Toys into Movies

With old toys like Transformers and G.I. Joe making it big in movies I thought I would put out there some toys that I liked growing up to see on the big screen.

First you could get a pretty good family western with Johnny West. He was the lead character of Marx Toys “Best of the West” collection and first came out in 1965. He had a wife with Jane West and some children. He had an Indian friend with Geronimo, local lawman Sherriff Garrett, Cavalry men and assorted soldiers that included real life character General Custer. Of course he also had his own enemy in Sam Cobra. This line of action figures ran for a long time. It ended in 1976.

Another that would make a good action movie is Big Jim’s the PACK. Big Jim started as a solo action figure in 1972. Along the way he became an action hero. He was an Olympic star who decided to fight crime and formed the PACK. The member of the squad were Dr. Steel who had a right hand made of steel and a huge dragon tattoo on his chest, Chief Tankua and was an expert with a bow and arrow and later changed his name to Warpath, a weapons expert named the Whip who carried boomerangs and of course a whip, and Torpedo Fist who was the only member with a superpower as he had a cybernetic telescopic arm. The PACK version of Big Jim was released in 1976 and around that time the Six Million Dollar man was a hit on TV so Torpedo Fist was probably influenced by that show. There major enemy was Zorak. He was a scientist who had preformed so many experiments on himself that he could now turn into a monster at will. With these characters I can see a lot of possible plots for movies.

In the 1960’s with the space race going full throttle astronaut Major Matt Mason was a big hit. He had his own three level space station on the Moon, a space crawler, a Moon Suit, etc. Eventually he had others to help him like my favorite Sgt. Storm. He had a red space suit and at the time red was my favorite color. Lt. Jeff Long in his blue suit and Doug Davis in a yellow space suit who for some strange reason didn’t have a rank. There were also a couple of aliens. Callisto was from Jupiter and had a transparent green head. There was also Captain Lazer a giant with glowing eyes, breastplate and lazer pistol. In the first commercials he was showed as a mysterious enemy of the Major and his crew. Later he was shown as an ally. There was also Scorpio who was a purple and pink insect like alien with a glowing head. If done right this could be the new Star Trek or Star Wars.

Now comes the hard one. Captain Action! All comic book and science fiction fans know that the attraction of the Captain and his friends is that they could become any hero from the comic books. Batman, Flash Gordon, Spider-man, Superman, Capt. America, Green Hornet, Lone Ranger, Sgt. Fury, etc. he could be all of them. But you can’t get the rights to all of them for a comic book, let alone a movie. So how could you make a movie out of him? I haven’t kept up with the current comic book that now has his name but they would probably go with that plot. If not then the one from the 60’s was pretty good. Captain Action and Action Boy were father and son. The Captain was a widower and his Father-in-Law was a scientist who went insane after an accident and became Dr. Evil. The Captain and Action Boy found some coins on an archeological dig that gave them superpowers and they used them to fight crime. (Fighting crime is good but doesn’t anyone in comics who get superpowers think of trying to end world hunger or balance the economy instead?) Anyway you could get a good movie out of Captain Action. You may have to change the name of Dr. Evil or get the ok from Mike Myers to use it in the film. Also, don’t you think the doll version of Captain Action looks like a young Sean Connery? Maybe they could find a role for him in the movie.