A little background to today's entry (which I've decided to draw from my personal collection).
While completing my MA in Winchester I first became aware of the rich browsing experiences afforded by England's plentiful charity shops. After accustoming myself to the intoxicating smell of cheap perfume that seems to haunt such places, I soon became a regular (possibly obsessive) charity shop shopper.
Apart from being ready sources of affordable clothing, the various shops on my route (yes, I had a route) often yielded random, delightful (unloved/unwanted) toys. My most fruitful day's hunting was when a Millennium Falcon (in fairly decent nick) turned up in the treasure trove known locally (but misleadingly) as "the dump". It was, in fact, a recycling centre.
I actually had to haggle quite ferociously with an employee, who I’ll charitably describe as an "eccentric" old woman, to keep the price down. She'd obviously heard (somewhere) that the paraphernalia associated with the works of Fatty Lucas was worth serious money, leading her to suggest an initial price that was ludicrous even by non-dump standards. Fortunately her "eccentricity" got the better of her in the end and she absent-mindedly let me have it for ½ nothing.
The other great discovery made there (or so I thought) was a full-size - mechanically accurate - wicker motorbike. As the house was already fast filling up with lots of second-hand rubbish I decided (most reluctantly) to let this one go. My reluctance was based on the belief that this was a one-off, folk-art folly - abandoned (perhaps resignedly) by its mad genius of a creator. This assumption was, alas, proven incorrect when I saw a gaggle of such bikes on display in Habitat (of all places). It was like a wicker Hell's Angels rally.
Anyway, while gems did indeed turn up from time to time, my lack of "charity shop" discipline also led to the odd purchasing error, one of which is today’s manky toy. Here he is:
I bought him sans box and sans accessories so I was never entirely sure what toy universe he belonged to. My educated guess, however, pegged him as an action figure based on the hilariously awful and ill-conceived Gerry Anderson series, Space Precinct. I had, therefore, actually planned to write a post about how a TV show/film's official toys can actually end up being on a par with "Euro Shop" knock-offs (despite having proper design teams, a greater investment of time & money etc). I'd also planned discussing the fact that while many a dreary TV show has been saved by a cool line of toys (see Masters of the Universe for details), Space Precinct actually produced merchandise even worse than the show itself.
It was not to be however, because after searching through the very few Space Precinct resources online (and you know a sci-fi show must have been astonishingly cack if there aren’t at least a dozen fansites dedicated to it) I'm now fairly sure my initial assumption was wrong. As impossible as it seems, I think my toy is actually a Space Precinct knock-off! A cheapo copy of a toy that nobody wanted, based on a show that nobody watched. Marvellous.
As far as I can make out my guy is supposed to be Officer Jackson Haldane (pictured at the top of this post), though the real Jackson Haldane figure is (sadly and clearly) a rather more professional job than my fella. Here they are side by side:
While the mad, messy mix that was Space Precinct itself - a tablespoon of cop show, a teaspoon of space-opera, a pinch of Jim Henson - may have exploded disastrously in its creators' faces, the toys can, at least, claim that there are crapper figures than they out there.
A couple of closing remarks about my "Fake Jackson"…
1) "Fake Jackson" exhibits one of the classic indicators of action figure crappiness and cheapness: He has a squashy head.
As a rule of thumb you can assume that toys with hollow, air-filled, squashy heads have had less care and attention lavished on them than their solid, non-squashy-headed, brethren.
A famous example of "squashy headedness" was "Action Dan" - the bastard, pound shop, offspring of Action Man (no squashy head) and Cindy (squashy head). This may not have been his real name, but that's the only one I (and my sneering childhood friends) used when referring to him. Many's the time (I'd imagine) that a well-meaning parent came home to an excited son announcing that they [the parent] had bought the young fella an "Action Man". Cue crest-fallen kid as he sees the distinctive squashy head and fixed (non-eagle) eyes of Action Dan emerge from the packet.
2) Another of Action Dan's chief failings concerned his "points of articulation" (or lack thereof). For those unfamiliar with the term, "points of articulation" refers (as you might guess) to how many joints a toy has (i.e. how poseable it is). Old School Action Man had a prodigious number of such points. In fact, he may have had more than you or I. If memory serves me right he had a joint between shoulder and elbow. It'd put the human body to shame.
Action Dan, in contrast, had the almost bare minimum five points of articulation (head, 2 arms, 2 legs). No bending knees or elbows. No adjustable fingers or ankles etc, etc. A combination of this "inarticulateness" and his annoyingly squashy head led him to be first choice for any suicidal missions to the front line.
"Fake Jackson" is straight out of the same mould, but at least Dan was a knock-off of a marvellous (fantastically detailed) toy, rather than a mediocre, unloved and long-forgotten one.
Final Note:
With the current waves of toy collectiblity and toy fetishism showing no sign of abating, manufacturers seem keen on producing figures with ever more "points of articulation" (as a selling point). I saw a large Spider-Man figure a while back that had so many points of articulation he could barely stand up. He looked like someone had broken every bone in his body. It was unnerving.
Tags: Space Precinct, Toys, Star Wars, Wicker, Action Man
I recall the Action Dan you refer to and wonder if he was GI Joe or if that was another cheap casher-inner. My brother and I both had Action Mans. I got one first. You have overlooked one great thing about Action Man’s number of joints, especially for a child growing up in Catholic Ireland in the 80s: he could be put into “bedtime prayers” mode and indeed he was for a good while made to kneel at my bed with me and say his prayers before bed. If you think about it, he should have been coming to confession regularly with me too, given his vast arsenal and tendency towards belligerence.
