#920 LARGO TOYS - THE LEGEND BRUCE LEE vs BATTLING MARTIAL WARRIORS (Around 1987)

Yet another company that has disappeared leaving no trace at all on the internet. Probably because it disappeared long before the common use of Internet was established and nobody has written anything yet.

What seems clear to me is that LarGo is probably a Hong-Kongese company with its headquarters in New York, so, officially, it is an American company, but the production was made in Hong Kong and the kind of toys they produced were very typical of those years, could be classified as novelty toys. Remember that Bruce Lee was American and Hong-Kongese. Also note that he died in 1973 and this toy was made later.

Apart from this series, about which we will talk next, they also made play-role weapons set for Rambo or Silverhawks, the kind of blisterpack with a gun, a knife, a compass and a couple of bits more that can be found not in toystores but in fairs and popular events. Both series mentioned seem to be built with an official license, they are not bootlegs or knock-offs, they look 100% legal.

This Bruce Lee series is the only series with action figures I have found on the Internet. They also had one line with plastic figures, some kind of beast-warriors that ride giant insects called Stingers and Wings, and a subline of The Legend of Bruce Lee, also with PVC plastic, static figures.

Finally, I have seen pictures of a Robotech robot character, but I am unsure if it hat some action feature, or if it was articulated.

Back to the figures, the blister pack is very nice. It shows a very well designed logo and a picture of Bruce Lee. It is also kind of original because it includes two figures placed left and right, leaving some space in between.

The first figure is Bruce Lee, with black trousers (real cloth) and naked torso. It comes with one accessory or weapon. The face is well casted, this figure really looks like the martial artist.

The second figure is an unknown character with moustache. This figure comes with black trousers and black and red kimono shirt. It also comes with a bo. I assume this character is a bad guy, maybe THE bad guy, since is the only figure I have seen in this collection other than Mr. Lee, although it sometimes comes in an all-black outfit. The moustache and his angry gesture also goes in this direction.

The figures come with articulations on waist, neck and arms, but the legs are fixed.

The weapons are not very realistic. Unfortunately, the nunchuck from Bruce Lee is made of yellow plastic, but well, it is a toy from the 80s and for kids, not for adult collectors. And despite this, I love these figures.



The importer of these figures for Spain was again Hisinsa, that during the late 80s brought us lots of bootleg figures in this style.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: BRUCE LEE and UNKNOWN CHARACTER
• Toy Line: THE LEGEND BRUCE LEE vs BATTLING MARTIAL WARRIORS
• Year: Around 1987
• Company: Largo Toys (U.S.A. / Hong-Kong)
• Size of the figures: 14 cm (5,5'')

#919 SCALE MODEL SPORT MOTORCYCLE - KAWASAKI Z-SERIES? (1983)

This is a plastic motorbike made in Hong-Kong by an unknown manufacturer, but imported to Italy by a company called R.M.G.

With that name, it is kind of difficult to trace back which company is that. It is copyrighted in 1983 and labelled as "Scale Model Sport Motorcycle". At first sight I thought it may be a Mercury knock-off (same scale and detail level, much worse quality), but now I think it is just a motorbike made in the same scale.

Regarding the quality, note the orange part on one side should be over the exhaust pipe, and not below it.

The motorbike seems to be a Kawasaki (that´s what the sticker says) and it definitely looks like some early 80s models from the Z-series, like Z750, Z500, and so on, but the exhaust pipes are kind of strange. I haven´t found any Kawasaki with this kind of seemingly inverted pipes, they all have rather low ones.

Maybe during the production, they run of the proper exhaust pipes and mounted those from another model, or maybe there were only just one model for all motorbikes? I am not sure if many of these motorbikes have survived to this day. I would say any motorbike removed from its package has certainly been damaged or destroyed by play. The plastic parts, like the brake levers, race number holder, mudguards and so on look so fragile, that I cannot imagine that a played motorbike is still 100% complete.

Anyone has one of these new and in a box? How many models were made?
Which is this R.M.G. misterious company? Too many questions. In any case, the motorbike is a curious toy, looks nice in it box and deserves being in this blog.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: SCALE MODEL SPORT MOTORCYCLE (KAWASAKI Z-SERIES)
• Scale: Around 1:32
• Year: 1983
• Company: R.M.G. (Italy) / Unknown Manufacturer (Hong-Kong)
• Size: approx. 7 cm

#918 UNKNOWN MANUFACTURER – GERMAN PLASTIC FERRARI and LOTUS F1 (Around 1982)

I have three cars of this series bought in the last 10 years or so. I thought they might be promotional items, but in the early 80s these kind of novelty toys were very common in kiosks and small toy shops.

