Whiplash - MOTU

Whiplash was one of the most unique characters in the early days of the vintage Masters of the Universe line. He had a great rubber tail. This made him one of the easiest figures to stand up. It also provided him with a weapon, even though he came with a spear. Later Rattlor would have a similar tail and King Randor would come with the same spear.

He shares most of his body with Buzz-Off, kind of funny that the parts work for a lizard and an insect at the same time. He has bushy black eyebrows, sort of like Clawful. Whiplash was a powerful fighter in both the Filmation and MYP 200x cartoon. He wasn't always the brightest though.

Flagg Day

Yesterday Sellersville Auction held a vintage toy auction. They sold old trains, Hot Wheels, Lego, Star Wars, He-Man, GI Joe, Transformers, Barbies, and all sorts of other goodies. I was impressed with the size of the crowd and bidding was pretty intense.

I bought the GI Joe Aircraft Carrier - The USS Flagg

 

  

The crazy thing is that I already own a Flagg!

 

Power Armor Batman - Batman Beyond

Many years ago my Mom picked up a toy box that was out at the curb for trash on her way home from work. The majority of the toys inside were Power Rangers and Batman Beyond. This Power Armor Batman was one of the figures within.

This figure was packaged as Power Armor Batman with Anti-Gravity Armor and Strike Robin.

He originally came with three removable armor sections: arm, chest, leg. He also came with a removable helmet, a robotic bird, and a perch. The only accessory I have for him is one piece of his snap on armor. I liked the fact that he was unmasked. I considered performing a head swap with this figure for a body that was more civilian. Then I could use him as a normal Terry figure. I never really needed the figure for a project, so I never bothered.

Casey Jones - TMNT

Casey Jones was one of  very few human characters to be made in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line. April, Shredder, and Casey where the only ones for a long time, until they produced some of April's co-workers in the Toon Turtles line. Casey is a sports themed masked vigilante. He first appeared in the comic books and then later the TMNT cartoon after his toy was released.

 

Casey wears a hockey mask, a shoulder pad, and workout cloths. His accessories include a golf bag, golf club, and two baseball bats. His sports equipment weapons all fit in his bag which can be slung over his shoulder. I always liked how his equipment had a lot of sculpted on details. Like little cracks and tape. Even his arms have a lot of detail with arm hair and  his one of hand is taped up. The only real complaint I ever had was the blue "highlights" in his hair that look like lightning bolts or veins.

 

 

 Many years ago when I scaled back on toy collecting I sold off almost all my original TMNT figures. Casey was one of four figures I decided to keep. I played with this guy in almost every Turtles adventures I ever had as a kid.

Stickers - Retro and Modern

I recently received a package of goodies from my buddy Tony from Action Figs & Things, and one of the items in the package was Captain America stickers from the recent movie. This got me thinking. I had a pretty decent sticker collection in the late 80's and early 90's, I bet there are some cool stickers in there based on retro properties and toys.

 These early to mid 90's Star Wars stickers were using in party favor bags at one of my birthdays. My Mom cut up several sheet and I dropped a few in each bag. R2-D2 is one of my favorite characters and so all of his stickers were given out or used up so there is a blank spot in the bottom corner.

This sheet of Godzilla stickers came with a set of Valentine cards. There are used to seal up the little cards after they have been folded in half. Most of them were used up.

These Boglin Stamps were a prize inside breakfast cereal when I was a kid. They were to promote a line of hand puppet monster toys. My sister and I had quite a few sheets of these. We had fun licking and sticking them on pictures we drew. You may notice on the yellow and green sets the little Boglin characters are all named.

 

 

This next set of stickers was part of the Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful 1989 program. I have been unable to find any information about this online. Although I found a couple of embroidered patches on ebay with the robot on them. These stickers came with a comic book and the Robot, Trashcan, and Paperbag guy all tried to clean up the Earth in the story. It's been decades since I read it, and don't remember what it was called. My sister used markers to color in her stickers.

Here is a close-up of the Earth friendly team in their flying ship.

 The Tang Lips. There were several different stickers that tied into this particular marketing campaign. I had this one stuck on the cover of one of my sticker books. I also had one stuck on a plastic file card box that I used to store the clip and save cards from the

 back of my Ninja Turtles packages.

Here is Rainbow Brite stuck in another sticker book. Sticker books are kind of a weird idea, since once you put the sticker in there you can't use it again. I think that's the reason why later I kept so many sticker in there original condition on their sheet (unstuck). In the end it didn't really matter I guess. Stuck or Unstuck they have just sat in a box for twenty plus years.

