Kenner Care Bears Plastic Shelf Talker Display

Kenner Care Bears Shelf TalkerThis is a shelf talker for the Kenner Care Bears toy line.  The display is die-cut from thin plastic and features colorful printed graphics.

In a retail environment, the shelf talker would be attached to a shelf using double-sided adhesive squares on the back.  The shelf talker display would be used to advertise the toy line to kids and adults as they walked down the toy aisle.

Kenner Care Bears Shelf Talker

This shelf talker measures 23 5/8″ long x 2 3/4″ tall, and says Everyday is a Care Bear Day.  It has the Care Bears logo on each end, and the Kenner logo in the lower left hand corner.  The lip has the following copyright information:  CPG Products Corp. by its Division Kenner Products Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 on the left side, and “Care Bears” Characters and Trademarks (TM) 1982, 1983 AMERICAN GREETINGS CORPORATION on the right side.

The shelf talkers would often be used along with other displays to create retail  appeal for the toy lines.  Here are a couple suggested layouts from the Kenner 1983 Toy Fair catalog:

Kenner 1983 Toy Fair Catalog Care Bears

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Kenner Collector Focus: Interview with Star Wars Collector Steve Denny

KennerCollector.com Steve Denny Interview Star Wars Toys Basement

This interview with Steve Denny was conducted by Dan Flarida and John Wooten on November 2nd and 17th, 2013.  It’s a long read, so grab your favorite beverage, sit back, and enjoy the interview!

Dan- First of all, let me just tell you how excited I am that you agreed to sit down with us for this interview.  We’ve been friends for a long time, and I have always enjoyed hearing your stories and early collecting adventures.  We always knew we wanted to get them on record at some point, to share them with the rest of the collecting community.  The visitors to KennerCollector.com are really going to enjoy hearing about the role you played in the history of the Star Wars collecting hobby.  I don’t know if you realize it or not, but the name Steve Denny is legendary in many Star Wars collecting circles.  There are so many prized items in collectors hands all of the world right now because of your hard work of tracking those items down and bringing them to the market.

Let’s jump right in.

Continue reading

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Bat-Computer Activate! Legions of Gotham Batman Website

Bat Signal

If you are a fan of any of the Kenner Batman toy lines, you need to check out the Legions of Gotham website.  Their tag line is “The Definitive Batman Resource,” and one look around the site will tell you they mean business!

If you are looking for information on Batman action figures, movies or TV you’ve found the right place.  It covers everything from Alfred to Zucco!  There is an informative history page and even a message board to interact with fellow Batman fans.

Probably the coolest thing is their huge action figure database covering just about every time our caped crusader has been immortalized in plastic!

Enjoy!

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Kenner Super Powers Green Lantern Engineering Pilot

Kenner Super Powers Green Lantern Bubble Mock-up

Here is a neat Super Powers Green Lantern pre-production piece.  I’m not sure of the exact purpose this item served, but engineering pilots such as this help give us a glimpse into Kenner’s complex design process.  An engineering pilot typically shows how production quality toys would fit in their final packaged form.  Since the packaging was only used to test the final fit, plain white cardboard or other random cardboard on hand would be used.  This packaging sample may have been used to determine how the Green Lantern figure and contents would fit inside the bubble.

This piece came from an employee that worked in the quality department at Kenner, so it also could have been used for something like testing how different bubble designs would hold up during production and distribution.

According to Michael Mensinger over on the Super Powers Hall of Justice site, the bubble has some interesting differences that makes it stand out from the standard production bubble:

The outer bubble edges have the squared off edges like we sometimes see on 1st series carded production figures although the rounded edges are more commonly seen. The figure part of the bubble looks much more angular to me than what we see on production bubbles, so that sticks out as a difference.

Kenner Super Powers Green Lantern Bubble Mock-up

Kenner Super Powers Green Lantern Bubble Mock-up

The Green Lantern figure, lantern accessory, and comic book appear to be a standard production quality.  The piece measures 3 11/16″ wide x 5 7/8″ high.

If anyone has a similar piece or more information to share, we’d love to hear from you!

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Super Powers Is Back!

Super Powers Redux

 

Calling all Kenner Super Powers fans!  It’s back baby!!

Super Powers Superman

 

Super Powers Batman

Revealed at Toy Fair 2014 Mattel is bringing back our beloved line.  There is not a lot info about these yet, but we will let you know more as soon as we find out!

More pictures can be found here.

Pictures Property of Action Figure Insider

Posted in News, Toy Fair, Toys | Tagged | 4 Comments

Gentle Giant 24″ Kenner Alien Jumbo Figure

Kenner Collector Gentle Giant 24 Inch Alien Figure

Gentle Giant has just announced the details of their upcoming 24″ Alien jumbo figure!  This brand new figure is scaled off of the 18″ figure Kenner released in 1979.  That package, instruction sheet, and poster… boom goes my mind!

It’s exciting to think about another large Alien figure heading down the assembly line!

Kenner Collector Gentle Giant Alien Figure

Details from the Gentle Giant website are below:

re-Order – Q4 2014 Release
Gentle Giant Ltd. is proud to bring you another piece of toy history with our Alien Jumbo Kenner-inspired Figure! As seen on Toy Hunter, Gentle Giant Ltd. has taken an original 18” Kenner Alien figure and rescaled it to a staggering 24 inches!

