Welcome back Brian! I see you know a little bit about our history. I actually owned Savitar The Assassin when I was a kid. You should definitely contact Mego, & ask them to make a ninja figure, if you haven't already. That would be cool. I appreciated the video.
Ninja fever was real, I remember renting enter the ninja countless times and even managed to buy real throwing stars at some shady store in the Midwest, good times!
Loved how in the 80s the knock off MOTU figures went from being barbarians to wrestlers to ninjas. Remember one that looked like Eddie Money under his mask.
I could never find a Savitar figure, because all of the other kids were buying them up. But my local Rose’s store got in many of these other figures. And on a side note, I bought into the “ninja craze” and collected the Ninja magazine, too. I had several throwing stars that I sharpened with my dad’s bench grinder. I was a middle school’s nightmare come true. A bunch of us brought those to school and secretly had throwing contests in 6th grade gym class (the South Park episode about those weapons was spot-on). Back then, many comic shops, souvenir stores and outfitter/sports stores carried ninja weapons. And I would cut up old broom sticks to make nunchucks and other weapons. And yes, I walked around with nunchucks in the back pocket of my acid-washed jeans.
Great video. Who doesn't love ninjas? I think you were saying that the body on the figure was made by Ton, but I just kept hearing it as 'Tom'. Tom Ninja seems like a great name for a knockoff ninja figure.
Man, I hadn't thought of these in years. I remember I had two ninja figures, a black ninja and a white ninja, but they had full plastic suits and removable plastic masks, instead of cloth, and were about the same size as MOTU figures. (After a brief search, I'm pretty sure they were from the "Secrets of the Ninja" line by Remco.) I also had a female red ninja, that another search revealed was from the Lanard Dragon Force line, that had a removable cloth top and mask.
Ninja deserve a comeback!! My favorite ninja action figure has to be 1988's Storm Shadow. His suit with the hood, the claws, his compound bow, just fantastic. The original would be a close second. Back then, when I played with my GI joes, being a ninja was like being a super hero. It was a secret identity. Cop or detective by day, ninja by night. I used the V2 Storm Shadow as the White Tiger. Either that or when the hero would be defeated by the main villain, he would have to go to the mountains aka the couch, and train to become a ninja and come back for revenge.
Excellent video as always Brian. To be honest, I never got too far into the ninja craze of the 80's, but I did sort of dip my toe into it for a while. I had a set of four little pvc ninja figures that were just a slight step above army men. They came in a little red and black window box that just said ''Ninja Warriors''. They all came in different colors, black, white, red, and yellow and all stood about two and a half inches tall. They were in frozen action poses with nunchucks, katana's, a fighting staff, and one held a throwing star. I used to just like to line them up on my shelf and look at them. I also had a few ''Chuck Norris and the Karate Commandos'' figures. Super Ninja was my favorite.
Ninjas! Just the word is a time trip. The Eagle Force ninja was the only one I had (pretending the rest were Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D.). I didn't play long with him, but while I did, he found his way into every single senario. I wish those mego-like ones (and the whole craze) had started back in the 70s, siince I was so into "Kung Fu" (martial arts movies, comics, toys, you name it). But then if it had we probably never would've gotten to see Super Ninja take on Chuck Norris and his Karate Kommandos, which despite being an 80s show is way 70s. And now that I think about it, I think ninjas even made it into the Karate Kid franchise. Another cool video. Thanks.
Loved this! Always liked the Secret of the Ninja figures - Ninjas and a Rambo look-a-like in the same line. And talking of Rambo, the White and Black Dragon from Force of Freedom.
Oh man this one hits me in so many ways. I was an 80's ninja kid for certain. I had some of the Remco figures, I watched the Master on Friday nights every week while it was on. I bought and read Ninja Magazine from cover to cover. I had two ninja coloring books, toy weapons, real throwing stars my Dad got me from the local Real Army Surplus. Heck, I even had ninja pajamas and socks(still have a pair of those). I don't remember being familiar with these knock-offs though I'm sure I saw them at the time. As for my favorite? As a kid it would have been Storm Shadow v2. I loved the urban camo hooded outfit and the weapons he came with. Now I'm more nostalgic for those Remco figures. Even having reacquired a couple of them. Such a great video Brian. Glad to have you back and putting out such kick-ass content.
