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Archive for the ‘Toys - Dolls and Action Figures’ Category

Cabbage Patch Kids Koosas

Posted by Big Boo on July 9th, 2010

Cabbage Patch Kids Koosa The Cabbage Patch Kid doll was one of the biggest toy lines of the 1980’s, despite the fact most adults thought they looked more ugly than cute. Kids loved them though, and they were a much sought after item for Christmas in 1983, the year of their launch.

Whilst Cabbage Patch Kids were still at the height of their fame, it was decided to expand the Cabbage Patch family into the animal kingdom, and so along came the Koosa. These were, if I remember correctly, marketed as pets for the Cabbage Patch Kids.

The main selling point of the original dolls was that each doll was unique, and this concept was carried across to the Koosas. The Koosas came in various fur colours with different head hair styles and different colour eyes. They were also notionally different types of animals, with some looking more like cats, some like dogs and some like bears, but whatever they looked like they were all officially referred to as just Koosas.

My sister had one (she named it Kandy Koosa) to accompany her Cabbage Patch Kid (Melissa Missy, if you’re interested), which I seem to recall looked fairly similar to the one in the above image. Being the good older brother that I am, I used to provide voices for both these dolls during car journeys and other times of boredom, which I’m sure my Mum and Dad found highly irritating…

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Clip Ons

Posted by Big Boo on March 8th, 2010

clip on toys Today’s post is all about a toy which my sister collected when we were kids. We always referred to them as Clip Ons, though whether they went by any other name I no longer recall. The basic Clip On was a little furry toy that had two arms that clasped together. When you pressed on the shoulders the arms opened and the toy could then be clipped on to other narrow objects.

Clip Ons came in all sorts of guises, and my sister’s collection was extensive. Some were just little animals like rabbits or bears in various colours (be they realistic looking greys and browns or brightly coloured variations), but you could also get pretty much anything you care to think of.

Whilst some were fairly generic, such as clowns, dolls, snowmen or Father Christmas, others were created in the form of well known cartoon characters. Amongst my sister’s collection she had Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, The Get Along Gang, E.T. and many more. In total she had around 130 of them, surprisingly no two of which were the same.

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Transformers

Posted by Big Boo on February 22nd, 2010

It was the mid eighties (1984 to be precise) when Transformers toys first appeared in toy shops across the world, and they’ve stuck around ever since, becoming one of the most popular toy lines ever.

I distinctly remember them arriving, and whilst I never have actually owned one of the toys, I really really wanted to. The reason I didn’t was because I was around secondary school starting age when they appeared, so I felt that they were perhaps a little too childish for me to ask for. That and the fact that computers had become “my thing” so all my pocket money and present requests tended to be directed in that area.

Transformers didn’t actually start off with that name however. The original toys were made by Japanese company Takara and were actually part of two different ranges known as Diaclone and Microman. The almighty Hasbro saw these toys and immediately snapped them up, combining both series and rebranding them as the Transformers. Thus the courageous Autobots and the dastardly Decepticons were born.

Whoever came up with the original idea for these toys was surely a genius. These were two toys in one, the first being a mighty warrior robot, the second being an object of some other kind. Primarily these other objects were normally vehicles, with the Autobots tending to become cars or other wheeled vehicles, whilst the Decepticons were airplanes. That said, Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons, turned into a pistol!

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Stick On Garfields

Posted by Big Boo on February 3rd, 2010

stick on garfield Today’s post is about another one of those strange fads that seem to come out of nowhere and are popular for a short time before everybody suddenly finds the idea ironic and ridiculous.

Adding a little something extra to your car to personalise it a bit has always been popular. In the seventies it was those “TREVOR and TRACY” visors for the front windscreen, or perhaps a pair of fluffy dice, whilst these days it tends to be neon strips or those weird spinning hub cap things. Not sure which of those looked worse to be honest…

In the eighties though one of the crazes for decorating your car was to have a Garfield soft toy with those suction cup thingies on each of the arms and legs stuck in your rear window. I think this craze must have originated in the US, where Jim Davis’ Garfield cartoon strip is far more popular, since I don’t remember knowing who Garfield was when these toys first appeared in the UK.

It didn’t matter though that people didn’t know who Garfield was. It was fairly obvious he was a cat and for most people that was probably enough.

So when did this craze die out? I don’t know exactly, but it was probably about the time people realised that the suction cups were rubbish and that Garfield normally spent most of his time rolling around on the back seat and floor of the car, picking up lint and dirt on the suction cups which then made them even worse as a method of attaching a soft toy to a piece of glass.

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Weebles

Posted by Big Boo on January 13th, 2010

weebles Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down!

