Kenner Star Wars Large Size 12" Princess Leia

This is Kenner's Large Size Princess Leia Action Figure from 1978. Alright, to be fair, this is a dolly... plain and simple. Sometimes, it takes the manliest of men to succumb to buying a DOLL to complete a collection. Convinced, yet?

Princess Leia was one of the original four large sized action figures (dollys) that Kenner produced alongside Vader, Luke, and Chewie. However, she was marketed towards little girls and not the boys that were typically prowling action figure aisles in pursuit of "plastic gold."


As a kid, she was an easy pass. You could hide a 3 3/4 inch Leia at the bottom of your action figure case, if need be, but a ruler sized Leia was another thing altogether. If one of your buddies were to spot her in your collection, you could instantly become the target of constant ridicule and torture (having a Luke that looked like a Ken doll was bad enough, believe me). She didn't come with any kind of weapon or action feature. In fact, she came with a brush and comb set that allowed little girls to style her hair in several different hairdos. There was even a hairdo how-to booklet that came with Leia. Unfortunately (maybe fortunately), I do not own any of Leia's hair-styling accessories.

Again, Kenner came through with a great likeness that looks quite a bit like Carrie Fisher did at the time. Sure, it's a doll-like sculpt but it does a nice job of looking like the character. More so than many more recent attempts from companies producing six-scale version of Leia. Articulation is fairly limited... swivel hips, swivel shoulders, swivel neck, and maybe a tiny bit of "click" movement in the knees.

I picked this figure up in 1988 at the San Diego Comic Con. I've only recently discovered that she's wearing the wrong shoes. Oh, well....one more thing to track down. (If anyone has a spare pair, let me know.)

A complete Princess Leia should come with her white gown, two stockings, two white shoes, a belt, two donut-shaped rings (that are inside her ANH hairdo), a comb, a brush, and a hairstyling booklet.


I've always thought that Kenner should have included a blaster with Leia. That way, girls could join in the "action figure" fun and maybe, just maybe, a boy or two might have wanted to add Leia and her "Empire Crusher" blaster to their collection. Eh, probably not.

All in all, though, what Star Wars figure line would be complete without Leia? In that respect, I'm very glad that Kenner produced her and she makes a great addition to the Large Sized line-up.

Kenner Star Wars Large Size 15" IG-88

This is Kenner's Large Size IG-88 from early 1980. He stands about 15" tall and is scaled to the other figures in the vintage Large Sized line. He was released in an Empire Strikes Back branded box.

IG-88 was the last large-scale figure that Kenner produced when the "Large Sized" line was phasing out as the new decade of the 80s dawned. Consequently, he's the hardest of the large sized figures to find... especially complete.


I've always thought IG-88 was kind of an odd choice to get the sixth-scale treatment in the original Kenner line. In the film (Empire Strikes Back), IG-88 really doesn't do a whole lot... he just kind of stands there and adds an interesting and cool silhouette to the bounty hunter line-up that Vader has assembled. Of course, this is most likely why Kenner chose IG-88 to produce in this scale... he's just plain cool looking... and he's a robot.

I remember seeing this figure on the shelf at our local LaBelle's department store (which subsequently became a different dept. store, then a grocery store, and is currently a Hobby Lobby) back in 1980. The funny thing is, he was always alone. I don't recall ever seeing any other large Star Wars figures on the shelf next to him (I do seem to recall seeing 12" Mego Star Trek The Motion Picture action figures very close by, though.). Maybe being a late release, he shipped by himself... I don't know.


I picked this guy up in the 90's a little bit at a time. I started with the base figure and then added pieces as I found them available. I've found it's fun to collect figures this way, sometimes... "the thrill of the hunt" really comes into play, along with a healthy dose of delayed gratification as the figure slowly comes together.

At any rate, I think he's a great-looking figure. He doesn't have much in the way of articulation, though... swivel neck, swivel shoulders, swivel wrists, and swivel hips. So, he's not much for posing in front of the camera. Maybe he's just camera shy.


A complete IG-88 should include his bandolier, four red grenades (that attach to the bandolier), and two blaster rifles (one very long one and one shorter one).

