As I plan my week out for my various posts I am always trying to be topical, pick something interesting and all the while not forget that variety is the spice of life. That being the case I figured over the past few days I’ve given you Toy Story (cute), Drew Carey (weird), The peeing boy (a little naughty) and superhero bears (vinyl crossover)… and to top it off, if that weren’t enough you had a goofy video AND a contest. Sheesh I can’t believe this blog is free!
Anyway, I decided to close out the week and head you in the direction of the weekend with a flashback. So everyone think back to 1986… where were you and what were you doing? I was in London finishing up high school and on my way to university for new adventures (yes I really am that old). For fun use the comments section below to tell the rest of us where you were, don’t be chicken now, we’re all friends here.
For your viewing pleasure I have some toys from the mega-successful Karate Kid movie… the ORIGINAL one, not the silly remake that is in theaters now. I realize the new one may not be terrible, but really, why make it over? Note to Hollywood… enough of all these reboots… I’m not kidding (I have a serious look on my face right now, you’d know how serious I was if you could see me that’s for sure).
As you can see from this old ad the toys were made by none other than Remco. We have already seen herea number of other really cool lines produced by them… this one does not break the trend. These figures were actually released a good year after the movie had been hit. This seems a little telling of what the expectations were initially from the toy companies, I guess once the film blew up like it did then everyone wanted a piece of the action and jumped onboard as quickly as possible to make up for lost time.
The action figures were about 5″ tall, and as you can see from this card back they had “ultimate action” possibilities with their Tri-Action. Basically each figure in the line was able to chop, twist and also kick. Overall this gave them the ability to replicate most of the required poses for full on karate play. A fourth special feature was that the figure could bow… sweet. It does make me wonder why it wasn’t just listed as a Quad-Action figure in the first place. Anyway, it even had a cutout to, “Make your own official Karate Kid headband”. This more than likely required you to be some kind of pinhead to wear it though.
There were six different characters produced and each one came in two styles (most of which I will show you here).
As you can see with Sato here, the figures are basically the same with slight color variations in the paint and clothing. Also, to further create the illusion of different, they included different accessories for the figure to chop, punch or kick into pieces.
What line would be complete without a bad guy or two? Here we have opposing sensei John Kreese… BOOO!
The inimitable Mr. Miyagi restores the balance… YEAH! Though what do we think of his fuschia colored ghi? Lovely I’m sure.
We round out the set with Chozen as well as bad guy Johnny Lawrence who is the best fighter from the Cobra Kai dojo… BOOO!
Finally to our hero, Daniel or should I say Daniel-san. As you can see, he comes fully decked out in his famous headband and outfit with the yin/yang symbol. Nice. Unfortunately, he isn’t quite able to make, let alone hold, his trademark crane position, bummer.
It even looks like the actor who portrayed Daniel, Ralph Macchio… OK, not really but whatever.
To accompany the action figures Remco put together some pretty cool playsets.
This set contains additional variants of Daniel and Miyagi as well as more stuff for them to demolish. My favorite piece though is this.
Oh no they didn’t… oh yes they did! A hinged pair of chopsticks with a plastic fly attached to a string. This may be one of the coolest playset accessories EVER!
The most common of the playsets is this one, the Attack Alley and Training Center.
The Competiton Center is pretty lame as it is just a mat to fight on and a pad to write down the scores on… R-I-G-H-T. Its saving grace is that it comes with an exclusive referee figure.
The toughest of the sets to find is Sato’s Cannery. OK, zero points for tha name, but it looks pretty cool still.
The last item I have for you today is the only non-Remco piece and was actually made by a company called Fleetwood Toys.
Yes folks, the spinning drum and headband set. You just knew someone was going to have to make that.
I am hesitant to discuss prices on any of these items at the moment given that there is such a renewed interest in the franchise due to the current film. My advice for now, stand tight and wait it out otherwise you will be spending top dollar with all of the other suckers out there.
To close here are a couple of commercials from the eighties, predictably they are total gems, enjoy.
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Sweet. Just as Erin had me feeling completely deficient because I have not really connected to your blog unless dementia has been involved, you bring this. Ahhhhh, sweet nostalgia. These toys bring back memories for me of how I loved that movie and watched it so many times. So,looks like I can enhoy your blog if it is twisted, awkward, sexual, OR if it stirs up happy memories!
I had a Daniel and Chozen, they were pretty sweet at the time. I loved making them chop though their accessories. I believe they ended up at the Arlington store, I think they may even still be sitting in a display over there as I type.
Best figure hands down is Johnny Lawrence, who was played by the king of teen movie villains Billy Zabka. When these figures were released in 1986, I was entering my senior year in high school, working part time at Lechmere and crushing heavily on Caroline Major. Ahhhh, good times.