I used to put my Star Wars and G.I. Joe prisoners in that safari cage! What a great line, and we’re talking top three of all time: totally original, beautifully designed and accessorized, durable as hell, and they’re just regular people doing exciting (to kids in the ’70s) things.
(Images via the Adventure People Flickr Group)
2 Warps to Neptune 
As a kid I loved those. I had the construction workers with he yellow ladders and if you flied them around you could make them in to catapults to shoot the figures in the air. My sister had the one with boat and Dolphin and Ironically enough she became a marien biologist.
The Sea Explorer set was my absolute favorite. The yellow boat is so sleek and awesome. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: baths used to be fun.
My friends and I had a bunch of these. I had the plane that hooks on the pontoon boat and loved it.
I played the hell out these as a kid. By far my favorite toy until Kenner released the Star Wars toys.
I have one of the two members of the Cycle Racing Team with my old Star Wars figures. I found him washed up on the beach of a river when I was a kid and used him as a villain – the race suit kind of looks like some kind of goofy evil space suit. Never knew who he was until the internet.
I had every single one of those sets except for that helicopter one. It was almost as if my parents went out of their way to get the new sets at Fedco as soon as they hit the shelves. Fisher Price defined my childhood in the ’70s, and their toys ruled.
The Sea Explorer set was my fav as well, although there was something super cool about the Wilderness Patrol set having the ability to connect the prop plane with that boat. I still have that 6-wheel ATV and the dood with the cowboy hat from that set, and I also have the Sea Explorer boat which my kid plays with.
Durable? Heck yeah, those toys were built to last. You know how many times I sent that ambulance tumbling end over end when I launched it off a ramp down my hallway? And it never broke (I think I have to thank the ’70s shag carpet for that). I still have that, too, btw.
I loved playing with these: I’ve got very clear memories of digging a deep hole in my backyard, complete with exposed root “vines”, and using the Wild Animal Safari set in some “lost world” scenario (Mom was not happy about the hole in the yard…) Also had some really good times with the Aero Marine Search Team (http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/f2/b6/ce/f2b6ce7296be285bd63eae979f82de0c.jpg) in the tub and pool… you just can’t beat anything to do with an octopus guarding a treasure chest. Looking back at those times, I think they may have had more of an effect on my imagination than any licensed toy lines. I always felt they jumped the shark when they went space, but still ended up with the shuttle and a few aliens and robots anyway. They were too cool not to like.
And Fisher Price was “educational,” so my parents were quicker to get the sets and figures for me. I put Adventure People on par with Micronauts, a line that also required us to write the story. Have you seen Marx’s Undersea Adventure Play Set (http://marxwildwest.com/Undersea%20adventure.html) ? It came out about the same time the Aeromarine set debuted and was one of Marx’s last sets before going bankrupt. I believe the FP set came out first.
Oh, and agreed about the space sets. They were chasing Star Wars and some of the designs borrowed from late series Micronauts figures, but they were still quality. It’s kind of sad that we all jumped ship for Star Wars, but there was no going back.
I was not aware of that set, but if I had been I’d have been all over it. Always been a sucker for underwater themed toys.