Animal Planet.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Those look like a lot of fun!

Chris

[El Hombre Nuclear]

Wow, these are awesome! I don't really follow modern toys, but this line seems to be the closest recent thing to the Adventure People and other stuff of that ilk, which were my absolute favorites as a young child.

I googled them, but just got a bunch of generic sales listings. Can anyone fill me in on the history of this line? When did they start making them (I found an article about one of them from 2008, I think), and is there a complete list of these out there somewhere?

[monitor_ep]

They did start out Dollar Store knockoffs. They got popular after McDonald's 2003 Masters of the Universe came out. During that time there was the knockoff McMasters that fit in perfect. I used to picked them up at Big Lots. The figures were just $1 and the sets sold very affordable. Sometime during there many releases TRU made a deal with Animal Planet to release there lineup. Most of the figures are the same size and they offer alot of repaints. The TRU has to pay for the Animal Planet logo making them cost a little more but they do offer some great sets that you cannot get anywhere else.

[PNGwynne]

Yes, Big lots had many interesting sets of these: sword & sorcery, an Indiana Jones-style series, animals & exploration, pirates, knights.

[Starroid Raiders Dagon]

Wow, these are awesome! I don't really follow modern toys, but this line seems to be the closest recent thing to the Adventure People and other stuff of that ilk, which were my absolute favorites as a young child.

I googled them, but just got a bunch of generic sales listings. Can anyone fill me in on the history of this line? When did they start making them (I found an article about one of them from 2008, I think), and is there a complete list of these out there somewhere?

I think the original arctic figure is from Chap Mei but not sure what set. They have made some amazing sets over the years. The giant scorpions are originally from a line developed with the Mummy movies in mind. There used to be a site that covered a lot of their different lines with pictures but I cant find it now, but here is the message board and you can see lots of pictures here...

http://chapmei-universe.proboards.com/thread/147/yeti-playset-review

[PNGwynne]

That mummy line was sweet--that's what I was calling "Indiana Jones." The scorpions could go well with Clash of the Titans--and TRU has a myth set, too.

[monitor_ep]

I have this large bucket full of McMaster, Chap Mei, Pirates of Caribbeans and other knockoff figures to keeps getting bigger. At one point I had on a shelf the Chap Mei Pirate ship fighting the Pirates of the Caribbean.

[El Hombre Nuclear]

Wow, thanks for all of the great info, guys! Those Chap Mei sets are absolutely awesome.