Back in the '60s, one of my pals used to have the above MARX TOYS soldier. I had the Marx Toys BATMAN, which shared the same face as his military colleague, and, for reasons now forgotten, we decided to swap. As related in another post some time back, while we were playing in the field across the road from my house a short while later, an older boy by the name of ROBERT FORTUNE decided to see if Batman could fly and launched him into space, with catastrophic results (which I'm sure he intended).
My pal immediately wanted to annul the swap, but I was having none of it. He owned Batman when he met his fate, so he had to live with the results. We complained to Robert Fortune's mother, who said she'd tell him off, but we could tell she wanted to get back to her telly and was unconcerned with her son's behaviour. And to think there are parents who sometimes wonder why their children turn out the way they do, eh?
Anyway, saw the toy on eBay a while back and thought about bidding on it, but never got around to it. Thought I'd show you a photo of it anyway, just to remind you what it looked like in case you had this toy when you were a boy. And that's Batman below, though you can't see his face for a black-mask sticker over it. (Trust me, they were twins.)
Any Criv-ites have either (or both) of these items when they were kids? Share your reminiscences of them in the comments section.
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Update: Since first publishing this post, I've acquired two of the above soldier. (I'll pretend one of them is Batman out-of-costume.)
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Further update: I've now also come into possession of the Batman figure.
I had something similar to the commando whom you could attach a parachute to and either drop him out of trees or toss him in the air.
ReplyDeleteI've got a couple of the later versions of that toy, LH (which may be exactly the same as their '60s versions), but I've never used them yet. Too old these days to be seen chucking a parachutist into the air, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteive never seen that toy before. Marx made to amazing knights toys where you could put on the armour. But the plastic bits always broke .they did look great though.
ReplyDeleteI've seen the Marx Knights, PS, and they did indeed look good. Doesn't surprise me about the accessories breaking - the same thing happened with their Johnny West and Chief Cherokee figures. Incidentally, Marx had a British division, and some of their toys may not have been on sale in the States. That could be why you've never seen the soldier.
ReplyDeleteI used to make parachutes for my Star Wars figures. Tie the handles of a plastic carrier bag under the arms of the figure, fold the bag up into a small square, then toss figure and bag out of a window and the parachute will unfold as it falls. As long as you have a high enough window (I used to take them up to the top window in our close) they open up and drift gracefully to the ground very effectively.
ReplyDeleteJust think how much those figures would be worth now if you still had them, DS. You'd be rich.
ReplyDeleteI would indeed, although my Luke Skywalker figure wouldn't be worth much- I sawed his hand off after seeing The Empire Strikes Back in some misguided quest for accuracy.
ReplyDeletePoor Luke - but you've got to 'hand' it to him - he's made a comeback.
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