My older cousin managed to get me to swap him some valuable present for his old and battered Action Man who was bearing up in a soldierly fashion under two great indignities. One was the loss of half a limb - his left arm if I recall, which always made him look rather poignant when he was hanging from the clothes line. Also he was suffering from acute alopecia. Interestingly, this affliction later spread to my own, prized Action Man, although it was less acute. My brother, always a less highly strugn child than me, managed to enjoy his Action Man’s unravaged hair piece until we had quite outgrown them.
February 13th, 2007 at 3:45 amCome to think of it, wasn’t painted-on hair another feature of cheapo Action Dan figures?
Ah, ‘The Dump’, such beautiful memories! The mad old woman in question was called ‘Joy’ and she delighted in telling you how mad she was. “I’m MAD I am!”…and so on. She used to collect Elvis Presley records for me, but i didn’t have the heart to tell her that she had mistaken me for someone else who had once asked for such LP’s, and i was more of a Chuck Berry fan. Anyway, as for your theory on the squashy heads, i have to disagree. Have you forgotten ‘The A Team’ figures? there were literally MINUTES of fun to be had decapitating Hannibal and replacing his head on Mr T. I seem to remember you could do the same with the ‘He-Man’ figures but you had to chew them for a few minutes before they would fit back on.
February 13th, 2007 at 1:57 pmDid a bit of digging around just to be sure but have established that Action Man and GI Joe were essentially UK/US versions of the same thing, with Palitoy (the maker of Action Man) being the UK licensee for Hasbro Industries (US) (the makers of GI Joe). Both originally started out with vinyl heads, painted hair and distinctive cheek scars. Both later benefited from “flocked hair� (the kiwi-fruit-textured fuzz), gripping hands, and (everyone’s favourite) “Eagle Eyes�. See Wikipedia entry for more.
So the figure I remember as “Action Dan� was definitely not a “GI Joe� but something much cheaper and lamer. Joe would have had fuzzy hair and a non-squishy head (if not “Eagle Eyes�) by the time I was busy recreating various World War campaigns.
The funny thing about the whole “painted hair� (cheapo) vs. “fuzzy hair� (quality) thing is that it only really applied to Action Man (at least as far as boys’ toys were concerned). Every other successful action figure range I can think of had painted hair but still managed to seduce youthful punters. In terms of its size, level of articulation and fuzzy-headedness (not to mention its generous wardrobe) Action Man was unique. The closest thing young fellas ever got to playing with a doll. Actually, let’s be honest…it was a doll.
Speaking of dolls, I had two of ‘em when I was a small chap: one black and one “raggedyâ€? (hey, I grew up with two sisters). The raggedy one was called “Judyâ€? and was quite treasured. I well remember going into hospital to get my tonsils out and worrying what the other guys in the ward would think of a pale kid with what was clearly a girl’s doll. Being an enterprising soul, however, I squeezed a pair of Action Man boots on Judy’s feet, popped a sock on her head as a manly hat, and thereby created what I thought a most cunning disguise. I toyed with the idea of drawing dots of stubble on her cloth face but resisted for fear of doing her permanent damage.
Many, many years later and Judy has found a new home, as one of the favoured toys of my lovely niece Hannah. She was even, I believe, brought into a recent “show and tell� where the tale of her undercover hospital trip was told to a captive audience of 5 year olds.
February 13th, 2007 at 10:43 pmDevo,
I do remember that “Joy” had a soft spot for you (as many mad old women often did) and that she often gave you first dibs on the assorted “just in this morning” crap ‘the dump’ had to offer.
I actually had several A-Team figures but oddly none of them were actually members of the A-Team itself. I think my gang was made up of an evil, shadow A-Team (lots of stubble and scars no doubt) and one or two helpless, put upon civilians (needing to be saved by an improvised Mr-T vehicle that fired cabbages…or some such).
February 13th, 2007 at 10:59 pmpaul gill says:’My brother and I both had Action Mans’ Is that the correct plural I wonder? Forgive me for sounding pedantic, but why not ‘Action Men’?
I am of the pre-Action Man generation, so I am somewhat mystified by the whole phenomonen. I wonder if was not an ironic reference to homoeroticism in the the ultra-macho image and the extensive wardrobe of uniforms? After all the only place one would see anything remotely resembling Action Man in real life would be in a specialist gay bar!
February 14th, 2007 at 1:56 pmPre-Action Man generation? Was there such a thing, Ithaca? Life must have been grim…
As for the plural, I’d accept both. You could argue that since “Action Man” is the toy’s (brand) name then it is fixed and unalterable, merely taking an ’s’ at the end. Whatever floats your boat (or Action Man canoe).
RE: your main point, you may very well have something there. In fact I’m just cooking up a follow-up post which covers similar ground.
February 14th, 2007 at 2:32 pmI wonder if by pre-Action Man generation you refer to Action Man’s 70s heyday or the later abominations of the 90s?
February 14th, 2007 at 7:10 pmcopernicus says: “I wonder if by pre-Action Man generation you refer to Action Man’s 70s heyday or the later abominations of the 90s?”
I mean the dark ages before Action Man was even a twinkle in a designer’s eye. Yes there was a time when Action Man did not exist and as Fustar rightly guesses life was grim… We had to make do with our sisters’ dolls!
February 14th, 2007 at 11:28 pmAction Man discussion can shift up one post if you want. Had too much to say on the subject to confine it to the comments!
February 15th, 2007 at 1:10 am