Anti-Smoking Smuf

 

Star Wars Holiday & Christmas Haul

I've been thinking about it recently, if Disney owns Star Wars... can the put out the Holiday Special on DVD or Blu-Ray? Now, it's not very good, but Star Wars fans will buy anything. It might actually ruin the mystique of the tv special if it is readily available. The only reason to see it is so you can say you've seen it. I know parts (if not all of it) are on youtube.

I first heard about the Star Wars Holiday Special in the mid 90's (I was born in '82 - so I missed Star Wars in the theaters). My best friend's Dad was showing us the bonus features on the laser disc Star Wars box set and in a tour of Skywalker Ranch they mentioned Chewie's son from the holiday special as they walked past a costume rack that contained a small wookie costume. From that day on I had a burning desire to see this piece of Star Wars history. Eventually, once the internet was readily available I read about it a little online. There were not a lot of screen captures out there, and no video copies. The internet was to slow to post videos.

Years later, while standing in line to see the midnight showing of SW EpII I told that same friend I was going to make sure I saw the Holiday Special before EpIII came out.

 Matt from X-Entertainment frequently posted about the special back in those days. His site was a big influence on me while my friends and I were working on our site Obscene Newg. I started talking to him on AIM (AOL Instant Messenger - for the young-ins). I eventually asked him if there was a way I could get a copy from him. He asked if I had a fast connection, which I did because I was in college at the time. He told me he'd transfer it to me over AIM, but he'd only give it one try. If it failed or it took to long he'd cut it off. He sent me a low quality Real Video file and I watched it that very evening. I have it burnt onto a CD somewhere.

A few years later a friend of mine picked up a box of old VHS tapes from his neighbor's trash pile when they moved away. He didn't have cable at the time and enjoyed watching all these poor quality tape of old shows they  had recorded off the television. In this box along with a bunch of Godzilla movies and some episode of the Droids cartoon was a tape of The Star Wars Holiday Special. I borrowed that tape and watched it with some friends while making a copy of it. My copy of that tape sits proudly next to my DVD and Blu-Ray copies of both Trilogies. (The VHS tapes of the Trilogy have been moved elsewhere to free up space.

On to this Christmas...

 

My sister, brother-in-law, and niece got me a bunch of Star Wars stuff this year. A Lego Star Wars t-shirt spoofing the Beatles Abbey Road. A plush Yoda and Chewie that my niece likes to play with. They also got me a Darth Vader head and a Han Solo in Carbonite ice cube trays. My mom gave me a Han Solo and Chewie bobble head fast food toys from a few years ago.

Merry Christmas

I meant to post this earlier, but it just didn't happen. I hope everyone had a safe and happy day. I especially want to pass that on to my faithful readers and commenter.  I didn't get any action figures (I never do anymore... makes me a little sad) but I did get some fun stuff.

He's a photo of the year I got the Mamba Helicopter from GI Joe. Do you think I was excited?

She-Ra Cel from Bustatoons

James Eatock (aka Bustatoons)  is perhaps the most knowledgeable He-Man fan when it comes to the Filmation cartoon show. Right before I started the Action Figure Adventures blog, his The He-Man and She-Ra Blog was one of a handful of blogs I was reading on an almost daily basis. James' blog is one of the only ones of that group that is still being actively updated.

A while ago James held a comment contest where visitors to his blog got points for each meaningful comment left on a post (there were rules to define meaningful). When it was all said and done I had earned enough points to receive a free Filmation Cel. That cel just arrived today from England as a little Christmas Eve present.

 

This cel is from a She-Ra run cycle. There would have been dozens of other similar cels with her arms and legs in different positions. Then when photographed in order She-Ra would appear to run. In an action show like She-Ra we would see these stock running sequences used frequently. I find it interesting that this cel has no hand written markings at the top or bottom. Most of the Filmation Cels I own have marking to indicate the show or episode they were used in. Some just say stock because they are sequences that are reused.

 Here is a close-up of  She-Ra from the cel.

 Thank you very much James! If anyone is into He-Man and She-Ra you should check out his blog. He post mostly about the Cartoon, UK Comics, and some of the story books from back in the day.