So went the advertising jingle for Weebles, and a truer word has never been said. With their rounded bottoms are slightly odd appearance, Weebles always managed to return to a standing position no matter what you did with them. I guess it was possible to carefully make some of them stand on their heads, but that’s a hand stand, not falling down!

The original Weebles toys first appeared in the early 1970’s and were made by Airfix. These Weebles were basically egg shaped, with a coloured bottom and the top half made in an almost flesh like pinky colour with moulded on details such as arms and face. They normally also had hair or a hat which was a different colour to the base and body.

For some reason though the eyes were two little holes in the plastic. Look at the face as an adult and they feel a little disturbing, staring into your very soul with their blank expression. Funnily enough though, as a child I don’t remember them seeming scary at all. Maybe I’ve watched too many tacky horror films about murderous toys that come to life?

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Chic-A-Boo/Monchhichi

Posted by Big Boo on October 30th, 2009

Chic-A-Boo, as you can clearly see, was a cute brown furry monkey toy. It’s face, hands and feet were made from plastic, and being a monkey, it had opposable thumbs which could be inserted into its mouth, which made it even cuter to look at.

The toy was originally developed in Japan in the mid to late 1970’s, but it wasn’t until the 1980’s that it became more popular in the UK. The original Japanese name for the toy was Monchhichi, but since the (intentional) double ‘H’ in the middle was a bit confusing for us Brits, the name was changed to Chic-A-Boo. Similarly, in Italy it became Mon Cicci, and in France the even simpler Kiki.

They were created by Koichi Sekiguchi as a way of teaching both children and adults to be loving and respectful, although I dare say he also realised a bit of a money spinner when he saw one. Originally the toys were sold in pairs, with one male and one female doll – quite how you told which was which I’m not sure – probably something as simple as the girl had a bow in her hair. Before long though the toys were sold individually, and a whole range of additional clothing was also launched.

The toys were incredibly popular in Japan, but perhaps less so in the rest of the world. I remember though that my sister always wanted one, and I think one day she did get an imitation one. At least, I think it was an imitation one as you could insert the thumbs and toes into both the mouth and, rather more disgustingly, the nostrils. Original Monchhichi dolls don’t have nostril holes, instead having a little brown elliptical nose instead.

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Rainbow Brite

Posted by Big Boo on August 17th, 2009

I am constantly surprised my how many toys and cartoons from the eighties that were aimed primarily at little girls actually started off life as a series of Hallmark greetings cards. The Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake are both good examples, and another is Rainbow Brite.

Rainbow Brite first appeared on a card in 1984, and that same year she also featured in her first animated film entitled Peril in the Pits. In 1985 the theatrical release Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer came out, and then in 1986 the little multicoloured one got a regular cartoon TV series of 13 episodes.

The backstory to Ms. Brite’s adventures was that a little orphan girl named Wisp was whisked away by a magical force to a place called the Colorless World. She befriends a Sprite called Twink, a funny little fluffy fellow, and a horse called Starlite with a rainbow colored tail and mane.

Wisp is tasked with bringing colour back to the world in which she finds herself, and to do this she must free the seven Color Kids, who are Red Butler, Lala Orange, Canary Yellow, Patty O’Green, Buddy Blue, Indigo and Shy Violet. As you can see there was a Color Kid for every colour of the rainbow, and each had their own personal Sprite friend.

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She-Ra Princess of Power

Posted by Big Boo on June 19th, 2009

she-ra princess of power In 1981 toy manufacturer Mattel released He-Man on an unsuspecting world and quickly convinced millions of young boys that a blonde haired muscle bound hero in furry pants was the business. The cartoon series was also popular but what annoyed the bosses was that they had only captured half the market. What about the girls?

In an attempt to repeat the success of He-Man with the female half of the toy market, Mattel came up with She-Ra, Princess of Power, and in order to launch their new range of toys got Filmation, the company behind the He-Man cartoon, to make a series of animated adventures for She-Ra.

In order to tie the two product lines together She-Ra was supposed to be the twin sister of He-Man, although she lived on an entirely different world called Etheria (He-Man was from Eternia). Her name was Princess Adora, and the story was she was kidnapped as a baby, but since we’d never heard anything of her before in the He-Man stories this seems a little weak. Unsurprisingly, She-Ra used the template set up by He-Man, modified to appeal to girls.

Like He-Man, She-Ra was armed with a magic sword, called the Sword of Protection, and also like her brother she could hold it aloft and say the magic phrase “By the honour of Greyskull” (note honour instead of power, He-Man’s version of the line) and be transformed from Princess Adora into She-Ra. When this happened, her faithful equine companion Spirit was transformed into a flying unicorn called Swift Wind. Of course, the horse could talk, just like Cringer/Battle Cat in He-Man.

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