The Dave Clark Five (Remco)

The Dave Clark Five
Remco
1964

The Dave Clark five are most commonly referred to as the, "Second group from the  British invasion" - The Beatles of course being number one. The band found success with numerous hits between 1958 and 1970 such as; Glad All Over, Catch  Us If You Can, You Got What It Takes, Because, Everybody Knows, and so many more. They even managed to knock The Beatles I Want to Hold Your Hand off the top of the UK singles chart in January 1964 with their hit Glad All Over.

The band often times shadowed the success of The Beatles. For example, following in suit to The Beatles A Hard Day's Night film in 1964, The Dave Clark Five released their own film, Catch Us If You Can.

Their success continued in the US until around 1967. That was when their last hit charted - You Got What It Takes. Fortunately they still found mild success in the UK until 1970 when the band disbanded.

During the height of the band's popularity, Remco gave Dave Clark the big head treatment in a set which also featured the remaining members of the band. However, unlike Clark, the rest of the group was produced in smaller plastic figures that more so resembled cake toppers.

The entire band was only packaged as a one shot all or nothing deal. This is probably a good thing considering that the remaining members seemed more like an afterthought for Remco.

Today this set isn't very common, and when found typically sells for around $200.00 in the package. A complete loose set sells for around $40.00 to $60.00.

What has kept the band from making much of a resurgence is the stubbornness of Dave Clark himself. Mr. Clark owns the rights to all of the band's music, and between 1978 to 1993 he declined all opportunities to license the recordings to anyone. It wasn't until Disney met with what was considered a ridiculous agreement that he allowed a compilation CD to be released in 1993. Unfortunately the deal soon soured, and Clark backed out of the arrangement. As of 2008, a new compilations CD was made available, but to date the band's studio albums have yet to be released on CD format.

***BONUS***

Lyndon B Johnson and Barry M. Goldwater
Remco
1964

Remco found little to no success with a theme of political big heads that they released in 1964. Focusing on President Lyndon B. Johnson, and Senator Barry M. Goldberg, it was somewhat of a, "Kids will like this, right?" tactic from the company.

If you can find an original display case for the Lyndon B. Johnson figure, it actually has a fairly comical sales pitch on it, "Great for kids!" Hmm...Not so much, but we can imagine many grandmothers seeing this and saying, "Oh, Billy will love this. Such a nice toy." Meanwhile grandpa is standing over her shoulder shouting, "America!"

Most kids don't care about politics, and even those that do - Yeah, they're typically not looking for figures based on said folks. Heck, even for people like us who love Action figures, we're kind of on the side of , "Lame."

Lyndon B. Johnson

Barry M. Goldwater

Unlike the above The Dave Clark Five figures, and the prior discussed The Beatles line, these don't sell for too much on secondary markets. You can easily get them for between $20.00 and $25.00 mint in the package.

Join us next time when we take a look at The Krofft Superstar Series!

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