1984 Galoob Mr.T Catalog

In the early 1980s, a gentle, gold-chained-covered giant came into our households and told us to read the bible and drink our milk and in doing so, captured our hearts. Mr. T was exactly what Reagan-era America was looking for, a straight-laced tough guy whose look hinted at rebellion.

The ensuing “T Mania” storm was hard and fast with merchandise pouring out everywhere, riding the crest of this was Galoob, who made one of their smarter decisions in capitalizing on America’s unlikely sweetheart.

Mr. T truly was everywhere during this time including Saturday morning and the cereal aisle.

The 12″ Galoob Mr. T action figure would have given the Mego 12″ Hulk a run for its money. I especially love the Army and Fireman sets which remind me of Big Jim or Action Jackson. 

Talking Mr. T is a logical item and I guess this is actually meant to be B.A. Baracus, his character from the A-Team? I love the kid’s expression here, he is channelling Kenneth Williams from the “Carry On” films.

I could be wrong but I don’t think these Galoob Mr. T rag dolls were ever produced. So children didn’t get to cuddle up with him every night like they could with a Wrestler.

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1984 Galoob Mr T Catalog

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Even though Fleetwood began in the 1970s by grabbing such high-brow licenses as Charlie’s Angels and the Marvel Comics Superheroes for Rack Toys, the 1980s seemed to be the company’s high point with them retaining many high ticket licenses from TV and movies.

1984 is a good example of how Fleetwood was doing with some of the most popular TV faces like the A-Team and TJ Hooker, alongside riskier brands like Sword and the Sorcerer and Manimal. The Marvel Superheroes were back under the Secret Wars brand and they even dabbled in a little Hardcastle and McCormick.

1984 Fleetwood Toys Catalog Cover

TJ Hooker was Fleetwoods vehicle to sell toy guns, handcuffs, and police cars that year. If you asked me, they totally missed the boat not having a car with a Shatner figure on the hood.

The A-Team was huge with kids and it gave Fleetwood the excuse to slap a label on a bunch of Rack Toy standards. In this case, even the toolset makes sense!

That Mr T Flashlight is absolutely inspired.

Daydreams and Cuddles were two in-house lines for Fleetwood to capture the girl’s market. They didn’t seem to have any female-centric licenses this year.

Sword and the Sorcerer was an R-rated affair that came out in 1982 (although a lot of us discovered it on cable). It’s very odd to see toys for children based on a film with nudity and gore. Also, are these the only toys based on an Albert Pyun film? I think so.

Manimal was a short-lived NBC TV series famous for its very strange premise. Some of the Manimal “figures” ended up in Sword and the Sorcerer sets. This should surprise no one.

Fleetwood had a long-running relationship with Marvel Comics  which continued when the line rebranded under the Secret Wars banner. Instead of parachuting superheroes, they became balloonists, which is even sillier.
Hardcastle and McCormick was an ABC series about an ex-judge and ex-con teaming up blah, blah, blah, everyone remembers the car.

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After toy giant Mego fell and released both the Marvel and DC superheroes licenses for the first time in over a decade. This was also the first time the action figure license was separated between companies. Kenner took the DC heroes and released Super Powers while Mattel scooped up the Marvel heroes to release the “Secret Wars” toy line. Both toylines received comic series based on the name.

Mattel didn’t put the effort into the line that Kenner initially did, the figures suffered from recycled body parts and many were not comic accurate. Despite these flaws, many recall the Secret Wars line as a fun toy line, many of the characters had never been seen in action figure form making them exciting to collectors as well:

The opening intro introduces the whole “Secret Shields” concept behind Secret Wars, which oddly robs team leader Captain America of his trademark shield which infuriated a lot of folks I knew at the time. I don’t know if kids really cared about the lenticular shields or not. Dr. Doom was the big villain in this series (rightly so) and this figure was his first, too bad it’s not really very comic accurate.

The Mattel Secret Wars line had a full assortment of vehicles and playsets right off the bat.

The Initial Secret Wars offering is fairly logical save for the omission of the Hulk (probably because he required a new body style) but Wolverine was a great choice to kick off the line given his rising popularity. Kang was not a popular figure and I believe the biggest pegwarmer of the 1980s. As assortments continued, character choices didn’t make a great deal of sense.

Not many Marvel characters have their own “Batmobile” so Mattel created a series of quasi-futuristic vehicles for the line like the “Doom Roller” Later they would recycle the helicopter from the “Heroes in Action” series. The “Doom Vs Captain America” set shows Mattel’s flair for creating multiple offerings by combining products, they use this formula to this day.

