Tomy makes monsters
The Tomy Mighty Men and Monster Maker was one of the more memorable toys of my childhood, from the moment I saw the commercial, I was single minded in my purpose to get it for my birthday which I luckily did.
That meant the entire month of October preparing my house for Halloween, as toys went I got my mileage out of this sucker and it’s one I’m surprised hasn’t seen some sort of reissue.
Two tidbits of data:
(1) The monster designs were done by the young, pre-ROCKETEER Dave Stevens, and
(2) The patent can be found here:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=FbU7AAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false
Holy moley did I love this thing! I even took it to school to show my 6th grade teacher! If I remember correctly, the version of this toy marketed to girls was called "Fashion Plates".
I had the one that featured different types of vans you could create, yes vans – it was the 70s after all. It was called Little Van Goes.
I actually still have a few of the sketches I created with this thing (and some of Batman and Robin too from the DC Heroes set) …my wife still has the Barbie plates from the one she had as a kid.
Friggin' loved this thing. The possible head / torso / legs combos were endless. I'm sure this is in a box at my parents' house…when I see them in next month, I am so looking for it.
I saw this as a kid. Wanted it pretty bad too. Oh well. Not like I was toyless or anything!
I had both Little Van Goes and the Mighty Monster Maker toys as a child and spent countless hours playing with them. Just don't make things like that anymore
Got this toy for my 11th birthday in 1981. The toy was fun for awhile, and the packaging rocked. You can see it here, just scroll past the other toys and stuff:
http://www.leftylimbo.com/2010/08/1981/#more-943
Yeah, I loved this. I was rather artistically inclined as a youth, so I drew my own mighty men and monsters, but this was an incredible short-cut. Plus it had textures!
Me and a bunch of artist are paying tribute to this thing over at championshipleagueofchampions.blogspot.com
what a great old toy.