About this transcript: This is a full AI-generated transcript of 100 UNPRODUCED TOYS - a Toy History Compilation from Ed's Retro Geek Out, published October 14, 2026. The transcript contains 21,560 words with timestamps and was generated using Whisper AI.
"Toy lines in the 80s and 90s were a booming business. When you had the perfect cartoon combined with the perfect toy line, sales would go through the roof. Now, of course, back in the day, lots of toys got produced, but there's some unproduced toys out there. Some concepts never saw the light of..."
[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Toy lines in the 80s and 90s were a booming business. When you had the perfect cartoon combined with the perfect toy line, sales would go through the roof. Now, of course, back in the day, lots of toys got produced, but there's some unproduced toys out there. Some concepts never saw the light of the day. Some toys never went beyond that first shot prototype phase. Today on X Retro Geek Out, we're going to take a look at eight unproduced toys that were just at the brink of being produced from really big toy lines. So, yeah, strap in for some toy history. The first toy line we're going to take a look at is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, my favorite toy line, and there was one transforming, mutating toy in there that never saw its release. If we check back to the 1993 Playmates toy catalog, we see the TMNT Muta Party Wagon. This toy, unfortunately, was never released. Now, back in 1993, TMNT comics were still going strong. We were in the seventh season of the cartoon animated series. At the same time, the third installment of the action movie got released as well, with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3. Not well received, and there was also another toy line on the rise. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was taking over. It appeared to be an uncertain time for Playmates, and when toys they were going to release, they released a lot during those years, 1993 and 1994. So, I think there's a lot more that got scrapped from production. This was supposed to be part of the mutation line, and later on, they did release some vehicles with mutating qualities. Now, the Muta Party Wagon was supposed to be 19 inches tall, with a pizza cannon and a huge katana blade. It was basically the classic TMNT vehicle you already have, but this time, it could mutate itself into a giant fighting robot turtle, the meanest metallic monster those foot fools will ever see. With fully articulated arms as well. Let's say we check out the pizza situation. Honestly, I don't get it why this thing was never released. I mean, it's two turtle toys in one. Probably, it was too expensive to produce, and putting it out there, something that kind of looks like a product that was already out, might have been too expensive for the time. So, obviously, it's very unfortunate. This Muta Party Wagon never got released, but there's a prototype out there. I mean, there's pictures. So, if anybody has this, let me know. Tell me about this army of yours. Next, we're taking a look at the Masters of the Universe toy line. At the very end of the toy line in 1987, some promotional pictures circulated of a really giant dinosaur. It was a robot dinosaur that He-Man could ride in, and it was called Gigantosaur. This was supposed to be part of the Powers of Greyskull line. The other dinosaurs like Turbodactyl and Binotops did see a release. Some of them came in the package that sent the Power of Greyskull. Some didn't. The Powers of Greyskull was a cancelled line in which the characters would travel back in time through a secret time portal and discover the origin of the Powers of Greyskull. You would learn how He-Man became so strong and explore the magical world of Pre-Eternia, home of Hero, the most powerful wizard in the universe. Monstrous dinosaurs and fierce giants, both good and evil, struggle for the control in this strange and hostile land. Now, a couple of these dinosaurs did see a release, like Tarantosaurus rex, Binotops, and Turbodactyl. They each possess a fantastic magical power. Can a hero master all the good magic of the Agent Wizards and protect future Eternia from forever falling into the Claws of Evil? The Power of Greyskull, coming your way in 1987. Now, if we take a look at these promo pages, you're gonna see Gigantosaur is huge. He's giant. He's so freaking big. I don't think they ever produced a dinosaur playable playset. Is it a playset? I'm not sure. I don't think they ever produced something as big as this. But obviously, Masters of the Universe was used to putting out really big playsets like Eternia. On the promo pages, we do see what Gigantosaur had to offer for kids back in the 80s. You would have a cannon door. As you can see, your favorite Masters of the Universe figure sitting on it. There's a latch opening it up. And out of the dinosaur, you see a cannon. There's also a belly door because you can actually feed your toys or your action figures to this giant dinosaur. And to put the cherry on top, there's a lever which automatically rears up this toy. So he will go into a standing position. You can throw in your toys. He will eat them. And down in the belly door, you can find them again. Now, I also found a couple of drawings showing the toy in a way smaller size, maybe compared to the three dinosaurs that were released. Yeah, this is definitely an idea they had been playing with, but I think the toy was just too big. And honestly, it didn't have enough features for me as a kid, I think, to get such a big toy. It would have probably come with a hefty price tag, and I don't think it had enough to offer, unfortunately. Another interesting fact, on these promo pages, you can actually see the other two giants that were only released in Mexico and Europe. Those giants are freaking insane. So yeah, it's unfortunate that the Powers of Grayskull line got canceled. At least we have the promo pages, and there is supposed to be a prototype out there somewhere. Next toy line we're going to take a look at is Jurassic Park. Oh yeah, this is Jurassic Park's Triceratops, also known as the Trike. That's his code name. He was planned to be released in the short-lived second series of the Lost World toy line, and it's speculated that he didn't see it released because maybe the horns might have been too dangerous when kids were playing with it, it would stick out an eye or something like that. But hey, promo pictures were made so they could have pulled the trigger on producing this lovely trike toy. The toy would have a function of a ramming head attack by moving the tail, and it would mimic the head moves like the trike moves his head in the movie when he's destroying Ludlow's tent. Also thrown in with the toy would be a Dino Hunter's tent and removable dino damage piece that we've all grown to love from the first series. Actually, the figure would have been quite big. It would have been a 13-inch dinosaur. Now, there's a bunch of prototypes out there. It's not just one. Some were painted, some weren't. Unfortunately, the toy was never put into production, so there aren't a lot of prototypes out there for you to collect. We do see in these promotional pictures show a kind of camo color scheme going on. Some gray and some blue. I really like that blue on this trike. It's just unfortunate this toy never got produced. Then, the fourth toy line we're going to take a look at is Ghostbusters with Egon's Lab. This is considered to be a holy grail for all the Ghostbusters collectors out there. Now, due to poor sales and near cancellation of the cartoon, the project got interrupted and the line got canceled. Egon's Lab, together with other concepts, to be released during 1991 and 1992. Never saw the light of day. They're ghosts, you might say. Who are you going to call? Now, what did this playset have to offer? It had a levitation feature. You could pop a figure on there and then use a lever to levitate your figure because it's getting haunted by the machinery. Ghost hands pop out of the machinery as well and you had a Ghost Smasher, which was a hammer-like thing, allowing you to hammer the ghost into the containment unit. And there's also, like, tree wires out there to test the ghost before you put them into the containment unit. But I guess I shouldn't be explaining this. They did do a toy catalog description of the toy. So, with Egon's new lab, kids can analyze and store all sorts of ghosts. First, examine ghosts with three probes, then smash them into the containment unit. But watch out! Captured ghosts can hunt the equipment and cause the Ghostbusters to rise in the air. And it comes with a really cool companion ghost in cute orange. Now, there was a 3D printed reproduction made by fans for the community. A very limited amount of those were made by Bam Toyko. Next up is Transformers. Unicron. If you've seen the Transformers movie, you've heard about Unicron. He's the big planet Transformer. He's a planet! Yeah, so it needed a really big toy to accomplish what was already set up in the cartoon and the movie. In the G1 line, multiple prototypes were created but never released. The first prototype was made by Takara. It was a green and yellow robot that came with a base and you had a moon circulating around it. You know, it was kind of set up like a planetary system. There was also a lights and sound gimmick introduced. It was planned to interact with an infrared gun. You would have the gun inside of the moon and it would interact with the toy base itself. But when we take a look at the pictures of the existing prototype and you take a look at the rub sign, you would see that it is kind of small though. So next up, a longer version was created by Takara and Hasbro. This was a blue and yellow finished toy. It had a different kind of ring going around the toy this time around. No moon laser gun but a voice chip and planet microphone was added. Accessories would have been a gun and a blue shield that would unfold and cover the yellow part of his chest in planet mode. Now we did see this prototype surfacing at BotCon in 96 but the toy was scrapped due to cost concerns, flimsy arms and a faulty voice chip. And even though the prototype was supposed to be the tallest robot planned at the time of release, it would have still been shorter than Force Maximus. So I'm kind of guessing that the toy did cost a lot. They needed to add really cool features but the voice chip wasn't working. They simply didn't get the prototype to function enough, unfortunately. Now if we fast forward to today, Hasbro is actually releasing a Unicron in the War for Cybertron line. This figure will be 27 inches high, weigh around 19 pounds and have a price tag of $575 with 50 points of articulation, 15 in the limbs alone. That is one hell of a figure and it should see its release somewhere next year. People have already pre-ordered it. Two years ago, it was kind of a Kickstarter thing that they based the production on. So I'm excited to see the finished product of this Unicron toy. In the next toy line, we did learn that knowing is half the battle but we don't even know half about this G.I. Joe train set that was never released. The G.I. Joe train was created to offer kids a new playing pattern with G.I. Joe and even though they were inspired by Lionel's and American Flyers military toy trains of the 50s and 60s, they were going to go reused in already existing play school molds of, you know, play school kiddie trains trying to use those molds to keep the costs down for this production. But unfortunately, the toy never saw its release. It didn't get a green light. Management taught that the cost would still be too big for consumers to get it. So unfortunately, the kids of the 90s missed a train on this fun vehicle play set that would have come with a track and four modules being the engine, a large cannon, an even larger cannon, and a freight wagon. It was also featured in some G.I. Joe trading carts as an unreleased toy card. My mind does wonder that if this toy did get released in 1991 and the mold got repurposed for the 1995 and 96 fluorescent type of G.I. Joe toys, that would have been freaking amazing seeing like a fluorescent train. You could pop your G.I. Joes in. It would have like a Play-Doh compatibility to make, you know, like crystals or something like that. It would have been cool. But unfortunately, yeah, too many problems arose while creating this train and it derailed the train's production in 1991. In the number 7 spot, we got Tundercats. Ho! Tundercats Ho! with the Mad Bubbler. This toy is also sought after. It is considered another holy grail amongst Tundercats collectors. But it's just one of many toys that didn't see the light of day in the LJN toy line. The Mad Bubbler did appear in a LJN mini catalog as part of the Rampagers. It was featured alongside the Driller and Stinger figure. Both of those figures are rare as hell to find out in the wild. They are out there but they are expensive. They are actual rare toys. And it's really a shame it never saw a release as Mad Bubbler because he was in the cartoon. That was the deal back in the day when you were a kid. You saw a toy in a cartoon and a couple weeks later it would be in the store in a toy form and you can buy it. Now, the toy went through various concept designs and had one finalized version which we can see in the catalog. The colors are different from the cartoon colors and there were a couple of prototypes created for this one. Now, there's a bunch of customizers out there who make custom figures which you can commission to make your very own Mad Bubbler and that's probably the only way you're going to get this toy because due to cancellation of the entire LJN line this toy never saw the light of day. Except if Eye of Tundera can give me sight beyond sight. I don't know what exactly the attachment is. I think they're cute but kind of funny looking. Now, the last prototype we're going to talk about in this video came from the vintage Star Wars line and it is the rocket-firing Boba Fett prototype. Now, I wasn't sure about popping this one because Boba Fett did come out as a toy figurine it just wasn't released with that function so it is pretty much an unproduced function on a toy that we're discussing right now but due to Boba Fett being so well known in the toy community I figured I might as well just throw him in with these eight unproduced toys. Now, it's commonly known that the toy was altered due to Battlestar Galactica toys with a similar rocket-firing function hurting kids and one kid eventually passed away due to the wounds that he received from this rocket-firing toy but also toys back then needed to commit to choking