This gargantuan new Jumbo figure possesses the same features as the original – from the chrome teeth to the clear dome head and glow-in-the-dark skull. No detail has been overlooked. This enormous figure even features mechanically-activated jaws, just like the original! Packed in an Alien-inspired vintage-style box with copies of the original poster and instruction sheets, the Alien Kenner-inspired Jumbo Figure is a must-have for toy hunters from all generations

To pre-order yours, head on over to the Gentle Giant website!

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Starting Lineup Collector Joe Curcio Talks Collecting With Men’s Health Magazine

Kenner Collector Utah Jazz Starting Lineup Mens Health Magazine

KennerCollector.com’s resident Starting Lineup guru Joe Curcio helps bring Kenner Starting Lineup knowledge to the masses in an interview with Men’s Health magazine.  The article takes a look at some of the most collectible toys that non-collectors might be overlooking.  Check it out here.

To see Starting Lineup articles featuring Joe’s collection, take a look back at these past stories:

Kenner Starting Lineup Store Display Find
Time Machine: Starting Lineup Sealed Cases
Interview With Starting Lineup Collector Joe Curcio

 

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Welcome Back To Jurassic Park

KennerCollectorNewJP1 kennercollector-jurassic-park-figures-02

Another Kenner line has been resurrected by Hasbro and it is great to see them back in the toy aisle.

Kenner originally released the toys for Jurassic Park and The Lost World when the films were first theatrically released.  Kenner produced the toys from 1993-1998.  It included multiple figures, dinosaurs, play sets and even a die cast line.  It is very cool to see the attention to detail, even down to keeping the “JP” stamped on the dinosaurs.

You can find some of the new toys here on the Toys R Us website.

I’m sure we all share memories of seeing these movies and playing with these toys.  It brings a certain epic intro song to mind…

If you are a Jurassic Park fan, also check out our article on the 1997 Jurassic Park Toy Fair Award.

 

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Kenner The Real Ghostbusters ECTO-1A Box Original Artwork

Kenner Real Ghostbusters Ecto-1A Box OriginalArtThis is the original artwork for the main box image on Kenner’s The Real Ghostbusters ECTO-1A vehicle.  The art is a combination of air brushing, hand brush work, and marker.  The overall dimensions for the piece are 22″ wide x 15″ tall.  The actual artwork portion measured from the crop marks is 19″ wide x 10″ tall.

Outside protective cover:

Kenner Real Ghostbusters Ecto-1A Box OriginalArt

Close up of the Lipson Alport Glass & Associates sticker on the outside cover.  This is the design firm that was responsible for creating the outsourced artwork for Kenner.

Kenner Real Ghostbusters Ecto-1A Box OriginalArt

Folding the cover over, the next layer is a piece of transparent paper:

Kenner Real Ghostbusters Ecto-1A Box OriginalArt

The next layer is a clear plastic overlay to protect the art:

Kenner Real Ghostbusters Ecto-1A Box OriginalArt

The art with all of the layers lifted:

Kenner Real Ghostbusters Ecto-1A Box OriginalArt

It’s hard to see in the pictures, but there are several pieces of art that were painted on a different sheet of paper, and attached over the bottom car layer.  As an example, the windshield and also several of the pink slime areas are painted on separate layers of paper.  This is a great example of the design process artists would go through in the days before art was scanned in and manipulated easily with photoshop.  The design firm and Kenner would sometimes go back and forth several times until the finished piece was exactly what the folks at Kenner had envisioned for the toy’s packaging.

Kenner Real Ghostbusters Ecto-1A Box OriginalArt

Kenner Real Ghostbusters Ecto-1A Box OriginalArt

Kenner Real Ghostbusters Ecto-1A Box OriginalArt

The orange ghost in the ghost claw is another good example of a separate painted image attached to the main car art underneath.

Kenner Real Ghostbusters Ecto-1A Box OriginalArt

Kenner Real Ghostbusters Ecto-1A Box OriginalArt

The back of the artwork shows the light gray protective cover sheet attached, and folded over to protect the front.

Kenner Real Ghostbusters Ecto-1A Box OriginalArt

The ECTO-1A box art was also used on the first page of The Real Ghostbusters section in the 1990 Kenner Toy Fair catalog:

Kenner 1990 Toy Fair Real Ghostbusters Ecto-1A

The ECTO-1A product entry from the 1990 Kenner Toy Fair catalog:

Kenner 1990 Toy Fair Real Ghostbusters Ecto-1A

And finally, here is an image of the final production toy box.  Image property of Final Frontier Toys:

KennerCollector Real Ghostbusters Ecto-1a Box Final Frontier Toys

 

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Zica’s Kenner Inspired Six Million Dollar Man Figures Final Packaging

KennerCollector.com Zica Six Million Dollar Man

Zica’s Kenner inspired Six Million Dollar Man figures we first wrote about here, are getting closer to finding their way home to your collection.  The company posted the above picture of the final product on their Facebook page yesterday, and announced that wholesale orders for retailers will be shipping out soon.

If you are adding these babies to your collection, send us some pictures once you ave them on display!

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