Classic Movie Monster (Imperial)

Classic Movie Monster
Imperial
1986

Since their inception, Universal has willingly been the gigolo for their trademarked monsters. These classic characters have been on everything from posters to coloring books to toy to <insert genre of collectible here, and keep going>. Rest assured, if you're a fan, there's something out there for you to collect.

While Imperial's venture into the realm of Classic Movie Monsters isn't the best iteration of toys to be found, they are certainly some of the more budget friendly ones to this day. Unlike the Remco line which will set you back not only a ton of money, but a lot of time and patience to obtain, Imperial's are relatively in abundance, and sell for as little as $10.00 a piece. Granted that's more than double of their original price of $3.99, but fairly on par with the cost of figures these days.

Imperial produced only four characters; Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy and Wolfman. The first thing you might notice with these is their unnaturally large hands. Yikes! Is that where the majority of the plastic went into these products? HUGE!

Still, there's something about these that we really love; The cardbacks work so well with the figures inside to give them a real appeal to the eye. They pop, if you know what we mean. It would be difficult to walk past these hanging on a store peg, and at least not glance at them. Their vibrant colors draw you in for at good look (at the very least).

The downer to these is that the back of the cards don't share in the amazing design of the fronts. Rather than make the backs leap out at you like the fronts, Imperial went with a bland black and white "drawn" look. They get points for the classic Meco type artwork for the available figures in the line, but at the end of the day it's rather bland, and leaves you wanting to quickly flip it back over to the figure side.

Beyond that there's not much more to say about this line. It has its appeal for being a Universal Monsters property, and of course you can't go wrong with a a well put together bendable figure - Which Imperial certainly does. This certainly wasn't their first outing in the realm of bendable toys, and it shows that they know what they're doing when it comes to producing a line of toys. In other words, there's quality (and care) there.

This is not one of the more well known toy lines to be produced based on Universal's monsters. This factor may contribute to its (relatively speaking) low prices on secondary markets. They're certainly a conversation piece, and fans of these iconic characters should definitely consider adding them to their collection.

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