hazard standards and the rocket that came with the Boba Fett didn't fit the tube so it was considered a choking hazard. About 100 of prototypes have been made and about 25 of those have been accounted for in other collector's rooms. Now, there's two versions of the prototype out there. One is the L-slot mechanism and the other is the J-slot mechanism. Almost all of these were unpainted some with a little bit of yellow and there was one scene on a card at one of the Toy Fair Expos. Boba Fett first appeared in the holiday special and that's why he was going to get a figure. Settle down. He was also a mail-away and at first you needed to send in four proof of purchase seals to get the rocket-firing toy. However, what you got in the mail was a toy that had a missile glued to the figure and you did get a sorry note from Kenner indicating that the rocket feature was removed from the toy due to safety reasons and if you weren't happy with this toy they would gladly send you another one. And those were the first eight toys I picked out for my Unproduced Toys series or Toy History series. I'm not quite sure what I should be calling this series yet. 80s and 90s kids probably fondly remember planning out the next trip to the toy store. Back in the day you didn't really have any tablets or the internet to just look up which kind of toys were out. All we could do was eagerly inspect all of the packaging that came with the toys the little toy pamphlets watch the cartoons and the commercials. Announcing that next magnificent toy for your collection your favorite character would finally turn into a toy and even though most toys that would get announced in a catalog would eventually turn up in your favorite toy store some of them never did. In this episode of Unproduced Toys Part 2 we're gonna take a look at another 8 toys that were cancelled before they could hit the store shelves. How would the toys have looked? Why weren't they released? And a lot more on Ed's Retro Geek Out so strap in for some toy history. The year was 1987 and Hasbro had just planned to add another celebrity as a member of the G.I. Joe team. Rocky Balboa had just defeated Drago played by Dolph Lundgren in the 4th movie. So you know Sylvester Stallone had all the qualities required to be a real American hero. Plans were made to create a toy and Rocky Balboa had already appeared in G.I. Joe's Order of Battle comic book by Marvel. Heck, they even had the card art and all the file card info ready to go for this toy. Then the negotiations between Hasbro and Sylvester Stallone fell through because Stallone had already lent his image for Coleco's Rambo toy line. The comic had the print and retraction and the toy was never made due to a non-compete clause in the Coleco contract that Sylvester Stallone had previously signed. Girl, this is where I get off. But there were some unpainted sculpts out there really resembling Sylvester Stallone's likeness. It would have been a lot better than what Coleco did with the Rambo line, I do believe. So J.I. Joe would continue to battle Cobra but without having boxing legend Rocky Balboa to tag team along. Now Cobra, of course, knowing that J.I. Joe was going to have this new heavy hitter on the team, they were going to retaliate and retaliate they did with Big Boa. Rocky Balboa? Big Boa? Kind of obvious. With this figure, Cobra would have had the perfect opponent for Rocky Balboa and this figure did eventually go into production. And from one Hasbro line we're going to head into a less popular one, Visionaries. Visionaries from Hasbro. During the second wave of the Visionaries toy line they had envisioned to release Iron Mountain, the holodrome. This would have been the home of Merklin, the mysterious wizard that would grant magical powers to the two factions battling it out. On one side you had the Spectral Knights and on the other side you had the Darkling Lords. The toy line was ready to expand with a second wave and of course you needed a playset to have all these figures battling it out. So as announced in the 1988 toy catalog we would see this massive playset dubbed the Iron Mountain. Featuring a special hologramic effect showing the ghostly image of Merklin kids would actually be able to place their hands inside of the 3D image that was generated by this toy. You would have two hidden trap doors, lots of caves to hide in and of course falling rocks for slip and slide action. There would also be a microphone sort of like Snake Mountain so you could speak in Merklin's voice. For those who succeed the rewards are very great. be detachable hoverpods and two gunner stations in the mountains tower wherein you could fit one figure. And even though the second wave has been speculated that it did come out in Europe it didn't guys. I've seen nothing out here. No second wave of visionaries whatsoever. Now it has been confirmed that the toy was ready to get made in the factory in China. Everything was done for this playset. But unfortunately they didn't get to pop this puppy into production. The toy could have been the perfect toy version of the visionaries origin stories but with the costs already being so high for the regular figures because you know the gimmick of the toys the little holograms and this in combination with the cartoon series and the comic book getting cancelled kind of ended the franchise. It's just too bad they didn't get to envision any of that on one of those three-dimensional polymers. I think we've been deceived. Another toy line suffering the same fate as the visionaries has got to be the Sektars. For these warriors of Symbian the second wave would have featured Sektar's female star Stellara. The Sektars was a line of action figures released by Coleco in 1985. It had a Marvel comic and a cartoon show but didn't do too well even though they had a really cool gimmick with insect-like hand puppets that kids could bring to life with their own hands and a rather killer playset that did come out with the Hive. That's one good looking playset right there. The complete second wave of toys did get cancelled but would have featured Stellara, Prince Dargon's love interest even though she did play a huge role in the comic book written by Bill Mantlo who also created Rocket Raccoon. The figure in prototype form was announced in catalogs where she would have sported a similar color scheme as Dargon so it would not have been the colors that we knew from the comic book. She would have come with a companion buck and similar weapons as the previous figures released for the line. Rhinox would have been the action bug with a headbutt feature and her weapons would have been a skull dagger a shield and a vent gun. The line did get cancelled due to poor sales some of the figures were pretty gruesome and moms across the world probably didn't want those little bug type things in their homes back in the 80s. Coleco did take a lot of effort sculpting these figures with lots of detail and you know when you have lots of details going on in the sculpting and high quality of your toys the production costs go up that price tag goes up probably pricing them out of the market. Although I seem to remember most of these toys being out in the discount bins when I saw them back in the day. In 2019 a Kickstarter by Zika Toys gave a franchise a new hope but Stellara is still stuck somewhere in the endless web of unproduced toys. Next up is one of my favorite toy lines Street Sharks and here we got Clemando. Even though this character is called Clemando this Street Sharks villain is actually a half man half oyster mutant. The only mutant creature to not be created by Dr. Paradigm because this was basically a dock worker who fell into a nearby dock where they were dumping some toxic waste. Not that they really explained it in the show why they were dumping toxic waste there. Now there seem to be two variations of the prototype out there. one in black and white as was featured in one of the last toy catalogs featuring the Street Sharks and another one in green and purple more like one of the versions we have seen in the cartoon although this version did not have any of the crazy eyes. The toy would have had pearl grenades and could protect itself by closing its shell and even when closing its shell it would still remain to have full visibility due to this funny looking eye sculpts functioning as periscope when he's in full shell mode. A pearl of wisdom! Street Sharks moved away from the toy aisles as the spin-off show Extreme Dinosaurs sort of took over and got more attention. Now as a Street Shark collector I would have actually loved to see Clemando become an actual toy that was released in the vintage line. I would have wanted more characters instead of variations of the already produced ones. from one mutant toy line to an art Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hot rodding ninja mobile assortment. This was featured in the 1994 Playmates catalog and kind of tied in with some of the monster trucks and wheeled monsters that I used to own back in the day as a kid. The idea was simple you got a pullback car but hub weapons would pull out as well. As described in the toy catalog what do they got? Cool funny car stylings that's what and realistic front suspension with awesome hot rod details. Is that enough for you? How about pullback motors? Yup. So these motorized mobiles can perform radical wheelies. The custom party hardy wacky wagon kicks into gear and defends the party pal passengers with nunchucks that pop out of the hubs. And then on the villain side of things you would have Shredder riding its own mutant module. The massive hot rodding macho mutant module cuts deep into crime with blades that pull out of the hubs. Now figures weren't included with this but you did get some kind of a staff accessory attached to the toy where you could place your toy onto when it would kick into action. The toy would not get spun around inside of the car or would get kicked out of the car because of the wheelie action going on. Now it is kind of odd that they did go for the party wagon and the mutant module. Probably those were more known to kids but the hot rodding name immediately jumps to mind when you think about the hot rodding teenagers from Dimension X so it's kind of odd that they did not go for one of those hovering Cadillacs that those teenagers from Dimension X were driving in. Blacks April they're cool! It does actually remain a mystery why this was not released. I mean the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line had merchandise for everything so why couldn't a toy car be produced that you could have your action figures ride in? It's strange. It's strange. But not as strange as the Skeleton Warriors Bone Dragon. Now to me Skeleton Warriors is a Playmates toy line that has some of the best sculpts in the business. One toy that never got to be would have been a Bone Dragon of epic proportions. This toy figure would have been 13 inches tall and fully articulated. Spring powered blasters would have come with it as well as metalized armor. It could hold up to three figures come with a real light star crystal and that deadly skeleton detailing we all love. This would have been known as Baron Dark's deadly dungeon dragon. The ground shakes and sky darkens as Baron Dark rides Morgor his massive Bone Dragon onto the battlefield. Covered with metalized blade armor that cuts down the legions of light with ease the Bone Dragon is the most feared battle beast in the Skeleton Legion arsenal. Equipped with Blasterous and a dungeon ribcage the Bone Dragon is constantly on patrol for any unlucky skeleton warrior who may fall within its shadow. Now it is at one of the designer cons that one of the prototypes surfaced although this one was not sporting any of the recognizable classic gold chrome accessories and armor neither did it have any of the projectile launchers on the figure or any other things really showing it. It was as it were the bare boned Bone Dragon. Now the Skeleton Warriors line got cancelled because of all the violence in the cartoons and the dead atmosphere surrounding the toys. Seems like the cartoons never found the right audience and parents preferred the brighter Mighty Morphin Power Ranger toys that were big at the time in 1994. Even though Power Rangers also had moms going crazy about all of the violence that was in the show at least the figures didn't represent death. Time to shrink it down from one of the giant toys to one of the smallest toy characters out there. Mighty Max. Let's just keep it the way it was. The Warmonger Megahead is an unreleased Battle Fortress originally intended for release in 1996. The playset was cancelled alongside the other Mighty Max into the Battlezone series of toys. This would have been the fourth wave but none made it past the prototype stage. Now the whole into the Battlezone line would have been forgotten if it wasn't for those meddling Mighty Max fans who rediscovered the toy line when one of the toy line designers posted details including a pictorial SKU a stock keeping unit on the Mighty Max archives forum. The Into the Battlezone line would have featured an older looking Max. It would have allowed Mighty Max to continue story-wise but also be a little bit different. Warmonger is the chief general working for the Skullmaster a brutish looking humanoid also appearing in the TV show It Was Time for his own playset and this playset would have featured Mighty Max Warmonger a insect monster and a skull master's head? What you would have gotten was a slightly bigger Mighty Max playset a base would open up you would need to pull out one of the horns to create two staircases so you could go from the bottom base to two platforms in each side of the head the staircases would lead you to the higher levels and lots of other deadly booby traps and honestly it's too bad they had to pull the plug on this second iteration of Mighty Max because it would have been really cool to see this character develop even more and this is one for the bronies yeah guys there was a unreleased playset in the My Little Pony line the concept art for the Flutter Pony playset was shown on the My Little Pony fair in 2016 Root Bush one of the G1 Hasbro My Little Pony artists actually brought along her concept art and some pictures of the actual prototype the concept would have been a little cottage in the clouds that the Flutter Ponies could use to manipulate the weather the base was sculpted with white clouds and a little window that you could open up showing a spinner with different types of weather on it what the frick is a Flutter Pony the Flutter Pony is known as a race of winged ponies unlike the Pegasus but with butterfly wings that could control the weather loosely it was