I absolutely adored the black and the red Ninja figures that were in the Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos line! Also, Jinx from the 80s Gi Joe line was a favorite. Honorable mention to mine and my brother's matching set of black ninja pajamas my folks got us that had the arm and leg ties, as well as a mask and belt.
Great to have you back Brian! I enjoyed this even though I never caught the Ninja bug in that early 80s time period. I think it might just be the age factor that you are probably about 4 or 5 years younger than I am. So while you were gravitating to the toy aisle still I had probably moved on more to records and tapes at that point. I obviously knew all about the Ninja invasion but it kind of flowed past me. Now I wished I had been more into it. Loved those figures you showed!😉
My favorite ninja toys were the Ninja Assassins. I had two of the monstrous bad guys, and two good guys who were just boring humans. I loved the weapons and removable disguises. After that the black ninja from Chuck Norris karate kommandos was a solid figure.
2:08 The Master starring the super cool Lee Van Cleef - I remember that being shown on TV here in the UK really late at night in the '80's & the young me loving it! Thanks for another great video!
I remember having all 3 of those ninja, (black, white, and gray) my uncle used to work at a indoor swap meet in Los Angeles back in the 80’s, that consisted mostly of Chinese vendors.
"Asian World" was right around the corner from me where you could buy all of your Ninja gear. My brother was big into Ninjas and Bruce Lee. I didn't realize Snake Eyes was a Ninja. I liked him because of the Vigilante DC Comics series.
I had these. The white and the black Ninja. Found them in a tiny toy section of Woolworths Fremantle in 87' /88'. Loved them but eventually the clothing would start to fall apart. Also had the black,red and white Dragonforce.And Ninjor. I miss those todays.
Glad to see you back in the proverbial saddle, sir! Enjoyable and informative video as always. During one of my phases of attempting to quit smoking, I switched my focus to collecting a line of budget 12" action figures called Rapid Deployment Force and one of the first wave figures was a character called "Para Ninja". Despite the rather bright tiger-striped costume, it was a pretty nifty looking figure.
I had quite a few ninjas as a kid my favorite was the eagle force ninja savitar i played with him so much alot of the paint was gone my only complaint was i wish he was bigger so i could use him with gi joe and star wars. That Nbc show the master with lee van cleef and sho kosugi i never missed it to bad it didnt last longer.
Ninjas are the mavericks of the martial arts landscape and that's why we love them. :D I guess Snake Eyes is my favorite ninja, last time I bought new GI Joe it was him. Those Tong look really good, quality foundation body they used. ;)
Cheap ninja toys, playsets, costumes and props/weapons will never die. As long as we have civilization we will have plastic ninja tat on the racks of every toy and dollar store. My favorite ninja toy growing up, aside from the Ninja Turtles, was Snake Eyes from GI Joe. He is like the ultimate hero ninja, spy, supersoldier. I'd also say Batman, but I think he transcends ninjas and is a category all his own.
WOW! Great vid! I had that 8 inch tong Ninja and loved the heck out of that thing, lol. I'll be the first to agree that that body was great and it didn't feel like a KO. I've been searching for years for a picture of it or someone else that remembers it. Great memories!
I didn't get many outright ninja toys in the 80s, aside from a type 2 Snake Eyes, Jinx, and a Storm Shadow that another kid gave me. I did get some reissues of the original TMNT figures in the early teens when the first Nickelodeon turtles show came out and Playmates hadn't released versions of the new designs. But my introduction to the shadowy world of the ninja was of all things, the Mr. T cartoon. I did watch Ninja 3 and Enter the Ninja some years later, but I find it amusing that I found out about Japan's shadow warriors was cartoon made to cash in on a real life person.
