Name of Toy Line: Toxic Crusaders
Production Company: Yolanda
Distributor: Yolanda
Characters & Elements: Troma Inc.
Years of Production: 1992
Countries/Regions Available: Spain
Size/Scale: 2.5"
Figure Trade Markings: 1992 Troma Inc. Yolanda
Approximate # of Figures: 6 sculpts at least 5 colorways
Details:
Yolanda is a Spanish toy company specializing in mini-figures that has been operating in the country for decades. In the 80's the company was purchased by another well-established and respected toy company, Comansi, known for making Cowboy and Indian plastic mini-figures. Since then, Comansi, with Yolanda as a subsidiary, has produced dozens of painted and blank mini-figure lines. Comansi has used the Yolanda brand name on lines featuring popular franchises such as Ghost Busters, Dragon Ball, Snorks, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yolanda figures can be found in hard and soft PVC. Typically, the painted figures are made of the soft PVC and the blank figures the hard PVC.
A Yolanda toy line that seems to have the most exposure outside of Spain is the excellent Super Monstruos (sic) toy line. Not unlike MIMP and Diener figures, it's a collection of popular monsters and creatures. Check out the Super Monstruos entry at Toys from the Past, the excellent source for much of my information regarding Yolanda.
Many Yolanda toy lines seemed to be sold in iconic, red counter-top boxes containing loose figures in single, opaque baggies.
Credit: Toys from the Past
This Toxic Crusader toy line is based on the short-running cartoon of the same name. The cartoon was a spin-off of a series of comedy horror "Toxic Avenger" movies about a young, wimpy man who was transformed into a mutated monster following a tumble into a vat of toxic waste.
The monster, affectionately known as Toxie, became a crime fighting vigilante. The cartoon continued this theme, but Toxie and his friends focused their efforts on stopping environmental polluters, as was the trend with many cartoons and toy lines at the time (Captain Planet, TMNT, Trash Bag Bunch).
This line seems to have been produced in 1992 with full licencing from Troma Inc.. There are at least 6 sculpts: 3 crusaders: Toxie, NoZone, and Headbanger, and 3 villians: Dr. Killemoff, Psycho, and Bonehead. There may be other sculpts. As noted above, they're made of hard PVC.
The Crusaders:
Toxie
NoZone
Headbanger
The Villians:
Dr. Killemoff
Psycho
Bonehead
As you can see, it's not the tightest of sculpting, but each sculpt does its character justice. If you're a fan of toys, Troma, Toxic Crusader, or all of the above, you'll enjoy this little toy line. However, Western collectors will find it a bit tricky to get their hands on these figures.
As a side note, here's a peak of another super very interesting Yolanda mini-figure line that consists of characters from a mythical 80's toy line called Dinosaucers, based off a cartoon of the same name. The figures bare the trade markings (C) 1988 Telecon Inc. (which may be a Coca Cola entity) and a tiny printed "Yolanda." Special thanks to Juan of Toys from the Past for confirming that this toy line was also produced by Yolanda! And the author of the great, miniature figure blog Small Scale World stopped by in the comments to tell us that, like the Horrors N Heroes toy line, these Dinosaucers figures were available in the legendary UK Lucky Bags.
If/when I acquire more of these handsome figures, I will devote an entire entry to them.
Allo
Bronto
Until next time mini-figure fans!
Related Websites:
Yolanda Super Monstruos @ Toys for the Past
The Yolanda-Comansi Website
Toxic Crusaders Card Set
15 comments:
Hi Soupie, thanks for the comment you left on my blog and for the credits in this entry. I want to publish more articles about Yolanda and Comansi figures, so I'll drop you a line when I do it.
I wanted to make some comments to the content of your entry, that I think you and your readers will find interesting.
1st is that Yolanda has produced many figures in hard PVC plastic, but also many figures in a softer plastic, meaning the kind of plastic used by, for example, Bully or Schleich. A general rule is that painted figures (like the Supermonstruos I show in my blog) are always made of soft plastic, while the monochromatic figures (your Toxic Avenger) are made of harder plastic.