loosely based on on weather controlling ponies and you could actually see this on the back of the cards that these ponies came on now why was this playset not released in the G1 line it felt too soon to release another playset next to the Paradise Estate which was already an expensive playset so maybe they didn't think parents would go for another playset for their kids the Flutter ponies were also known for breaking the wings easily these butterfly wings were translucent and broke quite easily and popping these guys into a house would probably have them break even more but it would have actually made sense for them to release another playset to cash in on the success of the movie or the sequel as an 80s and 90s kid you had it all when you had a playset for your favorite toys like Castle Grayskull for instance it would also function as a place to hold your figurines in and you could carry it around easily the immense detailed sets by G.I. Joe it seems like every popular toy line needed a playset to really verify their existence in this Ed's Retro Geek Out we're going to take a look at seven playsets that never got to be the background for your own fantasy storylines that you were playing out with the toys and also it will never be the perfect background to display your toys in as a collector so strap in for some toy history this toy history starts us off at the turn of the decade between the 80s and 90s cleaning the world had become a trend wordy of a toy line and a cartoon and Captain Planet definitely checked all of those boxes but one of the things that never got produced for these Tiger Toys action figures was the Hope Island playset Tiger Toys started producing the Captain Planet and the Planeteers toys in 1990 the 1991 toy catalog showcased a drawing of Hope Island the home of Gaia and also where the Planeteers would live and that's all we got the drawing and the text that came with it it is not known if any prototypes out there exist for this playset the playset would feature a Geo Cruiser landing pad an EcoTrac kind of like a zipline viewscreen communicator computer planet vision eco-villain detention center with a trap door and as cherry on top of the Planeteer peak a falling boulder oh and an elevator in the back serving as an eco-alert early warning center Hope Island is the Planeteers headquarters when they're not out battling the eco-villains and it comes with everything an active Planeteer will need to stay on top of the world's environmental situation towering 19 inches in height this would have been a huge playset consisting of little parts of rock with their own little features thrown on there you could actually move the set around all the pieces would come on a large 40 by 40 full color vinyl some assembly was required but knowing that the playset would exist out of different parts and pieces you could move it around and create your own perfect setup of the playset or your own custom diorama and did I mention to you that the Geo Cruiser landing pad was actually an inactive volcano recycling that type of rock for landing purposes and from one rock to another let's head over to the next playset this is the stone head playset the Rock Lords is a spin-off to the GoBots toy line from Tonka introduced in 1986 after the movie GoBots the Battle of the Rock Lords gotta think a bit of my pet rock but they transform and they have guns needless to say when these figurines came out rock hounders and amateur geologists couldn't believe their eyes originally they were imported from the Bandai's machine robo subline the good guys were led by Boulder and the bad ones led by Magmar Stonehead was a big part of the Rock Lords the fortress was featured in the movie the packaging and even the mini comic that came with the toys so that kind of plan and worked towards bringing focus on Stonehead but the playset never got past the prototype stage and they really tried hard because there's two prototypes out there the first one featured in 1986 Tonka's catalog not so much a fortress like the cartoon would depict it but merely a head with a handle allowing you to open and close them out apart from the handle also activating a trap door it would also have a jail cell and a built-in carrying handle just like Castle Grayskull but none of that you can really see on the pictures that are still available from this prototype and because the toys vary in size I do wonder how many of them would actually be able to fit inside of Stonehead's mouth in 1987 a second prototype was featured in the Bandai catalog working on some of the gimmicks of the first one you could open this one up the weapon storage device looked pretty cool and at least now you would have multiple platforms to work with so even after two prototypes were introduced in catalogs we never got to see the release of this playset with the Transformers getting the better end of the transforming robot sales on the toy market Rock Lords did manage to get three series out but never got their own playset and to be honest the tagline they were working with didn't really make me want to become a rock scientist right away you own Rock Mountain headquarters with prison secret trap hoist and weapon spinner Rock Lords and Gnarlies are not included remember that one scene in the Tom Hanks movie Big where they're talking about a transforming building the building doesn't do anything it's the robot inside that kind of makes it so they change it to an insect to a bug and that works Rock Lords to me is kind of the same thing okay the robot is movable and the rock is in the skies but what can you really do with the rock I still wonder if this really appealed to kids or if they were just destined to hit rock bottom the next playset we're discussing came from the superpowers toyline with the Tower of Darkness by Kenner it was featured in a 1986 Toy Fair catalog and also on the cardbacks of the third series action figures heroes beware the most diabolical deadly den of doom is waiting for you Darkseid's Tower of Darkness a featured part of the superpowers programming Darkseid's home is designed to trap and torture even the most powerful superpowers the Omega Eyes warn heroes of the multiple dangers two rotating cannons making omnious clicking sounds clicking sounds really mammoth clutching arms that close tight on approaching enemies a revolving gate that turns into a jail cell a rotating body vice a head slamming elevator attached to Darkseid's victory flagpole a captured jaw that chums down on its captive and then drops the victim into a lava pit this playset is on fire now Darkseid is one of the best villains of all time definitely in the DC universe so it's sad to see that this playset was actually set to be produced it was even a proof sheet of the toy but the line was cancelled no Darkseid with the upper hand and Wonder Dog then we're gonna head into space with Galoops Micro Machines they had planned to release toys and playsets from the Aliens movie even though it was 10 years after the release of the movie but where else could you go from Star Trek and Star Wars honestly the only other big space franchise was Alien Action Fleet was a series of Micro Machine toys that did well for the Star Wars toy line so they planned one based on the vehicles from Aliens and obviously they also planned a playset the Outer World PlayStation was a micro version playset and the most amazing Alien sets to ever be created but never produced including exclusive micro figures of Bishop, Gorman and Ripley inside of a power loader and of course the talent the Aliens themselves in one of the toy catalogs we did find this description action scale playset from the sci-fi movie multi-level playset opens into dynamic interior exterior battle action scenes planetary replica with figures and multiple action features including flip open ship Alien Queen Alien eggs with pop-up facehuggers figure catapult drive down ramps and parasites in sea-true tanks unfortunately the continuation of the Action Fleet toy line was cancelled due to the lack of demand for these micro machine toys based on the R-rated movie but enough talk about space let's head back to a simpler time a simpler time back to that farm life with barnyard commandos in 1989 Playmates didn't think you needed more than a squishy toy and an armor to put on top of it to sell it to kids so Playmates started producing barnyard commandos a year later a year later in 1990 a cartoon would follow based on these toys the concept was farm animals throw some radioactive material in the mix and you have two opposing parties on one side you had the Rams the rebel army of military sheep and the other side featured the Porks the platoon of rebel killer swine battling it out on the farmyard the 1991 Playmates toy catalog featured the port of war playset a multi-platform armor on top of a huge pig with enough blasters to put the US flag to shame and even some parts of TMNT's sewer drags were used to make this playset prototype and there's not really much going on apart from that although it would have been great to land some of those cool looking barnyard commando planes they released later in the toy line on one of these platforms but enough farm talk let's talk business let's get to the bacon while I do have an interest in these I'm not sure how this could have been a great playset it just seems like they threw something together very quickly the same way they did it with the action figures a chewy dog toy with a weapon and that was it I think as a kid I would have been looking for something more advanced for example the El Jan advanced Dungeons and Dragons toy line the El Jan line already had a cool playset with Fortress of Fangs and the second series of the Dungeons and Dragons toy line would also feature a playset but unfortunately the line got cancelled abruptly so aside from some new action figures we also didn't get the Snake Cave playset this cool red looking playset remains unproduced all we have is this picture from the El Jan catalog depicting the front the inside is still unknown but you can be sure there would be some death traps dungeons and prisons in there looking at the playset you see a demon like red silhouette at least when it's close because I think this playset would actually open up it would also come with an easy carry case handle and the things that we can see two doors one regular one and one made of spider webs a ladder and some sort of snake prison on top which I think you could actually push down to really hide the prisoner and make him pop up once again that would have been a cool feature some unreleased figures were also featured like the unproduced viking Valkyrie the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon was met with controversy by parents and religious groups mainly due to the violence and occult symbols featured in the episodes one of the episodes was almost shelved the dragon's graveyard would feature a character that was contemplating to kill their nemesis I remember a couple years ago I preached a message for television called Dungeons and Dragons and in it I dealt with the occultic overtones the witchcraft the demonism the spells in 1985 the FTC demanded they would run a warning during the broadcast stating Dungeons and Dragons had been linked to violent real life deaths in the 80s this would have definitely held parents back so unfortunately due to poor sales the toy line died and then the last one in the bunch is probably the coolest looking one and also the strangest one we don't really know whether this one existed or not the Fortress of Doom as seen in the Remco catalog in 1984 the ultimate in fantasy fortresses is now a reality with the Fortress of Doom a tree foot high four level fantasy playset with elevating drawbridges mobile transporters working dungeons movable gates weapon rack and much much more it's the world of fantasy figures versus the Fortress of Doom who can overcome it and the fantasy play is endless tied in with the warrior beasts line as you can see Skomen on top of the balcony alongside the other fantasy toys the playset hasn't been confirmed to be unproduced but there's also no evidence that it was produced looking at the awesome picture and the only one we have been able to source it seems like it was made from a durable cardboard and I wonder if they were produced any would still exist because you know that stuff breaks so easily now Remco was known for their toy cars but in 1984 the Toy Fair catalog shows a lot of Master of the Universe knockoff lines like Conan Vikings the Lost World of the Warlord they're becoming more and more collectible and it would have been a real treat to see the actual Masters of the Universe toys hop over to this Remco playset like so many knockoffs by Remco would have resided inside Castle Grayskull back in the 80s and that was just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to unproduced play sets the toy lines in the 80s and 90s really learned how to make good use of a cartoon in order to push their product but it also gave us as kids memories and toys that would last 30 and 40 years later but not all toys were greenlighted for a release so in Unproduced Toys Part 3 we're taking a closer look to some unreleased toy concepts be sure to subscribe to the channel so you don't miss out on any new videos and let's drop in for some toy history the year was 1990 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had released a line called the Mega Mutants now only Needlenose and Killer Bee were released in the Mega Mutants line but there were a lot more planned actually while most remained to be a wild sketch the concept known as the Army Ant or Killer Ant also saw an unpainted hardcopy surface and in the concept art we could see that he would have come with little ants sculpted all over of figure a picnic spread with a weapon filled basket a headpiece that would feature a metal helmet a champagne bucket and a dinner plate would function as pads they were really running with this picnic team on this guy and it would also feature a boxing glove but it didn't make it into the next match which was the prototype stage we got a sculpt where we can see tank tracks used as armrests although it is uncertain that all of these features made it into the eventual hardcopy we're looking at right now now the Army Ant would have been an obvious follow-up to the already existing killer bee and needle nose what happens when you add bugs to mutagen even bigger mutants this Army Ant is ready for action to ruin the turtle's picnic I would have loved to have seen what the proto-chair would have looked like thrown together maybe on this little rendering we can kind of see a glimpse of what it would have looked like and there's some other