Fright Features Ray Stantz - Kenner

I always liked Ray from Ghostbusters. He was great in the movie and fun in the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. Fright Features Ray Stantz was the first version of Ray I owned. I liked that he he looked like a standard Ghostbuster with a twist. He has a pretty standard jumpsuit and a nice set of long gloves. It's cool that he has the goggles Ray wore in the movie. It's pretty cool that he is wearing a Ghostbuster t-shirt under the jumpsuit. Like all the Fright Features characters he came with a unique ghostbusting weapon. Ray's purple fork lift gun is an interesting weapon.

 When you push his arm in his hair lifts up and his ears pop-out. As his hair lifts up it reveals giant eyeballs. This gives him a very humorous appearance.

Ray also included a little red "Jail Jaw" ghost. The fork lift gun can clip between the bars of the ghost mouth. His ghost was also released in glow-in-the-dark plastic with the role-play Ghostbuster Trap. I sold the trap years ago at a yard sale, but the ghost was in a box with my action figures and didn't go with it.

Eternos Palace King Randor - MOTUC

If you didn't already know I love the vintage He-Man cartoon and was very happy to get a toon inspired version of King Randor. He is a nice mix of new and re-used parts. Now I don't feel bad that I missed out on the armored version released before I got into the Classic line.

In the vintage toy line they made a King Randor figure as the line was dying out. It was long after the cartoon was off the air and I stopped paying attention to He-Man. The Classics line has really gotten me back into He-Man in a big way and I'm happy to have the King & Queen.

Obi-wan Kenobi - Prequel Star Wars

A long time ago, I had plans of making a Clone Wars web comic using photos of action figures to tell more adventures of the prequel characters. This was before there were multiple seasons of a cartoon show to fill the space between the movies. I wanted my story to include some flashbacks and really fill in lots of voids in the Star Wars story. To that end, I collected quite a few prequel action figures. Unfortunately, like many well laid plans it just never happened. So today I'm going to highlight my Obi-wan figures.

 There were two different versions of Obi-wan Kenobi released around the time of Episode I. One has him dressed in his Jedi robe and the other without. They have pretty standard 5 point articulation. I don't the the head sculpt is all the great either.  I had planned to show Obi-wan as a Padawan a couple times in flashbacks while he tried to think how to instruct Anakin.

 The next Obi-wan comes from the line of Episode II toys, This figure would have be used exclusively if the plot called on Obi-wan to pilot a ship. He has his little head set sculpted on. I picked this guy up at a yard sale one time. He's not a real great figure.

 These next two figures actually have a few parts swapped around. One of the best Obi-wan figures released around the time of Episode II was a figure in a Clone Wars battle pack that came with removable Stormtrooper/Jedi armor. These two figures are a combination of parts between that figure and the super articulated Episode III Obi-wan. On the Left in the EpII head and chest armor on the EpIII body and cloth jedi robe. The figure on the right is the EpIII head on the not quite as nice EpII body. This body also has small holes in it for attaching shin and arm armor that doesn't stay on real well. You can also see this robes are not as nicely made.

 Again we has the Clone Wars EpII head on the EpIII body. In the top photo he's wearing the molded Jedi robe that came with some releases of the EpIII Obi-wan. Below you can see the same figure wearing chest armor from a Clone Trooper in training figure. Depending on what he need to do in a given story I would have changed his robes. The molded ones look nicer for standing still. Action and sitting require the cloth robe.

 The next couple of figures are from comic packs based on Clone Wars comic books. I really like the figure with the robe. It's cool that he has the look of the molded robe, but can be posed with his arms in meaningful ways. The second figure features a masked head (to limit his ability to use the Force while as a prisoner) and a head with a removable re-breather for swimming. These two heads fit very specific story needs, and I didn't have any particular plans to use either one when I bought him, but you never know where the story might have gone.

The next figure is the Episode III Obi-Wan whose body has been reused quite a bit at this point. He's pretty much super articulated, and an all around great figure. Some versions came with the molded robes other with a cloth robe and pilot head set. He's one of my all time favorite modern era Star Wars figures.

This disheveled version of Obi-wan came with the Mustafar play set. He looks a little worse for wear due to his battle with Anakin/Darth Vader. It's kind of a shame that this figure doesn't use the awesome body for the previous figure. He only has 5 points of articulation and a bad battle pose.
 

Last is two versions of the EpIII Obi-wan. The one in the background (who is in focus) has a custom paint job on his hair and beard. I had planned to use this figure as Obi-wan between EpIII and EpIV. Perhaps I would have done a few stories about Ben's time while Luke grew up.