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December 10, 2014 by Rudy Panucci
The PopCult Toybox
The Return of Tim Mee Toys
Tim Mee Toys is a brand name that a lot of folks may remember from their childhood. They made tons of cool plastic toys like Green Army Men, dinosaurs, Cowboys and space toys. They were owned by Processed Plastics, who de-emphasized the Tim Mee Toys name sometime around 1980. A few years ago their parent company, hammered by cheap competition from Chinese toy companies, declared bankruptcy and was liquidated.
But that was not the end of Tim Mee Toys. They were purchased out of liquidation by J. Lloyd International, and in recent years have been reborn. They’ve restored and refurbished their old molds and tooling, and are producing some of the coolest toys from decades past, all under the much-missed Tim Mee Toys banner. They’re also producing these toys in bold new colors along with the old favorites. What’s more impressive is that they’re doing this in the USA. Instead of shipping the molds overseas, Tim Mee Toys is once again selling Made in America Army Men, dinosaurs and other cool toys.
Last week I made their new large Galaxy Laser Team Star Patrol figures my top toy pick in the PopCult Gift Guide. This week we’re going to look at some of their other recent releases and I will tell you how you can order these and get them in time for Christmas.
Next year I’m planning to do a more in-depth piece on the company and their plans for the future, but for now, we have toys to discuss.
Tim Mee Toys Green and Tan Soldiers
100 Pieces
It’s a classic, the bag of little plastic Army men. In this set you get fifty dark green and fifty tan soliders with whom kids (and adults) have an unlimited number of ways to play.
These are exceptionally well-made toys. The sculpting is exquisite and the production from the original molds is surprisingly crisp. I don’t know if they’re using a different type of plastic, but these Army men seem more substantial, sturdier and not as soft or floppy as cheaper figures from overseas. One standout feature is that the rifles and mine detectors aren’t warped or bent, even with a hundred figures crammed into a bag. You get plenty of guys in twelve different poses
Aside from the extremely high quality, we have an extremely reasonable price. This bag of 100 figures can be ordered from Amazon or Victory Buy.com for under thirteen dollars. If you’ve bought toys lately, you realize what a bargain that is. There are several different color combinations, which opens up all sorts of extra types of play with diorama-building or strategy gaming.
And there’s one color that we address with our next item.
Tim Mee Toys Pink Soldiers
100 Pieces
Back in less enlightened times, nobody would have even considered making Pink Army Men. Pink was a “girls color,” and girls didn’t play with Army Men, or so conventional wisdom of the day would have you believe.
Well, times have changed and almost everybody remembers girls playing with Green Army Men as much as boys did. In addition, with modern thinking comes modern attitudes, and pink is no longer exclusively a “girl’s color” for toys. So why not make plastic soldiers in this striking color?
And it is striking. What immediately comes to mind is Breast Cancer awareness. Athletes and pro-wrestlers wear pink during the month of October, so why not toy soldiers? These are great toys. They’re certainly easier for parents to see and thus avoid stepping on or vacuuming-up. And if girls are attracted to them because of the color, so what? They’re certainly more empowering than My Little Pony. Girls can be generals in command of their own Army, too.
These figures sport the same high-quality and detail that the other Tim Mee Toys Soldiers have, and they’re just as durable, and made in the USA.
Ignoring the gender issues, these guys also make great “Pepto Bismol Warriors,” battling the forces of Indegestion. They’d also make for a great promotional tie-in with Breast Cancer Awareness.
Probably because these were produced in lesser numbers, they run a couple of bucks more than the other Tim Mee Toys Soldiers, but they’re worth the extra expense simply for the novelty factor. Available from Victory Buy and Amazon.
Tim Mee Toys Dinosaurs
Green and Yellow
48 Pieces
These will fire up your stashed-away brain cells. Everybody had little plastic dinosaurs when I was a kid, and I’m betting that my readers, whatever their age, can say the same. These sculpts date back to the 1970s, and there are nine different prehistoric critters included You’ll get T-Rex, Dimetrodon, Stegosaurus, Brontosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Diceratops, Duck-Billed-Dinosaur, Saber-Toothed-Tiger, and Wooly Mammoth.
The figures are around two-to-three inches long each, and you get a mix of green and yellow prehistoric beasts to play with. The detail is terrific and the quality of the plastic is high.
Kids love dinosaurs and some of us never grew out of our affection for the giants of old. These are great toys for kids, and also adults. The scale isn’t quite right to use them with Tim Mee Toys’ soldiers to recreated DC Comics’ “War That Time Forgot,” but with a little suspension of disbelief you can make it work.
I’ve got the bag of 48 figures, which sells for under twelve dollars at Victory Buy and Amazon. Both online retailers also offer a Dinosaur Mountain Playset, which combines these dinosaurs with Tim Mee Toys Caveman set and a really cool (and large) mountain as the Dinosaur Mountain Playset. Buying all three together saves you about eight bucks and the mountain is also great for use with other Tim Mee Toys figures.
There is also a bundle that combines the mountain with the Tan and Green Soldiers, a helicopter set and an armored car as the 127 piece Tim Mee Battle Mountain Playset.
I’m a huge fan of what these folks are doing, and I can’t recommend their products highly enough. You’ll be reading more about Tim Mee Toys in the PopCult Toybox in the coming year. In the meantime, you can follow Tim Mee Toys on Facebook.