unproduced concepts for the line they included the exterminator undertaker spider this concept art is totally badass and I just want to see this thing turn into a prototype and another concept was the buzzard bomber which technically isn't an insect but they wanted to throw into the mega mutants line anyways but why even pay designers to make this concept art when you can have kids create the art for you in 1986 Mattel had a create a character contest for kids they could send in their own designs that could possibly get made into an actual masters of the universe figure later that year they selected five figures that you could pick from the first being Netta a hero made out of Nets Eyebeam a giant walking eye looking kind of like Optic which was a release in the new adventure series Compactor a guy who could smash things with his torso and the giant brain dude called Brainwave and contest winner 11 year old Natan's fearless photog the heroic cameraman focuses in on evil warriors and drains them of their power photog's chest shows pictures of the defeated enemies quite the concept this little 11 year old came up with right he got the win after votes were cast by 150,000 people and won a $100,000 scholarship although there was some controversy from him getting a little bit of help from his dad that however got resolved and then you have the other part the kid actually didn't own any Masters of the Universe figures what do we have here? however the contest was so late in the line it never went into production but some toy fans have tried recreating the toy and also Maddie Collector did the same contest for the Masters of the Universe classic line and there we got Castle Grayskull Man as part of the Masters of the Universe 30th anniversary now I do wonder which concept art you guys would have sent in and if you would have picked one of these five concepts now here's a line I haven't really spoken about and that is the Crash Dummies the Crash Dummies were designed by David McDonald and Jim Byrne and based on the popular PSAs of the late 80s to get people to wear their seatbelts Tycho released these colorful toys from 1990 until 1994 you could learn a lot from a dummy buckle your safety belt but did you know the character Daryl was actually a gender swap from the originally planned toy? Darlene was set for release in the generation's first wave as the only female and still remains the only unproduced character and there's two concept toys out there that would later get replaced with Daryl the first version wouldn't have been too different from the Daryl we all know as it had the same spin top trigger action but also two short pieces of yellow checkered ribbon that sprung out on top of her head now her concept was quickly retired as Tycho didn't want their toy to crash with their primarily boy demographic ProTag did a final version of Darlene in 1993 but the figure never went into production although it could have been their step into the girl toy market Daryl however still has a very feminine physique left over from Darlene and that even despite his reimagining early into the development process Darlene remains to be the most elusive crash dummy with some samples being packaged on Daryl cards the only way you could get them was true a Tycho employee and that is if he could find out where they were shelved now another thing that crashed is the console production by Sega let's zoom into that with the console wars from the early 90s where Sega and Nintendo battled it out Sega was doing multiple add-ons to their Genesis model in order to keep it competitive to the Nintendo one model called the Sega Neptune didn't make it into production this mythical system was basically a two-in-one system bringing the Genesis and the 32X together in one console planned to be released in 1995 you could buy this one in store for $200 and it would have actually been cheaper for new Sega fans to buy this than getting both systems separately now the Neptune got delayed late into 1996 and then cancelled when they stopped producing the 32X add-on the Sega Saturn was to be released and they also had the Sega CD add-on out already now there's just too many Sega consoles coming all together at once a 90s news article showed the system and referred to it as the Genesis 32X system now for fans that still want one of these there is a mod possible you could actually mod a Genesis 2 model where you could fit the 32X into as well and Frankenstein yourself one of these hyped consoles now I do think the Neptune would have worked better without the add-on first being released but hey there's plenty more consoles in the Sega C all this talk about Neptune and C is making me kind of thirsty and we all know the shaken not stirred martini loving bond James Bond but there was also an amazing cartoon with flashy colored toys called James Bond Jr Skullcap is a metal cap assassin that appeared in the 1991 to 1992 animated television show in quite some episodes and also in the comic books so the second wave of toys was planned to feature this massive action figure however the original wax sculpt and artwork for the toy packaging took a departure from the way he was depicted in the cartoon this would have been a bulky figure with a skull-like belly and an extra point of articulation where you could move the head up and down I was one of the kids watching this cartoon actually liked the toys but unfortunately the line got cancelled so the second wave never saw the light of day which is too bad because the enemies in all the Hasbro toy lines usually looked cooler than their heroic counterparts and talking about heroes that look cool this is the last real cartoon show I watched as a kid as it featured some kind of teenage mutant ninja mummies teenage mummy ninja mutants no these guys are called mummies alive which was also a cartoon show that aired in 1997 but due to low ratings it was cancelled the toys were produced by Kenner and yes of course they had a whole second wave planned now the Fright Sight variation was a line that already saw some figures being released you could pull one of the arms and a monster face would reveal so a pretty cool and common action amongst action figures and even though the Fright Sights were not popped onto shells in the US the UK did get some but not all of them and some of those prototypes that never were released did surface like Fright Sights Armand where a French mercenary appears to be a mummy monster now it does seem that this figure might have been released in Germany and the UK Rat on the other hand is an unpainted hard copy where you haven't seen any other info on Scarab is another prototype that surfaced and it looks like a hand painted hard copy was featured in a Toy Fair catalog now this one seems to be the hardest to find any info on but dang what an impressive looking figure I guess the curse of the mummy just struck too soon for these toys and we're gonna need a pyramid scheme to get the funds together to get a pyramid play set out of this toy line a pyramid play set would have been so cool if you collected Thundercats in the 80s you probably noticed a couple more members of the Berserkers promoted in the little toy catalogs but somehow Cannon Blaster and Quick Jaws were never seen again never seen in store shelves and never spoken about in the original cartoon but the pictures in the tiny catalogs did keep you wondering LJN's Cannon Blaster would have had a cannon shooting action and the custom battle Matic action consisting of two separate figures being a robotic armor and a dwarf-like Berserker wearing a helmet the figure would allow you to shoot the tiny Berserker when you press the button on the robotic body now the other unreleased Berserker was first named Drab Jaws the figure would have been too much like Master of the Universe Trab Jaw name what are you doing? and so they quickly changed it to Quick Jaws the toy would feature an extending head and biting jaws a unique battle Matic action where the head and jaws of the toy would extend out of the body in a scissor-like biting action this was triggered by a button that upon its release would also retract the jaws and head back so it could actually grab other toys and it still baffles me that these toys weren't released I mean they were ready to go it's so unfortunate we never got Cannon Blaster or Quick Jaws now especially want to thank all you guys that sent in your toy history pictures from back in the day and a special thanks goes out to Chris Fawcett who supplied me with all the cool pictures of the TMNT Army Ant be sure to check out his book on TMNT prototype toys called Rat Plastic remember the days when toy stores would be fully stacked with your favorite toy lines and you'd have to choose which action figure you wanted to take home with you that day however kids wouldn't keep buying the same He-Man or Lino over and over again a toy line was kept alive by the inventiveness of its designers and the continuation of the cartoon or movies they'd introduce other characters from the cartoon alter the lead character or give him or her a new gimmick tying in to a trend at the time or expand the playable universe with vehicles and playsets seriously how many Ninja Turtles Leonardos did you own back in the day in today's X Retro Geek Out we're taking a look at a couple toy line expansion ideas that we never got to put on our shopping lists be sure to subscribe for weekly vintage toy content and let's wrap in for some toy history the year is 1990 and wrestling is big kids were glued to their TV screens as Hulk Hogan macho man Randy Savage and the ultimate warrior would tear down the ring little did they know they'd be getting action figures that would have the same action features as their favorite wrestlers when it came to sports and imagination no sport came as close to capturing a kid's imagination than wrestling wrestling was big in the 80s and 90s and it pretty much still is in the 80s you had LJN creating action figures with the best known wrestlers while these looked cool they didn't really have any poseability so when LJN shut down their toy department in 1989 Hasbro got the license for the superstars of the WWE and so the WWE action figure line was born produced by Hasbro from 1990 up to 1994 a total of 11 waves got released the toys were made of plastic with many featuring a signature action move based on their real life counterpart like the overhead body slam the earthquake and many more when compared to the LJN toys at least some points of articulation were added here and the toy line benefited from being introduced during a sports entertainment boom period these figures were among the most popular sports entertainment action figures of their time and have since become collector's items now for this toy line the continuity consisted of putting out wave after wave of new characters creating tag teams but also revamping the most popular figures over and over again so we did mention that Hasbro created these up to 1994 so before the WWE canceled their deal with Hasbro there were also plans for a Series 12 which we now call the Orange Card Series there's even been some prototype pictures online of the head sculpts and some artist sketches for this series according to the sketches found the series was to include Lex Luger in USA gear with overhead body slam mechanic Moe with Springer mechanic and Mabel with an earthquake mechanism both for men on a mission Jeff Jarrett got the clothesline move while Bastion Booger got the same earthquake mechanic there was also a repaint of the first doink with an uppercut move and Diesel got a boxer mechanism and I gotta say it's pretty cool getting my hands on these unproduced cards while some fans were waiting for the orange cards Uther taught there was a weird and not great selection of wrestlers in this wave these were more variants it seemed like Hasbro was missing out on not releasing females managers and only one tag team variant then again the options were endless so you couldn't really please everyone another line that was looking to expand their line with repaints was the Coleco Sektar's line for example this Spy Drax with a new color scheme and while that was one option to keep the line going the other way is to introduce a whole new thing Tim Clark was and still is a toy designer who worked for Seven Towns Agency on Sektar's in the 80s and was one of the developers taking the hand puppet gimmick introduced into Sektar's vehicles a step further he is also the co-creator of Boglins and it's exactly that idea they pitched to Coleco for the Sektar's line originally Coleco bought Boglins and wanted to add it to the Sektar's line as this big evil monster says Clark but the prototype they came back with was horrendous they had added a body onto it and the head was connected to the body by a vacuum hose tube it was just terrible not too long after this the Sektar's line got dropped and we never did get this Spy Drax variant on the shelves but it also gave Seven Towns the opportunity to pitch the Boglins idea to Mattel who bought it right away and so Boglins became known as a series of toy puppets distributed by Mattel in 1987 which was the right time as it coincided with the creature craze of gremlins ghoulies and critters taking over the big screen the goblin themed hand puppets were made of flexible rubber and could be manipulated to represent speech and facial expressions these were perfect to scare your little sister with several series of large and small Boglins were released up to 1994 yet on these cage boxes one part of the family tree was left open this would remain to be an unproduced line known as the Night Creature Boglins three different creatures that were designed to look like bats and though there is existing advertising materials promoting the spinoff line Clark says they were never in any way actually produced there were prototypes made but Tim Clark never saw them they named the Night Creature Boglins Drac, Uki and Screech but now they're just pictures on the web and hopefully somewhere out there the prototypes are still alive in the end it was again the same hand puppet with an extra gimmick of having wings like a bat at the tail end of the 80s the Night Creatures got cancelled after just two years on the market in the United States Mattel lost interest in the Boglins line which is a shame considering the Boglins were on the verge of really expanding and blowing up as Tim Clark says seven towns had given secondary licensing to Surge marketing who designed t-shirts and all kinds of stuff Mattel however wanted to take over all secondary licensing themselves so they pushed Surge out and turned around and did absolutely nothing with it they just dropped the ball completely going