Comments on: Looking Back: Mattel’s Battlestar Galactica

By: Laslo Hollyfeld

Laslo Hollyfeld — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 19:22:03 +0000

I attained a full set of these a couple years ago but am still hunting for a club for my Boray figure

I never understood why Mattel didn’t make vehicles scaled to the figures. Even Mego’s Buck Rogers line had vehicles! No vehicles and no Apollo really were baffling decisions.

A revival/tribute line would be great, here’s hoping it happens!

By: gl666

gl666 — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 16:14:27 +0000

Great read, Dan! I never missed an episode when it was on (even Galactica 1980). Maybe someone should send this to the 4 Horsemen? Look at the great job they did with the Outer Space Men!

By: CantinaDan

CantinaDan — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 20:52:59 +0000

You need to get to the bottom of that and let us know. May be an interesting story there!

By: CantinaDan

CantinaDan — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 20:51:19 +0000

Man, that’s great. “You can imagine Daggit fears Ovion, the enemy with insect arms!”

By: JuliusMarx

JuliusMarx — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 19:37:33 +0000

In case anyone hasn’t seen this BSG toy commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAHNFXXMXSw

By: SilverThunderPowersMan

SilverThunderPowersMan — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 19:04:46 +0000

Haha, not long ago I was with my Dad in his garage, and I saw a dusty carded Dagget figure just sitting there. I yelled at him for disrepectfully keeping a vintage toy in his dirty garage and he grabbed it from me and said I couldn’t have it. Not that I wanted it, but he was so defensive thinking I was going to take it when my concern was really how he was treating it. Anyway, he was so defensive he wouldn’t’ even tell me how he got it. I know it is more recently obtained and I’m pretty sure he has no clue who the character is!

By: JuliusMarx

JuliusMarx — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 18:51:17 +0000

It’s weird, cuz Dirk IS still around. On the DVD extras for season 1 he is featured along with Katie Sackoff in a feature called “Starbuck interviewing Starbuck in a Starbuck’s” so I always thought he would show up later, but he never did.

The other interesting thing about Richard Hatch is that he has was trying to gain the rights to BSG and create his own relaunch around the same time. He was very outspoken against the new BSG as it was coming out. Then the production went to him with the olive branch of the role of Tom… which mirrored his own real life instigating against the new show to anyone that would listen.

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:25:47 +0000

Loved this line. I still have my Daggit, and he is in excellent shape. I’d love to hunt down some of these vintage guys, but I spend too much as it is on new figures.

I would’ve really liked the Eastern Alliance guys. They could have been visiting distant relatives for my Star Wars Imperial troops!

Great article, man!

By: lightso

lightso — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 21:42:30 +0000

Richard Hatch’s character in the reboot is soooo much better, but yeah Apollo was a blaring omission in the toy line. The best thing about the show to me was always the Viper and Cylon fighters. Shame Dirk Benedict isn’t around. What’s he do now – sign $10 photos at conventions? Maybe they wanted him to participate but pissed them off so they made his old character a chick?

By: lightso

lightso — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 21:41:36 +0000

Richard Hatch’s character in the reboot is soooo much better, but yeah Apollo was a blaring omission. The best thing about the show to me was always the Viper and Cylon fighters. Shame Dirk Benedict isn’t around. What’s he do now – sign $10 photos at conventions? Maybe they wanted him to participate but pissed them off so they made his old character a chick?

By: Traie

Traie — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 04:29:54 +0000

Great piece and as always, awesome pictures!
Man, that Saga of the Star World Dancer is f*****g weird!

By: cdeiss

cdeiss — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 03:19:51 +0000

I did the exact same thing to make an apollo. I had every figure except the gold cylon.

By: Imaginexus

Imaginexus — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 01:55:37 +0000

Great blog, Dan! I LOVED this series and its toys. Besides the gaps in the figures that you’ve pointed out, the thing that bothered me the most was that none of the ships were scaled for the figures. Imean, c’mon. My brother had the Buck Rogers Starfighter, friends had the X-Wing, I wanted the Viper.

By: SpyMagician

SpyMagician — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 07:02:22 +0000

Dan!

FANTASTIC post! I’m so glad those repros worked out! I realize I still have your originals, so I’ll ship those back to ya asap!

I had pitifully few of the BSG figures as a kid (I think Daggit was it, lol) but a good friend had many and I do remember them fondly.

It still boggles my mind that there was no Apollo!!!

I recently go hooked on the reboot BSG, and despite early skepticism, I find that I really really enjoyed it. Ironic that both series had a rocky relationship with their toylines that had trouble filling out and finishing the lines.

Well, at least the new series had a very respectable run of Minimates!

Spy

By: Cantina-Dan

Cantina-Dan — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 06:02:23 +0000

Thanks for all the kinds words, friends! Yeah, this toy line could’ve been exceptional. The figures we did get obviously spring from the beginning of Battlestar’s one season. I really wanted to interview someone from Mattel who worked on the line to see, amongst other things, what was coming next. Many thanks to Julius for reaching out to his contacts. Unfortunately, just no one surfaced.

By: Cantina-Dan

Cantina-Dan — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 05:56:45 +0000

Yeah, that was a tough omission. I took it pretty hard when “Serina” died in the third episode! One more wave and she would’ve been in.

