Friday, February 14, 2014

Figures Toy Co.'s Dukes of Hazzard Action Figures Series 1


The big day is here.  After a very exciting announcement in April 2013, I finally have my hands on the new Dukes of Hazzard action figures.  Thirty five years later and the Dukes still have quality products being released.  I love getting all the diecast cars, but getting new action figures is really something special.  It's a great time to be a Dukes fanatic.


The package to the new figures follows the standard design we are used to.  I'm glad the design is uniform to other new products such as diecast cars and slot car tracks.





Series 1 consists of Bo, Luke, Rosco, and Boss Hogg.


Each figure comes in a resealable package, but they each have a Figures Toy Co. zip tie that must be broken in order to open.  It is a cool little feature and an nice way to know if the figures were ever opened.


The package backs have a lot of info on them.


Each back is a separate print for each figure.  This is nice as several figure lines just have the same back for each figure.  These each show a picture of the figure they come with.  They also have the line ups for Series 1 and 2.  According to the package, Series 2 will consist of Uncle Jesse, Daisy, Cooter, and Cletus.  I wonder if we will get Enos to round out the cast.


The "bald" General Lee is on the package.  On this shot, they even edited out the General Lee text.  This is a good image to use if you are going to edit out the flag, because it is easy to miss that the flag isn't there.


The markings have 2013 Warner Bros. trademark information.


The back of the package has this variation of the standard Dukes logo with a star integrated.  I have never seen this new logo and I really like it.


The front has the standard logo.


Series 1 is marked on the front of the packages.


It says officially licensed product a couple of times on the package.  I guess with the recent unlicensed Rosco car and Boss Hogg car, it is a good idea to advertise that these are legit.


I like that the character names are in the bar code.

Now to the actual figures.


Bo Duke looks great.


I would say the face looks a little more like John toward the end of the show, or even after the show ended. It doesn't look like 18 year old John Schneider from season one.  But it does look like him.


He has his signature yellow shirt and his blue t-shirt underneath.  The blue shirt is a little darker than the light blue shirt he normally wore, but it looks good on the figure.  His belt buckle looks great.


Bo's hair is flowing.  It really looks like his hair-do.  He also has light colored jeans like Bo mostly wore.


Luke is equally great.


It is a pretty good likeness to Tom Wopat.  Maybe the nose is a little big.


Luke comes with a denim jacket that he wore in early seasons as well as a blue plaid shirt.  Luke had a couple of different outfits throughout the show, but it was always blue and mostly plaid.  His "bear claw" belt buckle looks even better than Bo's.  This belt buckle is really a signature of Luke and Tom Wopat still owns it.  It is tough to find another even similar to it.  I am surprised the belts work like real belts and have holes in them with clips on the buckles.  That is a nice touch.



Luke's jacket comes off easily and I think I might like him without it better.


He has darker jeans.  They even have a different design than Bo's.


Inside Luke's jacket is a tiny WB tag.  I thought that was really cool.  I bet there are some tags on all of the clothes, but I didn't want to get into undressing the figures.  I remember when I was a kid, I once put my Mego Bo figure in Mego Spider-man's outfit.  It was fun, but a pain to get them dressed right again.  I really don't want to have to tuck Bo and Luke's shirt back in.


The Duke Boys have never looked better in 12 inch form.


One strange issue with the boys is their right leg seems to be longer than their left.  To get them to stand up straight, you have to bend the right leg.


With the left leg bent, they do look like they are standing naturally, as opposed to looking like, well, an action figure.


When you straighten the legs of both figures, the left leg is noticeable shorter.  Weird.


I think Rosco P. Coltrane might be my favorite figure of the series.


The face sculpt looks a lot like James Best.


The detail on the uniform is spot on.  The badge looks good and I love the tiny little tie clip.


The Hazzard County Sheriff Department patch looks perfect.


I really like Rosco's hair.  Being of the salt and pepper hair color myself, I think they did a good job capturing the color.


Rosco comes with a nice gun and the American flag on his other arm looks great too.


He has a lot of items on his belt.  There is a holster for his gun and a few other items, like a flashlight holder, that do not function, but look really good.


Rosco also has a shorter left leg. Strangely enough, Boss Hogg does not have this issue.


Speaking of Boss Hogg, his figure is very nice.


The likeness is pretty good.  It looks like Sorrell Booke and it kinda also looks like the Penguin.


His hair really looks good.  His clothes almost feel like silk.  They are made of a different material than Rosco's.  Rosco's really feels like a uniform and Bo and Luke's feel like denim.


It is difficult to get cloth clothes to look right when scaled down.  Boss's clothes look a little too big for him, but maybe this is Boss from the episode where he was losing weight and not eating because none of his crocked deals were going through and he was too nervous.


Boss's hat looks very nice. He has a different body style than the other figures.  He's fat but his legs are the same size.  He looks a little too tall when standing beside the other three.


You knew I had to play with the figures a little in this post, right?  Boss has come up with a trumped up charge and thinks he's gonna get them Duke Boys for sure this time.  "Go get 'em Rosco."  "Oh, I'll get 'em, I'll get 'em good and when I do I'll cuff 'em and stuff 'em.  I'll put them in jail, no, I'll put them under the jail! I love it, I love it."


"Freeeeeze!!"


"Rosco what's that? Run Bo!"


 "Rosco you dodo!  Gimme your hat!"


"Hit it Bo!!!"

If only they made a 1/6 scale General Lee for the boys to get away in.  Let's see...that would need to be about 2 feet and 10 inches long.  That would be awesome.  Fingers crossed on that one.


I really like Figures Toy Co's resealable packages.  After playing with the figures, I was able to easily put them back into their packages and they are suitable to be displayed this way.  Why doesn't every action figure I've ever bought come in resealable packages?  These make perfect sense.  I love resealable action figure packages.  At $70 it isn't easy to buy two of each; one to open and one to keep sealed.  This isn't much of an issue with these figures because you have the option of opening them and still displaying them in package.  I am really happy with these figures and can't wait to get more.  The 8 inch versions of these four figures will be available in a few weeks.  Series 2 is coming soon as well.  Perhaps we have a better shot at getting a General Lee for the 8 inch versions.  That one would only have to be just under two feet long.


These little Figures Toy Co. zip ties sure are cool.

The figures are available directly from Figures Toy Co. at their website, as well at Cooter's Place both online and at the Nashville location as well as the Gatlinburg store.  You can also request that your local comic store order them from the Previews catalog.  The more people that buy these great new Dukes of Hazzard toys, the more great new Dukes of Hazzard toys will be released.  It is a great time for us Dukes fans.

3 comments:

  1. Glad that these finally made it in. They look really nice!

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  2. Great review! Did you also get the 8 inch?

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    Replies
    1. Oh yeah! http://dukescollector.blogspot.com/2014/03/figures-toy-cos-8-inch-dukes-of-hazzard.html

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