Exclusive Premiere Christmas Figures & Company Questions

[spamn]

They always struck me as fly-by-night. Each figure was labelled '1' of x0000 so you'd think you got the first figure of the run. Hated the body design as well - limited articulation.

That said, they sure could pick their licenses.

I'm curious to see a complete archive of all their figures. I didn't know there were Bewitched ones.

[Christmas_Boy]

Captain - Were you involved with Exclusive Premiere? How did you get burned by them?

If anyone wants to look at the text for the old Exclusive Premiere site go to the wayback machine site and type in exclusivepremiere.com and you can read a little bit about the lines they offered. The Christmas lines were in the listed as the 42 and 43 property they did so there must have been around 60-80 before they folded.

Sure. I'll post the link for my site when I have it up. It'll be a while and I'm covering the Christmas action figures based on Christmas specials too. I'm not sure if those would interest any of you though? I'm trying to look up old Toy Fair photos I remember of stuff they never made. Is there any site that archives the old Toy Fair photos? I know these aren't mego like figures though.

The Christmas figures Exclusive Premiere did that I cover all have nine points of articulation except Betty Hanes from White Christmas. For some reason they skipped her knees and elbows yet even the little Dutch Girl for Miracle on 34th Street has them.

I'm surprised they didn't do a Laurel & Hardy Babes in Toyland set since they were doing Laurel & Hardy and Christmas films too. Did they do two Abbott and Costello's? I only see a Who's on First version on ebay. If there is a street clothes version I might get them for my Universal Monsters.

What I have done is years ago I obtained a few store displays used for village houses with risers. I'm using this for my display backdrop and will show the figures in poses and interacting with figures from other Christmas lines for scale. It looks really nice. Anyway...

[ribefex]

Sorry I didn´t understand very well what you wrote because of my bad english... Do you mean that you have toystore displays that were made by EP, and pictures from figures that were not made?

That would be great to see!

I´m an EP collector. I like most of their heads. George Burns young and old are, in my opinion, among the best in 8" or 9" figure size. Rizzo and Frenchie from Grease are also a ten. Most of the clothes were also very well made. Unfortunately all of their different bodies were as bad articulated as 9" Star Trek Playmates ones. All of them included an absurd base, and the accesories were really bad or non-existent. Boxes were too much big and bad designed...

In the 9" size I´ve George Burns, Casablanca, The Munsters, Jim West (the worst one by far!), Grease, Babylon-5 (only 3 of them), It´s a Wonderful Life, and Miracle on 34th st (these ones without the box). And I would really like to obtain the Titanic set (someone...?)

In september I can take few pictures if you still need them.

[ODBJBG]

I did a few reviews of the James Bond figures a while back:

Infinite Hollywood: Goldfinger - Oddjob Figure Review

Infinite Hollywood: James Bond (Roger Moore) Figure Review

Infinite Hollywood: James Bond - Goldfinger (Sean Connery) Figure Review

[palitoy]

Exclusive Premiere was run by a former Mego employee, in fact he's the same man responsible for the Pin Pin toys carded heroes showing up in Toys R Us in the mid 1980s.

The Gleason estate sued EP for damaging the property with shoddy merchandise, their Ralph Kramden doll looked like pure crap. The outfit on it looked like it was stitched together by blind apes.

[LonnieFisher]

The bodies were better than the new Retro-Action DC figures.

[Captain]

Captain - Were you involved with Exclusive Premiere? How did you get burned by them?

I better clarify, I did not work with Exclusive Premiere, nor was I burned by them. I was looking for an 8" figure for a project at the time with another company. (This was just before Paul made the world right again by re-introducing the Mego body).


I wanted a Mego type body for the project, so I contacted a guy who sourced manufacturing and toolings in Asia. Told him what I wanted, and he got back to me a day or so later saying he had sourced the actual Mego 8" figure molds. I was overjoyed. I had asked around on the old Toymania Mego Museum site what changes anybody might want if the Mego body was returned to the shelves? The majority wanted one change made--swivel arms, so I sent a set of LJN arms over to him and asked to see some manufacturing samples. Shortly thereafter I received notice that the factory couldnt make the arms fit...I couldnt figure out why not...seemed like a no-brainer, so I asked for pictures. I couldnt believe my eyes when I saw them. they had an exclusive premiere body, army boots (Beverly hillbillies I think?) and all sitting on a table with the torso apart and my LJN arms sitting beside them. I cancelled the project right there and then.

To be honest, I did not know a former Mego employee had started Exclusive Premiere at that time...That may have explained why the guy told me these were Mego bodies? Although personally, I dont think that what he meant, and I do think they were just hoping I would go with the flow once I found out the bodies werent what I was told.

[Captain]

The bodies were better than the new Retro-Action DC figures.

Ouch!

Although, to be honest their bodies were no worse than the 8" Playmates ones that came out shortly after. Somebody else had a similar design too, but I cant think of the name??

Heck, even the 12" bodies at that time had some crummy articulation going on.

[palitoy]

Trendmasters had a similiar thing going on with classic Lost in Space and Austin Powers dolls.

Hated the hands on all of them.

[AAAAA]

the tuff figures are the 60's wild wild west.

[johnmiic]

I too also own the 2 Get Smart figures and 1 James West,(Robert Conrad), from the Wild Wild West and the Lost In Space Classic figures. I considered having all of them shrunk, ( or enlarged), to Mego size. On James West the hair ends at the hat-line. The resemblance is still not quite what the actor looked like.

[garagesale]

I really liked their Blues Brothers and James Dean figures. I have those on my shelf. The rest are excellent custom fodder for those like me who love the 9-inch figures.

Those bodies are like cheaper versions of the Star Trek Playmates. If you watch ebay, you can find Exclusive Premiere for a song. Some people think they're really rare and precious, though, so don't buy those $150 mint ones.

I'd certainly love to find a website that had them all carefully cataloged. This is the first I've heard about the It's a Wonderful Life figs.

JamesD