Despite it's parentage of Lucas and Spielberg, Indiana Jones has never been the merchandising success like it's cousins Star Wars and E.T. Although one could blame that on it's historical surrounds or it's lack of wookies, it's really never been established why.
One of the best attempts at merchandising Indy was Kenner's 1982 "Adventures of Indiana Jones" line, released in 1982, a year after the film made it's debut, it was a nicely made if not sparse toy line that ran for two years. What little did come out was actually quite nice and now very collectible.:
Click Here to Visit the 1982 Kenner Indiana Jones Catalog
More Kenner Deliciousness:
I had all the figures including the mail-away Belloq, but the only accessory I got was the truck. My friend was really into the movie and got all the toys, so I got to play with his.
ReplyDeleteThe truck was a great piece of toy design with a whip that was wound up by the axle - pulling Indy up to the truck as he was dragged. Sadly there were no soldier figures for Indy to fight, unless you got a bunch of Indy in disguise ones, but then it was a bit surreal for him to be fighting several clones of himself.
The map room let you use light to focus a dot on the map, pretty damn cool at the time and perfectly matched the scene. The real draw though was the figure of Indy in robes.
The Well of Soul playset was pretty cool, but so many snakes made it easy to lose some if you played with it outside. A break away wall similar to the Empire Hoth playset made for a good feature.
The streets of Cairo set was okay, it came with 1 1/2 figures (Marion was a solid piece in a seated "hiding" position). It had a nice fruit stand you could knock over in a fight.
The Horse was nearly impossible to find. I saw it once and then never again.
A really great line that could have gone another year if they wanted. I heard there was a planned plane playset from the big fist fight scene, but it was going to be too big and expensive. There was also talk of a temple set from the first part of the film, but the line just didn't sell well for some reason.
Probably the only negative I'll give the line was the tiny guns they had. While it was cool that they were realistic in scale, I lost them pretty quickly and eventually had to give them Star Wars guns. Everyone I knew lost the guns as well.
I had a few of the figures--Indy, Toht, the swordsman--but I don't recall all those playsets. Odd, because I was a such STAR WARS-toy maniac, so I don't know why I didn't beg my parents for these. Hm, now that I think about it, it wasn't until TEMPLE OF DOOM that I became a true fanatic. And yes, Indy's whip and gun disappeared pretty much upon arrival home from the toystore!
ReplyDeleteI honestly don't recall these. I also didn't see Raiders under a few years later, so I didn't know if I was missing out on anything or not, even if I did see the toys.
ReplyDeleteI think that its because once you get past Indy, the figures just aren't that interesting, action figure-wise. Toht? Belloq? A girl?(ick!)
ReplyDeleteI skipped all these as a kid, now of course I wish I had them--I really love the figures and the packaging.
I so wanted these figs. None of the stores in our small city would carry them, tho. The few times I did see them was at the out of town Toys-R-Us, and I never had the scratch available at the time :(
ReplyDeleteOddly, I don't remember Eaton's or Sears Canada carrying these in their catalogues either.
I had all of the playsets and vehicles and some of the figures. For some reason I could never find the original Indy figure. Of course I started getting these several years after the film and they were all marked down.
ReplyDeleteI mostly used cheap Sgt. Rock figures with the playsets. Don't ask. I had some weird storyline going on...