1981 Azrak Hamway Catalog

The beginning of the end for the Rack Toy giant, while the company would continue and prosper for the rest of the decade, it would also eventually fold it's toy division completely under the Remco Name.

The 1981 AHI catalog almost looks like a lower cost copy of the 1981 Remco offerings, all the licenses Crayola, Superheroes and Mickey Mouse are present. Even the Universal Monsters were back with some new offerings (no action figures as Remco was offering those).

Many thanks to Mike Jimenez for these great scans, click on any of thumbnails to check out the 1981 AHI Toy Catalog:

Other AHI/Remco Catalogs

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AHI Toy Galleries

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Imitation Kong Radio

Oh how the unlicensed Gorilla stuff just came pouring out of everywhere in 1977. I'm pretty sure I didn't own one piece of licensed Kong Merchandise (most of which was made by Mego) but had plenty of this generic stuff.

Those beer can radios are another thing that children today will never know of...

Uncashable Checks

Damn I miss the Turtle neck/sport coat combination but I'm just not the right guy to bring it back...

Bozo gives away Mattel Toys

I'm loving this 1976 press release about Bozo and Mattel, a lot of the things being given away are really collectible right now. Of course my favourite of the shot is the Big Jim P.A.C.K Beast that is front and center.

Look at that sweet Jack Kirby Goodness, all toy companies should have had the king do at least one package for them...

Release the Hounds!

When Mr Zaroff brought out the rifle and began mumbling about a head start, Lonny and Pete realised that the slumber party had all been an elaborate ruse...

Captain America Greets his public

David T sent in a big pile of goodies recently and I think my favourite of all is this cool pic of Captain America shaking hands at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson NJ in 1976. That shield is awesome.

Send us your Mall Appearance photos!

1976 NERF Catalog

NERF stands for Non-Expanding Recreational Foam (thanks wikipedia!) and was first introduced to households in 1969 as the the first indoor ball, With it's success, saw many other application for this fun and safe material. 40 years after it's introduction, NERF is still widely available which is a testament to how timeless an idea it really is.

1976 was a good year for NERF, we've go planes, cars and missiles as well as NERF's own Superhero in NERF MAN! This catalog is kind of special to me as it belonged to my dad and you can see some of his pricing notes on some of the pages. Click on the pages for a better view.

THE 1976 NERF CATALOG

Related Linkage:

Buy, Sell or look for vintage Nerf Toys at our trading post

Your Daily Dose of Vitamin C

In an outfit!

Milky The Marvelous Milking Cow

Truly one of the more WTF? toys of the 1970s, Milky was based on the assumption that children would want to play with a cow's teets endlessly. You see, Milky drinks water and then you're encouraged to milk her. That's it, that's all! Theres a tarp so you don't make a mess.

Is anybody else more than a little creeped out by this toy? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that 1977 was probably a busy year at Kenner, they had Six Million Dollar Man money and their latest license, Star Wars was exploding at the box office and the demand for product was insane. Somehow Milky just slipped by, either that or it was the result of martini lunch dare.

Birth of the Leisure Suit

34 years ago men everywhere nodded in approval of this hot new look. I ask you, can you blame them?

British Phaser

I'm a sucker for purty toy packaging and these shots of the UK version of the Star Trek Phaser just had me drooling. It's so nice that I'll forgive the dye job on Shatner's hair. Thanks to Ebay seller retrotoyboy for letting me use these.

More Trekky things to look at:

The Terrific Trio

It's hard to make out but that's Batman and Robin hoisting Batgirl on their shoulders in the picture from SeaWorld. This scene isn't far removed from something you'd see on the 1966 series.

This picture is again courtesy of Steve C.

More Aquatic Superheroics next week.

For more on this check out our gallery:

And if you have anything to add, I'll be your friend for life.

1977 Lili Ledy Toy Catalog

Lili Ledy was Mexico's premiere toy manufacturer and because of trade restrictions, all toys they sold had to be manufactured in Mexico. So many of the popular US lines were licensed and then produced by Lili Ledy resulting in wonderful variations that toy collectors hunt for to this day.

1977 was a killer year with Bionic People, G.I. Joe and Mego Superheroes for everyone. Many thanks to Steve F. for these incredible scans...

Click on the images below to see larger pages with descriptions:

1977 LILI LEDY (MEXICO) TOY CATALOG

More Great Foreign Toys:

Buy, Sell or look for vintage Lili Ledy Toys at our trading post

Space:1999 Trading Card

Trading Card #26 is Palitoy Space:1999, I did this card for the 2009 Megomeet convention back in June because timing didn't allow a Megomuseum card for the event (as the card quality shows, it takes me a lot less time to do these).

This UK exclusive toyline kind of changed my life, in that it made me a bat sh*t crazy toy collector. I was just some regular old science fiction fan until one day in 1985, I found a Captain Zantor doll and thought "I wonder what other toys Mego made?"

I don't have a Palitoy Space:1999 page on the site, that's because there is aready a great one here.

I have one more Mego toyline that I plan to put into the trading cards sometime later this year, stay tuned.

The Smiths Next Door

These are the first people you see at any and all Swinger's parties...

Nerfman Trading Card

Trading Card #25 is Nerfman by Parker Brothers, he's kind of forgotten now but this guy ruled, so I really wanted to honour him a bit. As an added nostalgic bonus, Nerfman is from the first toy dealer catalog I ever found because it came from my dad.

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Time for another great link in the world wide web and today's is pretty fantastic. Toy creator Mel Birnkrant has created a site giving you an inside look at the Maxx Fx toy line. I've blogged about Maxx here before, the concept was a doll of a special effects artist who could become movie monsters through the help of costumes. The whole thing imploded according to Birnkrant due to Matchbox's bright idea of making a stuffed Freddy Kruger doll for kids.

The Life and Death of Maxx Fx is an amazing resource and provides insight that you will wish all toy lines had websites this good.

Faux Hillbilly

This image will be featured in my upcoming book "Salute! How Hee-Haw ruined America"

The Bat Boat Zooms In

The Dynamic Duo swoop in on their sweet, sweet bat boat in this great shot from Sea World.

This picture is again courtesy of Steve C. and it's just cementing my belief that I missed out on something.

More Aquatic Superheroics next week.

For more on this check out our gallery:

And if you have anything to add, I'll be your friend for life.