"A Monster Science Created - But Could Not Destroy!"

Quite possibly the most iconic movie monster of all time, Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster.

What can be said about Boris Karloff? This man was an actor clearly ahead of his time. Previously, I had only know him from his brilliant portrayal of this iconic monster from the 1931 film, Frankenstein. Recently, however, Nekrodave got me to check out the films Val Lewton did for RKO Radio Pictures. Karloff played prominent roles in many of these films, and he simply shined with the sheer depth and breadth of his range. His villains were dynamic and complex. Catching him in these films only enriches the experience of seeing him in Frankenstein.

And what a film Frankenstein is! Karloff is at once tragically human and chillingly inscrutable. Most of all, though, he is absolutely convincing in this role...even though he has virtually no dialog! The combination of Karloff's acting, the wonderful production value of the film, and of course, Mary Shelley's classic tale result in this--arguably the most famous monster movie of all time.

And Karloff's Monster is the subject of this review.

The tin wind-up toy reviewed here was produced in 1991 by a company called "Robot House", a US-based Univeral Monsters licensee. I've been told by Jay at Robot Island, a dealer of fine tin wind-up toys, that Robot House was granted the license to the characters and then contracted Billiken Shokai of Japan to manufacture the toys. Billiken--perhaps more famous for their high-quality, realistic vinyl tokusatsu kits and figures--are NO slackers when it comes to tin. And that quality clearly shows in these toys.

Along with Frankenstein's monster, Robot House produced the Wolf Man, the Mummy, and the Gill-Man (the Creature from the Black Lagoon). In 1992, the company was renamed to "Mike Company", when they produced a similar Dracula wind-up with a slighty different style of packaging.

Not bad box art, but a tad cartoony.

Now, I have to make the disclaimer that I don't normally "collect" tin walkers. As I'm fond of saying, I "buy what I like"...and that tends to be a little bit of everything. I only have about 10 tins and I bought them simply because I thought they were beautiful toys--they're not vintage or anything...and I really don't know much about the tin "MARKET".

I'm not too sure what constitutes an "outstanding" tin because I simply haven't seen enough to be able to judge what "outstanding" even is! The first four monsters will run you around $40-50 on the aftermarket. While the Mummy is becoming more and more scarce, the Gill-Man appears to be the most plentiful. Dracula, unfortunately, will run you around $125 easily. I don't know if that's a "lot" for a non-vintage (well...16 years old) tin walker, but I will say that based on the sheer quality of these pieces, it's worth it.

This is a good-looking toy--there's no question about it. This was my second purchase from this line of Universal Monsters tins by Robot House/Mike Company (right after the Gill-Man). I hadn't yet committed to getting the whole line at this point. I first wanted to have these in-hand before making the decision. Once I received this toy, it really wasn't a tough call.

The lithographed print on the tin is brilliant. The impression of the clothing is artful and creative, while not being needlessly hyper-realistic. The colors printed nicely and the color choices are excellent. The Monster's clothes look nice and disheveled and the overall look of the piece is very appropriate given the dark atmosphere of the film.

Aside from the lithographed tin body, we have the dry-brushed vinyl head and hands of this toy. The face looks pretty much like toy-perfection to me. I mean, that's Boris Karloff as the Monster! The black and white film has us perhaps more used to a deathly pale look for the monster, but I think the sickly green color they chose for his skin was a great choice. Also, a similar greenish yellow was used for the whites of his eyes; together, they contribute to his unnatural pallor.

Next are his hands. Good, but not as well-rendered as his face. I like the sculpt a lot, but I think their are two problems with the paint application. First, it appears as though they're not dry-brushed, but instead, a very dark stain/wash was used. As a result, the small indentations in the sculpt appear like tiny black pocks on his skin. His hands didn't look that bad in the movie. Next, his fingernails. Umm...red nail polish? Really??? Hehe...well...these things happen! Just like the Mummy's awkward-looking eye, a detail brush, some acrylic paint, and a few minutes'll take care of that!

Still, these flaws are minimal when set against all the good points this toy has to offer. The quality of the tin parts' lithography and the sculpt and paint apps on the vinyl parts are top-notch. The design and color choices make for a great piece that simply looks brilliant overall.

Anyway, not a whole lot more to say about this piece. I think a video review wouldn't help too much seeing as how it's a tin walker. You wind it up...and he walks as the arms swing back and forth. The winding action is nice and smooth and the movement is brisk--if a tad noisy.

"Not since the beginning of time has the world beheld terror like this!" ...My favorite Universal Monster of all time, the Gill-Man...The Creature from the Black Lagoon!

Dames.

It's always dames, isn't it?

There you are: a perfectly peaceful monster, hanging out doing monster stuff. Then some pretty girl strolls by...and you're pretty much all done at that point. Just give it up. You're gonna die...probably horribly.

