WWF LJN 8" Figures Pt. 1

For Christmas of 1985 my parents gave me a rubber figure that was a bit odd looking. All rubber with a bald head and a green tongue. He was also hairy but the hair was flesh colored and he came with a poster. That toy was George "The Animal" Steel from the WWF Wrestling Superstars toy line by LJN.

In 1984 the LJN toy company partnered with the WWF to release the first wave of the Wrestling Superstars 8" figures. These figures were made entirely of painted rubber and lacked no articulation. Despite the fact that the figures were stuck in a single pose, the figures were a big success and would last for six years. There are a few factors that made this toy line stand out.



             Front of package

The packaging for these figures really stood out due to the artwork on the front. The artwork on the front consisted of drawings of your favorite wrestler in the squared circle. The art was also very colorful and was the perfect backdrop to the big rubber figure sealed in a clear plastic bubble on the card.

                                                             Back of package

The back of the packaging came with a bio card and a
picture of other wrestlers you would have to collect,
because as a kid you wanted to create your own Wrestlemania so you needed the entire
WWF roster.










These figures were pretty big. The average size figures at this time were around the three and three quarter inch size figures. The Wrestling Superstars figures were eight inches and no other wrestling figures around this time would use this size. If you were lucky enough to have a complete wave of figures, you had to carry them in a crate and were unknowingly building up you tiny muscles because these things were pretty hefty.

Terry "The Giant" Funk!

All of the figures also came with a poster inside. The poster is the same artwork from the front of the package with one slight difference. The poster was a meant to look like a promo for a wrestling event, and no matter what figure you had, that particular wrestler was in the highlight of the event according to the mini poster.

Yeah.... Ted Arcidi was always a top draw.

Some of the figures came with accessories(usually hats) but the most prized accessory of them all was the Heavyweight title belt. Only one wrestling figure came with the belt. 

                                                           This Guy!

The line had a good mix of good guys and bad guys which let kids re-enact their favorite matches. All they needed was a wrestling ring for the figures.


                                             Sling' Em-Fling' Em Wrestling Ring

The ring was a nice big size, almost a perfect scale.

                                    Cage Match Accessory                                        

WWf and LJN were also smart enough to sell an accessory to the ring, the cage match box set.



Because the ring was big enough to fit a lot of the figures in it at one time, you could have a battle royal match and smack the toys around until the paint would rub off.

If you look online for these figures you will see that almost all of the loose figures have one thing in common, lots and lots of paint wear. LJN decided that since these were wrestling figures and boys would be smashing them together they would make these figures entirely out of rubber. These rubber figures would be painted over and after kids re-enacted their favorite matches, the paint would rub off on the other figures. The lack of articulation, paint wear and size of these figures did not deter kids from playing with these figures over and over again. The Wrestling Superstars figures were a success and made other wrestling companies realize that there was a market for wrestling figures. This venture by WWF and LJN also started a long history of wrestling figures by the WWF, and it all started with nine rubber figures.

Series 1

HULK HOGAN

ANDRE THE GIANT

BIG JOHN STUDD

HILLBILLY JIM

IRON SHEIK

JIMMY "SUPERFLY" SNUKA

JUNKYARD DOG

NIKOLAI VOLKOFF

"ROWDY" RODDY PIPER

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles PT. 2

So I'll be doing another post on more of the original turtle figures. This will cover the second wave of figures released.

Ace Duck

I'm not quite sure why Ace Duck was never shown on the cartoon. Every other character in the second wave of toys made an appearance on the show. According to his bio, he was a human pilot that was cross mutated with a duck when Krang was bringing ducks(for food) to Dimension X. He crashed into the turtles lair and the turtles then hired him as their pilot for the turtle blimp. 

He came with removable wings, a pilot's cap, a pistol and egg grenades. This is one of my favorite figures in the entire line. His arms had ball a swivel joints for articulation, a featured that was not used for any other figure in the line.

Baxter Stockman

Shredder's lackey scientist that was turned into a fly accidentally in Dimension X by a malfunctioning disintegrator unit. He came with an anti-turtle swatter and detachable wings. I always wanted to see a human Baxter figure but this was another figure with a good sculpt and paint job for it's time.  

Casey Jones

Another popular figure was this guy. He came with a golf bag, a golf club and two baseball bats. His favorite food is Shake 'n' Break Chicken and he sounded like Clint Eastwood on the TV show.

General Traag

General Traag was the leader of Krang's rock army in Dimension X. He was seen a few times on the show and looked better there. His figure was not a favorite of mine. I did like the look of his weapons though. 

Genghis Frog

Genghis Frog fit into the line well with his overall design. What I was always curious about is 

1)Why did he look so different than his cartoon counterpart?

2) Why did they only release two of the frogs in toy form from the cartoon when there were four in the group?

See what I mean?

     

Krang

Krang was the evil brain from Dimension X and provided The Shredder with technology to help get rid of the turtles. This figure was lame. I remember getting this as a kid and never playing with it. 

Leatherhead

I liked Leatherhead but his playability was limited due to his design. His tail did not allow him to stand up right and he had a tendency to fall over a lot. In the cartoon he was a villain but he also feuded with the Rat King. 