into the second year they said Boglins were not big enough to continue despite having seven million dollars in orders there was also a re-release in the 2000s but it flopped however on Tim Clark's Instagram account you can still see him creating new Boglins and putting them up for sale and as we're talking about Boglins ghosts who else are you gonna call but Ghostbusters the Kenner Ghostbusters line reused the body sculpt of the four so many times and so efficiently it would often just be the same figure with a different color scheme or gimmick but hey if it works why change it one of these repaints were the real Ghostbusters backpack heroes even the equipment for the real Ghostbusters isn't safe from ghosts each backpack hero comes with a campaign ghost which can be captured and placed into the figure's containment unit backpack but watch out you can make the captured ghost rise out of the pack and grab and scare the hero now this would have possibly been the aid line of Ghostbuster heroes which would have consisted of the four Ghostbusters Winston Egan Ray and Peter all the figures would have the same design for the proton gun but differently designed containment unit backpacks they each come with a different ghost which can be launched from the backpack and honestly I wouldn't have minded getting these back in the day I love these 90s colors but why only look as far as molds why not take over gimmicks from other toy lines in Toxic Crusaders we follow our hero Toxie as he cleans the world from environmental threats the toys were made by playmates who were already going strong with TMNT in 1991 a second set of action figures was in the works featuring other characters never brought to life on shelves before that time but Toxic Crusaders could also use the other tricks using the same molds and simply changing the colors or looking at the whole back catalog of Ninja Turtles like this kid bashed Toxie with his twisting arm now that little spinner package is something familiar the whole thing is looking an awful lot like the gimmick they gave Mikey in the wacky action line and I think this would have worked great with the big mob Toxie uses as a weapon a lot of times adding a gimmick would also limit the playability and articulation of an action figure because in order to sell the gimmick it needed to work perfectly now this isn't the first time Playmates swapped around ideas for the two toy lines Leo's bodacious buggy was also used as Toxic Crusaders hideous hovercraft and Toxie's Bic vehicle the turf surfer we also saw as Michelangelo's sidewalk surfer in 1992's Playmates catalog however the sidewalk surfer was never released I guess it ain't too bad to benefit from the R&D department in your own toy company In 1987 Mattel still had some plans for She-Ra the Princess of Power and in 87 they tried to launch a couple more action figures Long ago an evil sorceress imprisoned the Star Sisters inside a gleaming star and sent it shooting towards Etheria It came to rest in a cave beneath Crystal Castle where it was discovered by She-Ra Starla Tallstar and Jewelstar but there was also the Glory Bird The She-Ra series was discontinued in 87 leaving behind the Bubble Carriage the three new dolls and the bird we might recognize Yeah just like with Playmates expanding a toy line could be just as simple as just visiting the archives with a paintbrush Nowadays Glory Bird could easily be recreated by customizers who are simply using the Masters of the Universe birds Zor the Fighting Falcon and Screech the Barbarian Bird were basically the same thing apart from their paint job and just like Battle Cat was taken from all previously made for Big Jim Zor and Screech were just repaints of Big Jim's The Eagle of Danger Peak which was an accessory pack including a real action eagle hiking outfit backpack and camping gear Big Jim figure was not included For the Motu line they did create an extra bomb pack for the birds and a perch to have them placed on Even the name Zor seems to be referencing back to an early 70s Mattel Eagle which was a bit bigger but also called Zor I think I'm gonna end up collecting Big Jim accessories after all Taking the same doll and ever so slightly releasing her over and over again was masterfully done by Barbie So the dolls of Jem used the same principle When Jem came to the cartoon screens in the 80s as Jem and the holograms where lead character Jerika can summon hologram powers when she touches her earrings and turn into Jem a musical superstar hero The same idea as Barbie was used where you had the same dolls but different clothing and in 1988's Hasbro pre-Toyfair catalog Jem fans seem to have missed out on two Jem variants One being the rocking romance Jem Jem's ready for a rocking romance and she has the most outrageous hair ever Fully poseable doll comes with a bustle dress hair tie tights pumps necklace earrings two bracelets hair pick microphone and a picture of Rio The other doll was called American Beauty Jem Jem's new star-spangled look is sure to set off fireworks but yeah these dolls didn't end up making it into production as the final season of the original cartoon came to an end and Hasbro Sunbow Productions and Marvel Productions probably had their hands full also making Jai Jo and Transformers happen yes Jem was done by the same team and perhaps a crossover could have been an inventive way to expand the pre-mentioned toy lines the year was 1993 when Hasbro brought back the Transformers toy line and turned to Marvel Comics to once again produce a comic tie-in this time Marvel chose to build interest in the book by introducing the new storyline as part of its existing Jai Jo comic over the course of five issues Megatron last seen crashing into Earth in issue 78 of the original US series returned and was upgraded into his G2 form a tank by Cobra several Autobots were sent to deal with the returned Decepticon leader which led into the ongoing Transformers Generation 2 series according to Vinny Duleva probably not saying it right who worked at Hasbro they tried several times to develop a Jai Jo Transformers combo pack where the Jo figure could fit inside the Transformer vehicle but could never find the right time to do so either Transformers was hot and Jo was not or it was the other way around the closest we ever got to a crossover toy back then was the Transformers G.I. Joe APC this is an unproduced 10 inch tall fully transformable G.I. Joe Transformers toy this was supposed to be a new character but it was never given a name this Autobot would have transformed into a 118 scaled six wheeled armored personnel carrier for transporting three G.I. Joe figures it also appears to have been equipped with an air pressure based rocket launching gimmick the presumed purpose of this crossover toy was to boost Transformers sales as Generation 2 was an untested new line just starting to get off the ground and G.I. Joe had been in the US toy aisles continuously since 1982 this toy is not known to have ever made it past the Raisin prototype stage an exclusive G.I. Joe figure was to be produced with it but it was never sculpted the toy is hand painted and due to it being a Raisin mock-up you probably see similarities with the head of a G.I. Six shot the seats are made of cardboard on this prototype which was designed by Takara and presented to Hasbro years later we would eventually get our crossover toys though now a big shout out goes out to James Wilson for providing me with these reproduction WWF test cards if you'd like to get some of your own check out his Instagram account there's a link in the description below ah the big screen some popcorn a good movie and if all goes well some toys will eventually show up in the toy store true to years it hasn't been easy to create toy lines solely based on a movie unless you've got the Star Wars name on it often movies would license their character to toy companies and in many occasions the toys got cancelled before anyone could buy them in this week's Ezra Retro Geek Out we take a look at a couple of unproduced movie toys so subscribe to the channel and strap in for some toy history it seems like every 80s toy history is somewhat connected to the Kenner Star Wars toy line and it is after George Lucas shopped around the license for his cowboy space movie in the 70s nobody seemed to jump on it apart from Kenner and all the other toy companies tried to rival the success that were the Kenner three quarter inch toys but then again the toy companies tried to catch up by creating toys that we still love to talk about to this day spawning the greats like Masters of the Universe or G.I. Joe and this week we're talking about movie inspired toys and let's face it in the 80s we had some of the best action adventure flicks for kids one of those would combine the space team with another popular pastime video games The Last Starfighter is a space opera film telling the story of a teenager being recruited by an alien defense force to fight in an interstellar war next to Disney's Tron it's one of cinema's earliest instances where they heavily relied on CGI or computer generated imagery to depict the starships in battle scenes but also using CGI to represent all real life objects and among those real life objects some of them were never produced into a real life toy announced in the 1984 Galoop Toy Fair catalog the last Starfighter toys would have graced the toy store shelves that year the toy line 12 figure strong would have featured fully articulated 4 inch characters so you could have the good battling the evil from Rylos to Kodan the figures would have been released in two packs featured on the promo pictures are the prototypes not showing any weapons but a nice variety of space monsters and humans that could have easily slipped in with your Star Wars collection and a toy of the Gunstar spaceship would have been greatly appreciated as well with the Star Wars trilogy coming to an end a year earlier Galoop was hoping that the last Starfighter could bring in a similar success as the Kenner toys and even though the movie did okay at the box office the response of retail toy buyers didn't do well enough for Galoop to pull the trigger on releasing these the toy market is based on supply and demand and if the demand just isn't there you can't supply it can you then again it was a simpler time before Skynet took over with bot-driven pre-order mania and scalpers around every freaking corner yet we did get a Marvel Comics series video games and eventually Good Guys Never Win Toy Co released the figures based on the prototypes as collectible exclusives but what about movies that became blockbusters instead of cult movies like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial surely you're gonna squeeze that little alien life form into every piece of merchandise you have available right? LJN got the license to produce toys based on the little friendly Xenomorph and it resulted into a series of mostly non-articulated E.T.s in various outfits or holding different items from the movie and obviously all the other usual merchandising it actually had a lot more planned in 1983 they would have even released a spaceship play set finally revealing the inside of E.T.'s space vessel it would have come with a unique E.T. figure and came with lots of features including secret storage compartments working elevator trigger activated landing pods and a handle so it could be easily carried the layout would have featured multiple playing areas like the control room the botanical laboratory navigation center and the engine room yet we could only dream that if a sequel was created some of the scenes might have taken place within this spaceship but apart from a very grainy picture in a toy catalog LJN unfortunately had to have this play set phone home even Matchbox was trying to cash in on a small kid friendly movie star their eyes fell on short circuit the little robot proved to be the perfect RC car match the star of the hit movie short circuit and soon to be released sequel number five robot is now a fourteen and a half inch radio controlled robot not only can it move forward left right and stop you can also transmit your voice to make him speak in his own unique voice his eyes would light up he came with articulated arms head and even had spring loaded hands that enabled him to carry things around for you as your own personal robot like the one in Rocky 4 Polly's robot girlfriend well in the end short circuit 2 didn't perform too well at the box office and other toy robot helper servants took over the shelf space at the local toy stores near you I think in this day and age we can all use a little bit of help from our little robot buddy Emilio to get those NECA pre-orders and now on with the show Dark Crystal was another 80s masterpiece co-created by Jim Henson who most people know from the Muppets there was a toy line planned six figures would have each come with a piece of the Dark Crystal creating one of the first build a crystal concepts or maybe better known as the bath build a figure collect all six figures and create your own Dark Crystal there were also three slightly bigger deluxe beasts that would have come out in a window box package all these can be seen in the 1983 Aviva catalog and Aviva was a division of Hasbro at the time so here's why we never saw them on the shelves the creation of the toy line started a little late and that in combination with the movie's box office performance that also raised questions with parents about the somewhat darker tone of the movie after all it wasn't Kermit and Miss Piggy type comedy we knew from the Muppet creator now all of these things caused the toy line to get cancelled before it was even produced but luckily in the present we can get multiple lines based on the movie and the new series like the reaction line McFarlane toys and obviously Funko Bobs they're everywhere everywhere now it seems like where they went too careful in the 80s and 90s just had an anything ghost policy by now toy companies seem to have caught on onto the just-in-time principle of kid bashing and reusing old molds to create the toy lines for these movies often a movie with the appeal for a younger audience would get a cartoon with a toy line to expand the movie's universe to the small screen and provide a longer term for the merchandise to sell the 90s was also a strange place where wannabe blockbuster movies set a status by prepping their merchandising with a video game which most of the time was already an existing game with a sprite swap and a toy line waterworld and even with the movie flopping there would be tons of the toy line out on shelves or stocked up somewhere until they would get discovered again but what about before Star Wars in the 70s Mego Corporation had some experiences creating toys for movies like the planet of the apes but they were also tight with comic book superheroes and even new Clark Kent so Superman the movie was no different they would make toys based on the movie though apart from Superman they did have back