Okay, sure, the basic plot of 1954's The Creature from the Black Lagoon is all that terribly original (*ahem*...1933's King Kong), but I've always been fond of underwater-themed robots and monsters. For example, the only mecha I like from Gundam are the wacky aquatic Zeon robots from the original series and some of my favorite Toho kaiju are the mutated creatures from Yog: The Space Amoeba. And my all-time favorite Universal Studios monster? You guessed it!

But my fondness for watery beasties notwithstanding and despite the lack of innovation in terms of plot, I think the true appeal of the Gill-Man comes from the execution if not the concept. The Creature is an evolutionary throw-back, a sort of missing link in humanity's evolution. Only this is no bigfoot! The Gill-Man is obviously an amphibious version of ourselves--only savage and monsterously strong. Certainly part of what made the film so popular was the how good the monster actually looked. Anyone can tell that King Kong was stop-motion animation; the Gill-Man, however, was visually actualized by actors in perfect costumes.

Ricou Browning played the creature in all of the flawlessly-rendered underwater scenes. Not only did he look totally natural swimming in the costume--effectively using the webbed hands--but there were no air-bubbles coming from the suit to betray the air-breathing actor. Next, Ben Chapman played the creature in all of the scenes on land. Here, again, the costume performed admirably. Covered from head to toe in the seamless suit, even false eyes were used to complete the eerie ensemble. Even the Gill-Man's gills puffed in and out in a subtle motion that added to the creepy realism. All in all, a very convincing monster...and the subject of this toy review!

The tin wind-up toy reviewed here was produced in 1991 by a company called "Robot House", a US-based Univeral Monsters licensee. I've been told by Jay at Robot Island, a dealer of fine tin wind-up toys, that Robot House was granted the license to the characters and then contracted Billiken Shokai of Japan to manufacture the toys. Billiken--perhaps more famous for their high-quality, realistic vinyl tokusatsu kits and figures--are NO slackers when it comes to tin. And that quality clearly shows in these toys.

Along with the Creature, Robot House produced Frankenstein's monster, the Wolf Man, and the Mummy. In 1992, the company was renamed to "Mike Company", when they produced a similar Dracula wind-up with a slighty different style of packaging.

Not bad box art, but I would have preferred a sunny swamp scene in the background.

Now, I have to make the disclaimer that I don't normally "collect" tin walkers. As I'm fond of saying, I "buy what I like"...and that tends to be a little bit of everything. I only have about 10 tins and I bought them simply because I thought they were beautiful toys--they're not vintage or anything...and I really don't know much about the tin "MARKET".

I'm not too sure what constitutes an "outstanding" tin because I simply haven't seen enough to be able to judge what "outstanding" even is! The first four monsters will run you around $40-50 on the aftermarket. While the Mummy is becoming more and more scarce, the Gill-Man appears to be the most plentiful. Dracula, unfortunately, will run you around $125 easily. I don't know if that's a "lot" for a non-vintage (well...16 years old) tin walker, but I will say that based on the sheer quality of these pieces, it's worth it.

I think the whole look of this piece is fantastic. This was actually the first of these Universal tins that I ran across while browsing eBay for Creature merchandise. Not even being all that passionate about tins, once I got a good look at the quality of the lithography on the tin and the sculpt and paint of the vinyl parts, I was sold.

And speaking of the tin, the colors and style are perfect as far as I'm concerned. As with the other Universal tins, the art style is far from photo-realistic, but not too exaggerated or cartoony. It produces almost an impressionistic look for the toy that makes it unmistakably recognizable as the Gill-Man. The use of darker green striations across the lighter green base create a nice scaley effect. Also, the addition of gold scales and frills also works well with the gold used on the vinyl parts and serve to mimick the glinty wet look the creature had after coming out of the water onto land in the movie.

Besides the tin bits, the vinyl parts--the head and hands--are just as well-rendered. These parts are hollow and very lightweight, but they are also very stiff unlike your typical sofubi ("soft vinyl").

Unlike Robot House's Wolf Man and Mummy, I find the face of the Creature flawless. The surface detail is gorgeous. There doesn't appear to be any dry-brushing, but the green vinyl is over-sprayed with gold along the flared ridges of the gills. Also, red paint was air-brushed onto raised bumps and ridges on his skin; these details complement the red of his lips and tongue well. Also, the silver used in the eyes matches the sort of dead "fish-eye" look of the Creature from the movie.

Next up is my favorite part of the toy: the hands. Again, unlike the others in the series, there's no dry-brushing used here--it's all air-brushing. The green vinyl matches the color used on the tin brilliantly, but a light spray of gold paint was used on the palms and backs of the hands. Also, the claws were painted in a dark bone color and raised details on the palms of the hands were painted red. That the manufacturers even bothered to paint details on the palms of the hands is just astounding! If that isn't "quality", I don't know what is.

