Plastic Of the Past and Mexican reissue 'Pop-Top' monsters
Each year as Halloween draws closer, I always get nostalgic. In the late 70s and early 80s of my youth I loved Halloween. And as Halloween gets closer, I remember the Halloweens long past. They were joyous times, times of cheap monster masks that reeked of rubber so severely that they would put you off your trick or treated monster candy. I remember skull and wolfman headed flashlights and cheap plastic candy buckets. I don't know, it just doesn't seem as if the kids have time to celebrate Halloween anymore as we are already being forced towards Christmas by the time the holiday arrives.
As a Halloween and monster enthusiast, at this time of year I tend to look back at the things long gone that for me scream 'vintage Halloween'. One of the items that does do this for me is the (now) highly collectable MPC 'Pop-Top Unbreakable Horrors' produced in 1964. These 5-inch tall wonders scream childhood monster nostalgia to me (and I wasn't even born until 72, but my older cousins had them!)
The gimmick with these toys was that their heads could be popped out off their bodies and could be interchanged with any of the other figures. There were eight monsters produced, two sold in each package. These glorious toys are now Über collectable, and reach large sums on ebay and in toy conventions. Every monster kid dreams of finding them, mint on card or in packet at a flea market or garage sale, but sadly, this is rare.
However, all is not lost if you want to grab yourself a couple of figures and don't have the budget to buy the vintage originals! A Mexican company (or companies) at some point began to make 'knock off' copies of the MPC originals. I'm not sure if these recast figures were licensed, I suspect not - but these pop Top copies occasionally resurface from Mexico around Halloween time, often, like their originals, they are sold 2 in a packet as Halloween piñata toys. Apparently the plastic is of a very different quality, and the colours differ, but hey, who cares? These are Pop-tops of a kind, and nothing says Vinatge Monster like these little guys!
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