The Tower of Doom was the first playset released but the heroes would get their own (which was kind of dull) later on. According to my son, the Tower of Doom is a fun set, I bought it for him cheap at a toy show and he used it all the time with his figures. The lack of quality playsets these days makes me glad I could buy one of these for about what they sold for at retail back in 1984.

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Manglors were a pretty interesting concept from Ideal and one you remembered seeing, first, everybody in the line was a monster, which is cool in itself. Secondly, the concept was that you hatched the figures from their eggs and then you could stretch, squeeze and even rip the body parts off the figures and attach them to other figures. An organic version of the Micronauts I guess.

The only problem was, it didn’t really work all that well and when it doesn’t work as advertised, people get upset, Manglors were a huge problem for Ideal.

Here we have Manglodragon, Manglodemon and Manglord, who is in charge I guess. The catchphrase here was “made from the strangest stuff on earth”, as I recall it also had a weird smell. Each of the figures came in a “Prehi-Storage” Play Egg in 1984, although figures also came in window-less boxes with stands. One of the biggest problems with the line was kids wanted to test the amazing claims made in the commercial while they were in-store, resulting in a lot of damaged goods.

Manglizard, Mangldactyl, and Manglsaurus round out the set of creatures from another dimension. The striking packaging art was done by artist Ken Kelly, best known for his album art for KISS and his Mego Micronauts packaging.

Manglor Mountain seemed to be a pit of “Lava” (very close to Mattel Slime) and you raised Manglord up and down into it using an Iron Maiden like device. Not sure if you were helping him or torturing him here, it didn’t matter, it all resulted in some carpet staining, I am sure..

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It’s hard to believe that toymakers thought the next merchandising blitz would come from a David Lynch film but that’s exactly what happened in 1984. Dune got the full treatment with colouring books, bed sheets and of course a selection of action figures produced by LJN. The movie wasn’t particularly kid (or for that matter general public) friendly and as a result, the spice warriors of Dune resided in the clearance aisle.

What’s perplexing to me is most of this stuff got made, yet the gigantically more kid-friendly “Last Starfighter” toy line never saw the light of day. Aggghhh!

LJN bought a lot of trade ads for this line, anticipating it be the movie hit of the Christmas season..

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Lady Jessica never made it to the marketplace.

Gurney Was also cut from the team, however, the world would not be deprived of Patrick Stewart action figures for very long. Notice they mention several sandworms and they weren’t allowed to show them. I find that weird seeing as they were largely phallic symbols.

Click to see a bigger image, the weapons giftset was canceled.

click to see a bigger images, the bad guy vehicle never saw it to the marketplace.

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Many of the characters chosen for the line were based on television shows that US children had never seen .

The line was beautiful but also premium priced due to high costs of importation, I certainly remember drooling over the GoDaikins at my local hobby shop but they were on the top shelf and over $75(!).

This catalog is from 1984, a year when the line would be overshadowed by two competing Japanese lines being marketed in America, Transformers by Hasbro and GoBots by Tonka, both of which were lower priced and had slick marketing campaigns, including animated series. 

As with a lot of unappreciated toy lines, GoDaikins command a high value on the secondary market and are highly collectible.

1984 Bandiai Godaiken Catalog

It’s interesting to note that this catalog has a transforming robot right on the cover, as that would be the hottest toys of Christmas 1984.

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1984 Bandiai Godaiken Catalog

Lightspeed Electroid Albegas (光速電神アルベガス, Kōsoku Denjin Arubegasu) is an anime series that aired from 1983 to 1984 in Japan, Latin America, Spain and Italy. According the many, this was the least popular item in this line.

1984 Bandiai Godaiken Catalog

Kagaku Sentai Dynaman (科学戦隊ダイナマン, Kagaku Sentai Dainaman) is the seventh installment of Toei Company’s Super Sentai show and a direct ancestor to Power Rangers, it also saw broadcast in the United States however it was a parody series under the Night Flight banner.

1984 Bandiai Godaiken Catalog

Chōdenji Machine Voltes V (Japanese: 超電磁マシーン ボルテスVファイブ, Hepburn: Chōdenji Mashīn Borutesu Faibu, lit. “Super Electromagnetic Machine Voltes V”), popularly known simply as Voltes V (pronounced as ”Voltes Five”) is a Japanese anime television series produced by Toei Animation and Nippon Sunrise. It is the second installment of the Robot Romance Trilogy, which also includes Chōdenji Robo Combattler V and Tōshō Daimos. It is directed by Tadao Nagahama and produced by Yoshiyuki Tomino. It aired on TV Asahi from June 4, 1977 to March 25, 1978.

