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.
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