Fantastic Four (Toy Biz)

Fantastic Four
Toy Biz
1994 - 1996


Stan Lee and Jack Kirby weren't playing around in the 1960's. They're the names behind some of the greatest of the greats; The Hulk, The X-Men, Spider-Man, Nick Fury, Daredevil, Silver Surfer, and so many more we could create a post ten miles long just listing them all. In addition to all of that, we also get from them The Fantastic Four - Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch and The Thing. They were the superhero team that in conjunction pretty much had it all, to and include one of the coolest arch nemesis's in the Marvel Universe - Doctor Doom.

The Fantastic Four debuted in November of 1961 under their own comic book banner, and were one of the series credited with ushering in a new era of comic books - The super hero.

What set the FF aside from so many other comic book heroes was that they led relatively normal lives under one roof with each other. They often times squabbled about petty and deep things, which not only helped to build on each character, but also make them a relatable group to the average reader. They were also big on not hiding behind secret identities, but instead used their unique abilities to garner almost a celebrity status - Such as Tony Stark did.

Though it was never a bad thing during the 90's to hear about a new line of Marvel based super heroes being produced by Toy Biz, we can't help but think that Toy Biz was tricked - Shall we say - Into moving forward with this particular line.

1994 was an interesting year for The Fantastic Four. A film was announced to be in the works, and was even shot from beginning to end, edited into a final cut, and a trailer even released in theaters. However, the film itself was never actually produced with the intentions of releasing it. Instead, it was an effort on behalf of rights holder Bernd Eichinger of Constantin Films to simply maintain the rights to the film franchise - Rights which he had obtained in 1992.

With the hype wheel turning of a Fantastic Four movie coming to theaters in 2004, we think Toy Biz got a little more excited than they probably should have, and started churning out figures. Of course, all of this is speculation on our part - Though it is a little coincidental that Toy Biz would randomly throw a ton of efforts and resources into an FF based line in 1994.

***UPDATE***

Reader Chris Mapp wrote to inform us that 1994 was also the year that a Fantastic Four and Iron Man cartoon were being aired on television. This series is actually a plastic iteration of that show which ran for two seasons (26 episodes) between 1994 and 1996.

Regardless, as we said, it was never bad news to hear that Toy Biz was producing something new in the world of Marvel Comics based toys. As such, despite whatever reason they had for developing the massive series they produced, we'll happily take them.

We got a ton of great stuff from this release - Figures upon figures, awesome vehicles, and let's not forget that spectacular massive sized Galactus.

 Black Bolt*Dr. Doom*Mole Man

 Fantastic Four*Silver Surfer*Terrax

 The Thing

 Blastaar*Dragon Man*Firelord

 Gorgon*Human Torch (Flame on Sparking Action)*Human Torch (Glow in the Dark Flames)

 Invisible Woman*Invisible Woman (Transparent)*Thanos

 Annihilus*Atuuma*Namor

 Super Skrull*The Thing*Triton

 Human Torch (Red and Yellow Platform)*Human Torch (Orange and Red Platform)*Medusa

 Psycho Man*The Thing*Wizard

As was common during this particular era of Toy Biz related Marvel Comics lines, the company merged two together to create some fairly unique Walmart exclusive two packs. Each two pack features one Fantastic Four related character with one Iron Man related one. The packaging alone is worth grabbing these for. It's so much fun to look at - Though rather costly these days.

 Dr. Doom Vs. Iron Man*Mr. Fantastic Vs. Iron Man (Hydro Armor)

 Silver Surfer Vs. Mandarin*The Thing Vs. War Machine

 Galactus

Some consider the vehicles to be a little silly in terms of grounding them in the actual Marvel Universe. We say, "Check out all those launching missiles and features!" These toys are pure fun with so much built into them to make them interactive with the figures.

 The Thing's Sky Cycle*Mr. Fantastic's Sky Shuttle

Fantasticar - Cosmo Modular Space Vehicle

Whether you love, hate, or could care a less about the Fantastic Four, one thing can't be denied - Toy Biz hit the mark with this particular line leaving little room for complaint - If any at all.

Join us next time when we take a look at Muhammad Ali!

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Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (Sababa Toys)

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids
Sababa Toys
2005

Hey, hey, hey! It's Fat Albert!

Awful name - Just awful. Can you imagine? People come up to you, "Hi, I'm Tim Drake." You respond, "Oh, hey, I'm Fat Albert!" Where do you go with a conversation from there? Because Tim's probably going to give an awkward, "Oh...Nice to meet you," then point somewhere behind you, and say, "I'm needed over there...ish."

