Post War Playsets
Among the most enduring Marx creations were a long series of boxed 'Play Sets' throughout the 1950s & 1960s based on television shows and historical events. These include "Walt Disney's Davy Crockett At The Alamo", "Gunsmoke", "Wagon Train", "Battle Of The Blue And Grey", "The Revolutionary War", "Tales Of Wells Fargo", "The Untouchables", "Robin Hood", "The Battle Of The Little Big Horn", "Arctic Explorer", "Ben Hur", "Fort Apache", "Johnny Tremain", and many others.
Playsets included highly detailed plastic figures & accessories many with some of the toy world's finest tin litho. A Marx playset box was invariably bursting with contents, yet very few were ever priced above the average of $4–$7. Greatly expanded sets such as 'Giant Ben Hur' sold for $10–$12 in the early 1960s. This pricing formula adhered to the Marx policy of 'more for less' and made the entire series attainable to the masses for many years. Original sets are highly prized by baby boomer collectors to this day. Collector's books entitled "Boy Toys" and "The Big Toy Box At Sears" feature the original ads for many of these sets and are well worth having as a visual reference.
As the space race heated up, Marx playsets reflected the obsession with all things extraterrestrial such as "Rex Mars", "Moon Base", "Cape Canaveral", and "IGY International Galactic Year", among other space themed sets. In a similar theme, Marx also capitalized on the robot craze, producing the Big Loo, "Your friend from the Moon", and the popular Rock'em Sock'em Robots action game.
In 1963, they began making a series of bizarre beatnik style plastic figurines called the Nutty Mads which included some almost psychedelic creations such as Donald the Demon - a half duck, half madman driving a miniature car.
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Famous quotes containing the words post and/or war:
“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage, with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post which any human power can give.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Then down came the lid—the day was lost, for art, at Sarajevo. World-politics stepped in, and a war was started which has not ended yet: a “war to end war.” But it merely ended art. It did not end war.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)