2nd is that Yolanda figures are always marked with the Yolanda logo with or without the circle. I can see it in the green dinosaucer pic. Maybe it's difficult to read, but now that you know this is a Yolanda figure, you can surely read it :) If you want to identify a monochromatic figure from a picture (without having it in your hands), pay attention to the colours. Those "electric" green, purple, blue... are characteristic for Yolanda. Darker colours, like green, grey or brown are also available, and have some kind of shiny-pearl effect, also very easy to identify.
3rd Is that the figures were available in many different ways. As I write in my blog, painted figures (I guess they were more expensive) were exposed in glas showcases from which the salesman would take one out for you. But they were also available in countertop boxes, as you say. The monochromatic figures, however were sold (in a couple of examples I know) in opaque bags. Some monochromatic figures with small size (maybe 1 inch) were often giveaways for chewing gums or candies. There are famous series from Real Ghostbusters, Dinosaurs, TMNT... In that case, the shopkeeper had a small bag with the figures and everytime somebody came with a prized tag, received a figure.
That's what I had to say... I'll cut my comment and use it for a future entry in my blog, because it is much longer than I originally had planned. :)
Hope you find these remarks interesting. I have many pictures in my computer from spanish plastic figures and toys. If you want more information or to see those pics, just write me to the email you'll find in TFTP!
I'll inmediatly join this blog to follow your posts.
See you!
Gog/Juan
Thank you for the excellent, informative comment, mate! I am so thrilled to finally know for sure that the Dinosaucers are made by Yolanda.
I will be updating this entry with the info you just shared. Thanks. And I look forward to your future entries regarding other Yolanda-Comansi mini-figures.
Three points -
The Yolanda figures were issues through the 1980/90's in the UK in Lucky Bags, with a few sweets, some other plastic shite and a mini-comic or collectors card pack (usually not releated to the figures in the same bag, I remember Captain Scarlet cards), so should be relatively easy for Western collectors to track down in this bit of the West!
Am I not correct in thinking that Yolanda is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Comansi, the logo being a clue as it's surrounded by the same TV-lozenge as both Comansi and Novalinea (New Lines)?
Thirdly - with his sunglasses on one head the 'Headbanger' character has more than a passing resemblance to the character 'Zaphod Beeblebrox' from the BBC's adaptation of The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams?
Hugh
Ah, the wonderfully awesome Lucky Bags! My experience has been that figures from the Lucky Bags were actually pretty hard to find. Maybe you collectors from the UK are just holding out on the rest of us, haha!? For example, Horrors N Heroes came in Lucky Bags, and they're pretty hard to come by, even for UK folks, I thought. I'll be happy to be wrong about that!
But yes, the three Dinosaucers figures I have came from the UK. However, I'm assuming they were released in Spain to. Is that correct?
If so, I wonder how a Spanish collector would refer to the Yolanda Dinosaucers. Any ideas (anyone)?
Regarding Yolanda-Comansi: I've refered to their relationship as a merger in the entry above. Are you thinking that's not an accurate description? Let me know; I'm eager to have the most accurate info I can!
Thanks!
I cannot assure that the dinosaucers were released in Spain too, but why shouldn't they be? I mean, the cartoons were aired in the Spanish TV, so I see no reason not to distribute them with the rest of the series.
The information in the official Comansi website says that Comansi "acquired the Yolanda brand and started manufacturing and distributing plastic figures". What I understand from that is that Comansi bought Yolanda, but kept the brand name. So Yolanda it's a subsidiary: Comansi owns 100% of Yolanda.
Source: http://www.comansi.com/empresa/historia
Gog - (might as well have the conversation here as by eMail!) is there an older/alternate version of the Yolanda logo...seems strange that all three companies have a logo of 'American West Poster' font in a television-shaped lozenge, if one of them was not originally part of the group? And...where does Novalinea fit in, as it's disappeared now?
Soupie - I'm not suggesting they are easy to get, I don't find them at all...but I don't 'do' car-boot sales any more (can't be arsed to get up that early on a weekend!), and that's where I used to find them, in plastic tubs of old crap, down the bottom with the marbles, key-rings, pencil-toppers and stuff.
I remember getting some aliens from the actual bags, but I gave them away as I wasn't collecting the larger sizes in those days and they were about 60mm (approximately 1994-5?)!