Poor attempts at humor aside, Fat Albert is definitely a staple in the terms of iconic cartoon characters. The character and his gang are all the brain children of Bill Cosby - Though most of you probably already knew that. The original show premiered in 1972, and ran through 1985 for a whopping 110 episodes as well as four specials. As to why the show ended after it's eight season run, well, that's probably because by 1984 Mr. Cosby was gearing up season 2 of his instant success The Cosby show on NBC. Let's just assume he really didn't have a lot of free time at this point anymore.

Over the past several decades, Fat Albert and the gang have had their share of toys, but none were as fabulously designed as Sababa Toy's 2005 line. Unfortunately for the newly developed toy manufacturer, the general public didn't necessarily care about them.

Why create a line based on Fat Albert in 2005, when the show hadn't been produced since 1985, and though still in syndication was in few and far between blocks? That's answer is the 2004 Fat Albert movie starring Keenan Thompson - Which in truth wasn't terrible.

With an all new feature length film finding a fairly strong foothold in the box office, it kind of made sense to try and spark some interest in the original renditions of the characters. Again though - It didn't pay off. The end result was a very small line of just four figures - Far from FA's full cast of compadres.

 Dumb Donald

 Fat Albert

 Mushmouth

Weird Harold

These days Sababa Toys is still producing items here and there, but they tend to stay out of the action figure game. Their niche is more geared towards manufacturing wholesale licensed merchandise such as a Nintendo themed Uno set. Sadly, the majority of it isn't all that impressive.

Join us next time when we take a look at Fantastic Four!

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Thundercats Classics Minimates (Diamond Select)

Thundercats Classics Minimates
Diamond Select
2012 - 2013

Minimates are something we jumped on the bandwagon way to late for. By the time we realized they were something we were interested in, a vast amount of them had already come and gone, and were showing massive increases in value on secondary markets - In short, we didn't buy many, which is why you don't see to many posts around here on the subject. In fact, this is only the second post we've done on Minimates to date.

There's not much we can say about the Thundercats cartoon that we haven't already touched on in our original LJN series review. So, we'll just jump right into the toys.

Minimates are a block style action figure (or vehicle) which was originally produced by Art Asylum. Though Art Asylum handled the concept well, it wasn't until Diamond Select took over that development/production really ramped up to the point you have so many vast series today - One of which is Thundercats.

The Thundercats Classics Minimates line started in 2012 with the San Diego Comic Con exclusive set which featured Lion-O, Panthro, Spirit of Jaga, Mumm-Ra and Snarf. Disappointingly to fans, this would end up being the only way to obtain these particular figures as they were never released in retail stores.

 Set 1 - San Diego Comic Con 2012 Exclusive

Sets two through three were released as a retail sets, though most retailers, with the exception of Toys R' Us, didn't carry them. Instead, these could be found at specialty shops - Such as local comic book and hobby stores (that ordered them).

 Set 2

 Set 3

Set four was yet another San Diego Comic Con exclusive. It was if Diamond was telling people, "If you want Lion-O or Mumm-Ra, you better come to SDCC."

 Set 4 - San Diego Comic Con 2013

Thundercats Hooo! was the last set of Minimates released in the series. Much like sets two and three, it was released mainly at Toys R' Us and specialty shops.

Thundercats Hooo! Set

On average, the retail sets will set you back about twenty to thirty dollars. However, to nab the SDCC sets, you're going to pay around $70.00 for the 2013 set, and anywhere from $130.00 to $150.00 for the 2012 set - Ouch.

Join us next time when we take a look at Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids!

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The Phantom (Street Players)

The Phantom
Street Players
1996

The 1996 film, The Phantom, doesn't get the love it deserves. People pan it as one of the worst comic book adaptation films around, and laugh at the casting of B-Movie star Billy Zane as the leading role. Hogwash, we say!

The Phantom is probably one of the most truest renditions of comic book to screen movies out there. The visuals are beautiful, the acting superb, and Billy Zane...Well, he's just cool. If there's one fault the film has, it's that too much of it was left on the cutting room floor. See, the reason that most people don't like the film is because the actual full story never made it into the end result. Much of the character building between The Phantom and Diana Palmer was left out of the film in favor of a faster paced action based movie - Which it wasn't written in the style to be.

