Leave it to the Japanese to make a fun toy more "funner" (it's a word), here we see what I can only imagine is the original version of we here in North America know as "The Mighty Men and Monster Maker" easily one of the coolest toys from my youth.
In Japan however, their version was licensed and it allowed you to create scenes from Ultra-Man and some animated series I'm not familiar with (Is that Captain Future? Help me out anime guys).
I shouldn't be jealous but I slightly am...
The second one is named "燃えろ! サンダー 5", which is "Moero! Thunder 5" (Moero meaning "Burning" or something like that). However, I'm not really an anime fan, I don't recognize it, and a Google search for the Japanese came up empty. I didn't even get a match for the toy!
ReplyDeletePassing this info along in the hopes someone with more knowledge can she further light!
Er, "shed". I should add these are called "Print 4000 series" in the ad copy.
ReplyDeleteI was gonna say that this is definitely not Captain Future (aka Capitaine Flam). Google "Capitaine Flam" and you'll see what he looked like in the anime version.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Captain Future was a shot in the dark, I prefer my Japanese TV to have men in foam rubber suits wrestling.
ReplyDeleteIn that vein, my search did unearth the Ultraman Print 4000 in action. I see the date 1978, but I can't remember if that pre-dates the Mighty Men and Monster Maker or not.
ReplyDeleteHA! These toys were great! Ya know.. your post has inspired me to do a post on a similar toy from the late 70's called "Little Van Goes" which let you create your own custom vans!! I still have the original toy in its package. I'll have to break it out and design some groovy vans for old times sake!!
ReplyDelete