By: Cantina-Dan

Cantina-Dan — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 05:52:23 +0000

Haha, those Triad game uniforms are crazy. Julius Marx keeps bugging me to Cosplay with him in those outfits.

By: Cantina-Dan

Cantina-Dan — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 05:47:57 +0000

Oh, geez, don’t show the blog to your workmate! Yeah, Bojay was really close to making the list. Would’ve been in my NEXT wave

By: Lt. Clutch

Lt. Clutch — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 04:42:54 +0000

WOW! This wasn’t just a blog post, it’s a vintage BG collector’s guide! Top-notch writing and pic layout as always, Dan!!! I gotta admit that the shiny Cylon figures always caught my eye as a kid when going shopping with the family. I thought they looked neater than Stormtroopers. Never did ask for any figures from this line, otherwise I would have been miffed at the lack of articulation on some of these guys. Apollo was a must, but I’m sure that a lot of kids tried Hourman’s remedy. The head sculpts were great, all they needed was some nice paint detail, especially on the eyes. Baltar also reminds me of George Murdock AND Claude Akins’ Sheriff Lobo besides the great John Colicos. But boy, did this series have tons to offer which went undone! So many smokin’ babes and zero female figures, no key characters like Boomer and Tigh (he did rock in Foxy Brown) and a wasted opportunity for immortalizing in plastic classic actors such as Fred Astaire, Ray Bolger, Patrick Macnee, Lloyd Bridges, and Edward (pre-Knight Rider’s Devon) Mulhare! This line could have gone on for a good five years or more had the show survived and given Star Wars a nice run for its money. Somebody out there NEEDS to do a toy revival which follows the outline presented here. Excellent work, Dan!!!

By: Shellhead

Shellhead — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 04:02:25 +0000

I had a Cyclon spaceship. That thing was all kinds of cool.

By: Shark

Shark — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 02:52:56 +0000

What no jane seymour?

By: Jakethy

Jakethy — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 02:31:14 +0000

Great, great blog – let us know how you like the Sci-fi channel reboot.
Ray Bolger and Fred Astaire?!? Wow, I’d forgotten that – what was the BSG synchronicity with old-timey Hollywood musicals anyway? And you were kind not to take a shot at those gladiator-esgue, s&m get-ups Starbuck and Apollo are wearing.

By: demoncat

demoncat — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 02:20:38 +0000

nice article got to agree Mattel left fans of the original short by not continuing the line left a lot of holes in collectors shelves. for remember watching the show when i was little. though i am proably the only one who thought dogget was annoying and too chessy .the figures never bought them.

By: Hourman

Hourman — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 01:42:49 +0000

When I was a kid, I solved the Apollo problem by getting an extra Starbuck and taking a black Sharpie marker to his hair.

By: Hourman

Hourman — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 01:40:29 +0000

What a nice article. So much more fun to read people talk about things they like than insult things they don’t like.

By: JuliusMarx

JuliusMarx — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 01:19:00 +0000

You left out Bojay from the Pegasus! For shame! Actually Bojay was played by the dad of a guy I work with.

GREAT blog Dan! I wish we could have tracked down one of the Mattel guys that worked on line for this.

Now I want to go back and rewatch. I started going back and picking up the vintage figures loose when I was watching the new series. I still had the cylon and the dagget from when I was a kid.

By: Skullder

Skullder — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 01:16:39 +0000

Totally agree with that wishlist!

I loved watching the show as a kid. I never understood why they never continued making more when I was younger.

I also wished that Diamond Select had continued the classic BSG minimates line and included these other characters. I guess that’s what customs are for

By: Chip Cataldo

Chip Cataldo — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 01:08:13 +0000

Killer killer blog, Dan! Great pics as always, too!

By: blubeetle3

blubeetle3 — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 22:35:13 +0000

Borellian NOMEN!

For that insult, you must die!

By: Jeff Cope

Jeff Cope — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 22:26:57 +0000

I would love, love, LOVE to see a 3-3/4″ line based on the original Galactica. I loved this show and still prefer it over the recent one. I’ve got most of these figures (missing Baltar). It always baffled me (and frustrated me as a kid) that there was no Apollo figure.

By: Jboypacman

Jboypacman — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 21:50:29 +0000

Ah the memories of watching this show as a young kid along with Buck Rogers. Never had toys from either of those lines but the folks next to us had this fighter launcher thing that would “Launch All Fighters” and the fighters themselves i remember were made out of a Nerf like foam.

By: Jason "Plastic Soul" Lenzi

Jason "Plastic Soul" Lenzi — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 21:20:05 +0000

Great article Dan! I loved BSG, still do, and fondly remember Sunday nights glued to the TV. Amazing to think 65 MILLION people tuned into the 3 hour pilot telefilm. I had most of these figures, and some of the Mattel ships too. And some years ago I acquired a mint copy of one of my BSG prized pieces from childhood, the Genreal Mills cereals promotional ‘Battlestar Galactica Space Mission Kit’ that you had to mail away for. I’d love a current 7″ or 3 3/4″ scaled series of toys for this show!

By: Johnny

Johnny — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 21:04:30 +0000

This is a baller blog i am going to find the show on netflix and watch for hours and hours. I can’t wait to find the show. Keep writing your blogs they are really good!!!!!!