Fortunately for fans who want the whole story, a novelization of the film was written by Rob MacGregor - The man behind a series of Indiana Jones novels. MacGregor not only included an origin story for The Phantom in his adaptation, but also the numerous arcs that were cut from the film.

The now defunct Street Players also released a very small line of action figures based on the film which quickly went from isle pegs to clearance bins. Featuring only one carded figure, and a horse/rider pack, the series seemed destined to fail from the get go. Street Players didn't seem interested in supporting the line, and showed this by not bothering to produce any villains for The Phantom to go toe to toe with. In combination with the film being labeled a flop, the toy line fizzle almost instantaneously.

 The Phantom

Phantom Rider

Time has been much kinder to the series of toys than the original movie going crowd of the 90's was. These days you're not going to get either of these items for less than $25.00 to $30.00 each - Not bad for a toy that was condemned to the clearance bin for no more than two bucks within its first year of being released.

Though a sequel was rumored to occur, that rumor was squashed in 2008 with the announcement of a reboot of the franchise - Which of course has not come to fruition either. Will we see more big screen adventures of The Phantom? We suppose time will tell.

Join us next time when we take a look at Thundercats Minimates!

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Print Putty (AKA Secret Print Putty) (Colorforms)

Print Putty (AKA Secret Print Putty)
Colorforms
1966

We don't touch on the Colorforms brand as often as we could here at The Toy Box, but one thing is for certain, the toys that they made were a lot of fun - If not simply for the fact that so many were odd and obscure.

Much mystery surrounds who actually invented Silly Putty first, but according to Crayola, the owner of the patent, it was invented in 1943 by James Wright during World War II. Since then, it has been produced numerous times over with Crayola's own patented Silly Putty name, Imperial's Play Putty, Durham's Fun Putty, Colorform's Print Putty, and so many other various iterations. It's a toy that has lasted on shelves for over fifty years, and show no signs of stumbling in popularity any time soon.

But, what is it about this intriguing putty that makes kids young and old so attracted to it? Plain and simply - It's multifunctional. It can be shaped into a ball, and bounced about. It can be stretched out and used to mold various shapes. However, what most kids absolutely loved about it is its ability to transfer ink from comic book pages onto its surface simply by pushing it down on the comic strip, then lifting it back up.

As we said above, numerous companies have released some form of Silly Putty. Today, we're going to be looking at the 1966 era from Coloforms known as Print Putty - AKA Secret Print Putty.

Coloforms released numerous packages onto the market all at once which included; Batman, Superman, Green Hornet, Monster, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Respectively, Green Hornet and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. were released under the banner, "Secret Print Putty", while the others were just called Print Putty.

Each ball of putty came packed on its own unique card, and included a small "Secret Print Book" which contained "Magic Print Paper" - Though in truth, there was nothing magical about the paper at all as one could use the putty to pull the image off of any printed comic book or strip. Each putty ball was also packed into its own unique container, such as the skull for the Monster Print Putty and / or planet Krypton for Superman.

Most of these particular brands of putty can still be found today on secondary markets, but they're going to set you back anywhere from $40.00 to $400.00 - The cheapest being The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (which is fairly common on markets), and the most valuable being the Monster Print Putty (which is rarely found on markets).

Those looking to track these items down should be careful, especially with the Monster Print Putty as reproductions have been known to surface and sell. As of now, we have not heard of anyone trying to pass the reproductions off as original releases, but needless to say, there's always a chance this could happen. Even then, reproductions are still going to set you back about $150.00.

Of course, there's really no sure way to know if you're getting the original putty in an opened version, and as such most buyers looking for these items typically seek out only sealed in package versions. Again though, you need to be careful as a lot of the reproductions being produced are also sealed in the package.

For as simple as (Silly) Putty is, it's amazing how it has managed to stand the test of time while other more complex toy lines come and go - Sometimes in what seems like a blink of an eye. We suppose that it comes down to the tried and true statement - Simple is better.

***Honorable Mention***

Colorforms continued to produce a format of putty after its (Secret) Print Putty line. However, latter releases tweaked the title on the cardback to be more specific to the item inside. A perfect example of this is the Space Putty package to the right.

Unfortunately the package was so simplified in terms of what was inside that it only included a ball of putty in a shaped container. Gone was the fantastic print book with wonderful artwork to transfer to the putty - Though it still had some wonderful illustrations on the package.

Though we tried desperately to find one to include in this post, we simply could not put our hands on the Spooky Putty. This particular package was a Mickey Mouse and Pluto themed release which featured a glow in the dark skull container reminiscent (if not identical) to the original Monster Print Putty container. If we ever come across one, we'll update this post with it.

