MPC Monsters Appreciation Thread

[freddie poe]

i had over one hundred boxed playsets at one time in the 1980s & 90's but i never seen that King Kong Playset! Great addition!

[horrorhunter]

i had over one hundred boxed playsets at one time in the 1980s & 90's but i never seen that King Kong Playset! Great addition!

Thank you, Freddie. Over 100 is huge. I have around 30 and some customs I put together, and those take up a tremendous amount of room.

With that one obtained my quest for the playsets probably draws near the end. I only collect monster and dinosaur playsets and there aren't really very many of them. Still need a few odd bits but that MPC KK was the last one I wanted badly.

[Hepcat]

i had over one hundred boxed playsets at one time in the 1980s & 90's but i never seen that King Kong Playset!

Did you have any as a kid?

What compelled you to dispense of them?

[freddie poe]

Did you have any as a kid?

What compelled you to dispense of them?

at one time i had one of the best marx playset collections on the east ghost. i had from alamo to zorro and everything inbetween including some store displays and over 2,000 loose figures..  when my mother passed i sold everything i owned and sat on one chair in front of a window staring for almost 6 months. i slept on the floor in front of a radiator. i gave up the entire collection for 20K.. seemed like alot at the time but not buy todays stanard. a near mint Ben Hur or Untouchables must go for thousands by themseleves or the Wells Fargo with the train set mib unused over 5k easy! only good thing is that i later spent all that money on monster stuff which was my roots as a child but i did as a child have many marxie Marx Toys there are my favs.

[Hepcat]

Very sad. I don't like to hear of collectors being forced to sell by circumstance. And it's not about the money. I just wish everybody still had what they treasure.

[horrorhunter]

Very sad. I don't like to hear of collectors being forced to sell by circumstance. And it's not about the money. I just wish everybody still had what they treasure.

I agree. It's really hard to get the good stuff back.

[horrorhunter]

I found this pic of a Sears Wishbook page from 1975. It features the MPC Planet Of The Apes playset with the classic MPC roped bridge w/two trees and the mountain piece with 2 connecting rock arches. These pieces made up terrain in many MPC playsets including the King Kong Jungle Set (1967). Sorry the scan is so small but it can always be magnified on your "Tools" settings.



It also shows the Marx Mountain Sets Comanche Pass and One Million B.C.

I have a book called The Big Toy Box At Sears which reprints most of the toy pages from the Sears Christmas Catalogs from 1951-1969 but in order to scan them I would have to remove the pages or crack the spine and I'll pass on either of those.

Better shot of the POTA playset:

[horrorhunter]

Another scan of Sears Christmas Catalog pages, this time showing an ad for the MPC Mysterious Castle playset featuring the MPC Monsters in glow-in-the-dark and the castle with knights, horses, etc. I never have picked that one up, just wasn't that thrilled with it since it seemed to be inspired more by Dungeons & Dragons than classic monsters. The earlier MPC monster stuff seemed so much cooler to me- like the Unbreakable Weirds, Pop-Top Horrors, Haunted Hulk, and Horror House Target Set. I'll probably get one someday but it wouldn't be worth spending more than 100 bucks on to me.



Some cool Remco Monsters shown here too.

Better shot of the Mysterious Castle from 1982 ad:

[horrorhunter]

Here's a weird monster playset diorama made from parts of various playsets and custom pieces.

Some treasure hunting pirates are caught between a gillman and several undead raised by the Creature Of Doom. Hagmar The Witch wants a mystic artifact in that treasure chest and the Unholy Eight are closing in on board the Haunted Hulk which recently dimensionally-moved into the area. 

[Hepcat]

Boss cool!

[horrorhunter]

Boss cool!

Thanks, Hep.

[frankenstein73]

Thats a pretty sweet setup, You should make a phantasy box to go with it.

[Haunted hearse]

Here's a weird monster playset diorama made from parts of various playsets and custom pieces.

Some treasure hunting pirates are caught between a gillman and several undead raised by the Creature Of Doom. Hagmar The Witch wants a mystic artifact in that treasure chest and the Unholy Eight are closing in on board the Haunted Hulk which recently dimensionally-moved into the area. 

By the way, this picture is also a great way to see the difference between the "Haunted Hulk" and the pirate ship.

[horrorhunter]

Thats a pretty sweet setup, You should make a phantasy box to go with it.

Thanks, f73. Funny you should mention a fantasy box. I did a bit more work on that custom monster playset I made last year and I'll be posting pics of that tomorrow. What I thought would be a couple of hours ended up being more like five hours...and that was just coloring the box I already made! Those fantasy boxes are a right beyotch to finally get finished. Anywho, should have that up tomorrow.

[horrorhunter]

By the way, this picture is also a great way to see the difference between the "Haunted Hulk" and the pirate ship.

Yeah, you can see both versions that way. That pirate ship is actually the small version and the hull of the Haunted Hulk is nearly identical to the large pirate ship hull. The big sail on the small pirate ship in that pic is actually one of the older ones that goes on the large pirate ship. I stuck that on there for the skull and crossbones since the small pirate ship sail was unmarked.