Comments on: Kenner’s Robin Hood

By: The Island of Misfit Toys – Azeem from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves | Teachable Moments

Sat, 18 May 2013 13:07:00 +0000

[...] time. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves simply uses a bunch of those previously sculpted pieces. Action Figure Insider has a rather thorough run-down of the entire toy line, including Azeem. He used the Super Powers Green Arrow arms which are really awkward on this [...]

By: The Sherwood Forest connection - Page 2

The Sherwood Forest connection - Page 2 — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 00:56:00 +0000

[...] Here's a blog done by Cantina Dan that shows a lot of the reused stuff from the Robin Hood line. Action Figure Insider – Men of Action Kenner’s Robin Hood [...]

By: Friar Tuck Action Figure (From “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”) by Kenner « Mighty Jabba's Collection

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 03:21:46 +0000

[...] had to have used the original Gamorrean legs). Kenner did a lot of borrowing for Robin Hood, as this post on Action Figure Insider illustrates. They even reused several ewok playsets to make Robin Hood [...]

By: Kenner’sKenner’s Robin Hood Line Created by Dr. Frankenstein? | KennerCollector.com

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:31:09 +0000

[...] Figure Insider has posted a great article over on their blog about how the designers of Kenner’s Robin Hood line borrowed many ideas [...]

By: Robb

Robb — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:36:01 +0000

Wow! I knew about the obvious kit bashing done on the vehicles and the fact that Friar Tuck was the Gamorrean body, but I had no idea what was under the robes for all of these characters. Nottingham using the Luthor body was especially cool. Great article!

By: Debs @ Vintage Action Figures

Debs @ Vintage Action Figures — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 11:06:21 +0000

absolutely brilliant stuff – exhaustive research! and you’ve convinced me that the robin hood figures are worth getting in spite of everything…

By: Julius Marx

Julius Marx — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 19:24:05 +0000

This is a great, well researched article… but now I have that damn Bryan Adams song stuck in my head. Thanks a lot Dan.

Great work. Great pictures!

By: Odds ‘n Ends > Waiting for Ask Mattel Answers Edition : Poe Ghostal's Points of Articulation

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 18:41:30 +0000

[...] out this fun AFI article on the DNA of Kenner’s frankensteinian Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves line (which I’ve previously discussed [...]

By: Marlies

Marlies — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:27:03 +0000

Good research and actually pretty cool stuff.
Never noticed parts being re-used and I don’t really mind. It’s fun to see the pictures.

By: Captain Zero

Captain Zero — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 05:03:28 +0000

Good article. Nice research.
I hope this bodes well for the future of the action figure line with the GREAT work of the Four Horsemen on the DCU Classics line.
Great body molds for the future!! Or re-issues sometime in the future.

By: Shogi

Shogi — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 04:16:45 +0000

Very cool article, I’ve been cataloging Kenner mold reuses for the past year myself One thing I noticed about the Robin Hood Bolo Bomber is that it uses the bottom half of the Bone Age Spear Slinger. I guess the original bottom half of the Bolo Bomber looked too “caveman” like for the Robin Hood line

By: Clutch

Clutch — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 03:45:59 +0000

I remember the figures going on close-out about a year or so after the movie was released. Friar Tuck showed up in droves around that time at places like Kay-Bee in my area. I would have loved for the second series to have made it to retail because the second Azeem, King Richard, and the Celtic Barbarian looked sweet indeed!

By: Clutch

Clutch — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 03:36:19 +0000

Priceless! I knew you’d get to this line sooner or later. The soft goods used for these figures more than made up for the blatant re-use of various bodies and parts. Those unknown legs were probably modified from either Martian Manhunter or Red Tornado’s molds. Now that I’ve seen them up close and personal, I’m thinking that the SP head on a Sheriff body would make for a alternate Armored Lex custom. Likewise, Little John and the Dark Warrior could be modified into Thanagarians. Lots of possibilities here, guys. Excellent work as always.

By: demoncat

demoncat — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:18:43 +0000

nice insightful article knew Kenner used the ewok village for the sherwood playset. but never knew that they also took some of the super powers figures and borrowed their parts to make the robin hood figures. plus also always wondered if friar tuck used a gamoran guard mold.

By: starvingartist

starvingartist — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 20:39:56 +0000

Bone Age’s Bola Bomber and Tangle Trap Photo: http://www.mikethepod.com/050108pic8.jpg

It seems like Kenner’s Bone Age toy line was released (or announced) in 1988, before Robin Hood: http://www.mikethepod.com/mm050108.htm

By: CantinaDan

CantinaDan — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:54:11 +0000

Thanks for those extra insights, Professor Otter! I apologize for not having mentioned that your articles about this very topic were the inspiration for the blog. And thank you for the link to the wave 2 image!

By: Jason Geyer

Jason Geyer — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:38:32 +0000

Excellent article, as always!

When these first came out we were amazed at the blatant reuse, up to then unheard of for such different lines. (We would soon see Kenner cribbing across all of its lines, though).

I guess it was only natural following up the reuse of SP molds for the Dark Knight Collection. They also reused Robin Hood’s crossbow for the BTAS Poison Ivy a couple of years later.

The non-Costner head definitely came first and is “rarer” in that less quantities were made. It wasn’t terribly hard to find for awhile though; I think I still have some packaged ones somewhere in my trading box. The talk at toy shows at the time (1991?) was that the likeness rights were taking so long to negotiate that Kenner had no choice but to move ahead with a generic head to hit the launch date, and do a running change later. It was replaced fairly quick, so the change happened well before the movie hit. Obviously they didn’t even bother on likeness rights for any of the other characters.

I wonder how well these sold? It was a heck of a toy push for such a non-kid’s movie. But I didn’t think the second assortment ever got further than solicits. I’ve never seen any prototypes show up anywhere.
http://www.toyotter.com/hood2.jpg

By: Shellhead

Shellhead — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:11:03 +0000

Wow. Great article, guys. Nice job with the research.

By: 3B

3B — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:06:55 +0000

Mind: blown.

By: bnjmnrlyr

bnjmnrlyr — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:27:38 +0000

me thinks you’ve just opened Pandora’s Box with this one mate.

I had the “not so much” Longbow Robin that I got as a “thank you” gift from an exchange student when I took her to Prom (yes, that does date me … oy). At the time I had no interest in a “Costner” toy, but couldn’t get over the amount of blatant re-use in the line to not get a good chuckle out of having it.

Thanks for bringing this back.

By: Van Statten

Van Statten — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 06:34:09 +0000

Wow… I new about the Star Wars connection to the Robin Hood line but never knew anything about the Super Powers reused parts. That’s cool!

By: Thomas

Thomas — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 05:17:51 +0000

Pretty cool stuff. It was never that apparent to me as a kid when parts were reused. Or maybe it just didn’t matter. But as an adult, it now does.

By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 04:55:09 +0000

I think the mystery legs are retooled Martian Manhunter legs. From the pics it looks like the wrinkling in the boot near the ankles and the muscle structure in the thigh might be the same. I don’t have robin hood figures in hand to compare though.