Archives

Diecast Heroes

Corgi was a legend in the diecast car industry, certainly because of the quality and it’s licensed goods. Corgi was best known to children of the Seventies as the maker of “that batmobile” we all owned. By 1978, Corgi was grabbing every TV movie license it could and producing some of the finest diescast toy […]

Holy Licensing Royalties Batman!

With the recent addition of Star Trek and Planet of the Apes galleries to the Azrak Hamway section of the site, you had to know this would be coming. If there is one character that AHI did the most with, it would be the caped crusader, thanks to my pal Bill Frost I’ve got some […]

Super Sale

This ad for Towers (A Canadian chain of department stores) from December 15, 1980 has some pretty swell deals going for it. Highlights include Mego 12″ Superheroes for $4.95 each, Remco Utility Belts for $3.22 and the Hoth Ice Planet set for $10.50. This didn’t help me much as a kid, we lived far away […]

Evel Knievel : The Comic Book

A bravura addition to the site today, it’s the Ideal Toys Evel Knievel giveaway comic in it’s entirety. Even if it didn’t have the Marvel Comic Logo on it, the art style would give it away. Like many promotional comics, it manages to crowbar in every Evel Knievel toy while telling some sort of story.“The […]

Utini This!

Finally a bop bag that makes sense, I never understood trying to punch out the Hulk or Mr. Spock (what the hell did he ever do to anybody?) but I totally get wanting to hit a Jawa. They seems to be kind of annoying in the Star Wars universe, they dicker, sell shoddy merchandise, have […]

Official Planet of the Apes Merchandise

More additions to the Azrak Hamway toy galleriesthis time it’s all about the Planet of the Apes merchandise made by AHI. Thanks to Bill Frost for the great pictures! Sky Diving, rifle touting Galen sure didn’t make oodles of sense but it just didn’t matter when you were five. These super deformed Wind Up “Little […]

Barbie Envy

While not born a girl and being fortunate enough that my parents didn’t try to raise me as one regardless, I find it odd how nostalgic this page makes me. I think as a kid I was envious that Barbie got that cool boat and Big Jim didn’t. Barbie and Jim shared campers, planes, cars […]

Cheap 23rd Century Goodness

I got a lot of great feedback on the recent Azrak Hamway toy galleriesIncluding a ton of submissions from friends, so much so that I’ll be spinning off some of the material into additional galleries. Today, I thought I’d focus on some of the AHI Star Trek stuff my pal Bill sent me. These Phaser […]

Made from the Strangest Stuff on Earth

We’re jetting forward to 1984 to take a look at Manglors, a rather unique toy offering from Ideal Toys. Manglors weren’t action figures (they had no articulation) but rather a new kind of concept, made of a spongy material that stretched and apparently could be reattached. Every character in the line seemed to be a […]

Back in the day shots

Recently I ran a contest/open invitation for Plaidstallions Trading Cards and asked folks for vintage photos. I am overwhelmed by the amount of feedback I got so I’ll be showcasing these for the next couple of weekends. Above is an entry from Nate, where he is playing with his getting his corn syrup on with […]