RN 2

Among the probable makers, I discarded Manurba, but I am not familiar with many other German novelty toy makers or importers from these years, I also discard Hans Postler (H.P.) because this company was mostly an importer, and the toy is marked "Made in W. Germany".

The Formula Ones are models from the early 70s, made in bright plastic with black wheels and metal axles. The car usually has three parts: body, chassis and motor. Due to the colour, the casting´s details are difficult to see. The cars come with different racing numbers and they have a nice casting. Note also that the same Ferrari base has been applied to two different cars (yellow an green models)!

RN 5

They are similar to others made by Matchbox or Majorette, but I would say they are own casts.

The cars are marked "Made in W. Germany", plus the car brand, for example "Ferrari".

Has anyone out there some information on these?

RN 6

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: FERRARI, FERRARI and LOTUS F.1
• Scale: Around 1:64
• Year: Around 1982
• Company: Unknown Manufacturer (West Germany)
• Size: approx. 6 cm

#917 UNKNOWN MANUFACTURER - PLASTIC CAVEMEN FROM THE 90s

I found this cheap figures in a flea market. I couldn´t resist! they are so cool and would be perfect to display along with my Ice Age Dino Riders or to make other nice diorama photoshoots.

The person who sold them to me had a lot of toys from the early 2000s, and nothing from the 90s or older. Later I found another figure in a big lot of figures from various decades, being the newer from the mid 90s. I also asked Hugh from Small Scale World about them, and he told me that they came in sets with plastic dinosaurs, so they were probably popular after each Jurassic Park movie in the 90s. That is why I think they were probably made in the early 90s, and reused and resold many times since then. Hugh already informed me, that they are "generic" figures, that is, figures that have been sold under many brands and in very different sets over many years, so it is difficult to trace back those casts to one manufacturer.

No matter what, these four figures may not be the complete set, they represent cavemen in different positions. One is holding a stone over his head, another one is walking with a club in his hand, another is crouching and lighting a fire with two stones, and the last one seems to be collecting something from the ground.

I took several pictures of these figures that I present now.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: UNKNOWN CAVEMEN
• Year: Around 1990?
• Company: Unknown Manufacturer (China)
• Size of the figures: 3 to 5 cm

#916 FIGURAS EN ACCIÓN (F.E.A.) Nr. 19 + THE ZOMBOOK (ALLAN GRAVES)

This is the newest issue of Figuras En Acción. It is a classical issue with a set of various (and varied) articles, in which one article about Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos and other Chuck Norris´ figures tower above the rest.

We also interview Martin Cage from Distinctive Dummies and Miguel De Luna, a Mexican Madelman collector. There are other two great articles dealing with Masters of the Universe 200x and a promotional set of figures from the TV series "Wisdom of the Gnomes" (in Spanish "La llamada de los gnomos"), as well as an article gathering a psychologist´s opinions on different kind of toys, like weapons, soldiers, board games, video games, disguises and so on.

A few other sections complete over 80 pages of vintage toy stories and images: news, books, museums and more.

Free download from the official blog of the magazine: 

https://figurasenaccion.blogspot.com/2018/12/revista-numero-19-diciembre-2018.html

I continue with another publication I have read in the last months.

 

The Zombook is not a book about toys, although some pages show toy figures customized as zombies. It is a book about art: painting, drawing, design, photography, make-up... and very different styles: from completely realistic to cartoonish, everything can be found in this eclectic volume.

Allan Graves gathered a group of over 100 international artists to provide the ultimate collection of Zombie art, and compiled everything in an imposing volume (approximately A4 size, hardcover, exquisite printing...) released by Grafitto. The book contains several chapters that follow the different stages of becoming a zombie, starting with "outbreak", and ending with "Apocalypse" and "Survival".

The mixed set of styles through the pages of this book make it fun and even surprising at times. Some of the images have also references to movie, television, celebrities or pop culture in general, and in many cases they have a certain dosis of black humour.

Very highly recommended!

