Remember this little gal on the right? I was right that she is indeed from the Lovely Kitty toy line and its cousin-lines (Petite Princess, Pretty Pixies, Betty’s Club), but it seems it was used for the locket playsets. I got a carded one recently that supports this:
Here we see another non-articulated mini-Kitty (or mini-Betty in this case), striking a different pose. Makes me wonder if each set came with its own doll, or if they were randomly assigned like Mighty Max.
I wrote a guest blog post about Sammy Steel for the awesome Little Weirdos blog about collecting odd little toys and figures. Check it out here!
I give a basic overview of the toy line and summarize each of its three series. The article uses an assortment of photos from my Sammy Steel articles.
I really, REALLY hope this thing is legit: that a toy company repurposed the mold for Vicious Volcano when the Flintstones movie came out in 1994 (one year before Sammy Steel was a thing), and made this cute little playset thing.
Presumably if it IS real, there were two, and half the figures are from the other set.
Even if it’s a custom job, it’s pretty badass. Haven’t been able to find the figures anywhere on their own, and I don’t know yet if I want to shell out what the seller is asking for it without knowing for sure where it came from (he WAS nice enough to let me use his photos, though).
EDIT: THEY’RE REAL! Just found a listing with carded sets being sold in France! Apparently Flintstones were extremely popular there.
I recently acquired FOUR Submarine Sandwich sets, all on the card, courtesy of a nice lady who found them at a Goodwill of all places. Now we can get a closer look at a Series 3 set in its original packaging, and the goofy comic that accompanied it.
Best of all, one of them still works! Here are the sounds this set came with:
This was an awesome find and I hope to find more carded sets in the future. Wishful thinking, I know.
I finally got my hands on some of the UK variants of Sammy Steel, and have put together a proper photo comparison. My UK variants are missing some pieces, including both Sammies.
For whatever reason, the Vicious Volcano exterior was given the Face Mountain interior in the UK. The paint is glossier inside and out, and makes the little valley seem lusher and possibly mossier, compared to the more barren valley of the US version. The UK caveman looks friendlier and has blonde hair, and is made of a much more flexible rubber than the second-gen US caveman (the first-gen caveman was of the same hard plastic as the playset itself, and painted badly). You can also see that the decals are much more cartoonish, and the lake features a goofy sea serpent for some reason.
UK Sinister Saucer is purple on the outside (the UK Dome of Doom is black) and once again has more cartoonish decals inside. The UK variant’s floor depicts a kind of star chart, which isn’t as cool as the US variant’s “transparent” floor showing off the passing galaxy outside. The villains appear to be bizarro twins with more-or-less opposite colorschemes. My UK ‘Saucer is missing the radar dish and the spaceship/landing pad setup.
Years ago I somehow ended up with two spare Sammy Steel figures from Series 3. They both have homes now.
I’m not sure how much different Series 2 and 3 were in the UK, since the only ones I’ve ever seen are possibly bootlegs:
When compared to mine, the only difference is the tiny boat in the playset to the left. But again, these lack the Imperial Toys logo, so they might not be official.
UPDATE: Here are photos of a Dome of Doom variant courtesy of generous donator Enrique.
I was playing around with Mighty Max as long as I had the toys out for updated photos, and tried to come up with as many interesting environmental combinations as I could, mostly by theme.
CYBORGS, ALIENS, and MINI-MAX
ADVENTURES in ANCIENT EGYPT
MAX GOES to HELL
GHOULS & GHOSTS & MAD SCIENCE
DEEP SEA & PREHISTERIA
Someone on ebay recently sold me a carded Sammy Steel for cheap. It’s nice to get to see one of the packaging cards again after all these years.
Face Mountain was apparently the most common set, because I’ve seen other people selling the same set on ebay before. It’s basically a more kid-friendly version of Mighty Max Grapples with Battlecat…except Sammy actually came with a cat! The sabretooth tiger figure is pretty neat, and with a bit of a repaint would make a good stand-in for the tiger in the Max set.
I noticed, too, that this Face Mountain uses different materials than the one I originally got. The fourth photo shows my original villain figures next to the new ones. The left caveman is badly painted in fleshtones and likely molded from the same brown plastic as the playset itself. The same goes for the tiger, which has a slightly better paintjob. The figures on the right were molded from fleshtone plastic and painted a bit less amateurishly. The titular face on top of the new playset’s outer lid is also more defined and a bit less faded. I’m guessing this was a later release with better materials.
This playset has never been opened ’til now (the packaging was falling apart when I bought it, and fell completely away in transit), so it’s in pristine condition. Hopefully I’ll come into more carded sets in the future.
This was a big surprise: apparently in the UK they made Sammy Steel variants. Information about the toy line itself is already pretty damned obscure, so to find out that there were variants is pretty incredible. These photos are courtesy of an ebay user who will hopefully confirm whether these are authentic or reproductions.
