LJN Road Stars

Which one would you go for as a kid? I'd be torn between Captain America and the Eagle from Space:1999.

Also, I wanna meet the kid who saw this display and went "Oh Wow, the Waltons truck!"

New Six Million Dollar Man Shirt in our Redbubble store!

Don't forget to join our new facebook group.

Get the expanded digital edition of Rack Toys here.

Cardboard and Vinyl charm

Can't say I'm a huge fan of either S.W.A.T or Emergency! but those vinyl & cardboard playsets are awesome and I totally want them.

That old timey computer....sigh....

LJN TV Super Stars Catalog

The other Mantooth action figure

Oddly, even though i named Brick Mantooth after Randy, I'm not the world's biggest fan of Emergency! The show and the toys do have a ravenous following to this day however.

The LJN TV Superstars Catalog

While action figure giant Mego was busy swooping up all the comic book and science fiction properties it could for their 8" action figure lines, rival toy maker LJN was going after a different sort of hero. In the seventies, LJN pursued the men in uniform namely the TV shows Emergency and The Rookies, both dramas about real life heroes, namely firefighters and policemen. The gambit paid off as LJN had a successful run with these well made action figures.

Check out the (1974?) LJN TV Superstars Catalog here

Emergency!

Thanks to the wonderful folks at the Johnny Gage Shrine O' Worship (a page devoted to Randy Mantooth, whose name inspired Brick) we have some new Rack Toys or as Peter Griffen called them on last week's Family Guy, "Terrible Pharmacy Toys". These Emergency inspired items were created by larami, one of the true kings of impulse merchandising.

Of all of these, the little helicopter is probably my favourite, mostly because it comes with figures.

Emergency was crazy popular in the 70's, I've even heard that the show was unjustly cancelled because it was cut with high ratings.

Larami sold that stamp set concept more than once, there is a marvel superheroes version.

More on the subject of me: Anther piece I wrote for VVM's Topless Robot popped up today it's titled "The 8 Classic Toys Parents Classicly Hated" and it covers everything from Slime to well, toys filled with Corn Syrup.

Sad News: World's Greatest Toys Blog has reported the death of Danton Burroughs, grandson of Edgar Rice Burroughs has passed away. Danton was instramental in providing great information for Ben's book about Mego Superheroes and being a giant fan of Tarzan, it saddens me to hear this news.