Post by naparo01 on Oct 28, 2012 21:59:08 GMT -5
My Hasbro Odyssey: A Young Collector’s Dream Come True
I, much like many other wrestling fans who grew up in the late 80’s early 90’s, the Hasbro line was a big part of my childhood but there were always things that I longed for to complete my play experience. Accessories and auxiliary characters were a couple of things that I always wanted but were never delivered by Hasbro.
When I first started collecting I got a late start coming in around series 2 or 3 but didn’t have much trouble catching up with the older figures even without the tool of the internet but I had a hard time tracking down the ring. What I did have was a cheap generic wrestling ring that was flimsy had 2 red and one white rope, and no other ringside accessories. But once I tracked down the Hasbro ring while on a random trip with a friends family to Ottawa Ontario Canada My experience was upgraded with the glorious Hasbro ring. The ring as the Roddy Piper boasted in the commercials came with flag and championship belt. Not only did I have an awesome ring but I also could have a WWF champion! The ring featured removable turnbuckle covers which made the ring look and play so much better compared to the piece of crap ring that I had before. The ring also featured a number molded on accessories such steel steps for entering the ring and smashing skulls! A time keepers table to hold the belt and a broadcast table with a tv monitor! It almost seemed as if Hasbro was acknowledging the fact that auxiliary characters were an important part of the WWF play experience. This satisfied me for a while but I still wanted more.
Prior to getting this ring the only belt I had was the Million Dollar Belt. So the best looking belt in my Hasbro world was an illegitimate title that was rarely defended. So for a while I used a gold twist tie to decorate the Hulkster’s waist. Having a real WWF belt was a great addition and added dimension to play but I it wasn’t the full experience. No intercontinental title, no tag team championships. So what was a boy to do? The best choice I had back then can in the form of the WCW Galoob belts. They were not great representations of either the Intercontinental or Tag belts but they were better than nothing and with a little imagination they worked just fine.
I was also craving auxiliary characters to my roster. I was never a WCW fan but bought a handful of Galoob figures back in the day to complete my roster and add to my belt collection. Gallob’s Ric Flair was one of my first wants as he was involved in the WWF during my youth and this involvement occurred long before his Hasbro figure. My flair came with Arn Anderson who I didn’t know much about so he often moonlighted as a jobber but later due to his bald spot became my Howard Finkle. Was it weird that the fink was buff and always announced as if he had just lost a tuxedo match? Yes. But it was 1993 and I a good imagination was the best option out there.
The referee is a key player in pretty much every wrestling match but we never had one in the Hasbro universe. So my friends and I often resorted to using the Million Dollar Man. Why? Simple, he wore a bow tie like the old school referees of the WWF wore. OF course this wasn’t ideal since for a time it meant that you couldn’t use the Million Dollar Man as a wrestler or if you used one of his other figures then the referee was clearly a clone.
Although Hasbro did give us a cool little announce table, we never had anyone to man the booth. I used to have a set of small generic dollar store thumb wrestlers one with black hair and one with blond hair that I used to use as my announce team. I pretended they were Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby the Brain Henan. Problem once again was that they called the matches in their underwear. Later I would go on to use figures of wrestlers who called matches form time to time such as the Macho Man or Roddy Piper.
That was the state of my Hasbro universe which left much to be desired. I later went on to see Hasbro lay to rest. I dabbled in the Bend Ems and consumed everything that Jakks had to offer. Recently I dusted off my Hasbro collection and started to enjoy it again and expand upon it in ways that I had noly dreamed would have been possible as a child. I was able to see my Hasbro universe expand and some of my dreams come true.
I discovered a number of the Just Toys Bend’ems and LJN Bendies that could fill out my roster. I know have a full announce booth with Vince McMahon and Bobby the Brain Henan. I can even now switch out Henan with a wrestler if I ever want to the Brain to practice his managerial skills
With my limited customizing skills I was able to add to my roster of auxiliary characters modifying WCW ToyBiz figures to better fit the Hasbro scale. This expanded my universe to have a ring announcer, interviewer Mean Gene and a referee. The universe was pretty damn near complete.
I was even able to the persona of the Undertaker by adding the Bendems Paul Bearer to manage him and the Jakks urn to give him power and to occasionally crack some skulls.
Another detail of the Hasbro universe that I desired more of was accessories. Steel chairs were a wrestling cliché that I was always missing. I used various items over the years to substitute for steal chairs. I used decks of cards, a retail counter sample, and even a custom folding chair made of Legos (unfortunately it had to be rebuilt after each chair shot). Fast forward to today and the dollar store has figures that come with folding chairs that are pretty much in scale with these figures.
An accessory that Hasbro fanatics have long craved was a steal cage. We all know that they never made one but Galoob did and despite the red color it was in the style of cage that the WWF used. After scouring the internet for the Galoob ring and finding an extra corner piece on eBay, was then able to settle scores in the 15 foot high solid steal cage!
I have even been able to make a custom Jim The Anvil Neidhart to complete my long wanted Hart foundation.
What else could I want. Oh yeah. Belts. Well after the Jakks BCA figures came and went the old BCA belts were one of the final details to complete my Hasbro experience. These belts look great on the figures.
After years of collecting I have an expanded roster that includes a ring announcer, Mean Gene, and Vince McMahon. I have Managers like Bobby the Brain and Paul Bearer. I have figures that I didn’t even know existed back in the day from the Galoob world such as Dustin Rhodes and the Freebirds and I have a custom Hart foundation. I have more accessories including microphones, championship belts, folding chairs and a steal cage and in the immortal words of Ralphie Parker “all was right with the world.