Compare to the original parts below:
Spaceman figure is in this pic. ^
The paint on the originals and the variants are both equally cheapo. The sticker placement could be achieved if the set was re-molded at home, and the outer casing appears to be molded from black plastic and not simply repainted. If anyone has photos of more variants, do send them my way so I can confirm if this is the real deal or not.
UPDATE 1/6/2016: Holy crap, they’re real. Someone else has been selling them, too! I stumbled upon her Dome of Doom variant below:
And when I asked her about the item, she kindly linked me to a previous sale, a Sinister Saucer variant!
The US version:
This is amazing to me. That this obscure-as-all-hell knockoff toy had regional variants. If anyone has a complete set, send me all your photos and ebay listings!
UPDATE 3/18/2016: Found something even more mind-blowing, courtesy of a very difficult-to-find UK ebay listing.
My first thoughts were along the lines of UK Sammy Steel being distributed under a different name, but upon closer inspection, Imperial’s brand name is entirely absent from the packaging. This leads me to believe that we are looking at a BOOTLEG of a knockoff of Mighty Max.
I tried to convince the seller to ship to the US, but they’ve been unresponsive, so it’s likely I’ll never get my hands on this one.
UPDATE 5/15/2020: Got a carded knockoff, so it seems they’re not just UK variants. Someone took the molds and made alternate playsets minus Sammy. Here’s a Dome of Doom comparison.
I like the idea of one playset for the bad guys and one for the good guys.
Franchises on this blog always seem to shoot themselves in the foot by the third outing. That’s just what Sammy Steel did in Series 3 (the square sets), which decided to include built-in sound effects. Maybe this was an attempt to make Sammy Steel different from Mighty Max; in reality all it did was hurt an already less-than-mediocre franchise. The toys come off like they’re aimed at a much younger demographic who would be easily amused by such a feature. And as a result of the inclusion of electronics, there are only three sets in the series — one fewer than the other two — and a near-lack of accessories apart from Sammy and the villain-of-the-day.
Electronic parts also means going even cheaper with the sets themselves: tons of goofy decals fill in details where paint would normally be applied. Indeed paint is mainly reserved for Sammy and very sparsely used otherwise. Speaking of Sammy, look at the makeover they gave him! He’s even bigger and resembles Macaulay Culkin!
This series is easily the worst of the three, and it’s lucky I’m dignifying it with its own blog post. They did at least come with comics on the cardbacks, but there’s nothing to connect the sets to one another chronologically this time. So I’ll list them in an order that made sense to me, with the most boring set acting as an intermission in the middle.
EPISODE 1: SUBMARINE SANDWICH
Once again we start with an aquatic theme and a playset that’s laid out flat. The batteries died in mine recently (and leaked slightly) so I can’t give a recent update on the sound effects — I believe they include a submarine “dive” alarm, a sonar blip, and a torpedo firing. As you can see, the set is pretty bare apart from Sammy, an Atlantean reject, and a periscope. Doesn’t bode well for the rest of the series, does it? The fish dude is rather neat though.
EPISODE 2: TOMB OF TERROR
Once again, here’s me being a completist, or I wouldn’t have bothered with the “intermission” set. Our accessories this time are a moving cemetery gate and a sarcophagus lid which covers up a lame skeleton sticker. This is just pathetic, to be perfectly frank: at the very least, the upper half of the compact should’ve been the graveyard, so the bulkier lower half could be the inside of a spooky tomb. And a black cat? Really? Why not a skeleton that fits inside the coffin? The sounds are generic Halloween stock: two wolf howls (one accompanied by cackling witch), a yowling cat, and a stone coffin opening followed by screamy creature leaping out.
EPISODE 3: CHASING THE MOB’S MISSILE
Anything is better than the ‘Tomb playset, so here we at least get to end things with a bang. We get two accessories this time: a robot and a big ol’ missile that Sammy can stand in for whatever reason. We also get a badass alien guard with a phaser and natty dreads. The sounds include a Star Trek door noise, two laser blasts (one accompanied by snarly alien), and a beepy-boopy robot saying “danger!”.
Sammy Steel didn’t see a fourth series, and if this was the direction he was going in, I’m grateful. Despite the goofiness and cheapness of this toy line, I still enjoyed it, and it’s too bad it had to go with such a whimper.
Imagine my surprise when I browsed the Big Lots toy aisle (back when it was called MacFrugal’s) and discovered NEW Sammy Steel toys — four more playsets to double my collection. While the line was and still is a Mighty Max knockoff, I can’t say I’m not impressed with how far they were willing to carry the franchise.
Series 2 (the rectangular sets) is probably my favorite Sammy Steel series, although it’s hard to gauge whether it’s better than Series 1 or not. The Series 2 locales are more creative and feature greater variety, whereas Series 1 groups its playsets into “prehistoric” and “sci-fi” pairs. You get more stuff, too — three times the stuff, in fact — but the figures themselves aren’t as good and the paint/decal application is sloppier, which makes Series 2 manage to look cheaper than Series 1. And in all four sets, the chief villain is the same: the flamboyant purple-suited Death Star gunner, and his twin brother.
