As I have made my journey through the M*A*S*H licensed products universe, I have written about a variety of products ranging from M*A*S*H themed alcohol, action figures, Halloween costumes, games, a train set, toys, and clothing (I previously wrote about a licensed products kit distributed by Twentieth Century Fox Television). Last month, I wrote about a beach towel that featured the original cast. There aren’t many early M*A*S*H products on the market because they didn’t start to sell tie-in merchandise until the late 1970s. As a result, there are very few products that feature the early cast. In 1975, Durham’s released a set of M*A*S*H toys that included two action figures of Hawkeye and Margaret. The photos on the packaging are clearly from the first three seasons, and one is left to wonder whether the cast changes in 1975 killed off this product line before it was finished.
Durham’s was a toy company in the 1970s that made lower quality toys and action figures that often had tie-ins with popular television shows, movies, and characters. In 1975, they released a line of M*A*S*H toys that included a random toy that featured Hawkeye on a motorcycle. These two action figures were also released, and they are of Margaret and Hawkeye. The likeness of the two figures isn’t the best, and the “action” is seemingly only a karate chop that virtually all of their toys made at the time. The figures are about nine inches tall, and they feature fatigues and a doctor’s coat. Each of the figures came with an item that it can hold. Margaret’s featured a white medical kit, and Hawkeye’s included a golf club. The karate chop action is activated by pressing a button on their backs.
These actions figures really don’t make a lot of sense for M*A*S*H, and they aren’t as good at the Tristar action figures that were produced in the early 1980s. Based on my research on Dunham’s, they made low quality toys that were appealing because they often depicted popular characters. However, the likeness was never quite right, and some of the toys didn’t make sense for the character or show they were representing. It’s an example of an early product that didn’t seem to do well, and I wonder whether that is due to the quality or because of the changes that M*A*S*H underwent in 1975. Neither Trapper or Henry are featured on the packaging, so I wonder if these were produced after the cast change. Was there an initial plan to have a full line of M*A*S*H products in 1975? Would they have included all the characters? I would have liked there to have been figures of Trapper, Frank, Henry (in his fishing gear), Father Mulchy, and Radar. Sadly, we never got to see any. These action figures come up for sale fairly regularly on eBay, and they are fairly inexpensive.
The M*A*S*H Historian 