Rarities - 1986 Promotion Image (Pre-Production Figures)

Every year, Hasbro would go to the New York Toy Fair.  Here, they would showcase a catalog of their upcoming year's worth of toys.  As the Fair was early in the year, the catalog would often feature early designs and pre-production figures from various toy lines.  Below is not the 1986 catalog.  I'm not actually unsure of the origin of this image.  But, it's not from the official Toy Fair catalog.  But, in this promotional image, you can see several pre-production figures from the 1986 line.  The 1985 figures are all production level.  But, there are lots of 1986 goodies to explore.

The most interesting thing, of course, is that Mainframe still includes the little stands that were meant for his computer.  The holes into which these would have been inserted did manage to survive on Mainframe's production computer.  But, the stand was never released.  It is likely this was done to save cost as the stand didn't really add any additional play value.  But, the artifacts of it's early existence are proved out by its appearance in this photo.

Most people viewing this will likely focus on the BAT that is in the front and center of the presentation.  You'll notice that it has a different chest hologram as well as a different head.  This head appears squatter and fatter than the sleek head on the production figure.  I think the production figure looks better.  But, your mileage may vary.

Hawk also features an additional paint application on his helmet.  The goggles are painted black.  It's a very nice additional detail.  And, while it would have been great to see it at retail, it's also not enough of a change to really notice it's missing.

Several of the figures feature alternate heads.  The BAT and Dial Tone's heads are the most jarringly different from their production counterparts.  There are also lots of subtle paint differences, too.  Some of these figures might have been hand painted samples.  The awkward posing on the 1986 figures suggests that they were not production level at the time the photo was taken.  

You'll notice that Iceberg, Leatherneck, Low-Light, Monkeywrench, Zandar, Zarana and Roadblock are all missing from this display.  I'm not sure why.  I can see Zandar and Zarana being later releases while they finished up the color changing.  (Zarana is noted in some material as featuring a color changing "mohawk" which never came to be.)  All of these figures, though, do appear in  the official Toy Fair catalog for 1986...with a few pre-production oddities of their own.  By the time of the Toy Fair catalog, though, all of the pre-production figures from this photo (except the BAT)  had been replaced with production figures: even while the missing figures remained pre-production in that later photo

Stormshadow was also carried over into 1986.  This makes sense for one of the most popular G.I. Joe figures ever released.  There was a time when I was hell-bent on finding a grey Stormshadow filecard that would denote his 1986 release.  I can't recall if I ever succeeded in doing so or not.  But, check out that 6109 assortment that included Stormshadow.  You got Stormshadow, the 1985 Snake Eyes, Crimson Guard, Flint and the BAT in one case.  By Toy Fair, though, the assortment was modified to drop the Crimson Guard, but add the Eel, Low Light and Leatherneck.  That would have been a dream assortment to find hanging on the shelf at your local stores.

These old catalogs are a treasure trove of early designs and pre-production kitbashes.  In later years, Hasbro got better at including more production level figures in their materials.  At least until 1993 and 1994.  But, we'll talk about those at a later time.