These Germans don’t stand a chance.
Archive for the 'Marx Toys/Playsets' Category
You have to admire how insanely politically incorrect this set is. And the play mat was “printed in the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong”? Oy.
Marx Toys: Giant Prehistoric Mountain Play Set
Published September 19, 2012 Dinosaurs , Marx Toys/Playsets 2 Comments
These cavemen don’t stand a chance.
1979 Sears Christmas Catalog: Marx Play Sets and The Incredible Hulk Play Case
Published September 5, 2012 Catalogs , Godzilla , Marx Toys/Playsets 3 Comments
I think this is the last year the major catalogs sold Marx playsets, thanks to Kenner’s revolutionary Star Wars toy line. The Iwo Jima Jungle Mountain looks exactly the same as Navarone, except that Navarone is a grey-blue.
The Hulk Play Case looks even lamer and junkier than the Buck Rogers one I had. These cases were made of vinyl, and the attachments were cardboard.
I like how they used Godzilla’s foot to demonstrate elastic Superman.
(Image via WishbookWeb)
1980 J.C. Penney Christmas Catalog: Galactic Attack Dome, Buck Rogers Toys, Star Trek Toys, and Star Birds
Published June 20, 2012 Catalogs , Marx Toys/Playsets , Multiple Toymakers/MPC , Space Toys/Playsets , Star Trek 6 Comments
First things first. On the bottom left of the first page you’ll see a caption, CONSUMER INFORMATION ABOUT ADVENTURE TOYS. The text underneath reads:
The active, imaginative play that adventure toys stimulate provides children with a socially acceptable way of releasing tension. These toys take children into a pretend world and yet help them to express their feelings about the real world and to act out adult roles. It is the child who controls the action with these toys. This helps the child feel less dependent.
Fascinating. How much bloody tension could we have needed to release? It’s like we were all one empty Ding Dong box away from turning into Macaulay Culkin in that movie where he plays crazy evil kid who tries to throw Elijah Wood off a cliff. The line about the pretend world somehow bringing us closer to the real world is bullshit, but it’s sophisticated bullshit. Sure, the pretend worlds of Beethoven and Shakespeare express feelings about the real world, but the Galactic Attack Dome does not, even though it’s bloody fantastic and I’m seriously bitter that I never got a crack at it. The Navarone set is a beauty too, and a Marx classic.
I don’t remember these Buck Rogers Toys, but I watched the trashy series with my dad, who suffered through the silliness for glimpses of Erin Gray in her skin tight spacesuits (yum). The Star Trek stuff looks so antiseptic, doesn’t it? How do you turn such a cerebral show into a line of action toys? I guess that’s why they didn’t last. The Star Birds were spaceships that, like, made noises and stuff. The Retroist talks about them here.
(All images via WishbookWeb. Click to enlarge.)
Louis Marx Play Sets: Dinosaurs, Romans, Spacemen, Lend Me Your Ears
Published April 24, 2012 Dinosaurs , Marx Toys/Playsets , Space Toys/Playsets 5 CommentsI hadn’t heard of Louis Marx and Company, apparently “the largest toy manufacturer in the world by the 1950s,” until I started looking for pics of the army men I had growing up. Marx produced these amazing sets well into the ’70s, and below is just a small sampling of what I never got to play with. I remember seeing other kids with the stuff, though. How depressing.
No, I’m not going to get all crazy and try to procure one now (the Ben-Hur set below sold for $853 on eBay in 2008). I have my dignity. Well, as much dignity as a grown man who looks for pictures of army men while singing along to ’80s New Wave can have.
You can check out some of the Marx catalogs over at Plaid Stallions.
(Images via Dinosaur Toy Forum, John Kenneth Muir, Marx Lane, Playset Addict, Toy Soldier Forum, Timewarp Toys, Marx Playsets, and CollectToys)
2 Warps to Neptune 