Join us next time when we take a look at The Phantom!

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The Krofft Superstars Series (Living Toys)

The Krofft Superstars Series
Living Toys
2000

The best part of The Krofft Superstars series is that it doesn't encompass just one source for the figures. Instead, it's made up of some of the cast / characters of three television series developed by Sid and Marty Krofft's; H.R. Pufnstuf, Sigmund and the Sea Monster and The Krofft Supershow.

(Photo: H.R. Pufnstuf and Electra Woman)

The Krofft Supershow

The 70's were a good time for variety shows. It was an easy way for networks to massively dump "talent" onto airways for massive blocks at a time. Be it Carol Brunett, Andy Williams, Dick Van Dyke, Sonny and Cher or the television family, The Brady's, there was big money involved. As such, it was only natural that variety shows would also make their way into the Saturday morning cartoon scene. Enter Sid and Marty's The Krofft Supershow.


The first half of season one encompassed a full ninety minutes of "skits" (or segments if you will) featuring characters such as Dr. Shrinker, Electra Woman, Dyna Girl, and many other. The show was hosted by the band, Kaptain Kool and the Kongs - A band which was manufactured by studio execs specifically for the show. Before the season would end, the show was shortened to sixty minutes, and dropped the aforementioned characters above in lieu of Bigfoot and Wildboy, and Magic Mongo.

During the shows 32 episode run, more changes came down the pike, including the band dropping one member for season two, and then eventually being replace in full by the Bay City Rollers - A popular Scottish pop band of the era for their hits Saturday Night, Shang-A-Lang, Summerlove Sensation, and more.


H.R. Pufnstuf

Probably the most well known character created by the Krofft duo was Mr. H.R. Pufnstuf. He was the star of the very first live action star from the brothers, and despite running for just seventeen episodes became a pop culture icon.

The series evolved around the tried and true fairy tale premise of good vs. evil, and featured a cast of puppets, actors in foam suits and live actors. The show centered around the boy, Jimmy (portrayed by Jack Wild) who has been shipwrecked on Living Island. Because everything on Living Island is alive, almost everything that could be used as a character was used as a character - Often voiced in a parody fashion of the popular actors and actresses of the early 70's.

The show featured numerous characters such as; Cling and Clang (as portrayed in this particular action figure line), Wilhemina W. Witchiepoo and of course H.R. Pufnstuf (alongside numerous others).

Fun fact - Though Jack Wild portrayed and eleven year old on the show, the actor was actually sixteen.

Sigmund and the Sea Monster

After the days of H.R. Pufnstuf, but before the Krofft Supershow, there was Sigmund and the Sea Monster.

The show centered on two brothers,Scott and Johnny, who discover Sigmund, a friendly little sea monster who has been thrown out by his family for refusing to be frightening. As such, the boys take to hiding Sigmund in their clubhouse in order to keep him safe.

(Photo: Sigmund and Cling and Clang)

Most of the episodes featured Sigmund doing something silly in order to arouse attention, and the boys working to cover up what he's done to keep him a secret. Each show incorporated songs to move the plot development along - Mainly comprising of songs to depict what Johnny was thinking.

Sigmund and the Sea Monster also became the Krofft's first series to be picked up for a second season. However, after twenty-nine episodes, the show had run its course, and was take off the air.


Join us next time when we take a look at Print Putty!

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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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Samurai X (Toycom)

Samurai X
Toycom
2001

Samurai X, or as it's known in Japan as Rurouni Kenshin (Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story) - Or るろうに剣心 -明治剣客浪漫譚, was a highly popular Manga, later adapted into a feature film in 2012 starting Takeru Satoh. The original comic book story was written and created by Nobuhiro Watsuki, and follows the life of former assassin Himura Kenshin, turned wandering samurai who protects the people of Japan with a vow to never take another life.

When the story was first developed, it appeared in the weekly magazine, Weekly Shonen Jump. It unfolded in serial fashion, I.E. small chapters each magazine, between April 1994 to November 1999, much like many Manga style stories did - Such as Katsuhiro Otomo's 1982 story, Akira.

Toycom began producing toys in 2000 with its first line, Future Ninja. From the get go, the company was determined to export Japanese Manga style characters to the US in the form of plastic, and did so fairly regularly until 2004 when the company folded.