One area in which Series 2 definitely trumps Series 1, though: the compact exteriors are certainly more interesting. Two are “disguised” as Walkmans, and two as Gameboys. Each of the latter two goes as far as sporting a unique decal on its screen, so it appears to be running the demo for a Sammy Steel lcd game based on its respective playset. An extremely cool artistic touch.
I believe the cardback comics of Series 2 also told a linear story, but I don’t remember the chronology being as clearly defined. I’ll list the playsets in what I remember to be the best approximation of “chronological order”.
EPISODE 1: VACATION AT CLUB DREAD
The only Series 2 set that is laid completely flat (we’ll see more of this layout in Series 3), and easily the most fun for a kid who loves boat chases, boat crashes, and lots of room for both. The downside is the near absence of detail: not much substance here, although the oodles of stuff included sort of makes up for it. Also, it’s the only time we get a unique Micro Mob soldier: the silvery dude on the jetski.
EPISODE 2: ON A HURTIN’ SAFARI
I really like this one. The Treehouses of Evil are rather cute, and perfectly set above the raging rock-speckled river below, a perfect place for many a villain to plunge to his death. The removable bridge is also a nice feature. On the downside, the ladder never attaches properly and the animals look like they were lifted from another playset by another company. Still, a pretty cool set. And you get another hydrofoil!
EPISODE 3: IN THE FACE OF PREHISTORIC PERIL
If they had laid this one out flat like Club Dread, it would probably have been the best of Series 2. As it stands, it’s neat, but otherwise bland. The volcano in the background is kind of useless, leaving you with only half a usable environment. I do really dig the moving lava-crag, though, and the armored triceratops gives me Dino-Riders flashbacks.
EPISODE 4: THE STAR TRAP(?)
The climax of Series 2 takes us into space once again, this time to an evil moon base what needs blowin’ up! Sammy’s really in trouble here, as the bad guys come with all sorts of nasty space weapons to jam down his throat, the most devastating being the sleek starfighter that gets its own retractable landing pad. There’s also a ramp for the moon buggy and a swiveling/removable solar antenna and space bulldozer ensemble. The pastel colors harken back to Series 1 a little bit.
Final thoughts: Series 2 is certainly uglier than Series 1, but it’s a helluva lot more fun. None of the Series 1 playsets let you send a monkey on a speedboat rampage, I’ll tell you that much.
Mighty Max knock-offs are rare, but the most well-known of them is Sammy Steel, or to be precise, “Sammy Steel vs. The Micro Mob”. Pictured above is the entirety of that toy line — three series of playsets, a total of eleven.
Like Mighty Max, Sammy Steel was brought to us over the course of three different series. Also like Mighty Max, Series 1 (the round sets) is the cute one. There the similarities end, however: Sammy Steel was a toy you’d find in discount stores like Big Lots and Dollar Tree. The quality is much cheaper — evident at a mere glance — and whereas Mighty Max sets glowed with creativity where design was concerned (they had to or they couldn’t close!), Sammy Steel shows merely a small spark.
Still, I ate these things up. I always had a thing for weird dollar store toys, and this was a rare gem: a little-known knock-off of my favorite toy line. I’d seen plenty of He-Man and GI Joe knockoffs, but never one of Mighty Max!
It should be noted that Sammy’s playsets also came with a comic detailing his adventures, just like Max. But his comics illustrate a chronological story, which I’ll remain true to by listing the playsets in the “proper” order.
SET 1: VICIOUS VOLCANO
It’s a cute prehistoric wilderness with a spouting volcano that better resembles a geyser of stew or kool-aid. The caveman dude is a hilarious Hanna-Barberra caricature. This is our first look at Sammy, himself, evidently played by the oldest son from “Home Improvement.”
SET 2: FACE MOUNTAIN
Sammy goes from the jurassic age to the…mammalian age? He faces a palette-swap caveman and a rather neat smilodon. The locale has a workable cave door and features a lush and rather un-menacing environment. After the raging volcano bit, this area seems pretty peaceful.
SET 3: DOME OF DOOM
Beneath Face Mountain Sammy encounters…the least interesting set in my opinion. Although it does feature a sweet lizard dude and hover-scooter. At the center is the Boss Brain or whatever he’s called, who’s tasked with the security of the path between earth and the Sinister Saucer hovering overhead. I guess. I’m sorta bullshitting at this point.
SET 4: SINISTER SAUCER
At last Sammy comes face-to-face with the robotic head of the Micro Mob. This is easily the coolest set of Series 1 and my personal favorite: it has more features than the other three combined! Space shuttle and retractable landing strip; Articulated radar dish that swivels and nods; and an airlock door that opens and closes. The two bad guys are also neat looking: the robotic villain is like something out of Star Wars, and the jetpack spaceman is rather sinister-looking. I also dig the lunch room on the top floor.
So that’s the first adventure of Sammy Steel. Not up to the same standard as Mighty Max, I’m afraid (nor Polly Pocket for that matter); still, as a kid I had a lot of fun with these. As far as knock-offs go, you could do a helluva lot worse.
Mike's Toybox 