Monday 8 April 2013

Fisher Price Adventure People

I'm not sure why these figures popped back in to my mind recently, but they did. As a kid I remember being given a few for various birthdays and Christmas, but I don't think I new what they were, they just got played with along with all the other action figures I had.

There was however one that made a lasting impression on me, the Frogman. This used to go everywhere with me, and as he was a frog man spent large amounts of his time in water, ponds, the sea, or stuck in the bottom of a small sand pit we had in the garden.






He was played with so much that all the pain and decals had warn off just leaving a blue figure. But I really loved it. I've no idea what happened to my original figure, I guess it just got chucked away in the end when I stopped playing with it. So I recently went on a hunt to find the 'Frogman' Figure again. It took me a while to find out what the line was called as I didn't even know who made them. But after some research I turns out he was from the Fisher Price Toy line 'Adventure People'.


The line ran from the mid 70's to the mid 80's and included single figures and many playsets and vehicles. Most of the carded figures came with few if any accessories, which makes them great for collecting. I do like old action figures as they were designed as toys first and are built to last.


Like most figures from the 70's they have limited movement with simple rotation joints on the arms and legs, but the do have a more fancy ball jointed neck. The also all tend to have one arm in a sort of action pose.

What I like about this line is the way the re-use body parts. The head of the frogman was re-used as an astronauts head along with many others. There are only a limited amount of these figures so its quite an easy line to get a complete collection.



Catalogue Image source

These figures were also used for the basis, or at least a concept for the Star Wars line.
Read more Here.