Legion of Silly Dinosaurs! The Patchisaurs And Friends, or Knockoffs Are Forever

For this installment, I'm bringing you what this blog was always meant to cover, the world of dinosaur toys. I have loved dinos (for which this blog is named) and prehistoric creatures for all my life, and I have been indulged by family and friends with all manner of related toys and collectibles. In the course of time, I have had some of the very best, from high-quality toys to museum grade models. But as with many things, the ones that have always stayed in my memory are the small, cheap and obscure. This fascination has led me to discover genre which I call the "generic dino": The seemingly untraceable yet oddly specific designs and sculpts, often dated or wholly fanciful even for much earlier days, handed down like oft-told tales from one anonymous manufacturer to another, to appear and reappear years and decades apart. And in this already vast and tangled category, none are more notorious and seemingly unkillable than a group of Asian sculpts known as the patchisaurs, which look less like dinosaurs than alien monsters from another dimension as portrayed in a Godzilla movie seen during an acid trip. Here are pics of what I am convinced to be the "main" group:

The tale of these creatures has been told often enough that I will recap it quite briefly. In the early to mid 1970s, sets of strange toys believed to originate from Hong Kong began appearing in American discount stores. It was clear that the sculpts were influenced heavily by Japanese "kaiju" movies and related TV shows, to the extent that sleuths have directly tied several to specific movies. They soon gained notoriety among adults as well as children, particularly when several were incorporated into the original "Dungeons and Dragons" games. Despite this attention, their origin remained mysterious both then and now. In the course of my own research, I found pictures of at least one preserved bag bearing the legendary Arco name, which will certainly be appearing here. However, it is possible (particularly given the company's known reputation) that they either copied another manufacturer's designs or simply packaged and distributed figures produced elsewhere.

My own experience starts a decade later. In the late 1980s, I picked up at least two and possibly a good part of the set as prizes at school and perhaps arcades. I particularly recall one I named Clubtail, and now find suspiciously similar to Gorgo. I also remember the one now sometimes called umberhulk based on certain red copies but which I only ever saw in white as shown above. I took that one as a sort of a dragon-like alien, and as far as I recall I considered the bits around the mouth to be insectoid mandibles. I think I also had at least one more of the "upright" creatures, which I have dubbed the Armadillo Guy and Flattop. I'm almost certain I had or at least saw the one I have always thought of simply of as "Leaper", an absolutely evil-looking creature that resemble nothing so much as a chubacabra. Here's a few more closeups, including a recent copy/ clone of Clubtail.

"I vant to suck your goat. My friend vill curl into a ball and roll away."

"I feel pretty..."

Then around 1990, I spent a chunk of allowance money to buy a bagged set at a local grocery store. By this time, I think I had lost at least some of the figures I had acquired before, and I believe the ones I have now are all from the set except for one (the "bulette") I bought quite recently. I recall it was at this time that I found the insect-like creature immortalized by D&D as the rust monster, which I tend to associate vaguely with the landstriders in The Dark Crystal. It also included some comparatively realistic dinos that may have been made along with the original "patchis", particularly a pterosaur/ Pteranodon that I have encountered many times since. Other "normal" dinos that can commonly be seen in patchi bags and lots are clearly copies/ bootlegs of dinos from Marx and other companies in the 1950s and '60s, and I am satisfied that several good Marx copies I still have were from the "patchi" bag. Here are pics of some "Marx clone" sculpts, and my larger collection of the Pteranodon creature. The stegosaurus looks a little too happy, while the rex looks like he's begging for extinction.

It was ultimately the Pteranodon that did the most to keep the line in my mind, in large part because it lacked the near-hallucinogenic weirdness of more notorious patchisaurs. The sculpt details are realistic and downright good enough that it could easily be taken as another clone of a more orthodox dino, and with no conclusive answers on when or how the patchis were first produced, I cannot rule out that it is just that. The one detail that is quite strangely "off" is that feathers are sculpted in place of the wing membrane. Even more strangely, as shown in an extra close up below, the neck and underside of the wing appear to have some kind of hair, an idea suggested in some 19th-century reconstructions but not widely revived until the "warm-blooded" controversies of the 1970s and later.  I also find myself hard-pressed to emphasize just how often I have seen this creature. I have found it in everything from mixed bags at second-hand stores to sets sold at Walmart. Even then, I have usually only bought the damn things if they were include with something else that caught my interest, and I may still have missed one or two that might be lying around in one place or another.

