Jackalman Arrival Thread

LJN Jackalman was unusually bad compared to his counterparts. Putting him next to Ssslithe, you almost wouldn't know they were made from the same toyline. Even on sealed ones the paint apps on the teeth are pretty poor as well. Monkian and Vultureman were fine and instantly recognizable.

 

I would like to see slithe come with his blaster, his Ax and a few warp gas grenades.

 

There was nothing bad about ljn Jackelman. Sure it wasn't a hundred percent cartoon accurate but that does not make it awful or bad. And your just making things up about the bad paint app on the teeth. Show me pics of such bad paint apps. I have been collecting the ljn toys and pics of them for many years for my own toy site and I have till date not seen even one Jackelman with a bad paint app. Dont go on making up false things to defend your opinion.

 

The LJN figure is fine, just a shame they didn't go with the Playful paint scheme for all of the figures.

 

You know I never realized this before, but you make a very good point. The Playful Jackalman's coloring is very close to the cartoon.

 

My Jackalman was fine except he didn't come packaged with his shoulder strap.

If anyone wants to look at a toyline not being accurate to the cartoon just look at Mattel's Bravestarr toys. As much As I love the show and toys they really don't look much like they did in the cartoon.

 

While we are on the topic - does anyone know if the TV show based their character models on the toys or did the toys base their sculpts on the show? This of course only applies to the first set of figures I believe, as later figures were likely made following an appearance on the TV show (such as Captain Cracker).

And please attempt to back up your response with some facts, not just what we've always assumed. I, myself, recall reading an article that seemed to indicate that the toyline had already been designed and sculpted and a TV show was designed around it. But I have only a vague recollection of that article so I dunno if it has validity or not. Does anyone have any light to shed?

 

I read in Hear the Roar that that Ted Wolf came up with the idea for the cartoon first before there was any thought of doing toys.

 

Wow, no joke. That is considerably better. I will try to find pictures of some of the sealed ones without paint on the teeth, but this is from memory of picking them up in the store and looking at them. I suppose i could have been looking at a bad batch of figures.

It's weird that Tygra had 2 head sculpts, but they couldn't be bothered to improve Jackalman's paint.


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Thanks for that. Still, I can't help but wonder if the earlier figures might have been sculpted based on earlier designs. Just look at how much more toon-accurate the figures become during Series 3 of the toyline compared to Series 1 and 2.

 

Tygra got more than a new head sculpt. He got a completely new sculpted figure.

Probably designed from concept art the later series figures based on characters that appeared in the show. I recall reading in a Tomart's Action Figure Encyclopedia of 1001 collectible figures that nearly all first series toys from the 80's and 90's were designed first from the concept art and that series two an onwards figures were usually more cartoon accurate as the sculptors/designers have had chance to see how they look in the cartoon.
I wish Mattel had waited for the Bravestarr cartoon to air or at least put in more effort than they did with the Bravestarr figures. The toys had lots of details and articulation surpassing many other toys of their time but I feel that them look so much different from the cartoon really played a part in the cartoon and toys not selling as well as they should.

 

If memory serves me correct Wolf had initial primitive designs for about 3 human catlike men. He and Stan Weston brought this concept to RB where Starr would come up with more detailed designs and Mike Germakian on loan from LCI did more character design for the finished look. So the first characters the toys were based on the cartoon designs. As the series went on LJN got more involved in the look of the characters and even created some which RB wrote into the show. This explains why some later figures may be more accurate.

 

Yes, the Playful Jackalman is beautiful. I have been wanting one for quite a while now but they are pretty pricey.

 

"Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see" but my research has told me the following:
1) MOTU cartoon was created after the toys were released, and is the only successful toy line to accomplish this.
2) I heard that the first 8-back lion-o and mumm-ra figures (the energizer offer) were released before the cartoon was aired. Weather that rumour applied to USA, Canada or UK I do not know.

:

 

Exodus was aired in January of 1985. I always thought that only Lion-O and Mumm-Ra were released and the other figures on the back of the package were just samples. That's why Cheetara has a red bow and the wavy hair head sculpt, Monkian is missing his helmet and Slithe's axe was all brown. When the rest of the 8 back figures were released all of these errors were replaced with the proper figures. I don't know how long after exodus aired, that Mumm-Ra and Lion-O were released, but it would be 8 months before the rest of season 1 was aired.

 

G.I. Joe toys also came out in 1982 before a cartoon was produced and were even more successful than MOTU.

Being released before the cartoon aired is a different matter. The cartoon had started production before the toys began production.
Bravestarr is a perfect example of that. The production on the cartoon had started then however long after that Mattel started work on the toys and they thought they would release them in time for Christmas even though the cartoon had not aired anywhere. The toys did not sell well making the line a failure since kids had not seen the cartoon.

 

Not true bro. G.I Joe, Transformers, Care Bears, My Little Pony and many others had toys made before cartoons.

Your contradicting yourself. You said "Believe nothing you hear" and then you say "I heard that".

Thundercast toys and cartoon were made simultaneously. Ted Wolf came up with basic idea, took it to his friend Stan Weston who took it to R/B. They liked the idea and started work on cartoon series as well as an accompanying toyline. Thats prolly why the first wave of toys looked different than the cartoon coz the toymakers only had the characer design sheet to work from.

If you look at the early character design sheets Cheetara has brown staff, Tygra had more round hair (not pointy ends like Wolverine).

 

This link appears to be the first Thundercats commercial when just Lion-O and Mumm-Ra were released. It's new animation, including a different use of the sight beyond sight when the eye curls. It's all new animation, with no stock footage and no thunder kittens are shown. The Cat's lair looks like the concept art version as well. Mumm-Ra has the yellow dagger too. The commercial even calls it the sword of Thundera instead of sword of omens. It would be nice to know when this first aired.

 

Pretty cool and interesting. It does appear pretty early the only thing I see is the 1985 date at the beginning

 

Did you guys notice Jaga running with the others. Look at you, Jaga, being all alive and everything.