

The trailers are interesting as many of them show existing commercial companies, unlike Micro

Machines, that were all invented (except Galoob itself)
 
There are two types of truck, that come in several colours, so there is not a great variety of models here, so having a few of them is enough for most collectors like me. I am very happy with this small collection, I do not need any more Funrise trucks.

The four cards are priced 1,99 dollars at Kay-Bee (K.B. or KB), which was a American toy store/retailer founded in Massachusetts in 1922 by the Kaufman brothers and went out of business in 2009, being absorved by Toys 'R Us. Below the sticker there seems to be some text indicated that one of the two rigs go for free, what would explain why there are two instead of only one. On the backcard, there are eight models depicted, but I would say there are even more.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: BIG RIG TRUCKS
• Scale of the cars: 1:150 aprox.
• Year: 1988
• Company: Funrise (U.S.A.)
• Size: approx. 2 cm truck / 3.5-4 cm trailer

#538 FUNRISE – MILITARY JET PLANES and GROUND VEHICLES (1988)

MONTH OF THE BOOTLEG AT TOYS FROM THE PAST!

Some companies started producing knock-offs of other toys and have become big companies with the time. In these cases, all companies hide this early history in their webpages and it is difficult to find information about it. The case of Funrise is one of them. Today, Funrise is a big toy company, but we know nothing about their origins.

No matter what, one of the first products by Funrise were a series of small plastic cars in the Micro Machines style. They were the most serious competitor to Galoob, from the dozens of manufacturers that started producing micro-vehicles. They had the largest number of vehicle casts, and even got cool licensed series, like one from the movies "Back to the Future".

The Funrise products were much cheaper than Galoob´s original MM, and so they tried to compete against the strong advertising campaigs from Galoob. Unfortunately, Funrise could not replicate the many different series with so distinctive feature by Micro Machines (like vehicles with lights, colour changing paint, battery operated...) which was also one of the anty-copy features from the "genuine" Micro Machines. Just one note... I think Funrise also has some changing colour vehicles, but I´m not sure about this.

As a kid, I got/bought a pack of military ground vehicles, that I am showing in this entry, and around 7-8 months, I got these two jet planes collections in a lot. At first sight, the military ground vehicles could perfectly be original Galoobs, they are beautifully done, with accurate details and decent paintwork.

The planes however seem to be a bit newer. They are also nice casts, but the paintwork is much worse. They all have a base colour (colour of the plastic), and just a few emblems are printed on them. The colours chosen (yellow, pink...) are not very realistic, so somehow I find the plane collections not so cool like the ground vehicles, or other collections that I have seen on the internet.

There seems to be a colour variation of these planes. I found the images below on eBay:

 

 

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: MILITARY JET PLANES and GROUND VEHICLES
• Scale of the cars: 1:150 aprox.
• Scale of the planes, trucks and tanks: Unknown
• Year: 1988
• Company: Funrise (U.S.A.)
• Size: approx. 2 cm