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:
“My business is stanching blood and feeding fainting men; my post the open field between the bullet and the hospital. I sometimes discuss the application of a compress or a wisp of hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing and merits of a political movement. I make gruel—not speeches; I write letters home for wounded soldiers, not political addresses.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)