haunted birthday cake: INVASION of the KONGERS by Tony K

Knock Off... Cheapo Man... Hong Konger... or just plain 'Konger'! Emotive labels used to describe a once ubiquitous 12 inch tall action figure who was made in Hong Kong and drafted into military service in the 1960s... his mission... to infiltrate supply lines and cash-in on the booming Action Man dominated action figure market of Great Britain... and maybe elsewhere.

Throughout the Sixties, this cheap plastic combat clone came in a variety of dramatically illustrated product boxes... branded with equally dramatic names - Johnnie Goes To War, Combat Johnnie, and Battleman - The Fighting Soldier. 



Johnnie's product box was the same size as Action Man's and featured evocative combat soldier artwork. Little wonder the purses of unsuspecting parents, ill-informed aunts, and short-sighted grandma's, were regularly ambushed and looted by this renegade Johnnie-come-lately from a far off corner of a vanishing empire.

Johnnie was a rank and file outsider... an ill-equipped soldier of misfortune, sent to exploit the military toy mania. Regular troops like Action Man and Tommy Gunn, were marching through bright high street store chains... but Johnnie was an 'Irregular' and waged a guerrilla campaign from smokey backstreet shopping arcades, grim market halls and discount outlets.

He infiltrated sunny seaside towns with pier front stalls, where sun faded plastic pocket-money toys from Hong Kong were sold to day-tripping kids from the inner cities and suburbs.

Johnnie was the nervous kid straight out of basic training. He was made of lightweight hollow plastic, with feeble plastic rivet joints which offered no support to his poor articulation. This plastic pseudo soldier was notoriously impossible to pose, had no balance, and was easy to break.



 Later versions had metal rivets and movable ankle joints and fared little better in action. The baby faced teenager with a wide-eyed expression, would've been better dating Barbie, instead of being pitched against Palitoy's hardened German Stormtroopers and tough Australian Jungle Fighters. 

Hostilities opened the moment Johnnie was pulled from his product box. He was instantly disliked by a generation of kids who were gutted to get Johnnie instead of Action Man. He was soon vilified with the 'Cheapo Man' and 'Konger' stamps of disapproval.

 Needless to say, Johnnie had a short life expectancy. Like a sentenced soldier serving in a Sven Hassel novel, Johnnie went where the casualty ratio was considered unacceptable for the Action Man. 

Johnnie became the 'forlorn hope' of the action figure scene. He may be vaguely remembered as the paratrooper thrown out of bedroom windows with an improvised parachute... he was the target for the business end of the Johnny Seven... and he faced incoming pellets fired from a psychotic older cousin's GAT air pistol. Combat Johnnie clones lived and died on borrowed time.

At the conclusion of hostilities, Action Man was awarded with any number of medals, including the Victoria Cross, the Iron Cross, and the Silver Star. Johnnie wasn't even mentioned in dispatches.

These days few collectors acknowledge Johnnie. But perhaps he should be remembered? He played a distinct role in the backstory of Action Man and Tommy Gunn during the 1960s and 70s.

Historically, so called Kongers were considered cheap and inferior... and perhaps they were compared to the movable men of Palitoy, Pedigree, and Zodiac Toys. But when viewed from our Forward Observation Post looking back into the past, these modest money spinners established themselves as the pathfinder platoon who infiltrated a flourishing worldwide action figure market...

.... a market which is now firmly dominated by Hong Kong based toy companies. Wonder how many kids who used the term 'Konger' back then, now have Hot Toys and Dragon Models action figures in their 1/6 line up? 

Looking at the timeline, Johnnie Goes to war, Combat Johnnie, and Battleman, invaded and breached the walls of the domestic market of Great Britain and cleared a path for their modern protéges to follow.



 Few of these fragile combat clones survived the battles of our childhood... but those which have, should perhaps be welcome additions to the ranks of our toy collections today. Johnnie was the anonymous shrapnel-catcher who blocked the bullets and took the falls... and saved Action Man's plastic skin on more than one occasion.



 Maybe Johnnie wasn't the action figure of legend, but he certainly went to war... 

Tony K