It’s Christmas morning, 1978. It’s 5am and you just can’t sleep another wink so you gingerly open your bedroom door and start down the stairs in your pyjamas. The welcoming smell of Turkey in the oven hits your nostrils and your excitement goes up another notch. In the kitchen, your mom spots you, smiles, rolls her eyes and whispers “Just wait for your Dad” before heading back up the stairs. And then its just you, staring at the tree in the lounge with its mesmerising coloured lights and at its base, two small mountains of wrapped presents.
There’s thumping down the stairs as now your sister is awake, with Dad following close behind. You wait patiently while sis tears past you, diving right into her pile. “Okay, go ahead” says Mom. Dad takes a seat on the armchair while you kneel down next to the tree and grab the first one, tearing at it in a frenzy. You draw breath when you see its a Dinky Eagle Transporter from Space 1999. You grab another, bigger this time – seconds later the paper’s off and you’re holding the Star Wars Escape From the Death Star board game with mouth agape. Then its three Star Wars figures wrapped together. Greedo, Hammerhead and Han Solo. Just when you think life couldn’t get any better, out pops the Palitoy Superman figure from the movie dad took you to see only a week ago…
Sadly, this is where I always wake up. It’s not as if we were completely deprived – the Mego Pocket Super Heroes Superman was a solid addition to the toybox at the time, (with its short cape and metallized ‘S’) pitched against assorted Star Wars aliens and winning every time. The 12″ Mego Worlds Greatest Super Heroes were, for me, much better, just because they looked more like their cinematic counterparts. But even as a kid, you got the sense these weren’t actually from the film in the same way the Star Wars toys undoubtedly were.
The reasons for this, of course, are well-known now, with litigation going back for decades only recently settled to the point where the above description may have been a reality. Indeed, many fans in the US are currently reliving their childhoods this Christmas courtesy of McFarlane Toys, who have just released their fully-licensed Superman: The Movie 6″ Action Figure (which I will be reviewing in a future post!). Back in ’79 though, this was only a minor issue as the Superman sequels, would surely present the opportunity for an official line of figures? Were it not for Kenner’s Super Powers line in 1984, fans would have been outraged, but as that line produced arguably the greatest Superman figure of all time, even die-hard fans of the movies were placated, but never truly satisfied.
No Surprise then, when us GenX kids came of age and means, that we sought to plug childhood gaps. A strange phenomenon to be sure, and while the psychology of this is best left to professionals, when talent yields results that make many people happy, it shouldn’t be underestimated or overlooked –
And that’s where my good friend Chris King comes in – and take it from me, he’s the personification of talent devoted to making people happy. In the 20+ years I’ve known him, he has endeavoured, time after time and project after project (and at great personal expense), to fulfil these childhood shortfalls and create the toys we were cheated out of as kids. A lifelong sci-fi fan and collector, Chris decided to make for himself the collectables he always wanted but never got – starting with Flash Gordon – another seriously under-merchandised movie. Where were the figures in 1980? How could there not be a toy of Flash’ iconic Rocket Cycle? Cue years of research culminating in both fully realised versions as if Palitoy and Corgi had released both a playset and die-cast model respectively – complete with accurate period style packaging. Want more? How about a set of Viewmaster reels indistinguishable from the tie-ins from the era?
The advance of 3D printing over the last decade or so presented no end of possibilities – now you could actually make things vintage toy companies never had the vision to produce. Chris idea was simple – take a long-expired manufacturer and revive it with not only the Star Wars toys they never made, but any franchise in the Kenner style. KennerByKing is now one of the most popular shops on Etsy with an enormous range of cardbacks available for figures either of your own creation, or more recent re-releases. The Superman figure shown above was a special, limited commission by Chris never intended for sale, just to offer a tantalising glimpse into an alternate universe for Christmas 1978…
Thanks for this great review of my Superman figure and cardbacks Martin. I’m so pleased that you like them and you took some excellent photos of him! Love seeing your website back up and running again! Happy New Year!