Thanks for taking this time to read my offering about my Hasbro Odyssey. I look forward to reading your thoughtful responses and learning about your memories of this great line of toys.
I, much like many other wrestling fans who grew up in the late 80’s early 90’s, the Hasbro line was a big part of my childhood but there were always things that I longed for to complete my play experience. Accessories and auxiliary characters were a couple of things that I always wanted but were never delivered by Hasbro.
When I first started collecting I got a late start coming in around series 2 or 3 but didn’t have much trouble catching up with the older figures even without the tool of the internet but I had a hard time tracking down the ring. What I did have was a cheap generic wrestling ring that was flimsy had 2 red and one white rope, and no other ringside accessories. But once I tracked down the Hasbro ring while on a random trip with a friends family to Ottawa Ontario Canada My experience was upgraded with the glorious Hasbro ring. The ring as the Roddy Piper boasted in the commercials came with flag and championship belt. Not only did I have an awesome ring but I also could have a WWF champion! The ring featured removable turnbuckle covers which made the ring look and play so much better compared to the piece of crap ring that I had before. The ring also featured a number molded on accessories such steel steps for entering the ring and smashing skulls! A time keepers table to hold the belt and a broadcast table with a tv monitor! It almost seemed as if Hasbro was acknowledging the fact that auxiliary characters were an important part of the WWF play experience. This satisfied me for a while but I still wanted more.
Prior to getting this ring the only belt I had was the Million Dollar Belt. So the best looking belt in my Hasbro world was an illegitimate title that was rarely defended. So for a while I used a gold twist tie to decorate the Hulkster’s waist. Having a real WWF belt was a great addition and added dimension to play but I it wasn’t the full experience. No intercontinental title, no tag team championships. So what was a boy to do? The best choice I had back then can in the form of the WCW Galoob belts. They were not great representations of either the Intercontinental or Tag belts but they were better than nothing and with a little imagination they worked just fine.
I was also craving auxiliary characters to my roster. I was never a WCW fan but bought a handful of Galoob figures back in the day to complete my roster and add to my belt collection. Gallob’s Ric Flair was one of my first wants as he was involved in the WWF during my youth and this involvement occurred long before his Hasbro figure. My flair came with Arn Anderson who I didn’t know much about so he often moonlighted as a jobber but later due to his bald spot became my Howard Finkle. Was it weird that the fink was buff and always announced as if he had just lost a tuxedo match? Yes. But it was 1993 and I a good imagination was the best option out there.
The referee is a key player in pretty much every wrestling match but we never had one in the Hasbro universe. So my friends and I often resorted to using the Million Dollar Man. Why? Simple, he wore a bow tie like the old school referees of the WWF wore. OF course this wasn’t ideal since for a time it meant that you couldn’t use the Million Dollar Man as a wrestler or if you used one of his other figures then the referee was clearly a clone.
Although Hasbro did give us a cool little announce table, we never had anyone to man the booth. I used to have a set of small generic dollar store thumb wrestlers one with black hair and one with blond hair that I used to use as my announce team. I pretended they were Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby the Brain Henan. Problem once again was that they called the matches in their underwear. Later I would go on to use figures of wrestlers who called matches form time to time such as the Macho Man or Roddy Piper.
That was the state of my Hasbro universe which left much to be desired. I later went on to see Hasbro lay to rest. I dabbled in the Bend Ems and consumed everything that Jakks had to offer. Recently I dusted off my Hasbro collection and started to enjoy it again and expand upon it in ways that I had noly dreamed would have been possible as a child. I was able to see my Hasbro universe expand and some of my dreams come true.
I discovered a number of the Just Toys Bend’ems and LJN Bendies that could fill out my roster. I know have a full announce booth with Vince McMahon and Bobby the Brain Henan. I can even now switch out Henan with a wrestler if I ever want to the Brain to practice his managerial skills
With my limited customizing skills I was able to add to my roster of auxiliary characters modifying WCW ToyBiz figures to better fit the Hasbro scale. This expanded my universe to have a ring announcer, interviewer Mean Gene and a referee. The universe was pretty damn near complete.
I was even able to the persona of the Undertaker by adding the Bendems Paul Bearer to manage him and the Jakks urn to give him power and to occasionally crack some skulls.
Another detail of the Hasbro universe that I desired more of was accessories. Steel chairs were a wrestling cliché that I was always missing. I used various items over the years to substitute for steal chairs. I used decks of cards, a retail counter sample, and even a custom folding chair made of Legos (unfortunately it had to be rebuilt after each chair shot). Fast forward to today and the dollar store has figures that come with folding chairs that are pretty much in scale with these figures.
An accessory that Hasbro fanatics have long craved was a steal cage. We all know that they never made one but Galoob did and despite the red color it was in the style of cage that the WWF used. After scouring the internet for the Galoob ring and finding an extra corner piece on eBay, was then able to settle scores in the 15 foot high solid steal cage!
I have even been able to make a custom Jim The Anvil Neidhart to complete my long wanted Hart foundation.
What else could I want. Oh yeah. Belts. Well after the Jakks BCA figures came and went the old BCA belts were one of the final details to complete my Hasbro experience. These belts look great on the figures.
After years of collecting I have an expanded roster that includes a ring announcer, Mean Gene, and Vince McMahon. I have Managers like Bobby the Brain and Paul Bearer. I have figures that I didn’t even know existed back in the day from the Galoob world such as Dustin Rhodes and the Freebirds and I have a custom Hart foundation. I have more accessories including microphones, championship belts, folding chairs and a steal cage and in the immortal words of Ralphie Parker “all was right with the world.
Thanks for taking this time to read my offering about my Hasbro Odyssey. I look forward to reading your thoughtful responses and learning about your memories of this great line of toys.