This will be as good a segue as any to their legacy in the age of the internet. By the early 2010s, collectors, D&D fans and other enthusiasts were comparing notes and recognizing the phenomenon. Various nicknames were revived or assigned for various creatures, while the term "patchisaurs" caught on for the line as a whole. Further intrigue quickly swirled around the "owlbear", a sculpt included in the D&D lore but rarely if ever seen since. Today, specimens for sale have about the same status as a Holy Grail used by Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster at Area 51. And yet, new production continues! Here are pics of a boxed set I acquired around 2017, source of the bulette and one of the mutant-rexes as well as yet another Pteranodon. As can be seen, this is more openly fantasy-themed, though it also includes reasonably good representations of the mammals Macrauchenia and Uintatherium.

What I think keeps the patchisaurs in people's minds is that they capture a way of looking at dinosaurs that can stay vivid and relevant long after earnestly "scientific" representations have gone as petrified as fossils. The only artifacts that can rival them in my mind are the very Victorian sculptures of the Crystal Palace exhibitions or the crude and wildly weird roadside dinosaurs of Holbrook, which I used as a stand in for the Apocalypse Now temple in my Terminator fan/ parody novel The Rookie. The greatest impact for me is that I have found myself thinking unbidden of the patchisaurs in connection with far more capable works: The aforementioned Gorgo and The Dark Crystal; the offbrand-kaiju Gamera series; the landscapes of Filmation's sci fi/ fantasy mashups, especially the short-lived Star Trek toon; and even Stephen King's bonkers novella "The Mist". This is surely where the patchisaurs were always meant to be, misfits in a mixed toybox with only the imagination to decide where they should go.

Rather than try to put links in the article, I have assembled a list of the most useful articles I can easily find; unfortunately, there are plenty more I have read at one time or another but either could not be relocated, having missing links and images, or may simply be gone. As often as possible, I have tried to reference material that introduced me to specific subjects.

Little Weirdos "Chinasaurs", a less fortunate name for the patchis. This blog was one of my earliest sources and many other obscure small-scale toys.

An account by Tony DiTerlizzi, including pics of several vintage bags and the recent boxed set I purchased.

A discussion on Little Rubber Guys.

A DumpStat post on the owlbear, a bit heavy on the D&D lore for my personal tastes.

Miniature Giants Part 3: Marx on the Moon!

We're now in part 3 of a series on giant Marx figures, and finally up to what started this: The Marx astronaut line, possibly the most iconic and influential of their creations, and all the more so because casual collectors frequently identify items from completely different manufacturers as part of it. To summarize very briefly, Marx produced "army man" scale astronaut figures throughout the 1950s and 1960s, many of which were a bit fanciful or "retro" even for the time. As the moon landing became a likely reality, Marx conceived something quite different that would be remembered much longer: In place of space men with fishbowl helmets and ray guns, they designed detailed astronauts in modern-looking suits with plausible scientific gear and instruments. In 1970, the world saw the new realistic astronauts in the full glory of 6 inch scale, of which I have acquired five in three different sculpts. Here's a few more sample pics, with the Truckstop Queen and her companion Ken R. Wampa:

Of these figures, the first one I acquired is one I have dubbed Scooper, followed by one I think of as the Commander, aka Briefcase Guy, and last the Cameraman. The first two have been of most interest, to the extent that I chose to buy extra copies of them over buying up a more complete set. It is perhaps most noteworthy that they have reasonably discrete facial features, contrary to the assessment of many critical collectors who consider the sculpts copies of a single individual. There is also some difference in the plastic, with both of the copies of Scooper appearing glossier than the Commander. I am still not satisfied whether this is from the use of different plastics at potentially different dates or some variable of manufacturing and subsequent preservation. On the latter vein, I have noticed that more weathered or simply grimy figures can show detail more sharply. This can be seen with the photo of the two Scoopers above, with the one on the left (and first I obtained) definitely being the more discolored of the two (though not as much as the Wampa I have included for further comparison!) The difference proved most pronounced between the two Commander figures, which an be seen below.

I did discover some more quantifiable variations, which proved easiest to discern in the "backpacks". The most striking is that the "duplicate" Scooper has a quite distinct bulging pack that I suspect represents an earlier version of the mold despite the figure's less aged appearance; unfortunately, it proved quite difficult to capture in photos. I include the following picture as the best I could make, with the bulging pack on the right.