Again, this toy looks great overall. The colors flow nicely between the vinyl parts and the tin body, and the style of the artwork on the tin ties the simple shapes of the body to the realistic sculpt of the head and hands.

Anyway, not a whole lot more to say about this piece. I think a video review wouldn't help too much seeing as how it's a tin walker. You wind it up...and he walks as the arms swing back and forth. The winding action is nice and smooth and the movement is brisk--if a tad noisy.

Here is another release from Placo's line of Universal Monsters...

This is the second toy from this line that I've managed to acquire recently. I'm not a big fan of any of them, but I got them all in trade for stuff I would have been just as happy to throw away. The Mummy stands just shy of 10" tall and is articulated at the waist, shoulders, neck, ankles and wrists. Made entirely out of soft vinyl, the sculpt and paint job can be described as crude at best.

The seam along the waist joint is really ugly, as you can see. It doesn't line up well and you can see daylight along the edges. The sculpt of the face is particularly bad. I know the Mummy is thousands of years old, but here he looks like he's taken his dentures out.

And being thousands of years old, you would think his wrappings would no longer be pure white. The paint application must be to show it's age, but honestly it just looks like someone spilled a cup of coffee on it. On top of that, the purple of the cardboard insert has rubbed off on several areas, like the back and the feet.

The box is different from the Dracula and Frankenstein that I have. The printing on the side is dual-layered. It looks almost as though it is meant to be in 3D.

You can see at a glance why this line was not a success. It just looks like there was no love put into making them. I don't mind having them as a way to expand my monster collection, but as I said, I got them for basically nothing. Because they're not worth much more than that.

A cartoonish Frankenstein from Placo Toys.

Placo Toys' Frankenstein is a pretty cartoonish looking version of the character. He looks more like something based on a Scooby Doo episode than the classic Universal Studios movie. And I consider that something of a redeeming quality. It's not a good Frankenstein, but it does have a certain charm.

This one seems to be made out of three different plastics. A squishy soft vinyl for the torso, head and hands and a harder vinyl for the arms. The legs and feet (which are one piece) is a cheap polyethylene. I have no idea why it was made in this fashion while the others in the line were not.

10" tall with articulation at the neck, shoulders, wrists and waist. The sculpt on the face is probably the best in the series, although for a dead guy, he sure seems to have a rosy complexion.

Another thing that stood out to me is that his hands are huge. And check out the back. I have no idea why, but there is a huge circle molded into it!

Yep, Sanjeev's back writing reviews! And just in time for the Halloween season, we have the first in a line of gorgeous tin wind-up Universal Monsters: The Wolf Man!

In 1941, The Wolf Man launched Lon Chaney Jr.'s career out from under the shadow of his father, Lon Chaney Sr. (of The Phantom of the Opera fame)...even if it did sorta doom him to generally b-grade horror flicks...

Still, The Wolf Man is a classic and Lon Chaney Jr.'s performance nothing short of excellent. There's no question that this film and the legacy it created--of merchandise as well as sequels--make the titular monster, the Wolf Man, one of the most influential characters of all time.

The toy reviewed here was produced in 1991 by a company called "Robot House", a US-based Univeral Monsters licensee. I've come to learn from Jay at Robot Island, a dealer of fine tin wind-ups, that Robot House was granted the license to the monsters and then contracted Billiken Shokai of Japan to manufacture the toys. Billiken, perhaps more famous for their high-quality, realistic vinyl kaiju/tokusatsu kits and figures, are NO slackers when it comes to tin. And that quality clearly shows in these toys.

Along with the Wolf Man, they produced Frankenstein's monster, the Mummy, and the Gill-Man (the Creature from the Black Lagoon). In 1992, the company was renamed to "Mike Company", when they produced a similar Dracula wind-up with a slighty different style of packaging.

Perfect box art.

Now, I have to make the disclaimer that I don't normally "collect" tin walkers. As I'm fond of saying, I "buy what I like"...and that tends to be a little bit of everything. I only have about 10 tins and I bought them simply because I thought they were beautiful toys--they're not vintage or anything...and I really don't know much about the tin "MARKET".

I'm not too sure what constitutes an "outstanding" tin because I simply haven't seen enough to be able to judge what "outstanding" even is! The first four monsters will run you around $40-50 on the aftermarket (though the Mummy is becoming more and more scarce); Dracula, unfortunately, will run you over $100 easily. I don't know if that's a "lot" for a non-vintage (well...16 years old) tin walker, but I will say that based on the sheer quality of these pieces, it's worth it.

