MPC Pop Tops , anyone have pics.

[horrorhunter]

Those bootlegs are just 2 1/2" MPC Weird Monsters as opposed to 5 1/2" Pop-Tops, are they not?

Those pics are of Pop-Top boots.

And, they have lost detail due to the type of glossy plastic used. The originals were made using the lead-based flat plastic that really brought out the details, and unfortunately resulted in some batches leading to brittleness. I've been fortunate in that none of the originals I've ever owned were of the brittle variety.

[horrorhunter]

What year would this have been? Would the Fritos 8-Pack have resembled this one?



I know I would have gone for those Mini Monster premiums in Fritos Corn Chips big time as a kid! I just have no memory whatsoever of that promotion. Maybe it was because the promotion required the purchase of a family-pack of Fritos and my spending horizon for chips and such didn't go much beyond a dime at a time. Or maybe the promotion just wasn't available in Canada. A collecting buddy of my age in Ottawa remembers buying family size bags of Fritos for other premiums but he has no recollection of the MPC Weird Monsters.





Names like Bony Tony, Few Manchew, Batty Bertha and Harry Scarey were certainly a lot more imaginative not to mention tongue-in-cheek than MPC's original monikers though!

That 6-pack flat box is what I used to get the small bags of Fritos in when we went grocery shopping in the late '60s. I still have a purple Werewolf I got out of one of those 6-packs. When folded and assembled the box was open on top and shrink-wrapped so you could see the bags of Fritos. I don't remember buying many of them during that MPC Monster promotion, but I remember they always hid the monster figure under the bags but if you shook it around enough sometimes you could get a glimpse of part of the figure and tell which one it was. I don't remember the exact year of the promotion but it must have been mid-late '60s. I already had several duplicates of the 2 1/2" MPC Monsters so I didn't go crazy on the promotion like I would have if I didn't already have so many. Still, it's a great Monsterkid memory. 

[Monolith]

I have the same memories as Horrorhunter when it comes to that Frito's six pack. My mother used to buy them for the family. I have a W.C. Fritos eraser which I remember getting out of a six pack like in the photo above. I also have a W.C. Fritos poster which I think I got the same way and I have a black MPC werewolf that I think I got the same way, which I still have, and you can see him in this photo...

[horrorhunter]

I have the same memories as Horrorhunter when it comes to that Frito's six pack. My mother used to buy them for the family. I have a W.C. Fritos eraser which I remember getting out of a six pack like in the photo above. I also have a W.C. Fritos poster which I think I got the same way and I have a black MPC werewolf that I think I got the same way, which I still have, and you can see him in this photo...

Monolith, do you remember getting the little 1 1/2" knockoffs out of a Spooky Surprise grab bag?

[Monsters For Sale]

What year would this have been? Would the Fritos 8-Pack have resembled this one?

W.C. Fritos was introduced in 1972.  Don't know how long he lasted - not very long as I remember.

He replaced the Frito Bandito after all the hubbub about ethnic insensitivity on the part of Frito-Lay.  Mel Blanc was the voice of the Frito Bandito.  I don't remember who did the voice for W.C. Fritos.

You didn't have to buy the family pack to get one of the rubber pencil toppers.  They also came in the larger bags.

[Hepcat]

That 6-pack flat box is what I used to get the small bags of Fritos in when we went grocery shopping in the late '60s.... When folded and assembled the box was open on top and shrink-wrapped so you could see the bags of Fritos.... I don't remember the exact year of the promotion but it must have been mid-late '60s. I already had several duplicates of the 2 1/2" MPC Monsters....

Okay! So therefore the carded MPC Weird Monsters were already being sold before the Frito Mini-Monster promotion.

[Monolith]

Monolith, do you remember getting the little 1 1/2" knockoffs out of a Spooky Surprise grab bag?


The 1 1/2" Grim Reaper that I have I've had since I was a kid but my memory of getting it is foggy. It's very possible I got it out of the Spooky Surprise grab bag. That bag looks familiar.

[horrorhunter]

Okay! So therefore the carded MPC Weird Monsters were already being sold before the Frito Mini-Monster promotion.

Oh yes, probably 1964.



