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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The Beatles (Remco)

The Beatles
Remco
1964

Truly horrifying, or awesome vintage collectible? You be the judge.

In the 1960's Remco began producing a line of toys based on the various television and music icons of the era. Though never officially entitled as such, fans came to know it as the Big Head series. One of the first items produced were four figures based on the British rock group, The Beatles.

Featuring John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, there's not much we can say about the band that we honestly haven't covered in our prior posts about Beatlemania type toys - Nor could we honestly say anything that hasn't been said a hundred times over by so many others - Or that isn't common knowledge at this point.

Each doll was approximately five inches tall, with the head taking up approximately two inches of that encompassing measurement. The series featured real hair, which many people oddly enough cut when they opened them. As a result, opened ones are difficult to find with a full mop top.

The packaging was big on using the "Yeah, yeah, yeah" from the Beatles 1963 single, She Loves You - Which was actually never used for a full Beatles album (with the exception of greatest hits/collections). It featured a small window in the box for the figure to be displayed, and shared half the front of the package with photographs of each member's head. The back of the package was reserved for more photographs of the band, as well as an advertisement of sorts for the series.

John Lennon

Paul McCartney

Oddly enough, the packages themselves don't tell you which figure is inside. Rather, the name of each member of the group is painted on the instrument the actual figure holds.

George Harrison

Ringo Starr

Remco continued their Big Head series with other notable characters, but never came back to The Beatles for updated looks.

These days the figures are fairly common, but still rather pricey. An entire set typically sells for around $400.00 to $500.00 - Mint in the box. Loose ones sell for about fifty dollars each - Pending they have a full head of hair.

Join us next time when we take a look at Samurai X!

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