We Had That

Heroic Man-At-Arms (Mega Construx, 2018) Man-At-Arms was one of the very first figures to be released in the Masters of the Universe line back in 1982.  Throughout the MOTU franchise, Man-At-Arms has been a prominent character.  He appeared in about half of the original mini comics that came packaged with the action figures and has appeared in many of the books, comics, and cartoons that have come out of the series.  He's even one of the few characters from the original toy line to appear in the live action Masters of the Universe movie. Man-At-Arms: Ready for Battle! Toys aside, when most people think of the personality of Man-At-Arms, they are probably primarily influenced by the Filmation cartoon from 1983 to 1985.  Man-At-Arms was much less defined in the original few mini comics and the original action figure had a significantly different face (at least to my eyes) than the version in the cartoon.  Filmation developed the character from simply a master of w...

Butch Cavendish and his horse Smoke (Gabriel, 1980) The early 1980s were an amazing time for awesome 3 3/4" action figures!  The popularity of Star Wars figures made it the dominate scale and the new GI Joe "Real American Heroes" continued the popularity.  In addition two those two major toy lines, there were also dozens of wonderful, short-lived lines with sales that weren't quite as impressive.  One of the lines of action figures was a great, little line based on a 1981 movie that flopped hard: The Legend of the Lone Ranger.  As a little kid, I actually liked the movie ok, but the figures were great! The original 1980 card back for the series with Buffalo Bill and Custer listed as "Coming Soon!" The line was released by Gabriel and somehow it managed to stick around on the shelves for a while even though there were only five figures and three horses.  The earliest release of the line was just The Lone Ranger, Tonto, Butch Cavendish, and each of their thre...

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: Draconian Guard action figure (Mego, 1979) When Star Wars came out in 1977, it caught the world unprepared.  The movie was a hit and, even though Kenner had purchased the license to produce Star Wars toys, they weren't ready in time for the massive demand.  For the next few years after Star Wars, all sorts of Science Fiction movies and TV shows were being approved in Hollywood in an attempt to catch lightning in a bottle with another similar franchise.  "Buck Rogers In The 25th Century" was one such project.  Mego rolled the dice on a 3 3/4" line of figures (as well as a 12" line of figures) in hope of similar success to Star Wars. Draconian Guard: standing around and missing a thumb! Unfortunately for Mego, the Buck Rogers line of action figures wasn't the phenomenal hit they had wanted.  Still, those of us who thought these figures were cool as kids were lucky that we got them at all.  Not only that, but Mego had enough fa...

Luke Skywalker in Hoth Battle Gear From the moment I saw my friend's Star Wars figures when I was a kid, I thought they were the coolest thing in the world!  For the next few years, Kenner Star Wars figures were my absolute favorite toys.  In 1980, the first wave of figures for The Empire Strikes Back arrived in stores.  They were amazingly awesome and had me even more excited about the Star Wars universe.  More Empire Strikes Back figures came out in 1981 and another wave arrived in 1982. We only get about one day of snow a year in Georgia so I thought I should take some photos of my Hoth rebel troops The first wave of 1982 included six figures: a new R2-D2 with a sensor scope, a new C-3PO with removable arms and legs, a new, black Bespin Security Guard, the AT-AT Commander, the Twin-Pod Cloud Car Pilot, and last but not least, Luke Skywalker in Hoth Battle Gear.  Although several of these were new versions of figures that I already had, I picked up all them....