Bugmen of Insecta

I thought I’d dedicate the Friday feature space to this odd little line of early 1980s obscurity. Not because I collect them but because they kind of fascinate me.

When Toys R Us first hit my town in 1984, the Bug Men came with it. Their cards looked warn already and it was sort of this weird “never heard of it toy line” that belonged in a pharmacy rack toy aisle more than a TRU action figure aisle.

There they sat and sat and sat until at least the mid 1990s when they seemed to vanish from every Toys R Us I visited, in some sort of clearance clean up. I almost never see them at toy shows either, they just vanished. That was until this past fall when I was at Burlington Toy Con and a fellow I know trucked by a box of them.

Turns out the Bug Men are highly collectible now, commanding more than I’d pay for them, which is a shame because their mix of horror and cheapness are now intoxicating to me. Fortunately I was able to record them for posterity, more after the jump:

I think the best thing about the Bug Men is their card art, looking at it I guess we all know what happened to Action Jackson now. Above is Grass Hopper man, I’m assuming the Bug Men were meant to be bad guys.

I’m assuming that the Bugmen were Multi toys answer to the fantasy action figure craze of the 1980s spawned by Mattel and Remco. I wasn’t really paying utmost attention to the figure aisle at this point.