Toy-Ventures: Top Ten 70s Peg Warmers

[Earth 2 Chris]

^There are a LOT of Flash figures in Kenner baggies out there. I own one. They must have been from an over-production of that specific figure.

I also had a Salacious Crumb from Jabba's Palace that was thrown out at our local Christmas Parade circa 1985 or so. Of course I'm only an hour away from Kenner's corporate HQ in Cincinnati.

Chris

[TheVintageToyKid]

Fast forward to today and to the small northern town I live in, and the biggest peg warmers at the few stores here that carry action figures are from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. There have been four more Star Wars movies since that one if you count the Rogue One and Solo spin-offs, and they're still trying to push the Episode VII figures on us and full price. Now, if there were actual vintage Kenner figures still kicking around after all these years it would be a totally different story.

[toyhunter1970]

the knickerbocker star trek kirk and spock from the motion picture where huge peg warmers

[palitoy]

Oh, yeah, Super Powers must have had terrible case assortments. It's kind of hard to imagine now, when you seen nothing but Batman on the pegs, that during the SP era Batman was really hard to find. Besides the obvious like Darkseid and Kalibak the Flash was big peg warmer at the TRUs I went to.

I remember reading an article that stated that the Flash was a big hit in the kid testing, so they went overboard with him in the assortment. Obviously that was something of a mistake.

The Real Ghostbusters old Lady figure and the Bionic Six Ape are probably still in my TRU.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Fast forward to today and to the small northern town I live in, and the biggest peg warmers at the few stores here that carry action figures are from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. There have been four more Star Wars movies since that one if you count the Rogue One and Solo spin-offs, and they're still trying to push the Episode VII figures on us and full price. Now, if there were actual vintage Kenner figures still kicking around after all these years it would be a totally different story.

Ah yes, Constable Xuvio (or whatever his name was), the character mostly deleted from the film that had got one of the first Black Series figures. Still at my local Meijer's, I think.

Some store near here still had those odd rubbery Man of Steel figures of Superman and Zod. Hard to believe, but that movie came out 7 years ago!

Chris

[Werewolf]

As a kid I didn't really notice SW figure peg warm until Jedi. Rancor Keeper, Weequay, Ree-Yees, Squidhead pretty much anything Jabba related didn't really move. For all the hate Ewoks seem to get, they always sell. You never see Ewoks pegwarm. Same with the Ewoks Cartoon. Everyone bought up the Ewoks and left the pegs full of Duloks. Other than C3PO, R2 and Boba Fett the Droids stuff didn't seem to move at all.

[palitoy]

As a kid I didn't really notice SW figure peg warm until Jedi. Rancor Keeper, Weequay, Ree-Yees, Squidhead pretty much anything Jabba related didn't really move. For all the hate Ewoks seem to get, they always sell. You never see Ewoks pegwarm. Same with the Ewoks Cartoon. Everyone bought up the Ewoks and left the pegs full of Duloks. Other than C3PO, R2 and Boba Fett the Droids stuff didn't seem to move at all.

1979 you started to see Star Wars peg warmers, R5D4, and Power Droid were in total abundance. It was a lull in popularity. What changed everything was Empire Strikes Back, it renewed interest in the brand and brought in a flux of new kids, new toys.

Jedi was really interesting, I watched it happen, it was just like "Oh, the party's over?" and we all just went on to other toys.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I have to say the worst peg warmers I ever experienced was the DC Multiverse wave with the Melissa Benoist Supergirl, Superman as Doomsday, Dark Knight Batman and Carrie Kelly Robin figures. Every Wal-Mart in our area must have gotten 100 cases of these, and I'm not exaggerating. The bad part is, they never got another case of the figures after these stunk up the shelves. I guess they are all gone now, so they didn't linger like some of the classic peg warmers we're talking about, but for sheer volume, they stunk so bad the EPA should have gotten involved.

And my understanding is they never even showed up in other areas of the country. They all came here!

Chris

[PNGwynne]

Mmmmmmm.

^My understanding is case assortments also greatly hurt the Super Powers line. I have heard of whole cases of Penguin figures jamming up the shelves in some areas.

Chris

[jwyblejr]

Sometimes I wonder if it has to do with stores that sell them. I remember one store still had Transformers stuff like Megatron and Optimus Prime sitting on their shelves until they went out in the early 90s. You figure the Big Two from that line wouldn't sit for that long.

[Godzilla]

Great topic and an inspired episode!

I had 54-D4 and the Imperious Leader. I remember finding GI Joe AT helicopters and Mego Our Gang cars well into the 80s on closeout. Mego Star Trek at Service Merchandise too. I wanted an Uhura so bad!

[msenger76]

wait wait wait....Pocket super-heroes Jor-el and General Zod didn't get on this list? blasphemy. those are all-time peg warmers!

our Children's Palace still had a WGSH Hulk with broken leg when it went out of business in 94

an Imperious Leader layed on the shelf of K-B toys into the early 90s

Local rite-aid still has a Star Wars POTF 1997 EV9d9 for 8.99 on the shelf today