Sunday, December 23, 2012

Toys of Christmas Past - Part 14 - Best Of The West

Best of The West Play sets - Marx - 1965 to 1976



One of the things that Marx Toys was best know for was action figures.  Starting in 1964 and moving along until the mid 1970's they had a line of figures and sets know collectively as the "Best of The West" collection.




The action figures were approximately 12" tall. They had movable heads, joints hands etc.  The figures could be purchased separately or together.  It seemed there was a never ending selection of figures as new ones were continually introduced over it's 10 year run or old figures were revised or improved. 

At the heart of the collection and set were Johnny West and Jane West.  But what is western life without horses.  Each person had there own horse and Johnny had Thunderbolt and Jane had Flame.



 

 

Johnny and Jane had a family of course and their daughters were named Josie and Janice and two sons named Jay and Jamie.  The children also had to have horse and their names were Pancho and Thundercolt, Storm Cloud.  They even had two dogs named Flick and Flack



 
 


There were also American Indians, Outlaws other towns people.



In addition there were also forts and town settings.  Here is the Fort Apache play set


Each figure or horse or play set came with about 97,527 different accessories which would of course get lost eventually.  But here is an example of the accessories that came with Johnny West.



Here are some pages from Sears and JC Penny Christmas catalogs (remember those) advertising the various Marx toys and play sets.


 
 
 
You could also become a member of the Johnny West club
 




Here are some great TV commercials from the 60's and 70's advertising these toys.



 



 I did not have this myself, but I hear it was a great toy

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