[01:14:41] Speaker ?: back
[01:14:41] Speaker 1: to the comics for a more toyetic character design to include some characters for the 12 inch movie line otherwise it would have just had more celebrity dolls which was also a Mego thing back in the day added was Jor-El General Zod and Lex Luter based on the comics as well as adding them to the smaller pocket superheroes line for both a playset was also designed but never produced the Fortress of Solitude would have been a large trifold playset with backgrounds inspired by the movie the smaller line would have possibly reused other molds like they had done for the figures in the end the Superman toys didn't increase sales for Mego so they pulled the plug on the line and it wasn't due to kryptonite but due to Star Wars taking a big chunk of the toy market chair I'm stuck in a vicious circle with the Star Wars stuff ain't I even James Bond one of the longest successful franchises took 007 into space in 79 because it was all the rage Moonraker the 11th movie in the series starring Roger Moore has space espionage and a cool villain henchman we knew from the previous movies called Jaws so yeah it was toyetic they went with the 12 inch toy line they were known for featuring James Bond the villain Drax Dr. Holly Goodhead which they just called Holly for obvious reasons Jaws had some delay in the production process which meant that he would remain to be a European elusive exclusive but once again Mego had bigger plans or should I say smaller one Mego catalogue showcased a glimpse of what could have been a three quarter inch toy line with vehicles including the Moonraker jet boat international espionage takes to the seas in a super spy boat that actually shoots true to water it's jet stream propelled for high speed escapes and chases and comes with two articulated figures which we can't see on the picture the Moonraker space shuttle was a slick streamlined space vehicle with retractable landing gear the cockpit can open up and it also comes with two figures and then there's the Moonraker helicopter a versatile action craft that really takes off just strap in your spy and pull the rip cord so on the helicopter there's a little glimpse of what the figures could have looked like for every action figure to stock the toy store shelves there's always some that never make it past the designers hands the result of lines getting canceled test groups and retailers passing on toy concepts and return on investments just not adding up is an endless amount of toy prototypes that hide in the shadows of obscurity in this week's episode we uncovered the stories of some toys that never quite made it to the retail stage they were announced yet remained unreleased unproduced for the masses of plastic crack craving kids at the end of the 20th century so sit back relax grab a drink subscribe and strap in for some toy history toy companies always try to stay a year ahead if a toy line takes off they will need a second wave to keep up with the demand but also to keep the attention of the fans it won't come to you as a surprise that when a toy line gets canceled the upcoming toys remain through the cracks and made it into a dealer catalog or even folders that were included with the actual toys remember that toy you swear you saw but somehow 20 years later no one seems to have it in their collections then again you might just have remembered it wrong or you were just looking at the promo catalog way too much the year was 1994 when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles subline Warriors of the Forgotten Sewer appeared in retail they came with a cool new hero gimmick it screamed swords and sorcery you had Savage Leo Dwarve Donnie Warrior Bebop and Gatekeeper Rocksteady and then there was also Knight Mike he slipped into the smaller catalog supplied with the turtles and years later I still haven't seen this toy so there's got to be more to this tale of medieval sorcery now our first clue is the comic that all of these toys that got released were supplied with in which a couple of turtles find a magic sword in the sewers which allows them to travel back in time to the Dark Ages but also gives them a medieval makeover they're guided there by a sorcerer splinter who sends them on a quest to retrieve four mystical statues as they fight the warrior and gatekeeper a little later they also get the help from a war cat who is suited with a red bandana like Raphael who's missing and yes the quest in the comic book much like the sub toy line was supposed to continue but it didn't the toy fair catalog showed a bit more of what was going on and here we can find clue number two more figures that never saw the light of day featuring spellcaster splinter the way cool wizard rat alongside knight mike the armored wonder and a double pack in which savage leo came with a sewer cat as his companion this time sporting a blue bandana so what was going to happen with wrath within this warriors of the forgotten sewer toy line under the earth below the light there lies a place where magic melts with mutants and time turns back to a dark period there in the cold of the sewer a growl can be heard the piercing wail of a warrior and a sewer tiger war cat the magical mythical duo finally TMNT's very own He-Man and battle cat spellcaster splinters sporting a wizard outfit would have come with a rat staff and spell book and Night Mike who I've been wanting since 1994 ever since I got the little catalog would have come with a sword a halberd with a flag and surely with a shield or at least the hard copy shows that over here whenever these prototypes get uncovered you still have to piece together all the parts just with mythical statues it wouldn't be wrong to assume they'd be thrown in once again as an extra and perhaps part two of the comic if we take a look at the sketch prints another origin prevails as they detail the toys as part of Middle Earth was there a Lord of the rings connection perhaps in the beginning they would have started these toy concepts as a branded line Playmates had license wasn't acquired and they just rebranded it to the warriors of the Forgotten Sewer they had really cool sculpt so they needed to get these out as soon as possible these were really some of the coolest sculpts out there and it's a shame we didn't get to expand the Turtles of the rings universe a little bit more I mean were we gonna get a black night shredder or an elf turtle I really wish I already had the rat plastic book on TMNT prototypes in my hands to get some more insights the ring has awoken and I want answers why these prototypes got the you shall not treatment now Playmates wasn't the only toy company to pop as many as possible toy concepts in their catalogs so let's head over to Mattel's Masters of the universe the year is 1985 and you're a sales rep for Mattel it's not unusual to get handed an extra pair of update sheets to keep maximizing that shelf space with Masters of the universe products say hello to the evil robot as seen on TV but I haven't seen this super soaker robot in any of the cartoons so far just when you thought Skeletor and his henchmen couldn't get any more horrible this evil robot stalks on the scene wielding his laser burst gun he acts as a mecha muscle to back up Skeletor on his wicked crusades crank his right arm and he shoots water from the gun on his left hand his body holds enough water for extended attacks there's bendable legs for action poses so be sure to watch out cause the latest revolting recruit to the evil warriors is on the loose okay so we were gonna get a new robot for masters of the universe adventures finally a nemesis for snouts bout and even though he's on Skeletor's side he seems to be decorated with the horde logo and collars it would have definitely been cool to add a couple of these to the evil war trooper army an evil robot army of to recycle things and even shop around the japanese toy markets for toy concepts they could introduce within their existing lines the meteor orbs are a prime example where they took the toys and just popped them in without altering scale or anything and the story for the evil robot seems to fit within that habit we can trace the toy concept back to a japanese squirt robot which has the same mechanism and points of articulation only the head sculpt seems to be altered to fit within the MOTU universe it's not too far fetched that Mattel was trying to appeal to the Transformers GoBots market that had done so well in the previous two years and even the chest piece horde logo seems to be placed like one of those Decepticons Autobots rub signs there was certainly more that meets the eye to this evil robot and that takes us on to the next story now Transformers was steering away more than ever from their robot characteristics in their Pretenders line what is a Pretenders Transformer the robots in disguise yeah it's a key component to all of these Autobots and Decepticons but the Pretender is a special external armor shell that can disguise their very nature as scope cassette deck or a cool ride Pretender shells allow the Transformers to take on the appearance of a native life form on the one side you had a human in battle armor not looking suspicious at all and for the Decepticons you had cool looking monsters that would definitely go unnoticed another thing that went unnoticed was the double Pretender concept you basically had a combiner bought within one Pretender shell until 1996 rolled around and two prototype shells were on the showcase that year at the BotCon convention on a special display table alongside a prototype for Unicron we can see two unknown toy concepts a four-armed spider creature and an armored gorilla now for each one another prototype shell has been found with different paint scheme so there's probably more out there the gorilla is gray with red armor and there's also a brown painted one with black armor on the gray one you can see he's wearing a helmet he would have come with two weapons that could also hook up to its back the spider came in a black and gray paint scheme or just brown it has a real villain look ready to go to battle with bullet belts teeth claws and horns everywhere haven't been able to trace down any accessories or guns for this one and for both nothing seems to be known about the combiner bot that would have been inside would they have taken the animal or insect team a bit further nobody knows but the double pretender would have given the kids four characters in total to play with they would have also been the same size as a regular pretender but they would have opened at the back to extract or hide the inner robot unlike the regular pretender shells that opened up down the middle on the gorilla's shoulder you can kind of see the hinges of how they would open up and box but somehow remained unreleased thunder cats red eye was another toy concept which prototype not only found its way to toy fair but also the lgns catalogs where he proudly poses next to the rampagers driller and stinger a new assortment including not just ordinary characters but unique action toys red eye shoots flying discs from his chest and has posable limbs and head the toy is based on a cartoon where he of the fearsome lunatics from the dark moon of plundar he's got enhanced vision capabilities allowing him to see in infrared so he's able to detect any unproduced toys out there he has the disc shooting action in which he uses the spinning disc is called the sidewinder and before he shoots it out the disc can also be used to shoot electrical beans but will let your imagination take care of that it was going to be the first of the lunatics to be released red eye was definitely in the cartoon enough times to get a character developed into a toy and even had a fun gimmick they poured heart and soul into creating this toy from sketch to blueprint to engineering the action feature and even prepping the card art for this one just a couple steps away from being added to an LGN 12 pack shipper box onto the next Toys R Us but somewhere down the line he got lost into the endless abyss of unproduced toys the end I want to give special thanks to Chris Fawcett who has been helping me out with the TMNT part of this video today be sure to check out his Rad Plastic book on TMNT prototypes and the toy line you can find the link down below I would have definitely loved some more Warriors of the Forgotten sewer toys but which toy concept in this video could have been on your Christmas list back in the day leave it down in the comments below there's no toy line too big or too small to have no prototypes slip through the cracks on their way to the production line in this episode on unproduced toys we dicked through the archives of toy lines and toy concepts uncovering what could have been your favorite toy back in the day so be sure to subscribe for more 80s and 90s toy content and let's strap in for some toy history it was the 90s neon colors were everywhere slipping into color schemes for toy lines and even on the hair of your troll action figures yeah every decade seems to have had their own thrill craze ever since danish woodcutter thomas damn came up with the damn doll or good luck doll in the 90s raspberry was making trolls left and right for girls but the boys needed their hairy fix as well and the answer came with ace novelties stone protectors Tycho's troll warriors and even motu styled knockoffs with a disproportioned head came thrilling through the market with troll force by toys and things then in 1992 there was Hasbro's contribution to the action figure troll craze in the form of battle trolls the original battle trolls were big haired dudes with bad attitudes retailing for five to seven bucks and they were quite big action figures even for the time standing four and a quarter inch tall without including their four extra inches of hair there was no cartoon but the card art told you what to do keep them in a dark smelly place so they'll remain cranky and mean to fight at all times all of the trolls were styled differently and had their own sculpt combining the original troll concept with characters from pop culture or action adventure themes like vikings pirates but also sports team trolls and monsters they came with weapons and had some crazy horrific detailing that would easily make up for the one point of articulation around the waist the line could have probably kept going for years original troll dolls were enjoying