Almost Vintage: Hasbro Gi Joe Talking Adventure Team Commander (Gi Joe Collectors Club Reissue)

There's something special about a Gi Joe. As kids, everybody had one (or more), it seems. Whether you are an older guy, like myself, or of a slightly younger generation, the world of Gi Joe has been kind of a collective experience for many of us.

Gi Joes started as clothed, 12 inch articulated figures. In the early 60s, wooden artist mannequins served as the inspiration for creating a brand new concept in boys toys... a large, fully-posable soldier. Boys were used to playing with toy soldiers in a much smaller scale but larger clothed soldiers were a new concept. Hasbro, afraid of Gi Joes being called "dolls," prohibited everyone in Hasbro's office from using the "D" word in reference to Gi Joes. They were to refer to Gi Joe as a "movable soldier." They even went so far as to tell their toy reps that if they were caught using the word "doll" to sell Gi Joe, they would have their orders canceled.

Gi Joe was the first true "Action Figure." All the great sixth-scale and smaller figures of today owe a debt to the ground that Gi Joe broke all those years ago.

Hasbro enjoyed enormous popularity with Gi Joe during the 1960s. However, when America became involved in the Vietnam conflict, sales began to wane as Americans no longer wanted to be reminded of the realities of war as they bought toys for their sons. Hasbro, eager to move away from Gi Joe's military theme, released the Adventure Team in 1970. Gi Joe no longer fought foreign soldiers. He fought the elements and anything else Mother Nature could throw at him as he searched for wild animals and even buried mummies. These new Joes also sported "life-like" hair and beards for the first time through an inventive flocking technique.

The Gi Joe pictured is a recent (several years) Gi Joe Collector's Club reissue of the Adventure Team Talking Commander. It is a near-perfect recreation of the 1970 figure... right down to the box. I had an original Talking Commander for a short time in the early 70s. I had received him for Christmas and remember enjoying playing with him that Christmas day. However, I have no memory of ever playing with him after that Christmas. I'm guessing that something was broken (maybe I messed up his pull-string talking feature) and he was returned to the store. Whatever happened to that Gi Joe will always be a mystery to me.


I'm not going to give an overview or review of this figure, at this point. Hasbro used the same body and head mold for almost all of the AT Gi Joes. I'll go into more detail about the figure, itself, in a future Gi Joe post. I have some vintage and quite a few reissue Joes that I'd like to talk about.

A few of the accessories that came with this reissue Joe

When you pull Joe's pull-string, he says one of many different phrases like, "I've got a tough assignment for you!"

I really love these figures. I love that they all used the same headsculpt and it was up to a child's imagination to create the different characters and adventures that these toys went through. Heck, they didn't even have names past monickers like "Land Adventurer," "Air Adventurer," and "Sea Adventurer." They were Gi Joes... and that was good enough for us.

Kenner Star Wars Large Size 15" Chewbacca

This is Kenner's 15" (1/6 scale) Chewbacca from 1978.

Chewbacca has always been a difficult character to "pull-off" for toy companies. We usually get a figure that's all plastic or one that's all plush but haven't really gotten one that's a mix of the two.


Kenner chose to go the "all plastic" route with their first sixth-scale Chewbacca action figure. In fact, Chewie's construction is very similar to another large action figure that Kenner produced for their Six Million Dollar Man line of toys... Bionic Bigfoot. In fact, early prototype images of Chewbacca reveal that Kenner used a repainted Bigfoot with a bandolier strap as a stand-in for our intrepid furry hero until an official figure could be produced. If you examine both toys together, it's very apparent that they were "cut from the same cloth," so to speak.

Chewbacca was one of the first four large-sized action figures produced along with Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leia. Chewie's articulation is somewhat limited. He has ball-jointed shoulders, of sorts (held in place by rubber banded tension), and swivel hip joints... that's it. Due to the way he is sculpted, there is no head or neck articulation.


I like the way that Chewie is sculpted. There's plenty of sculpted fur detail but not too much. He's somewhat simplified and this choice works well with the somewhat simplified features of some of the human characters (like Han or Luke) in the line.

One neat aspect of this figure is that the cartridges on his strap are actually removable and can be placed on a peg on his crossbow blaster.

A complete Chewbacca comes with crossbow blaster (make sure the crossbow piece is present. It's a separate piece), bandolier strap with plastic pouch, and enough cartridges to fill all the slots on the strap.