His look is much different now.

Metalhead

Metalhead was created by Krang as a weapon to defeat the turtles but then reprogrammed by Donatello. He came with a Backpack that had a detachable radar and robo-chucks. you could pull his hands off and attach the the robo-chucks. His eyes would glow red when you held his exposed robot brain to light.  I always played with this little guy.

The Rat King

Another one of my favorites. He came with a rat crossbow and a rat hook. He lives in the sewer so his costume design has elements of sewer gunk all over it. The roadkill cat belt is a nice touch.

Wacky Walkin' Mouser

This was part of the Wacky Action sub-line from wave two. The Mouser had a wind up feature that would make it walk and open and close it's mouth. It also came with a punch out card that had different foods for the Mousers to eat. The Mousers were designed by Baxter Stockman before he turned into a fly. They were only about knee high to the turtles in the cartoon, but this toy was only slightly smaller than the turtle figures. The scale was off but it was a cool looking toy. The other figures in this sub-line were three of the four turtles. Those figures were lame and for the most part I am not of fan of all the variant toys so I won't be talking about those(well, maybe in a separate post).

Usagi Yojimbo

As a kid this was my definition of bad ass. This is by far my favorite figure in the entire line and he doesn't even belong to the turtle franchise. Usagi Yojimbo was created by Stan Sakai for his own comic and the popularity of the comic lead him to be put on the Ninja Turtle cartoon. He was accidentally pulled from his dimension and whooped the turtles before becoming their friends. This figure had the cool Samurai style look, a bunch of swords and the articulation was the best of the line. 

14 figures came in the second wave with most of them being very cool looking toys. If the first wave didn't get kids attention then the second wave probably did. The packaging artwork stayed the same so the figures that hit the shelves still had that distinctive turtle look to them. One thing that sticks out to me is how this line used different types of articulation with the characters. Maybe they were trying to figure out what would work best with the characters, or maybe they just did things differently to try to stand out from other action figures. By the time the next wave of toys was released, turtle-mania was in full swing. As far as figures were concerned, there was no end in sight.

1980's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pt 1.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started as a comic book in 1984. During the success of the comic series, Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird were contacted by Mark Freedman. Freedman, who was a licensing agent, wanted to make a toy line based on the comic. Due to the dark nature of the comic, all but one company passed on the idea of turtle toys. The company that decided to take a risk was Playmates Toys. They decided that to make the toys successful, a children's cartoon should be made to generate interest. On December 14th 1987, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon aired. The first season had five episodes and ran for five straight days. Before the second season aired the show was already a success and all the merchandise was ready to be released. This post will be a quick review of the first ten action figures released in 1988.

Original 10

The figures boasted 7 points of articulation and came with multiple weapons. The turtles had different color headbands and belts with their first initial on them. The different color bands and the belts made it easy for kids to tell the difference between the four turtles.

 Leonardo

Donatello

Donatello was the inventor of the group. This would help with the cartoon and toy series due to the fact that Donatello could create new gadgets and weapons and therefore Playmates could create more toys.

Michaelangelo

Raphael

Even though the toys are based off of the cartoon, the design of the turtle figures looked to be more influenced from the comic series than the cartoon. No pupils and bulging muscles with large veins. As you can see, the packaging artwork is also closer to the comic than the cartoon.

Splinter

April O'Neil

In the cartoon April is a news reporter for channel 6 news. Also, The first wave of toys had April with three different outfit colors. An all yellow jumpsuit, yellow with blue stripes and yellow with orange as seen above.

Shredder

The Shredder figure comes in a pose that resembles artwork from the 1984 comic.

Foot Soldier

Unlike the comic, the Foot Soldiers were robots in the cartoon.

Bebop and Rocksteady

 

Bebop and Rocksteady were created for the cartoon and were The Shredder's henchmen. They were common thugs who were cross mutated with a wild boar and a rhinoceros.

The sculpting for this line was highly detailed for it's time and the packaging also stood out. The artwork on the front of the card combined with character bios on the back gave kids a reason to hold on to the packaging. There were also pizza points on the back of the card that could be cut out and redeemed for other merchandise. The first 10 figures were a huge success and would spark one of the biggest merchandising runs in toy history. The toy line would last 10 years and develop a legacy within the toy collecting world.
Part 2 of this post will focus on the next 10 action figures to be released in the series.

-Jay

CUSTOM FIGURES PART 1

Magnum P.I.

http://www.sillof.com/

Aliens

http://jin-saotome.deviantart.com/

Warlock

http://yogi-dono.deviantart.com/art/Warlock-custom-action-figure-4-266237750

Future Foundation

http://raybotcustoms.com/

Dutch's Team from Predator

Michael Jackson's Thriller

http://www.figurerealm.com/viewcustomfigures.php?op=4&id=4955

Manny Pacquiao

http://www.angelfire.com/planet/loosecollector/

Cartoon Shredder

http://www.figurerealm.com/viewcustomfigure.php?FID=45293

TMNT/Deadpool

Michaelangelo Micro Series Custom

http://gogreenmachine.org/?p=6208