1984 Bandiai Godaiken Catalog

GOLION (百獣王ゴライオン, Hyaku Jūō Goraion, The King of Hundred Beasts GoLion) is known to most US children as Voltron and from what i understand was the most popular seller. I’m not sure how this affected Matchbox who was also bringing in Voltron toys.

Space Emperor God Sigma (宇宙大帝ゴッドシグマ, Uchū Taitei Goddo Shiguma) is a mecha anime television series aired from 1980 to 1981. It ran for 50 episodes. It is also referred to as “God Sigma, Empire of Space” and “Space Combination God Sigma”.

1984 Bandiai Godaikin Catalog

Future Robot Daltanious (未来ロボ ダルタニアス, Mirai Robo Darutaniasu) is an anime television series which aired from 1979 to 1980, produced by Toei Animation, with animation produced by Sunrise.

Gordian Warrior (闘士ゴーディアン, Tōshi Gōdian) is a Japanese anime television series that aired in 1979 to 1981. It is also referred to as Champion of Gordian or Gardian

1984 Bandiai Godaikin Catalog

Denshi Sentai Denjiman (電子戦隊デンジマン, Denshi Sentai Denjiman) is Toei’s fourth entry to its Super Sentai metaseries. It was broadcast from February 2, 1980 to January 31, 1981. The title given to this series for international distribution by Toei is Denjiman, Electric Fighters.

Daitetsujin 17  (大鉄人１７, Daitetsujin Wan-Sebun) is a 1977 tokusatsu series created by Shotaro Ishinomori and produced by Toei. It revolves around a giant battle robot commanded by a young boy who fights the giant robots of an evil organization bent on world conquest. It was released in North America as “Brain 17” but directly to video by Playhouse in the mid 1980s.

Bandai Godaikin Catalog

Taiyo Sentai Sun Vulcan (太陽戦隊サンバルカン Taiyō Sentai San Barukan, translated into English as Solar Squadron Sun Vulcan) is Toei’s fifth entry to its Super Sentai series. It is a direct predacessor to Power Rangers and Popy also created a series of  World Heroes figures based on the show.

Dai Sentai Goggle-V (大戦隊ゴーグルファイブ, Dai Sentai Gōguru Faibu, also called Dai Sentai Goggle Five)[Note 1] is a Japanese tokusatsu television series. It is yet another predecessor to what would largely be known as “Power Rangers” in North America.

Tetsujin 28 was better known as Gigantor to North American kids, although in 1984 most kids probably wouldn’t have been as familiar with him.

Tōshō Daimos (闘将ダイモス, Tōshō Daimosu, “Fighting General Daimos”) is a Japanese anime television series produced by Toei Animation and Sunrise. Daimos saw release as part of the Mattel Shogun Warriors line as well.

 Leopardon is the giant Mech that belongs to Spider-Man in Japan, based on Toei’s popular take on the character. Leopardon also had a cameo in the Shogun Warriors line.
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Transforming watches were everywhere by 1985, it’s not a surprise these got somewhat lost in the shuffle.

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I was too old for the Power Lords when they came out but I remember kind of digging their design, they certainly weren’t as child friendly as other action figure lines at the time and that appealed to my newly discovered cynicism.

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There is no greater time in a toy collector’s journey then when they find that something that they thought existed, actually does.

Well I guess, finding it for a dollar would trump that but no such luck here. After decades of searching I have found my white whale, the very last produced Parachutist figures by Remco/AHI, The Mighty Crusaders.

More after the jump.

I present you with the Web parachutist figure, as you can see he’s “Good”, which likely means they also made the “Evil” character which seems to be the Sting.

While the Shield is on the package, the only Remco/AHI Rack Toys I have ever found feature the Web or the Sting. There is a Web/Sting Helicopter set, both Motorcycles are known to exist (mine is pictured below) and I know someone who has the Sting water gun.

The figure itself is the standard AHI parachute figure we knew and love for the 70s and early 80s.

I think it’s fair to say that most of the Mighty Crusaders Rack Toys pictured on the back of the card got made albeit in miniscule quantities.

The back of this card features a price sticker from Sears which surprises me, I would have thought they were something only found in discount chains.

I’m always excited to find something I didn’t know existed because that just means there is a possibility more toys exist, just waiting to be found.

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