The sixties by all accounts was a pretty strange time. Not just here in the US but all over the world, if you don’t believe me just ask any one you know who was around back then to pull out an old photo album… I rest my case your honor.
Today I have a rare treat for you and it just screams 1960s weirdness.
Back in 1967 Hasbro struck upon the great idea to produce some toys they called Show-Biz Babies.
So what exactly are they? Simple, they are 5″ tall dolls of popular pop singers of the day. As you can see from the pages of the toy catalogue above they have an almost super-deformed look to them, either that or these celebs had exceedingly large heads.
All in all there were twelve different figures made and they fell in to three groups.
First of all, the most common of the bunch, were made of the Monkees.
Davy Jones
Peter Tork
Micky Dolenz
And of course, Mr. MTV himself, Mike Nesmith.
These figures all come with a groovy 33 1/3 record telling you all about the character… swoon! And, if that weren’t enough there is an autographed picture on the back.
The next group of four comes from another 60s sensation, The Mamas & the Papas.
Michelle Phillips
John Phillips
Denny Doherty
And finally we have Mama Cass who is probably my favorite of the whole bunch. I just love her ultra perky smile and slight double chin along with her mini-dress and white go-go boots… so amazing.
The last group are a little less mainstream, but were all quite the house hold names at the time.
Herman AKA Peter Noone from Herman’s Hermits.
Mitch Ryder from Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels who had hits with Devil with the Blue Dress and Sock it to me Baby… don’t worry, I had never heard of him either.
Bobbie Gentry
And Spencer Davis… gotta love those pants and big ol’ belt. Looks like you won’t be doing any running in those though.
All of the figures have a rubbery feel to them and they contain a wire armature. This allows you to pose them very much in the same way you would with a regular bendy figure or a doll like say Evel Knievel. As a result if you are buying one you should always check them carefully to ensure that the wires haven’t snapped inside.
If you are thinking these dolls look familiar well they should. Back in the early 60s a three or four years before the release of the twelve shown above, Remco produced a few series of some very similar figures.
These included the Addams Family, LBJ and even the Beatles to name just a few.
Given the age of these pieces and their unquestionable cool-factor you are going to have to dig deep into your lint filled pockets to get them. An d I mean any of them… Hasbro ones or the Remco ones. Let’s just say that the cheap ones are expensive and the expensive ones are really really expensive. Loose you can probably find one or two at say $50 each but that would be a deal. Most of the others can easily hit $100 a piece with very little trouble.
Carded versions of the Show-Biz Babies with their records, etc. will cost you say $250-300 depending on the day.
All in all these are some of my favorite toys from the 60s therefore they should be yours too.
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Groovy figures! I would love to own The Mammas and The Papas dolls. They did a great job on the clothes. Very accurate portrayal of what each person wore back then, especially Papa John’s hat.
Wow, those were some pretty nice likenesses for the time, hell even for today for some companies. I especially like the Munsters, but I’ll always have a soft spot for the Monkees.
You like monkeys… hehe!