Wild Bill Hickok
Mrs. Nerd and I got hooked on HBO’s Deadwood during this past holiday lull in TV programming. We burned through all 3 season. Of course, I blame this on the Final Shot Saloon Podcast.
Of course, that would be payback for point out a line of Western Action Figure to the host, Clint. That line was Legends of the West, and I had a bunch of them back in the day.
Appearance:
Okay, I’m really not sure if this is Wild Bill or not. One carded version I saw had him as Buffalo Bill Cody. Some art showing the whole line shows him as Wild Bill. I’m guessing this is actually intended to be Buffalo Bill, since he has a goatee. For now, he will be Wild Bill to me.
Now matter who he’s suppose to represent he’s definitely a Western frontier figure. Or a biker from the 70’s. There a lot of fringe sculpted on that jacket. For the mid 70’s, the sculpt is a bit soft, but passable. The thing that throws me off is the proportions. The body, arms, legs, and head all seem to be off to one another.
Speaking of the head, it has an elongated look. That isn’t helped by a less than stellar paint job. The inside and bottom of his hair is flesh tone! And those are some awfully red lips for a gunfighter.
The rest of the paint on the figure is limited to the hands and some brown on the shins to match the pants.
Fun:
Considering the other figures on the pegs at the time he was there, Bill has a some rather unique features in funky hips and knees. This articulation is probably there to allow him to ride a horse similar to Kenner’s Indiana Jones and Butch & Sundance lines.
The hips have a really unusual construction. He’s something between a standard Mego and a GI Joe. There’s a band holding the legs on, but it’s fabric covered elastic that is directly attached to the legs. This allows the legs to splay a bit on a horse.
He also comes with a couple accessories. A rubbery hat tops that long face. Nice enough piece, Luke and Han use to wear these. There’s also a gun belt and a pistol that I’ve lost. The belts were shared across the line and some of the ones I have are in need of trimming off some excess material.
Overall:
Yes, he looks like a knockoff. But for the time he was made, it made sense. Westerns were still on TV and kids and parents alike loved them. That a company wanted to put an inexpensive line for kids to play with made a ton of sense.
Engineernerd Score: 70/100
Category: Featured, Other Television, Toy Reviews
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I never knew these existed. The design seem similar to another line made by Marx in the 70’s, also featuring cowboys but done in the 12″ scale with sculpted clothes and rubber accessories. Very interesting figure.
I’m going to do some more of these coming up. In some ways they’re pretty cool.
One of the horses is coming up in a couple weeks.
The Cochise wasn’t in the box. It’s too bad, he’s a totally politically incorrect color.
Very cool. Great review. They don’t make enough western figures anymore.