Meanwhile, I had already recognized even more dramatic differences in the cameraman, which apart from anything else measured about 1/4 of an inch shorter. The feel and appearance of the plastic was also far more different than for the other figures, with an almost gray or translucent appearance. I absolutely believe this is a later production with cheaper plastic, though it bears the same production mark as the other figures. This was further born out by far more condition issues including the obliteration of detail on the lens clearly visible I photos of other specimens I used for reference. Despite such flaws, the detail is particularly sharp, and I hoped to further confirm a variant by inspection of the pack. At first, I found this inconclusive, but on further inspection, I concluded that the pack appeared straighter and less "deep", probably to (further?) reduce the amount of plastic. Here's more pics that should also give a better view of this and other figures' details.

On final evaluation, the 6 inch astronauts are among the very best of the large size Marx figures, but also give an all too clear picture of the company's troubles through the following decade. By the best available research, production of the figures probably stopped by the mid-1970s, and it is not difficult to guess why. Though they are shorter than many other nominal 6" figures, they are considerably more heavy and robust, which would have been an increasing liability as Marx's profits declined. They also were placed squarely in the path of the evolving action figure format and the coinciding explosion of science fiction-themed toys. On a deeper level, they embodied the ideals of a moment in time which was already passing. By the 1980s, children were no longer satisfied with the idea of space travel as exploration for its own sake, and Marx would not survive long enough to provide other toys or tales.

If there is a happy postscript, it is that the smaller counterparts went on to a better fate. Though some debate when they were first produced, I see no reason to doubt that they were introduced with the large figures in 1970, and they were certainly still in production at the end of the decade, when they surfaced in several of the very last Marx playsets to be produced, including the Galaxy Command set released in 1979 when the company was already in bankruptcy. More importantly, they set a new standard for detail and realism in science fiction toys, and not just for those on the "army man" scale. I am absolutely sure these little guys were the direct basis of any number of toys that will be featured here sooner or later, particularly the infamous Galaxy Laser Team line that has loomed large both in my childhood and adulthood. If imitation is flattery, the Marx astronauts would have their own pyramid, and you could probably build it entirely with plastic from toys that ripped them off.

For my earlier installments, see here and here. 

Miniature Giants Part 2: Marx Marxists!

As outlined in the previous installment, this series is dedicated to 6" scale figures produced by Marx as a spinoff to their "army men" and other non-articulated figures produced for playsets. So far, my plans have remained in flux as I continue to wait for certain items either not yet delivered or subject to open online auctions. I have also already to make some decisions about what figures should receive their own installments. The ones to be featured here are the ones that have taken longest to decide, a pair of figures representing the Soviet forces of World War 2. Here they are, in full glory:

The background on these is in many ways more inscrutable than the "enemy" Japanese and German figures coming last time. Of course, the Soviets were allies to the US in the Second World War, before becoming perceived adversaries in the Cold War. It is by now generally known that the Soviets were in fact responsible for the most significant ground battles of the war and the heaviest losses both to the Nazis and to the Allies. In the 1960s, when the large size Marx figures were produced, the image of the Soviet Union was more equivocal than might be expected. Diplomatic relations with the western powers had at least marginally improved over the preceding decades, despite the chaotic events of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Of more immediate interest, western media were becoming more honest about their role in World War 2, leading to popular books on battles such as Stalingrad and Kursk and the movies such as Cross of Iron (which I might have the stomach to review sooner or later). Finally, a toy maker would not have ignored that representations of Soviet troops could be used as adversaries both to German and American-proxie figures. Here's another pic:

At face value, these figures don't offer a lot of room for further comment. The rifle-wielding "sniper" is in a purposefully static pose, and would be entirely uninteresting if not for the particularly grim expression. In this respect, it undoubtedly personifies stereotypes of Russians, as well as the stoic masculinity already deeply ingrained in "army men" and other military toys. Then there is the other figure, usually identified simply as "grenade thrower", on more careful consideration clearly intended to represent an officer complete with a Tokarev pistol. The designers clearly intended maximum overemoting, with a fearsome expression and a bizarre pose that defies conventional anatomy. I have literally struggled to capture how strange the figure really is. I finally resorted to posing with my own hand; note especially the right ankle.