so in 1993 they retired the line after the third wave but neglected and tucked away at New York's toy fair wave 4 was glooming from their smelly display as the prototypes for their final wave creeped up the metal heads seemed to be color variants of existing trolls but the 6 prototype strong sub line they called the evil horde yeah the evil horde was sure something else the lineup consisted of trolls styled as DC comics joker and executioner complete with hood a gruesome orange swamp thing like being a futuristic hero kind of reminds me of x-men with those colors the two cool military troll sporting short sleeves and a freaking alien xenomorph because in troll land no one will hear you scream after he beats you with that morning star a solid lineup of new excitingly gross action figures and even a mega troll crawled up from under the woodworks i would have expected bigger hair for this one and did this one come out there's nothing to be found on this guy perhaps it could have been part of a special set like the troll asaurus apart from that bringing in the sales to toy line might have been a bit too ahead of its time where troll warriors were still cute battle trolls were straight up gross and a sculpt like the xenomorph would have definitely cost parents to return your new favorite toy to the shelf in 1994 aliens have always had a tough time getting to the store shelves and even when they got there they usually couldn't stay too long that was until Kenner's aliens line based on the second movie but more so on a cartoon show that sadly never aired we would see the space marines in toy form battling it out with all sorts of xenomorph variations some of the coolest sculpts made by Kenner ever no idea was too weird and the mixture of bright translucent colors with the shadow like black made them pop out in any kid's toy collection if mom would allow you to get one a first unproduced piece came from the very beginning a mixture of a kid bashed superpowers brainiac and a scaled down original Kenner 79 head sculpt would turn into the first alien queen concept the final result would look completely different but then again the scale wasn't determined yet during the years the lineup was in production one alien concept failed to stay contained and therefore didn't make it into production the three headed alien is well an alien with two heads too many if you ask any space marine some thought it was a rejected king alien sculpt but we've seen this alien type before in alien franchise merch like puzzles posters and the operation aliens artwork most likely an action feature would have been added to the toy but none are visible on this greenish hardcopy with golden details the alien toyline would continue to expand and even get some predator friends but in the meanwhile in a galaxy far away long ago somewhat around the mid 80s but somehow in the future we had some other space creatures to worry about more specific on the forest moon of Endor the Ewoks home planet as we can see in the cartoon where we go back to a time when Ewoks still spoke English and before the events of A New Hope took place we all learned about the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi but now you can learn even more about them and the other species and villains on Endor through the series the story unfolds of the Ewoks struggles with the adversarial Dulocs the main Star Wars toyline had its fair share of Ewoks with nice fur sculpted details and surely like the cartoon there was no Ewok left behind in this toy line or was there at least six of the 1986 announced Ewoks action figures never got produced the second series characters like Bondo the Weechi Wicket's older brother who's short tempered and bossy Morag an evil powerful Tolga witch whose magical powers rival Lograise Chief Chirpa the wise and brave leader of the Ewok village and Paplu a brave and boastful Ewok adventurer all were supplied with the Kenner's basic five points of articulation and some accessories the Ewoks cartoon ran for two seasons from 1985 to 86 starting as part of the adventure hour alongside droids its sister series where droids ended after one season Ewoks kept the cuddly bear shenanigans going with the all new Ewok show droids had their own toy line as well expanding on the adventures of R2D2 and C3PO between the events of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope we met a lot of droids on screen and saw Vlix was a toy considered to have been cancelled along with the line but somehow got a short release run in Brazil by Glass Light making it one of the scarcer Star Wars toys to have officially been released at the time Star Wars had three lines out on the shelves the most successful line post Star Wars movies was the power of the force and with the cartoon being part of the Ewoks and droids adventure hour it seemed to be more targeted at younger Star Wars fans they positioned them at preschoolers so the two lines based on these cartoons didn't do too well and due to poor sales it got cancelled and know some of these Ewoks toys remind you of Disney's gummy bears and then we get to 1988 when there were cowboys in space the year was 1988 to Europe and other parts of the world where there was still interest in the line for the boys toy market it seemed that swords and sorcery in space had run its course but what about the next big thing cowboys and Indians in space with Bravestar an American Western and the last cartoon to be created by Filmation studios who had brought us Ghostbusters and He-Man before while some characters were in the works since 1984 the 87 cartoon is mainly based and designed to sell the toys that Mattel had brought on the toy market a year earlier you could get all the heroes and villains from the planet of New Texas in their quest to acquire Carrion Bravestar's main hero Marshall Bravestar was fortunate to be in the first wave of toys that came in these deluxe boxes and with loads of extra accessories but in the 88 catalog they seem to have had a lot more planned like law enforcement officer long arm John with his sophisticated prosthetic arm could it get any more toyetic he came with a telescope punch action feature when bandits attack he strikes back with his fearsome double punch which is activated by the button on the back of the action figure it's bad guys are even cooler and often bulkier toys two-faced dingo dan was more in line with the good guy characters but didn't make it into production he is the henchman for one of our main villains Tex Hex the leader of the carrion bunch the dingo in question was voiced in the cartoon with an Aussie accent and his special ability was the power to take on a human appearance although his hat would often just give away the disguise the action figure had the same feature and the option could be operated by a button on the back as you pressed it you could see dingo dan twist his head to showcase his human appearance and of course he came with the hat and some accessories and obviously the female character didn't get a release either more so they had already given up on selling her in the European toy catalog as she didn't even get a description Judge JB McBride was a main character as Fort Carrion's judge lawyer and Braystar's ally on this wild wild space west her gavel got an electronic upgrade and the hammer of justice was the action feature she would have set herself apart with from the other toys in the toy line the hammer could be pulled from her hand as a cord came out and she could swing it around as a lasso bringing outlaws to justice her mainly chrome silver armored outfit colors could have been better though and more in line with the cartoon in the end it has always been tough getting a female character released for an action figure toy line targeted to boys no matter how much of a pivotal role she played in the cartoon and for transformers it was definitely not different then again how do you check if an autobot is a girl or a guy do you check under the hood or it would take RC the female transformer years to finally get her own action figure you really mean to tell me that the car didn't have a diaclone or micro man car robot concept show they were working on getting this transformer on shelves for the girls that watched the transformers movie RC played a big part in the film but even with requests internally at Hasbro they were still reluctant to release a female autobot she continued to be seen in the cartoon series and even the headmaster's cartoon a first toy concept was created for the 1986 lineup but never got past prototype stage for the movie then there was also a headmaster concept that surfaced and even as a repaint of a G1 chrome dome they didn't pull the trigger on letting it go into production then again in the G1 era repaints weren't too common BotCon also attempted to create an RC action figure inspired by the action master series but apparently the cost of tooling would have been quite high so no RC exclusive was made for BotCon 1996 by Men in Black collectibles but fortunate enough for fans starting from the 2000s we would get a couple of RCs to join Transformers collections all over the world back in the day a trip to the toy store could get you an action figure a vehicle for your action figure or even if you were really lucky a play set sure you could turn a couch or cardboard box into any toy line world with a little imagination but just like the action figures the playsets are works of art with a hefty production and R&D cost often planned for wave 2 but also easily scrapped and in today's Ed's Retro Geek Out we're taking a look at a couple playsets that didn't end up taking up an immense amount of shelf the year was 1986 when Mattel's Masters of the Universe announced and released their biggest playset for the classic line Eternia would bring the home of He-Man and Skeletor to living rooms across the world a true mammoth of a box providing you with multiple towers connected by a monorail and as always the toys came from a sketch and they had to be produced into a prototype and there's probably a bunch more playset prototypes out there that never got made but what would they have looked like one of the concepts that was never released is known as the treehouse playset keeping the snake mountain in grayskull style it would have come with a grapple claw a drawbridge blaster platform and a high tower with a zipline cable would this have been something that you would have mounted on a wall or placed on top of a table nobody really knows too bad there's not a lot more known about this one masters of the universe was always taking the playset a bit further and tried introducing new features with every new one so when it was about time for Mattel to create a playset for their toy line food fighters they took a couple features along food fighters combat at its cookiest with the kitchen commandos and the villain refrigerator rejects battling it out there was only one place you could store these almost squeaky toy action figures the fridge Mattel's 1989 catalog proved that with a little imagination anything could be a playset once an average American refrigerator this playset has now become the center of the food war conflict the heroic burgadier general and his men have transformed it into their headquarters complete with war room jail and lookout posts when triggered by enemy fire the refrigerator doors blow off and the crisper door slams shut throwing figures out the back it also fires frozen missiles and has rolling juice can bombs there's plenty of room for weapon storage extra weapons and it also comes with a separate ladder and a landing pad the playset seems to close for easy storing and carrying it around and even though some of the figures looked like hotcakes they just weren't selling as good as hotcakes so the refrigerator playset stayed unproduced playset have been around for quite some time usually came as a total package of small soldiers around to pose your figures in it took a while before they started making them into plastic with custom toyline sculpts Kenner's 81 release of the clash of the titans movie toyline day of planned the lair playset to be released this playset would have been nine inches high and was divided by three sections depicting Medusa's eerie chamber Calibo's swamp and the kraken battlement there would have been passageways included some molded accessories Calibo's trone is amongst one of the accessories it seems to be a vinyl fold-up playset much like the old Migo sets and definitely a nice addition for the toyline when you see the kraken towering next to it it all made sense too bad we can't see the art on the other two sides the one we do see has some creepy artwork and it could have probably been a Slayer album cover now there have been attempts to recreate the playset in a cardboard and now we can get an idea of what the other two sides could have looked like like Medusa's chamber and the Kraken side it was available on ebay for a while but I can't seem to find it anymore now let's just follow the Kraken back into the water that could transform into marine hybrids this one was a follow up of the successful Thundercats toyline and just like Thundercats Tiger Sharks received the same marketing and were accompanied by a cartoon show to push interest with retailers but it was an upstream battle and with low TV ratings and low retailer support the line didn't get far even if anybody wanted to buy them they were hard to find in stores the line was never released too bad because a big ticket item like the fish tank play set was looking bright and colorful and you know later down the line it could have been a cool play set to play with your turtles in as well the tiger sharks world was called Watero they would do research on the Watarians that lived there and served as protectors against evil theory usually from their ship called Sark which contained the fish link a device that could be used to power our heroes up to their marine forms the play set would allow this action as well with the figures jumping in on top and coming out of the tunnel exit down below there was also a command station and two areas to control a mounted gun and while Eljan was deep sea diving with tiger sharks kenner had its eyes set to space with silver hawks all we have here is the concept illustration for a toy play set based on the hawk haven we knew from the series the play set was announced in the toy fair catalog of 87 but didn't make it much further they already had a tough enough time with the price point on the large attack birds the hawk haven play set is the silver hawks fortress against the evil mob of monstar now kids can recreate the same silver hawks fantasy with the hawk haven play set the strategic