Haunted Hulks are marked 1963 and those came with a couple of Unbreakable Weirds as well. Not sure about the MPC Monster Checker Set or the Horror House Target Set but all of that stuff was probably out by 1964 and all of them came with the 2 1/2" MPC Unbreakable Weird Monsters.

[Monster Bob]

I remember seeing the carded MPC Weird Monsters in a drugstore in the mid 60s. I got figures out of multi pack Fritos...a lot of them. Somehow in the mail (from the Frito MPC promotion) I got factory hand/painted figures. They are nicely done and very rare. I have collected a mint set and a few extras. There is slight variation to the paint on a couple of the figures, I remember.

[horrorhunter]

I remember seeing the carded MPC Weird Monsters in a drugstore in the mid 60s. I got figures out of multi pack Fritos...a lot of them. Somehow in the mail (from the Frito MPC promotion) I got factory hand/painted figures. They are nicely done and very rare. I have collected a mint set and a few extras. There is slight variation to the paint on a couple of the figures, I remember.

Got any pics of your painted ones, Bob? We would love to see those.

[Hepcat]

I remember seeing the carded MPC Weird Monsters in a drugstore in the mid 60s. I got figures out of multi pack Fritos...a lot of them. Somehow in the mail (from the Frito MPC promotion) I got factory hand/painted figures. They are nicely done and very rare. I have collected a mint set and a few extras. There is slight variation to the paint on a couple of the figures, I remember.

Four years ago you posted that you had gotten the hand-painted figures straight from Fritos multi packs:

...Fritos had hand-painted MPC Monster figures in their Fritos multi packs (I have a complete set- they are extremely nicely done and VERY hard to find).... I believe it was Gary Knox said he remembered getting the MPCs unpainted in Fritos, so that is from his memory. I cannot vouch for that. I know the ones I had from Fritos were the hand-painted ones. I got them from Rock's Grocery and Meats, in Illinois, circa mid-1960s.

So therefore you must have tapped a memory of having to send away to Fritos to get the hand-painted figures. That probably involved saving up Frito bags or some sort of cash consideration.



Perhaps MPC had provided Frito with several dozen(hundred?) hand-painted samples for the promotion but Fritos balked at the price for hand-painted figures and opted instead for unpainted ones.

Like Horrorhunter though, I think we'd all love to see pictures of your factory painted Frito Mini-Monsters!

[Palifan]

I do love the look of these and out of interest is there any difference between the Fritos ones and the ones shown above on the card? Sorry if this has already been mentioned somewhere earlier but I'm guessing the Fritos ones were a later release and maybe the plastic is a different quality or maybe slightly rougher in appearance?

Ian

[horrorhunter]

I do love the look of these and out of interest is there any difference between the Fritos ones and the ones shown above on the card? Sorry if this has already been mentioned somewhere earlier but I'm guessing the Fritos ones were a later release and maybe the plastic is a different quality or maybe slightly rougher in appearance?

Ian

Same plastic and same colors as far as I know. I have a purple Werewolf that I remember specifically getting with Fritos and it's the lighter shade of purple as are some of the ones in this pic from Monolith:



I also have some originals that I bought as a kid (probably carded) that are the darker shade of purple as the ones are in the carded pic posted above. Both shades of purple are standard colors with the darker probably being the slightly older figures. Again, from what I remember, and have heard since, the Fritos giveaways are the same colors as the original ones sold earlier in the '60s, and were certainly the same lead-based flat colored pre-"Heritage" plastic common to Marx and MPC figures up to some time during 1964. The Fritos promotion MPC figures were probably just a huge batch(es) of the regular MPC Unbreakable Weird figures that MPC still had available when the promotion went into effect later in the 1960s. MPC must have produced thousands upon thousands of them since they are still very plentiful in the marketplace.

Conversely, MPC dino figures used in the Nabisco cereal promotion in the late '60s are different colors than the standard ones albeit the same type of plastic, but that's a different discussion.

[Palifan]

Great information so thank you for taking the time to let me know. I just missed out on a set of 6 of the smaller sized ones but will keep my eye out for some more in the future as I do like the look of these.

Thanks again,

Ian

[Allhallowsday]

Here's a few Pop-Tops, only the black vampire is a Mexico re-pop; Pop-Tops came in only 3 colors originally. 
 

Here's a set of Weird Monsters in the correct 4 colors 2 figures each.