1978 Mattel Tarzan Catalog

It had been over a year since Mattel decided to shelve Big Jim and his pals in North America but Mattel took another ambitious crack at using his body for other licenses. Utilizing a great deal of the tooling that was powering Big Jim's European endeavours, Mattel licensed three TV series to generate some action figure sales. The results were mixed but also kind of endearing:

I'm sure the rest of this well made catalog will be a trip for many as it includes such Mattel staples as Barbie, Hot Wheels and Major Matt Mason.

Tarzan was based on the then popular Filmation show (which really should be on DVD), Tarzan's head was Big Jack, both the Panther and Gorilla were also from the Big Jim line.

"How the West was Won" utilized parts from the European "Karl May" line of Big Jim figures.

The popularity of Grizzly Adam's TV adventures lead to this figure set. To my knowledge Ben was originally sculpted for this series but in Europe he was recycled into this set

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