Its 2001 venture (as you probably could already tell from the title of this post) was Samurai X. Much like most of Toycom's lines, the series was incredibly small, confined to just four figures. A separate line of PVC style figures were produced as well, but many fans don't contribute them as part of this particular series - We won't go into those here.

 Kenshin Himura

 Kaoru Kamiya

 Hajime Saitou

Sanosuke Sagara

The figures aren't too difficult to find these days. Unfortunately the problem lies with most sellers having them priced too high to sell. The average asking price is between $20.00 and $35.00. However, most people aren't willing to pay more than $10.00 for them mint in the package. Unless you can find a seller that is willing to face facts, you're going to be playing a game of patience to get these at the best price.

Join us next time when we take a look at The Dave Clark Five!

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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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Flaming Carrot (Dark Horse Comics)

Flaming Carrot
Dark Horse Comics
1999

Flaming Carrot was a character we personally got introduced to in 1993 when he was featured in a crossover with Mirage Comic's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Though we don't really recall if the story was good or not at this point, we do know that it was enough to intrigue us in the character in general, and seek out more stories.

Bob Burden created Flaming Carrot back in the 1970's and his first appearance in comic form can be traced to Visions number 1 - A magazine published by the Atlanta Fantasy Fair in 1979. Since then, he has been featured in numerous volumes of his own title published by Dark Horse and Image Comics, and is even credited as a founding member for the group Mystery Men. Wouldn't that have been awesome if he was in the movie?

The "hero's" origin story depicts him as your average everyday comic book fan who on a bet read 5,000 comics back to back. Unfortunately this caused him to suffer brain damage, and thereafter he appeared directly as the Flaming Carrot. He has no super power, just a large carrot mask that lights on fire, and has a storage compartment for his nuclear pogo stick - an invention from Dr. Heller of the Mystery Men. Carrot also wears a utility belt akin to that of Batman. However, unlike Batman's belt which contains several useful gadgets, FC's is stuffed with the likes of rubber bands, sneezing powder, silly putty and random playing cards - All of which are deadly weapons in his hands.

When Dark Horse Comics began developing and releasing action figures based on their own brands, one of the choices was Flaming Carrot. Though only one figure was produced, it can be found in two variations - The regular figure which has red pants, and a chase variant with green pants. The figure came packed with a few accessories; a hook launcher, pistol and two grenades. The top of the carrot also featured an LED/battery feature that allowed it to light up showcasing the flaming feature.

Though the front of the card was rather plain, a unique feature on the back of the card was that it contained an origin story under the title of "Man on the Street Wants to Know! What is This Flaming Carrot?" Because the character is so obscure to many people, this was a nice added touch. We especially like the comic book format that was chosen as the layout.

While uncommon, the red pants version can be picked up on secondary markets for $15.00 to $25.00 mint in the package. Unfortunately if you're wanting to track down the variant green pants version you're going to need two things - A lot of patience, and a lot of money. Very rarely do we see them come up for sale, and when they do they average about $120.00 mint on card. If you buy the figure loose, make sure to inquire if the LED feature is in working condition or not. Otherwise you may end up paying a premium for a non working feature.

Join us next time when we take a look at The Beatles!

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Elvis (Hasbro)

Elvis
Hasbro
1993

We went into a lot of detail on The King in our original post of McFarlane's Elvis line. As such, we'll stick to the basics of this particular Hasbro line.

Merchandising has been a big part of keeping Elvis relevant to an ever changing musical society, and as such, though he may be gone his likeness is no stranger to any form of item to be bought and sold.

These 1993 renditions of Elvis from Hasbro are a fantastic item for fans and doll collector's alike. The gold to the packaging really draws you in, and the likeness in the head sculpt is spot on - Not to mention the fantastic cloth work for the clothing. One look, and you can definitely pick out that this is Elvis Presley - Even if it weren't in the package.

Teen Idol

'68 Sepcial

Jailhouse Rock

Hasbro actually had future plans for the series, but sadly never got around to fulfilling that plan. Whether it was due to poor sales, or licensing coming to an end, three additional dolls that were in the works never got released. They were; Aloha from Hawaii, Gold Suit and Military. There has been one known collector to not only have but be selling these three dolls. His last asking price in January of 2015 was $10,000.00 which nobody purchased.

We asked the seller if we could use his photos for this article, but were told no.

As for the other dolls, despite being priced between $5.00 and $75.00 (yes, that's a massive range), not too many sell. Mind you, that price range is for mint in box ones.

Join us next time when we take a look at Flaming Carrot!

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