This is actually the third time I have blogged about this particular promotion, the first time I was speculating as to whether it had ever actually gone ahead, the second time I was delighted to confirm it had by producing a cut back and side panel from the box, and now finaly I have a complete box to present. Now the search is on to find some (presumably) bagged figures from this promotion. Someday!
I remember Toyworld stores of the 70’s as the quintessential local toy destination, a medium sized store on the local strip, jam packed with toys of all descriptions. They had the latest TV backed hits, along with the wonderful cheapie rack-toys for the after-school run.
This great catalogue showcases the range available for Christmas 1975, including the Toltoys distributed Six Million Dollar Man, a pointer to the licensed film and TV toy tsunami on the horizon.
Tonka, Kenbrite’s AFX, Mattel Baby-That-A-Way and Toltoy’s version of Kenner’s wonderful Super Sonic Power “Smash-Up Derby”, one of the best toys of all time in my opinion.
The Kenbrite page featuring some of the great brands distributed in Australia by Kenbrite including Cox gas planes, TYCO electric trains and the awesome MEGO Muhammad Ali boxing ring and figures set.
Things were getting a little wacky for ole’ GI Joe by 1975. Hasbro USA had ended his military duties in 1970 and enlisted him in the boy scouts as an Adventurer instead of a soldier. His English cousin, Palitoy’s Action Man, had stayed in (increasingly elaborate) uniform but added adventure sets to the line.
Here in Oz we enjoyed Hasbro’s GI Joe (Albeit with Canadian produced bodies for a time) all the way through his military career and into his adventure days. Concurrently Toltoys offered re-badged “Action Man by Palitoy” figures and sets from the early 70’s to 1980-81. Into this mix came Melbourne firm Kenbrite, who in the middle of the 70’s began reproducing the old GI Joe “Soldiers of the World” military outfits and marketing them under the dual banner of GI Joe and Action Man (And even “Man of Action”). Confused? Me too.
I hope to sort out all the timings of these concurrent releases one day, if any of you Aussie Joe / AM collectors have info I’d like to add it here.
Anyway I’m sure you’ve stopped reading by now and have skipped down to the pics, so I’ll shut up now…
Kenbrite Action Man / GI Joe French Foreign Legion set
Kenbrite Action Man / GI Joe German Staff Officer
Kenbrite Man of Action / GI Joe British Infantryman
Note the change from “Action Man” to “Man of Action”, or was it vica versa?
The list of available Kenbrite sets.
Kenbrite GI Joe / Man of Action German Stormtrooper Window Box
Another intriguing piece of the puzzle, a panel from a Hasbro Adventurer Box (Hunt for the White Tiger?) with Kenbrite copyright info. I know, it contradicts stuff I just wrote 10 minutes ago, clearly more to the story here!
Will
Kenbrite GI Joe Adventure Team Commercial
Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Playmobil Promotion
Missed an important birthday…
Kenbrite Pocket People
As a kid who loved Lego in the 70’s I recall being a little sceptical when my brother bought home a Playmobil set one day. The figure (a fireman) was kind of clunky, his articulation was pretty limited and he was an odd scale – somewhere between my little Lego dudes and the bad boys of Kenner’s Star Wars. On the plus side he did have a maniacal grin on his face, and he was accessorised to the hilt with stuff like ladders, hoses and even a fire hydrant.
A few weeks later he brought home a bigger set, it had a bunch of fireman with red hats, a chief with a shiny gold hat, and best of all one of those handheld trampoline things that fireman hold out (rather optimistically I think!) at multi-story building fires. I was hooked!
My childhood figures went the way of the dinosaurs sometime during the last couple of decades, but when I began accumulating 70’s toys around 15 years ago I was delighted to add the set below to my collection.
I hadn’t thought much of it until I unearthed it again recently and went searching on the web for information on Playmobil. There are a bunch of great sites out there today, notably Collectibil , PlaymoBoard and the Playmo Database. I learnt a lot about Playmobil, but most importantly I found out that Playmobil was distributed in Australia in the 70’s (Probably 1974-78) by Kenbrite, who like Toltoys acted as a local distributer of successful international toybrands.
Through the sole Playmobil collector’s guide available Playmobil Collector I was able to see some great shots of the very first Kenbrite sets and figures, many of which were produced to Kenbrite’s specifications and include unique blister card sets (as opposed to the rest of the world’s boxed sets). What the guide didn’t mention (at least in the first edition) was that the Kenbrite Corporation at some point decided that “Playmobil” as a name just would not do for Aussie kids. Never mind that the first few years of product had used “Playmobil” on all the packaging and probably advertising (email me if you have any!), the brains trust sat up all night and came up with “Pocket People”. It’s not a bad name, but judging by the fact that I was a consumer of their toys in the late 70’s and had never heard of it I would say that it was either quickly abandoned or just spectacularly unsuccessful.
I haven’t been able to find out much about The Kenbrite Corporation, but by comparing the little “Pocket People” sticker on the Fort Union set (1976) box with the uniquely designed earlier sets I would say that sales of Playmobil in Australia didn’t live up to their expectations.
Kenbrite did have other lines to spend their time and money on, namely TYCO Trainsets and Hasbro’s G.I. Joe, but unless someone can dig up some company info for me 🙂 we may never know the full story of the mysterious “Pocket People”.
Cheers!
Will