#915 FOX´S PETER PAN AND THE PIRATES - ROBERT MULLINS AND ALF MASON (1991)

I was not aware of this toyline until, by chance I got two figures in a bigger lot of stuff. I think this TV series from 1990 and 1991 was shortly aired in Spain after the great success of Steven Spielberg´s Hook, maybe in 1992 or 1993.

If I recall well, the series was kind of disturbing to me, since the characters were very different from the Disney ones, or from the ones in the movie, and I couldn´t recognise most of them.

This toyline saw only one wave with 8 action figures (plus four plush dolls, sold only in America and not displayed in the European card shown in this entry). I am not sure if the toyline was initially intended for girls only or for both boys and girls, fact is that the female figures are very much doll-like, while the male figures look more like real action figures. I have these two pirates only. Note that they come with two action features each. The first one is some sword attack movement tha can be activated by pushing the button in their backs. The second one is activated pushing the button in their chest, and makes the figure lose its hat or fall its pants, which is something very cartoonish and funny.

Of course these pirates are quite secondary characters in the story. The collection also features Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Captain Hook and Wendy, plus the Mermaid (I do not recall any Mermaid, do you?) and Smee, who seems to be a third pirate.

The toyline is interesting, and apart from the U.S., it seems to have been only available in Great Britain, France, Germany and Spain, distributed by Ideal. They were sold in a small scale (compared to, for example, Mattel´s Hook), maybe this is due to the fact that the toymaker, namely THQ, Inc. was not a big player at the time.

THQ is an abbreviation for Toy HeadQuarters and was founded in April 1990 by one of LJN founders, Jack Friedman, after investing 1 million dollar. Only a few months later, in September, THQ acquired one videogame company called Broderbund, famous for Lode Runner or Prince of Persia. On January 1991, THQ released the videogame based on this same TV series, and was called "Peter Pan and the Pirates". The company grew rapidly when it was acquired by an investing fund called Trinity Acquisition Corp. With that fresh money, other videogame companies were added to the corporation, like Black Pearl Software in 1993. THQ Inc stopped produced toys in 1994, focusing only on videogames. Jack Friedman left the company in 1995 to found Jakks Pacific.

There were very few toylines made by this company, all of them very unknown, but some of them based on popular movies. Note for example the figure of Kevin or the board game from the movie Home Alone or Strawberry Shortcake dolls. A curious line was a set of figures representing the rap singer known as Vanilla Ice, who became hugely popular in 1990.

The company continued making videogames until 2012, releasing titles for many different platforms, from PC to Nintendo Wii or Playstation 3. Because I do not know much about videogames, and it is not the goal of this blog to talk about them, I will skip this part. This information can be found in many other websites.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: ROBERT MULLINS AND ALF MASON
• Toy Line: FOX´S PETER PAN AND THE PIRATES
• Year: 1991
• Company: THQ (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: Around 10 cm

#914 FAIE - MATRA SIMCA 670 (No. 8207) and PORSCHE 936 TURBO (No. 8208) (Around 1986)

Faie is another well-known manufacturer from which there is nothing to read out there. I wish we would still have breithaupts website, where we would probably be able to read a very educated article about this brand.

Unfortunately, there is nothing we know of this company, except that it was based in Hong-Kong, and it disappeared by the mid-90s. Their models are nicely done, some of them are copies of other major brands, some are shared with other similar brands like Tintoys. At some point the company moved the production lines to China, so some blisters are marked "Made in China".

The Matra seems to be copied from Majorette while the Porsche is somewhat similar to Tomica. I cannot confirm any of these assumptions, even though I have both the Majorette and the Tomica.

The variey of models is quite big, counting sport cars, F1s, sport prototypes, vans, trucks, utilitary cars...

They are quite rare, I am not sure if the newer models are all marked in the base or not. I guess they are not, so it is very difficult to recognise them against other models like the above mentioned Tintoys. That is maybe the reason why they are so difficult to find.

I have just two. The Porsche I own it since at least 15 years or so, while the Matra has been found recently in a flea market.

I wish I could tell more about these brand, but I cannot. If someone has more information, please do not hesitate to leave some comment below, so I can contact you.

 


FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: MATRA SIMCA 670 (No. 8207) and PORSCHE 936 TURBO (No. 8208)
• Scale: 1:64
• Year: Around 1986
• Company: Faie (Hong Kong)
• Size: approx. 6 cm