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I came across this cool-looking old ad recently and wanted to take a minute to talk about it in today’s post.
The Karate Kid was an obvious choice to get an action figure line. From the overwhelming success of the movie at the box office, and the movie’s action-based premise, action figures based on the movie were a logical progression.
I’m actually surprised that it ended up being Remco who picked up the license as I would have thought a bigger company would have scooped it up considering how well the first movie performed. But no matter, as it looks like Remco did a fine job.
As you can see in the ad, figures were made to allow you to recreate scenes from both movies, as Daniel and Miyagi are ready to rumble in Okinawa, and at the bottom of the ad is the playset and figures I would want from this line…the All-Valley Karate Championship set!
In all, a total of seventeen figures and five playsets were produced, making it a robust line of toys to be enjoyed by young karate enthusiasts everywhere, and a line I certainly wish I had gotten to take part in.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember owning any of these figures or playsets, nor do I remember even seeing them or playing with them at any of my friend’s houses. It seems this was just one of those toy lines that never appeared around me.
Sometime in the late 80s, my local Roses was doing a sidewalk sale and they had the dojo play set for like $10. My grandma bought it for me and I was so excited to live out my martial arts dreams with it.
Sadly, it was one of the cheapest, crappiest toy sets I ever had.
I wish I had collected more. I had the Daniel figure with the ice block set. The chopping motion was great.