The lithographed print on the tin parts is flawless. The style is clearly not meant to be photo-realistic, but at the same time, it's not too cartoonish or exaggerated like a caricature. The details are great--like the folds and tears in the clothing, the seams and buttons on the shirt, and the belt.

The other thing I love about the lithography on the tin of this piece is the feet. All of these figures have the same sort of blocky feet, but check out the great detail of the print here:

Ironically, there are too many toes! In the film, when Larry Talbot transforms, he loses one for some reason!

The other thing to talk about regarding these toys is the vinyl parts: the head and hands. These parts are hollow and very lightweight, but they are also very stiff unlike your typical soft vinyl.

Of all of Robot House's Universal Monsters tins, I probably find the Wolf Man the ugliest. They, of course, took some liberties with the colors they chose--I would have gone with a much darker brown overall to match the look of the film, and the super-blood-shot eyes are a bit much for me.

Still, once again, the quality of the paint applications is quite high. The head is very nicely dry-brushed to bring out the sculpt. I also kinda like how his head is slightly tilted backwards like he's sniffing the air as he stalks through the woods!

The best part, though, is the hands. You'll hear me say this for pretty much all of Robot House's tins. The detail here is superb. The dry-brushing with a dark basecoat really makes them look all grimy and killy!

A nice touch Robot House did specifically with the Wolf Man was that they added an extra vinyl piece for his shirt collar--the head rotates separately from it. Not anything ground-breaking, but it demonstrates a real respect for the subject and a desire to make a quality toy.

Anyway, not a whole lot more to say about this piece. I think a video review wouldn't help too much seeing as how it's a tin walker. You wind it up...and he walks as the arms swing back and forth. The winding action is nice and smooth and the movement is brisk--if a tad noisy.

Clearly, the appeal of this toy is the subject and how great it looks. The wind-up gimmick is almost secondary!

A cheap rendition of Dracula, for die-hard monster fans only.

1991 was the 60th anniversary of two of Universal Studios most famous monster characters, Dracula and Frankenstein. To celebrate the occasion, Placo Toys released both characters (as well as The Mummy and The Wolf Man) in 10" soft vinyl renditions. Plans were made to release The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Bride of Frankenstein if this first series sold well, but apparently it did not because those figures never came to fruition.

It's kind of easy to see why these did not go over so well. Frankly, these figures are just "ok" at best. They tend to bear only a broad sort of resemblance to the characters they are based on. Dracula in particular not only does not look at all like Bela Lugosi, he really doesn't even look that much like a vampire. Outside of the pointed ears, there's not much to differentiate him from the average Joe who walks around in a tux and a cape.

At least, that's true of my version. Evidently this toy came in two versions. Mine is the "60th Anniversary Limited Edition". The regular version has fangs protruding from the mouth, red eyes and slanted eyebrows. Much more menacing!! It also has a different box featuring some flying bats in the top right corner and the other potential monster releases in the artwork. A much better presentation overall. The back of the box has some pretty cool artwork at least.

Dracula has 6 points of articulation. You can turn his head, waist and wrists as well as raising and lowering his arms. I guess this toy would look ok within a much larger monster display, but overall the lack of attention to detail on it dooms it to mediocrity.

It's certainly different than vintage jumbos, but it's got a real neat design with some cool gimmicks and accessories.

TV Tokyo broadcast Getter Robo Go (ゲッターロボ號) for 50 episodes from February 11, 1991 until January 27, 1992. Like previous entries in the Getter Robo series, it featured 3 ships which could combine to form 3 different robots. Only one of the robots was released in jumbo form however. And like the show, it isn't nearly as popular as it's predecessors.

Personally, I really like the toy though. It's certainly different than vintage jumbos, but it's got a real neat design with some cool gimmicks and accessories. It's got a nice set of wings, two shooting fists and a shooting drill missile fist. There is also a big sword and a much smaller hatchet which can be placed in either hand.

The wings are very unique and each one has a missile launcher built right in. And if you don't care for them, they can easily be removed. Each wing has a round peg that goes into a hole in the backpack. You can also store the drill missile fist here when it is not in use.

Getter Go has just 5 points of articulation, at the ankles, elbows and neck. The elbows are on a ball joint so the lower arms are particularly poseable. But, the fact that the shoulders cannot move is the biggest problem the toy has. You can't raise the arms at all. It's a frustrating and unnecessary oversight. I mean, why would you rather move the ankles and not the arms?

The only other downside is that the design of the fists is a little bit plain. The surfaces are too flat, with little detail.

The box is mostly unremarkable, but it should be noted that it's alot bigger than the regular Popy Jumbo boxes.

The Jumbo Getter Go was the only jumbo released by Yutaka and it is a pretty easy acquisition as far as jumbos go. Since it was released in 1991, it's much easier to find than older jumbos and does not carry a large price tag. It should only cost about $100-300.