"On a doom laden day 2250 the Trembling Earth came face to face with the holocaust! The pernicious plan of direful destruction launched by the MUTON- an alien master- from the death black reachs of space!"
In the mid seventies, UK Toy Maker (and the inventor of Spiro-Graph) Denys Fisher took a Japanese Toy called Henshin Cyborg (which was an off shoot of Captain Action and the father of the Micronauts) and transformed it into a compelling series of 9" figures.
The infusion of a western story line into Japanese toy creativity resulted in only thing, toy magic. The Denys Fisher Cyborg line may be the best toy that you've never heard of before. One word of caution, it may cause ebay searchs...
Thanks to Bill Frost, I also have a gallery of awesome boxed and carded Cyborg goodies to coincide with this.
Click Here to view the catalog and toy gallery
More Cyborgs and see through heroes
Buy, Sell or look for vintage Henshin Cyborg Toys at our trading post
Absolute gold. One of the best toy ideas ever. How can you beat a transparent cyborg version of G.I. Joe? (The real G.I. Joe, and not that shrimpy '80s version.) Answer: you can't.
ReplyDeleteAnd as much as I love (and wish I could afford) the Japanese Takara cyborg toys, I'm so frigging jealous that kids in the UK got a version as cool as what Denys Fisher put out.
...Muton?
ReplyDeleteWait a minute. Shrimpy 80's version? Those were the best! If you would have had the 70's GI Joe and tried playing with it in front of your friends, you would have been laughed out of the house in the 80's. "Nice dolly, can I help you comb his beard?" The 80's Joes had tons more accessories, weapons, vehicles, and story lines. Not to mention, they didn't take up nearly as much space as the foot tall gargantuan Joe. Star Wars and Fisher price figures before that were also the same size. Pure interplaying toy bliss. When you make a boy's "action figure" the same size as a Barbie, there is a universal connotation that goes with it....Doll. There has been attempts to bring back GI Joe and other movie characters in large size again. But they are nearly always bought as collectors items and not very often "played" with by children. That is why the vast majority of action figures today are still the 4 inch size. They are just better liked by boys.
ReplyDeleteNothing beats hideous missiles. NOTHING!
ReplyDelete@ John III
ReplyDelete"Nice dolly, can I help you comb his beard?"
Hahahahahahaha!!! (Made me spit out my drink.)
Well, I think the real truth is that kids in the '80s would have been intimidated by the size of what we thought of as "standard" in the '70s. ;)
Besides, two words says it all... "kung-fu grip."
bahhh you children of the 80s, with your tiny Joes, your Smurfs, and your MTV . . . :)
ReplyDeleteeveryone just likes what they grew up with best, it's natural. i had the same reaction as all the other kids my age when the tiny Joes were launched: "that ain't GI Joe". you want "dolly'? my favorite 8" Mego was Green Goblin - in a bright pink/green leotard, carrying a purse!
Homer you're exactly right, I get weird email here from people who say "The 60s were better!". Yeah because you were a kid then, I get it.
ReplyDeleteYou guys are great! Green Goblin, yeah that would have been pretty funny! LOL Anyway, I turned 7 in 1980, so I was right at the age when Joe went 4 inch. I may have liked the larger versions, but I never experienced it. And like I said, if I would have brought anything like the big Joe to a friends house, or God-forbid to school, I would have probably been kicked in the junk and had big "Joe" stuffed next to my little "Joe" if you know what I mean...... And knowing is half the battle!
ReplyDeleteThat Red Baron figure looks really awesome. All I could find where those Jumbo non-posable figures of it
ReplyDelete