Also I was working for a property maintenance company in about '96 when we got a fire-damage insurance job down at Mychett, clearing a whole warehouse full of lucky-bags, all sticky and awful and taking it down to land-fill, but by then they were using the same stuff as cheap Christmas Crackers and I filled my pockets with the Guards Drum-major in 35mm as that was all they had...oh and the little flat red sailing ship I put on my blog the other day, all real cheap polypropylene stuff!
Hi Maverick,
I cannot answer that question about the logos, I only know the ones you describe. If somebody is capable of answering this question, I would bet for "jecsan". I guess Yolanda was a very small company at that moment. From all things available at todocoleccion.net, there's not a single one in which the logo is older than that one. It is also possible that Yolanda didn't make any toys before being bought by Comansi, but other plastic things, who knows (in that case we are searching in the wrong place).
If Jecsan doesn't have the answer, I suggest to write down a few questions (privately => Email); I will translate them, and then we send them to Comansi, to see if they can answer us. I know some people who wrote them emails, and they usually answer.
Novolinea doesn't exist anymore.
Cheers!
Well - I'm guessing Novalinea was just a brand name to market the unpainted versions of Comansi, but I wondered if Yolanda had been a trade name, got hived-off in the decade of the 'long knives' that was the 1980's (for the toy industry) and then bought-back in when things picked up? But your suggestion re. only being bought to make things they hadn't previously made makes sense, bought for the capacity and moulding machines as much as anything?
I translated the history page, it was all a bit recent and vague! But I'll send you some suggested questions, we've used up too much of Soupie's post!!! Sorry Soupie!
H
No apology necessary. In fact I welcome discussion. One of my main challenges in authoring this blog/archive is finding information about toy companies.
In fact, if either of you could recommened a good English language book or website offering a lot of info about toy companies I'd appreciate it.
I think for your sort of field - It's still to be written! We toy soldier guys have Garratt, Opie and Joplin in the UK and O'Brian in the States, with a lot of minor works...the only one I can think of with a decent amount of 'Monoblocs' as the french call them (and they include the one piece - with wheels - trains, 'planes and automobiles!) is;
Figurines Publicitaire
Which should be findable on Amazon and has a lot of European (predominantly French issues) premiums which includes the single colour Asterix and Tin Tin stuff and such like (there are two new ones out but they are more sort of pamphlets and can be found on the Mokarex website - about E30 each).
Hugh
I think for your sort of field - It's still to be written!
Okay, so it's not just me then. Info on a lot of these companies is hard to find. But that stinks that there are no books or zines with insider info dedicated solely to mini-figure toy lines.
I'll check out Figurines Publicitaire. Thanks.
Maybe some day the West will have a Japanese version of Comp-Rex.
When it comes to vinyls, sci-fi, sci-fi kits - even military kits - the Japanese are way ahead of us, but we have the lead on die-casts, antique toys, wooden toys and toy soldiers (although metal is better served than plastic).
There is a series of German books on painted vinyl by Schlicht, Heimo/Bullyland and other lesser brands, but I can't think of it right now, but may have mentioned it on the blog, and similar works - also in German - exist for composition, plastic flats and railway figures.
Also there are the two War Toys books on Elastolin and Lineol (German or English language - Amazon), two volumes of Starlux and some Spanish/Italian paperbacks dealing with 54/70mm plastics and composition, but really nothing on this 1970's onwards vinyl.
There are the various Kinder publications (search for 'O-eier' or 'ei-sammler'), which have the smaller figures in...
H
Hi, I just wanted to recommend a blog entry. Maybe it's a book you don't know yet, and I think it does more or less match what you're looking for. It is also an example of what Maverick just said.
http://en-broc.blogspot.com/2012/03/comicfiguren-20052006.html
About Kinder Egg toy guides, I have one of them including also other brands apart from Ferrero (Tombola, Haribo, Milka, BoFrost, Nestlé, Brandt, as well as many others that are unknown to me...), and it's highly recommendable to get one of them! Its name: "Deutscher Ü-Ei Preiskatalog"
Hi, I have a dude. This Toxic Crusaders Yolanda figures of your pictures, where were they bought? Are they from Spain or are from other country?
Regards.
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