Dukes of Hazzard / The A-Team

The Dukes of Hazzard, by Mego and CBS Toys, 1980-1982
This series of action figures is based on the very successful and extremely popular TV series "The Dukes of Hazzard" which premiered in 1979 and lasted seven seasons, until 1985. This is an excellent show that I'm still a huge fan of. The Mego toy company did a super job on the action figures which were first offered in 1980, however Mego was going through some internal business challenges at the time and unfortunately went out of business in 1981 while the toys were still in huge demand. At the time, CBS was the network that broadcasted the TV series and had recently developed it's own toy division. They quickly stepped in to continue producing the action figures and vehicles that Mego had available, while also expanding the series with two additional vehicles.

The Duke boys, Luke and Bo, with the General Lee

Dukes of Hazzard action figures: Luke, Bo, Daisy Duke and Boss Hogg

 

In addition to these four Mego also offered figures of Uncle Jessie, Rosco, Cletus and Cooter which are all less common to find.

For the vehicles assortment, Mego originally offered the General Lee and Daisy's Jeep "Dixie". CBS Toys added Boss Hogg's Cadillac and Rosco's police car to the collection. Both of the CBS Toys cars are hard to find in any condition, especially mint in the original package. I'm still missing Rosco's police car. Mego cars that are unpackaged are hard to find with undamaged decal stickers, but mint copies can still be easily found in the box on websites such as e-bay or at vintage toy shows. You can see in this photo that the fender on Boss' car is broken on the side and missing a piece, and an area on the door is starting to yellow. The stickers on both doors are missing but the licence plate stickers are still there. However, the definitive bull horns that were on the roof of the car are missing.

Here's a front view of all the cars. Unfortunately Daisy's jeep has a broken section over the left wheel. Still, these are all in fairly good shape for loose toys from the early 1980s!

The General Lee has a door in the roof for placing the figures inside the car. They don't fit through the window very well.

I've found three different versions of the Bo Duke figure. The first one has a smaller head that is sculpted to look like the 8 inch Mego doll head of the character that was made at the same time. The other two may actually be Coy Duke heads, but I'm not certain. In any case, the one in the middle has brighter yellow hair and more detail, while the one on the right has darker yellow hair with less detail. The eyes are also filled in rather than having small eye holes, as seen on the middle figure. The pants of the middle figure have discoloured over time but were originally the same blue as the others.

Daisy Duke has two variations. I'm assuming the original one is the shorter haired version. The face on this one isn't as pretty as the second version, which has longer, fuller hair and an open mouth with painted white teeth.

Here's the back view of the Daisy action figure variations to show how very different the hair sculpting is for each.

Here is a side view of the General Lee with the very popular die cast toy car by Ertl that was also available at the time. Ertl continued producing General Lee toys in the early 2000's when the TV show experienced another wave of popularity on TV and DVD.

Here are the 8 inch Mego dolls that were also produced at the time, next to the toy cars. An 8 inch Daisy Duke doll was also made as part of the set.

A-Team, 6" action figures by Galoob, van by ERTL, 1983

Here are the A-Team figures I played with as a kid in the early 1980s. I remember saving up my pennies to buy each of these figures and was very determined to get all four. My Uncle Mike bought me the van for Christmas. It was the "must have" item on my list for that year. I never saw the Amy figure in stores or the four "Bad Guys" figures and was surprised to learn about them years later while reading an action figure price guide.

The A-Team: Hannibal, B.A., Face, and Murdock. These 6 inch action figures were made by Galoob (the same company that made Blackstar action figures) in 1983 based on the popular TV show. Each figure came with a bunch of accessories, shown below. B.A. came with a tool belt, tool box and tools, while the other three figures each came with a belt and a unique back pack. Murdock also came with a string with a hook on it (which I'm missing) that could be tied onto his unique belt. Murdock also came with binoculars. Hannibal and Face have the same belt. All four figuers came with the same gun. Hannibal came with an additional unique gun (shown in the bottom left corner).

 

Head Variations I love discovering variations in mass produced toys. Not sure exactly why... it must be the obsessive collector in me that "wants them all". I never knew until as recently as February 2015 that there were head sculpting variations for two of these 6 inch figures. Hannibal has two different head sculpts and one of them (the one that I don't have) can be found with dark grey hair or light grey hair. This version has the chin, smile and hair sculpted to be more pronounced than the one shown above. So I can confirm that there are three distinct variations of Hannibal!!!

 

Face also has two different head sculpts (Face has two faces!). The one that I don't have has a very wide smile. The head on the one shown above looks much nicer. I've also noticed that earlier produced heads for Murdock have a slightly different look to them than later versions, but the difference is quite minimal. I think it may just be the way the detail is painted on the eyes and eyebrows.  I'll have to do more comparisons before confirming if there is a Murdock variation.

 

There are, however, differences in the colour of the plastic used for some Face and Murdock heads, as the skin tone can be slightly darker or lighter. Some of the rubber heads for these skin colour variations are also squishier than their matching counterpart. So far I haven't noticed any variations for B.A.

I've always found it odd that Galoob did not make a van for this series, yet they made a van for their smaller 3 3/4 inch A-Team figure series. Galoob made a gyrocopter, an ATV with trailer, and a large multi-level "Command Centre" playset for the 6 inch figures, but no van! Instead this A-Team van was made by ERTL in 1983. It was the only one available at the time that was anything close to the scale of the 6 inch figures. The picture below shows how B.A doesn't quite fit in the driver's seat. His head still sticks out of the opening in the roof. ERTL also made the white corvette (that Face drove) in the same scale as this van. Both vehicles are made out of plastic and were sold without any packaging.

  

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