Kenner Action Toy Guide 1992
Sorry I haven’t written a blog in a few weeks, but Summer Vacation is still happening here at Rad Years. Back in the winter, I bought a bunch of Kenner Action Toy Guides on eBay, and I figured I’d share one of them with you now. This one is from 1992. Lets look at the first two pages.
I’ve talked about this line of action figures MULTIPLE times and have even wrote a blog about it a few years ago during I believe the first Summer Vacation event. You can read that here. I started out with the Penguin figure, and then I got the Deep Dive Batman, but I LOVED the Tim Drake robin figure sooo much!
I obviously didn’t have any of the vehicles, of course. These all seem kind of lame and lazy on Kenners part. The Penguin umbrella jet looks like it was a Super Friends vehicle, why couldn’t the make the giant rubber ducky car? I’m assuming Warner Bros didn’t want to show Kenner what the Penguin would look like, and ruin the big reveal. Same with Catwoman which is probably why her figure came out later in the line. Nothing else on here wouldn’t have caught my fancy much, so lets flip on to the next two pages.
The only Batmobile we ever had was the shitty toy biz one from the 1989 movie. It didn’t have a covering over the cock pit and it came with this crappy plastic cake pan for the shields. When Kenner got the line they put out a Batmobile that looked like the one above, but that’s not what they’re advertising. This is the new “Batmissle” version “Just like you’ll see in the new movie”, but I don’t think that’ actually the toy pictured. They probably didn’t have it ready so they just used the “Dark Knight collection” model and called it a day. The bat-cave play set is one of the most enduring toys in history. It started with the Dark Knight collection, went through all the movies with a different box, and even into the 2000’s cartoon toys.
My brother and I had that spiral shooting gun, it was actually a lot of fun, those things flew like crazy. The Armor set looks kind of stupid and who wants a 15 inch batman figure without and 15inch villains to fight? Now on to T2, such a crazy R rated line aimed at kids. My best friend and neighbor Matt had a lot of these, but not seeing the movie made me not interested.
Two more boring Kenner vehicles, that I doubt anyone who wasn’t a spoiled as Squeezer had. But the next page, this even had my attention as a kid. The T2 Bio-flesh Regenerator Playset. It was billed as a toy that essentially let you build your own army of Terminators, and have their play-doh flesh ripped off in battle. While I wanted this, and I’m sure Matt did too, I never got it nor got a chance to play with it.
The only reason we bought Starting Lineup’s was because we thought these were gonna be worth a FORTUNE one day, just like our Desert Storm trading cards. These are now worth less than original value MINT ON CARD haha.
This shows us how popular the 1992 USA Olympic basketball team, dubbed the “Dream Team”, actually was. They had their own action figures!! These would be cool to have on my desk right now!
Savage Mondo Blitzers. These were little friction toys that came 4 to a pack. They were perfect bring to school in your pocket and play with at recess or church toys. Look at how weird and perfectly 90’s these toys are?
I don’t remember ever seeing the crazy eight pack with a launcher. I’m pretty sure this is what inspired QT to make the Crazy-88 in Kill Bill (kidding). Then we get the boring figures for a boring movie. I don’t think anybody actually owned these (I just bought two from Zombie Sailor just the other day, I’m a monster)
I think the Battle Wagon is a repurposed Star Wars toy, and I know the Sherwood Forrest Playset is a repurposed Ewok Village, lazy yet beautiful Kenner.
These are the Capital Critter toys I almost bought an unopened case of off Ebay during one of our quarantine shows. Watch Here. The were foam bendy guys that had the wire inside of them. I had the Muggle Rat guy off the Kiddy City clearance shelf when I was a kid.
We played Nerf Football EVERY GODDAMN DAY at recess when I was in catholic school. I’m pretty sure we had some of the originals as you see above, but the turbo was the true star!.
These were some of the coolest Nerf toys ever made. My brother had the Nerf Bow N Arrow, and I had the Nerf Slingshot, we had so much fun almost knocking each others eyes out with these awesome toys. These all led to Nerf selling primary weapons that shoot the little foam darts with the suction cup ends, which is pretty much all they deal in now-a-days.
I don't remember the Pro Nerf stuff, but it all seems pretty damn cool and a great way to get a summer BBQ going!
The final page, the back cover, THE CLAW. I guess it’s Kenner’s answer to “The ANIMAL” I liked these things in theory, but never wanted to waste a gift on one. These things were top dollar items, and why pass up an NES game or a new Huffy for a The Claw?
A lot of these toys were part of my Summer Vacation in 1992. The Kenner Batman Returns Toys being a MAJOR part. Let me know what you want from the 1992 Action Toy Guide in the comments below!
