The Monitor - note dents from cannonballs.
Nautical folk found their way onto store shelves, though never as abundantly as their land-loving counterparts. Several companies offered an assortment of pirates, sailors and divers.
Sailors were mainly sold as accessories for toy boats. MPC and Ideal each produced a small range of seamen to accompany large boats, such as Coast Guard cutters, a "baby" destroyer, PT boat, etc. Most of the sailors were in non-fighting poses. Marx offered perhaps the most popular toy boat of the time, a battery-operated, missile-firing, plane-launching aircraft carried called "Mighty Matilda." (The commercial's musical score was a new set of lyrics appended to the tune 'Waltzing Matilda.' Our Australian counterparts must have been appalled!)
Mighty Matilda was molded in grey with a bright yellow deck, and was equipped with loads of tiny jets and powder-blue sailors standing around 30 - 35mm tall. A "catapult" shot these tiny jets from the front of the deck. Of course, they were woefully small in comparison with the sailors. Along with forward movement provided by batteries and wheels built into the bottom of the flat hull - Mighty Matilda was not capable of floating - she boasted a working elevator and firing gun/missile turret. My brother had this one - it was a massive toy that must have cost a bundle even in the early 60s.
Marx's other big boat was a battery-operated Roman Galley with moving oars, catapults, Roman soldiers and all the trimmings. The Galley couldn't float, but it could move across a living room floor with ease. Marx had re-issued its Ben Hur figures to crew the warship.
For the low-end, Marx offered mini-versions of both ships. "Mighty Maggie" was an unpowered, small version of Matilda. An unpowered Roman galley with fewer Romans and no catapult matched Maggie. The smaller Galley's oars moved only when the ship was pushed - a fascinating toy to watch, even without the size or battery power of its larger sister.
The cheap way to produce "sailors" or "navy men" was merely to mold plastic GIs in blue. A few of these were around. Timmee, Marx and others did it from time to time..
MPC's pirates are still being produced: ring-hand figures the come with a variety of tools, pirate hats, swords, guns and belaying pins. True to their cinematic prototype, they are fitted with hook hands, eye patches and the inevitable parrot on the shoulder. Sailers might have gone over well with kids whose fathers had been Navy men, but they didn't make a big hit with the Army crew. Pirates did! Every boy could appreciate a set of pirates and their accessories, which included the inevitable treasure chest and naval cannon.
MPC didn't stop with pirates. A large Pirate set included two ships, a sailboat and a dinghy, accessories and a horde of cut-throats. These boats were made of soft plastic, but they didn't float - they capsized. Made with flat bottoms for floor / table play, the MPC ships came complete with sails ( the ships had three-sail rigs on masts!), anchors and the usual piratic accouterments. Accessorizing was as easy as buying small packs with six pirates.
My experience happened at the Jersey Shore, where my cousin Mark and I had accumulated a veritable pirate fleet. The addition of seashells, small crabs and starfish found washed up on the beach made pirate games seem more realistic. Concepts of buried treasure thrilled us. On more than one occasion, we thought we had found a likely spot on the beach and began digging in hopes of finding the real thing. Using sand shovels and small plastic pails, Mark and I dug for the elusive chest of gold. Aside from turning up clamshells, our efforts only served to make a temporary foxhole.
Marx's contribution to piracy was a set of seven painted, hard-plastic Warriors of the World figures. They were prized for their realistic appearance. Most kids had two or three of them. Six of the seven have been around for years as cake decorations; soft plastic recasts of all seven are available from several makers (check our links!)
Pirates occasionally reappear. Hing Fat of Hong kong produced a rather odd set of pirates a few years ago. Some European makers offer from two to five different pirates, while cake decorations copies from Marx's painted figures are as close as the nearest cake bakery.
A popular children's show named "Diver Dan" and a regular series, "Sea Hunt," assured interest in scuba-dubas and deep sea divers. One of the more popular sets of the time came on a large blister card. It included frogmen, a deep sea diver in hardhat, and various plastic fish, sharks, and even an octopus. Kellogg's offered a cereal premium set of frogmen who bobbed in the water due to a metal capsule filled with baking soda. The same frogmen, sans capsule, appeared in several playsets and in the Monogram model of the UDT boat. They are still seen on the shelves of aquariums supply houses as ornaments.
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