Chewbacca has always been one of the more lovable characters in the Star Wars saga. This figure is fun representation of the beloved furry oaf.

Kenner Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back Toy Brochure #2

This is another pack-in toy brochure from 1981. These usually came with the bigger toys like vehicles, playsets, and larger figures. I was always excited to find a new one of these in the box. I used to pour over these little brochures as it was almost the only way to know what other toys were available or were being released soon. Notice the upside-down Tie Fighter.

More vintage 12" Star Wars and other vintage toy reviews coming soon.

Mego 8" Fonzie

This is Mego's 8" Fonzie from the Happy Days television show. Happy Days was a popular TV program that aired from 1974 to 1984. Mego Fonzie was released in 1977. The show was a nostalgic look back at a family (the Cunninghams) during the 1950s and early 1960s. To kids watching at the time, Happy Days depicted an era that seemed almost as ancient as the Depression of the 1930s or the Wild West of the late 1800s. To parents, the Happy Days era probably seemed fairly recent as it depicted a time that was only 20 years previous to when the show aired. One's age and how it relates to the perception of time passing is a very strange thing.


It's difficult to describe Fonzie (aka The Fonz, Arthur Fonzarelli) to someone that hasn't seen the Fonz "in action" on Happy Days. You see, Fonzie was the coolest of the cool... the leather-jacket-wearing-guy that could never fail and always kept his cool no matter the situation. He was almost like Superman, James Dean, and Evel Knievel all rolled into one. Fonzie could best almost anybody at anything (he even jumped a shark on water skis... which eventually led to the term "jump the shark). Few dared to oppose him and many looked to him to help them out of sticky situations. The character became such a cultural phenomenon that he spawned such things as t-shirts, lunch boxes, toys, and even an official Fonzie kids leather jacket (that I tried on while shopping for school clothes once... My Mom said "No." Can you tell that I've been scarred for life?).


Point of Shame: When I was about 9, I was a such a Fonzie fan that I started a "Fonzie Club" in my neighborhood... individually drawing Fonzie with markers on each "club member's" white t-shirt.

Mego did a nice job on Fonzie. The head sculpt looks very much like a Mego-ized Henry Winkler (the actor that played the Fonz). This figure also includes an action feature that is unique to this figure. His thumbs swivel into a "thumbs up" position on each hand and a lever on his back thrusts his hands up from waist to chest level. You see, on the show, the Fonz would thrust both thumbs up and utter his famous-at-the-time line, "Aaaaaaaay!!" The Fonz would often do this to show his approval of something... or he could change the inflection to reflect something more like disappointment with someone (sans the thumbs). I can't tell you how many kids walked around in the mid-Seventies saying "Aaaaaay!!" or "Sit on it" (another catchphrase popularized by Happy Days).



A complete Mego Fonzie should include his leather jacket, white sleeveless under-shirt, jeans, and black boots.

The original "shark jumper."

Laurel and Hardy Finger Puppets 1972

Sometimes, I like to try to remember toys from my very early childhood. Often, they are just fleeting fragments of memories of things that may not have even existed at all. When I was about 5 years old, my folks would put me to bed on Saturday nights but then allow me to wake up a few hours later to watch some of the old movies that played on one of the local channels. Sometimes, they were old Universal monster movies like Dracula or the Creature from the Black Lagoon... and sometimes, an old comedy like a Laurel and Hardy movie would be shown.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy made 106 films together between 1926 and 1951. Today, I couldn't tell you much about them, or even the name of a single film they made. However, when I was five years old, Laurel and Hardy were favorites of mine.

At any rate, I had a vague memory of having a pair of Laurel and Hardy finger puppets and was curious whether they were something real or something I had concocted in my head. Thirty-eight year old memories can be a bit fuzzy.


The internet is a pretty astounding thing, really. After only five minutes of searching, I had not only discovered that the finger puppets were indeed real (from 1972) but also for sale... cheap. My priceless memories were someone else's junk drawer fodder.

And so, a box arrived in the mail and time folded back on itself as I held these two fleeting bits of memory in my hands once again. It's a strange feeling to have such vague and distant memories come to such vivid reality in an instant.