One more detail that may be apparent is that the base of the officer figure has extra translucent "flash" around the edges, which may indicate a later "wave" with cheaper plastic and manufacturing methods. However, both bear the Marx imprint, and while the officer has a distinct texture and overall lighter feel, the differences are not nearly as dramatic as what I observed in the "hard plastic" Japanese figures. Surveys of online auctions included many marked as made in Mexico, either with a Plastimarx imprint of Marx's subsidiary there or simply with a sticker that may have been used after the parent company's bankruptcy in 1979-1980. Often, weapons and other parts broken off, particularly a sculpt showing a helmeted infantryman carrying the famous PPSh-41 submachine gun, consistent with lower quality reissues and copies.

As for the overall success of the group, the anecdotal evidence indicates that they are relatively uncommon but not enough to be sought after, in line with a release that made a limited impression then and later. I acquired both of these items for under $10, though the officer was offered as "rare". One more tantalizing lead to come to my attention was a lot comprised of the infantryman and several other Marx sculpts reportedly made in the Ukrainean SSR prior to 1980. Whether this was in any way authorized by Marx, and whether it was in fact made before the company's or for that matter the USSR's demise, is a matter I can find no further data to address.

To close, here's another pose with the Truckstop Queen. If the Cold War had been a limbo contest, this guy would have won it!

See my first installment here.

Miniature Giants Part 1: Enemy Marx

It's been a long time, again, but I'm back with something that should keep me busy for a while. While I had and still have plenty of action figures from vintage and recent lines, my longest running collection has been what I think of as "arcade prize" toys: army men, little dinos, rubber robots, semi generic spaceships, and so forth, typically encountered in prize bins and vending machine capsules with little or no further information on their origin. In the course of my randomized acquisitions, I occasionally ran across a different breed of toy that I've come to appreciate as a category in its own right. These are items clearly based on the tiny non-articulated figure but blown up to much larger size, with an extra level of detail that adds to the most intriguing and/or dysfunctional qualities of their smaller counterparts: humorous, bizarre, self dating, and in hindsight frequently horrifying and occasionally poignant. Few examples could be more egregious than the group under consideration here.

This group was part of a semi official line made in the 1960s by Marx, as a spin off to their popular if notorious toy soldiers, sold up to that point in boxed playsets. The new figures enlarged their familiar figures to a nominal 6 inch size (usually closer to 5 1/2") that could be sold individually. At about the same time, they shifted from making somewhat generic figures clearly modeled on WW2-era US troops to a more diverse range that included "enemy" German and Japanese figures in both regular and large size. The present specimens are, of course, the large-size Japanese figures.

This sat has a further history for me. The dark-colored soldier is an original I purchased recently online. I had picked up the other three as a set years ago at a legendary local used book store. Over time, I figured out what they were, and further concluded that they were a re issue, probably made in Mexico in the 1970s of later. It was also apparent from descriptions and eventual inspections of vintage figures that the reissued figures were made of a harder plastic, evidenced by a clacking sound when handled that I quickly became familiar with. The reissues were also probably more prone to damage, which can be seen on the officer, which is missing not only a finger on the right hand but also a strap for the pair of binoculars. It may appear that there is also a broken bayonet on the soldier with the rifle, but I long since concluded that it was a deliberate alteration to the mold. Here's a couple more shots for comparison:

The altered bayonet particularly intrigued me, and ultimately inspired me to acquire an original. The obvious explanation for the change is that later manufacturers were paranoid about eye injuries, particularly with the harder plastic. In my own investigation, the bayonet on the original proved so flexible that it bent 90 degrees with sufficient force. By further comparison, a katana at the reissue officer's side (only about twice as long as the bayonet) simply twanged like a tooth pick. However, the reissue bayonet is in every other way a worse choice in terms of safety, with a quite strange shape that resembles nothing so much as a convict's shiv. It could certainly do significant damage if jabbed in anger or mere boredom, with the latter being a quite foreseeable reaction from kids who had wanted one of the more expensive action figures that were gradually emerging.

The alternative explanation is that the toy makers were concerned about how parents would react to an already clearly problematic toy. On this vein, I took particular notice of a German/ Nazi soldier that was actually discontinued. Per a quite detailed online catalog that I expect to reference throughout this series, a stormtrooper with a downward-pointed bayonet was deemed graphic and disturbing enough that Marx withdrew the design and replaced it with another mold. The fact that Marx had already issued "casualty" figures of visibly wounded or dying soldiers appears to have escaped further attention.

To wrap up, here's some more pics. I have included a figure I call the Truckstop Queen, otherwise known as Cordelia from the Buffy/ Angel line, whose tale may be told at another time.

Finally, here's the most surreal detail of all, and very possibly a major reason I bought these damn things in the first place.

We've come a long way. possibly mostly downhill.