I remember coleco's Rambo line had a ninja dressed in white called White Dragon .in a move of getting the most out of a mold they took that figure ,painted it black and we got Black Dragon the evil ninja twin brother.cheep but effective.
great vide, i absolutely loved these. just FYI hasbro released a gijoe - mego collaboration storm shadow and snake eyes as mego figures. its the closes thing to these you will find
The ninja obsession ruined GI Joe. Once they decided commando Snake Eyes was really ninja Snake Eyes, Pandora's box had been unleashed. Then later on Scarlet, Zartan, Firefly, and hell probably everyone was a ninja. Hasbro even carried it into modern times with that first movie with all of the ninja flashbacks the general audience couldn't give a damn about, and ninjas playing a heavy hand in Rise of Cobra.
@@jaysonraphaelmurdock8812 Oh, that's right! They had him and the one guy in yellow with his face exposed so he looked less a ninja more like the female lead in The Brain That Wouldn't Die.
Super ninja didn't have dreadlocks. It was just long hair... very much like pro wrestler, jushin liger, even though super ninja predates him by a couple of years.
@@dannycruz5446 I'm looking at my figure and the head sculpt looks like dreads. I'm not the first person to note this. On RetroBlasting's production about the figure line, Michael French says the same beginning at 3:02.
@@scottstalcup6980 i can see my figure to my right as i type this, theyre nothing like dreads. And yeah, i remember retroblasting calling them dreadlocks but theyre not, its just a head full of hair over a mask. So we can agree to disagree.
Always the cheapest toys are the hardest to find. My favorite Is a rubber ninja motorcycle rider with a vest and mask clothing Made by ABC toys and with a sai sword that was very usual to find in bargain Flea markets in that times. The motorcycle runs with pulling against and releasing goes wild into action, recently find one complete but loose card off display (but better this way than nothing) in a convention of eighties memorability.
read my mind, I was just thinking about the history of the ninja 80's and other than the Eagle force action figure, what started it all? what were the early ninja toys? Thanks :)
The moral guardians in the UK freaked the fuck out over ninjas. We couldn't even see Bruce Lee doing his thing with nunchucks till like, the 90s. Hell, we had Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles in the UK, so terrified were the powers-that-be of the very word "ninja."
the one at 6:33 in the video. i have that ninja still. got it as a kid. still got it. ended up training in the bujinkan for 6 years. other samurai schools. got a black belt and other ranks in japanese samurai and ninja arts. that led to me moving to the mountains of oregon to do hundreds of ninja training videos. blinding powders. stealth swimming. horseback in full samurai armor in the mountains. archery in samurai armor. all in videos by rivers. waterfalls. lakes and so on. even on volcanoes in videos. also i did videos snowboarding down a volcano down to the lodge in the shining movie. in full ninja gear while doing weapons while snowboarding as a ninja in videos. no joke. so random i found this video and seen that toy. i got it as such a young kid i had no idea what the package looked like. i forgot. or what brand but as soon as you showed it i thought i got that. now i made him some weapons. and have him on a horse etc.i still got his swords. grappling hood. but i dont have the stars no more. the shuriken. but i used hemp twine to make the rope better on the grappling hook and he is holding it on the horse. and i used that same twine to tie around the calves to the ankles and it makes it look like leggings that hook to his sandals. i also did it from his elbows to his wrists. a special way i did it to make it look so cool. the horse was just some random toy horse that he fits on good.
Trans-Morphers taught me that you have to read the label when buying collectable figures 🤗 I get the feeling these "knock offs" are gonna be more collectable. Who doesn't want a 'Toxic Avenger' figurine over 'Toxic Crusader'? 😐
@@BrickMantooth Robo-corp? Spader-man? 😅 Believe it or not, there's actually Spader-man 🙌🇦🇺😍😅 He's not 'amazing'... Just a Spader-man 🤙 And the knock off RoboCop actually looks good. Besides the fake packaging
Well done. Though I would add the caveat that the Sengoku/Warring States period (1467AD to 1615AD) wouldve been their height while the periods of peace that came after were when they & their descendents begin writing things down. Similar to what retired warriors in Europe such as Talhoffer did. Soldiers/fighters have a particular set of skills. If theres no war on or we get too old to fight then we teach.
I had a pair of tabi boots with a full ninja suit when I was around 10 or 11. I remember them being soooo comfortable to wear. That Ninja suit was one of the best Christmas presents ever. Right up there with Optimus Prime. lol
