H is for How They Come In II - Little Rubber Guys

Found in a charity shop in Farnborough, up the road, at the end of October, some immediately got shoved onto the Halloween 'spreadsheet', but worth a second look as I seek to clear them out of Picasa!

Again two bags - a bit pricier at one-ninety-nine, but then they were a lot heavier, although that was due to the amount of PVC rather than the number of items! Funnily enough; I haven't collected much of this stuff in the last few years, I've quite a bit in storage, but nothing rare or exciting.

However I think the LRG collecting community is larger and more active that the poly-troop brigade and they tend to Hoover them up with quiet efficiency? It may just be that they have yet to come to market in bulk, but as I say I picked a load up in the 1990's-2000's so I think it's more that they are collected with enthusiasm.

Contents of one bag, there was almost a 50-50 split between Monster In My Pocket's and everything else, with the everything else including Yolanda, Wrestler's IMP, a few [possibly/probably] Pokemon's, a Snoopy (going to bed!), Galoob and a pencil-top which I think might be from The Mask . . . did it have a morphing dog?

There was also a Mighty Max pocket-dungeon thing, but it's not clear if the two figures belong with it and I need to find a website that lists them all, anyone know where there's a good one?

I was forgetting the Virtual Toy Chest! Chronosaur, but the squid's from somewhere else!

The person who sorted these in (or for) the Charity Shop was scrupulously fair, and the contents of the other bag are - to the casual observer - the same, even to the splitting of duplicates between the two, apart from the large Lion which I assume is from that Disney bloke's dead-lion-dad movie that wot I never soor!

Anyone recognise the pink guy with the bobble-hat, he looks like a Muppet to me, but he could be from another Henson franchise, Fraggle Rock or Sesame Street?

While the squid belongs in this Lavabeast head with the skorpider thing!

So the squadron of (Pokemon?) bees was two each in the two bags, the Pet Alien eyeballs and gecko-lizards (Pokemon again?) likewise one-each. I'm guilty of never having followed-up on John's invitation to explore HOTT (other than by downloading the rules!), so I can't say for sure; but I suspect multiples like this would make for 'army building' units in that gaming system.

The bees certainly looked worried enough to be flying naked into the withering-fire of hairy, undead, lizard-men space-marines from some esoteric resin-caster working out of a garage with a 3D printer in Toronto or Turin! 

I love the winged-eye, he reminds me of the eyes of Mouse & Kelly which made such an iconic contribution to the whole feel of the Psychedelic Movement in the print media, yet also of the Droogs in A Clockwork Orange - with the bowler hat!

B is for Bluebird Toys - An Overview

So - Bluebird Toys (UK) Ltd Huh? They came, they made, they went! And contributed more to the small scale world in their short time than much bigger, longer lived companies...or did they really?

The 1997 Argos catalogue page annoncing the launch/availability of Havok.

Bluebird were formed in 1980 by Torquil Norman who was an old Model Toys man ( Berwick-Timpo owned), and one has to assume he had ideas about how to do things differently in a new decade with new mores. He started well with a 'Big Yellow Teapot' pre-school toy and other 'activity' toys for tots, and the company got off to a flying start.

Zero Hour catalogue pages from 1990 & 1992

However, all was not rosy in the garden and the company seems to have grown too fast, cash flow tightened and within ten years it was struggling. The answer was Polly Pocket, which quickly became very successful and refilled the companies coffers, she was then joined by Mighty Max, who sadly only lasted about 4 years. However Polly wasn't necessarily a Bluebird invention, she was licenced from a company called Origin Products Limited, possibly a wholly owned subsidiary?. Google gives about three 'Origins', one making trouser-presses in the Far East, a group of engineers in London and a dead homepage, so no clarity there!

Manta Force and Viper Squad pages from the 1990 catalogue.

A look at the acknowledgements 'small print' on the back of a late catalogue shows that - in fact - all the products being issued by Bluebird have dues to another source. The Manta Force, for instance was in the Tomy stable.

The fact that Hasbro have bought Mattel (a long time partner and eventual purchaser of Bluebird) while Takara and Tomy have married doesn't help with the research, this was all happening at the start of the 'modern' period of toy production where Tomy will re-use Starriors as RATS and use the cockpits on some Zoids while issuing separate licences to Hasbro and Kenner! It's all about quick profit, quick turnaround, making moulds pay and shovelling the residue to clearance houses for repackaging in Spain, Mexico or the souks of Istanbul.

If you go to the London Toy Fair regularly you'll know that companies come and go so fast, seem to grow and then disappear, or turn out to be no more than a brand or trade mark with a separate stand, it's hard to know who's what, and they're not that interested in the customer either. "The Customers Always Right" has become the customer will buy what we present to them or what we present to the kids until they pester the customer to see things our way!

So we find that Kenner/Parker, Fredrick Warne, BBC Enterprises, Tomy, DC Comics, Disney, Lewis Galoob and others were all getting a slice of the Bluebird pie.

Clockwise from top right; Polly pocket Catalogue page; 40mm Prince Charmings (?); and a Batman card.

In the end - which came at the end of 1997 - Mattel won a bidding war and bought their old trading partner and moved production to the US, swallowing Galoob as well...just before Hasbro swallowed the lot!

Mr Norman? Well, 'Sir' Norman went off to spend a lot of money on a theatre, which might help the more cynical among us (Me Sir! Me!) understand who was behind Origin Products? Note; Mattel are still crediting an Origin on the PP website...

P is for Polly Pocket (and Mighty Max) by Bluebird Toys

Mighty Max followed the success of Polly pocket and was clearly aimed at the male members of the household, in little (and bigger playsets) fold away pocket sized mini-sets, usually containing one MM figure and one or two 'interaction' pieces, a monster and a piece of equipment, they followed the model forged by PP.

I don't really collect these, and although they do turn up in job-lots, I don't keep the playsets, so can only show them by year, these are all marked 1992.

This is the 1994 marked batch, with a bigger accessory or two, the guy top left looks like one of the 'Small Soldier' characters, and with Bluebird working with Galoob at one point, it may be from another product range?

Upper photo shows the 1993 marked figures from MM, again with the 'Small Soldier' lookie-likey, below them is what little Polly Pocket has come in over the last 20 years and YES, it is too much! [Still no duck - you know who you are!]

Undated BBT (Bluebird Toys) figures