Azrak Hamway International (AHI) Planet of the Apes Toys

Azrak Hamway Index

Famous for their rack toys Azrak Hamway is probably best known these days for scooping Mego on the Universal Monsters license (Mego VP Neil Kublan once cited that he recalled Universal wanted more money than Mego offered) and creating their own line of 8" Monsters that were more than obviously influenced by the look and design of the Mego World's Greatest Superheroes.

AHI Planet of the Apes Toys feature in our upcoming book Rack Toys: Cheap, Crazed Playthings, click here for info.

Ape with a rifle in a parachute, not very logical but so much damned fun. (courtesy of Will Frost)

Dr. Zaius with a rifle in a parachute, not very logical but so much damned fun. (courtesy of Will Frost)

Wind up walking Galen MOC, AHI also made some killer Monster Wind Ups as well.(pic courtesy of Will Frost)

Widdle Wind Up Doctor Zauis is adorable! Note that his costume is blue, a lot of Apes merch had Zaius in that colour.

The apes wagon (with human captive) is friction powered and pretty hard to find in this condition. (courtesy of Will Frost)

An entire store display of AHI Planet of the Apes Water guns, it's like Galen is spitting in your mouth!

A carded Azrak Hamway Ape Pistol was possibly one of the rarest items on display.

AHI's Zaius on horseback is a classic piece of POTA merchandise.

The AHI Action Apemen (that's the trading card I made for them above) are interesting tale of a knock off that went too far.

You see, according to interviews with Mego execs, AHI got to the Planet of the Apes license first and Mego at the last hour, outbid them on the action figure part of the business. AHI managed to secure the rights to many other officially licensed products and honestly, we're all better off Mego got the figure license because, well, those toys rocked.

However, AHI was still in the action figure business, they had the monsters and generic "Adventure Men" characters that sold rather briskly, so why not add a few Apes with rifles to the mix? The result:

The Action Apemen even came on cards that mimicked the Mego "Kresge" card used in stores (most notably K Mart stores)

Well, Mego saw red (it should be mentioned that in the very same year, Mego produced generic Monsters to mimick AHI's officially licensed versions) and teamed with 20th Century Fox to smack AHI down good and publicly.With the lawsuit settled amicably, the Action Apeman vanished quicker than the Ape Mania and lucky for us kids, AHI continued to pump out mad fun items with the Apes logo on them as evidenced in these galleries.

This image is courtesy The Mego Museum

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