headquarters for the silver hawks is a hawk shaped fortress perched on an asteroid and is featured in every episode of the silver hawks animated program the play set opens up and includes a gunner station with a firing missile an opening entryway a jail cell for captured villains a moving elevator purchase for figures weapon birds and it also came with an easy to carry case feature so pretty much ticking off all the right boxes for a good play set it's a shame we didn't get to see how they would have executed the prototype for this play set but if they needed a place to crash the silver hawks this could have been a very futuristic play set with an interactive design based on Bucky O'Hare's floating diner you had a planet type base balancing the spaceship above you could control the movement by the handle which also controlled the trigger for shooting gravity fed missiles and on top you had a removable recon pod with two spring loaded missiles in another catalog they did scale the play set down to a vehicle type toy more in line with what the cartoon representation was of the vehicle but the first design didn't get lost it would have come with the same recon pod unfortunately the whole second wave got canceled by Hasbro and so did the hopes the righteous would fly around next to the Toad Croaker once more and from the Toad Wars we head into the Skeleton Wars back when Skeleton Warriors marched into the battlefield armed with a comic book and cartoon they too had everything planned for a great toyline and a second wave of toys the ultimate forces of evil the army of merciless the skeleton legion against the last heroic defenders of the light a family of warrior born heroes skeleton hunters this futuristic deadly world had to have a place set and with the skeletons being the showstoppers it had to be the baron's lair this great thing was meant to be the house these bone bashing figures would live in it is the most terrifying playset never unleashed on the toy action figure market it was said to be released in 1995 but I don't see it in anyone's collection Baron Von Dark's Skull Fortress had a ton of gruesome detailing and features the skull opens that can detach itself from the playset that was very great seems like this one hadn't received its final colors or any colors at all really for skeleton warriors heads had to roll and unfortunately it was their own due to poor sales this playset is now not residing in the toy collections all around the world and back in the day it would have definitely been a bone chilling sculpt to part of Bill and Ted's excellent adventure there was also a toy line made by Kenner based on a movie and cartoons combining real rock and roll with the fantasy of time travel and bringing the wild stallions into your home had to come with a playset it was called Bill and Ted's historical playset the historical playset provides the ultimate in time travel play this fold-out modular playset features highly interactive historical playscenes from the Bill and Ted movie and animation including the old west a medieval castle and Bill and Ted's garage soundstage features include breakthrough windows working gallows and a real drawbridge it also comes with a removable TV camcorder two microphones receiver amplifier four hats and a free rolling skateboard now unfortunately for Bill and Ted's toy line it was time to face the music and end their bogus journey bogus they say the classics never go out of style that's why when a toy concept works you stick to it and you reuse it over and over again but what about the toys that got canceled over and over again from unproduced dinosaurs to action hero toy gimmicks in today's Edge Retro Geek Out we take a look at a couple of unproduced toys that then catch the rebound to be produced if you're into 80s and 90s toy videos then please subscribe to the channel for weekly videos and let's drop in for some toy history was there ever a time that dinosaurs weren't cool toys let's face it they never really died out in the 90s amplified by the success of Jurassic Park a dino boom hit toy retailers capturing the imagination of the whole planet making popular toy line crossovers a lucrative decision and to this day every flea market dino bin I bump into I dig through inspecting every toy for either an imperial marking or the JP logo Kenner had some really great licensed Jurassic Park dinosaur toys setting themselves apart by the JP marking on the legs the dinosaur reel feel and the dino damage action feature there's also a ton of dino varieties to pick from so the toy line could easily go on endlessly or at least they thought so much more cost effective was repainting the same molds or adding accessories and by the time the lost world toy line had its first giant run it felt like time for something new so they released the chaos effect line mostly consisting of lost world repaints and adding chaos effect storyline the formula that created the jurassic park dinos got lost so InGen decided to crossbreed the existing dinosaurs and mix those genes with the modern day beasts so InGen never tried mixing it with a frog cause then you get bingo dino dma the result was ultra ferocious hybrid dinosaurs the most aggressive predators ever wreaking chaos on an unsuspecting world and that's how we got these mutated dinosaurs like tyranninopis or tanaconda however a whole selection of dinosaurs remained unproduced as the toy's first wave didn't really catch on like the day known ecanus eplos cephalus or the pachos sorolapus they even had plans for a second subset of these dinosaurs vehicles and action figures ready to go featuring a glow in the dark feature this one would have been called the night hunter series and could have given some unreleased dinosaurs a second chance to get to the shelves but Hasbro pulled the plug on the subline glow in the dark usually indicates the end of a toy line so around 2000 they moved on with the JP dinosaurs toy line which were only repaints exclusively sold at Walmart or Universal Studios team parks the Ultimasaurus however was supposed to have been the big star of the chaos line and was also set up for repaint in the night hunter series but never came to fruition during the 90s a big dino toy with movable limbs a dino damage removable wound and that real feel skin 14 inches long and 7 inches high a horrific looking genetic mix between a T-rex Triceratops Velociraptor Stego Ankylo Kentrosaurus and so on so Jurassic World's plot borrowed a bit of chaos for Indominus Rex it seems but it got scrapped many think this is due to the long horns a previous Triceratops from the second series was also not produced because the horns could have been an eye-poking hazard now there's rumors of a dozen of these prototypes that have escaped the Kenner's compound and have been going around and popping up dinosaur is a true holy grail for Jurassic Park collectors and if we're talking holy grails then we best go to the original Tomb Raider Indiana Jones a movie series created by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas but somehow when the movie came out they still hadn't gotten a toy license in order it would take over a year after the movie is released to see Dr. Jones and friends on the shelves Kenner who had turned Lucas his Star Wars creations into toys that captured many generations imaginations brought Indiana Jones from the screen to your toy chest with the adventures of Indiana Jones featuring some of the characters out of Raiders of the Lost Ark the line suffered problems from the start however with not enough Indiana Jones or Marians being produced when the second movie Temple of Doom came around Kenner opted out of their contract and LJN stepped in making the leap to six inch figures which meant they weren't compatible with the Kenner three quarter inch line even though they announced five figures only three of them made it into production due to scarce orders from retailers now these LJN Temple of Doom figures from 1984 got the same battlematic feature as the Thundercats toy line push a magic action motions Frankie the main love interest in the second movie was never made and her appearance in the toy catalog also doesn't show any accessories or provide any more information a second unproduced toy was Short Round in the sidekick who would have come with a bag accessory because that's what kids want a toy kit with a bag to play with the Kenner's line had multiple play sets so fixed within the mine cart but the arms could still move the set used a special middle rail flexible track to keep the cart from falling off while going through the loops bring home the excitement of the climactic action-packed mining chase scene from the movie watch as the mining car goes sideways and upside down over the flexible track in the set you got one 6 feet long flexible rail track a stunt platform the cart with the two figures and two exit ramps connectors and joiners to keep it all together not really the play set I would have had in mind it seems more like a Hot wheels loop track some prototype figures haven't been spotted but it still seems harder to find a vintage Indiana Jones figure unlike finding a crocodile in a swamp now why would I say that the swamp thing had been around since the early 70s when it started popping up in comics and later getting its own series published by DC comics after movies in the 80s the character had the look and what it took to be part of the environmental superhero boom of the early 90s so we got our video games and toys based on the cartoon adaptation of the comic Swamp thing is supernatural threats and has the occasional run-in with the mad doctor Antone Arcane he also tries to turn himself back to his human form after all he did end up being transformed as a result from the chemicals released in a lab explosion so you definitely had enough toyetic features and a leading role that could mutate into multiple toy variations after all Kenner had already made the swamp thing mold for the last wave of the DC superpowers line which got cancelled so most work was already done sculpt wise for the main character they released wave one and in 1992 a second wave was planned consisting of nine figures of which four were cancelled before production clearly the cartoon show wasn't enough of a success to get the figures to the toy stores and even when they were there they weren't being sold enough to strike up new orders so we missed out on an all new defilator arcane figure arcane is back and he's looking to destroy the swamp in his protective suit arcane is the only one that's safe from his chemical liquid spraying backpack nice how they always fit a water squirt feature into these toy lines constricting swamp thing puts the squeeze on villains by constricting them wave we got scorcher who never appeared in the cartoon and was kind of a kid bash of multiple robocop ultra police toys also made by kenner this eco villain is just a hunk of burning mutant he sprays flames to burn down the swamp and comes with a spring loaded claw missile the alligator swamp thing is the ultimate chameleon as he can take on the shape of any plant or animal in and around the swamp he transforms into an alligator with spring loaded jaws for capturing unmen it's too bad that this toy engineering concept didn't get released but many years later it got retooled and used in the G.I. Joe toy line or at least it was set out to be released with the G.I. Joe Manimals announced in the 1994 Toy Fair catalog were the G.I. Joe Manimals alien bounty hunters that stalk the stars from a distant universe come these radical reptile aliens each figure features its own mutating body change action kits convert them from normal aliens to the meanest mutated monsters this side of the Milky Way these weren't the Joe as we were used to from the 80s but more like the mutated monsters we had already seen in the Star Brigade sub line and the Manimals would have been their own series within the Star Brigade group feature wise they look more like a Transformer or Mighty Morphin Power Ranger Automorfer but one of the prototypes looks a lot more like the alligator swamp thing one Manimal's prototype has surfaced and doesn't really fit the description we just read before it actually featured a humanoid that could turn into a beast like also shows reptile eyes and once again this is a kid bashed concept based on a figure called Headhunter the vandal's leader from the Robocop line by Kenner now how did Hasbro end up in the Kenner archives it's quite simple Kenner Parker was acquired by Tonka in 87 who turned Kenner into a division so when Hasbro purchased Tonka including the Kenner division in 1991 they also owned the Kenner division and the Cincinnati offices and archives were available to get creative with back to 1994 if all had gone well we would have seen six of these manimal monsters hit the toy shelves at the end of 1994 but the same year also marked the end of the G.I. Joe a real American hero toy line a shame as these were chockful of gimmicky goodness and toy engineering the toys had already progressed to the production stage so there's approximately 75 advanced production samples that survived the destructive testing used to determine if Hasbro standards were being met the production samples are out there people go and find them the lineup consisted of Warwolf with mutating body change action just push the head back and flip up the chest to reveal the abundance of alligator teeth then thing and also joining us is slitter who unveils a snake as you tilt back the head and a serpent head on three hinges unfurls now Vortex and Spasma have their helmet or entire upper torso opening up to reveal the alien and predator like beings inside Vortex is the only one that didn't really pass the testing phases perhaps all of those panels broke off too easily Spasma had zigzag you could zigzag around by pushing the head down and then repositioning the limbs and all of the toys came with a big space gun now it's a shame that these manimal toys would remain unproduced until the subline was brought back in 2001 brought back to life and produced exclusively for KB toys with a first wave including iguanas warwolf and slitter all of them had been recolored and came with the original packaging art from the 90s however the reintroduction of the line wasn't successful enough for the second wave so the remaining three are still unproduced Joes luckily most of the prototypes have been found and are on virtual display for your viewing pleasure on 3djoes.com definitely worth a visit if you're a GI Joes fan now if there's any of these unproduced toys that you would have definitely grabbed if they had made it to the toy stores please let me know and leave them down in the comments below