Playsets, or play sets, are themed collections of similar toys designed to work together to enact some action or event. The most common toy playsets involve plastic figures, accessories, and possibly buildings or scenery, purchased together in a common box. Some sets during the 1960s and 1970s were offered within metal "suitcase" containers that also functioned as part of the playset. First pioneered by metal figure manufacturers around the turn of the 20th century, usually as military "play" figures with simple accessories, the concept of the playset was further developed by companies like Marx Toys, Superior Toy, Remco,

Deluxe Reading Topper Corporation was a United States toy and board game manufacturer based in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The company, founded and run by Henry Orenstein, a holocaust survivor, produced toys under several brand names including: Johnny Lightning (s ...

, Multiple Toymakers (MPC) and others throughout the

Baby Boomer Baby boomers, often shortened to boomers, are the Western demographic cohort following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964, during the mid-20th century baby boom. ...

era. Several manufacturers continue to produce playsets today.

Popular playsets

Several popular playsets by Marx were: * Battle of the Blue and Gray (1958) * Battleground * Ben-Hur * Desert Fox * Fort Apache (1951) *

The Alamo The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna reclaimed the Alamo Mission near San Ant ...

* The Guns of Navarone *

Johnny Tremain ''Johnny Tremain'' is a work of historical fiction written in 1943 by Esther Forbes that is set in Boston prior to and during the outbreak of the American Revolution. Intended for teen-aged readers, the novel's themes include apprenticeship, co ...

Popular playsets based on

television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed be ...

were: *

The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin ''The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin'' is an American children's television series in the Western genre that aired from October 1954 to May 1959 on the ABC television network. In all, 164 episodes aired. The show starred Lee Aaker as Rusty, a boy o ...

The Adventures of Robin Hood (TV series) ''The Adventures of Robin Hood'' is a British television series comprising 143 half-hour, black and white episodes broadcast weekly between 1955 and 1959 on ITV. It starred Richard Greene as the outlaw Robin Hood, and Alan Wheatley as his n ...

Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion ''Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion'' is an American half-hour black-and-white television series about the French Foreign Legion starring Buster Crabbe in the title role. Crabbe's real-life son Cullen Crabbe played the Legion mascot, with cow ...

Daniel Boone Daniel Boone (September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyond the we ...

Davy Crockett David Crockett (August 17, 1786 – March 6, 1836) was an American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, and politician. He is often referred to in popular culture as the "King of the Wild Frontier". He represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of ...

The Flintstones ''The Flintstones'' is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The series takes place in a romanticized Stone Age setting and follows the activities of the titular family, the Flintstones, and their next-door neighb ...

* The Gallant Men *

Tom Corbett Thomas Wingett Corbett Jr. (born June 17, 1949) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 46th governor of Pennsylvania from 2011 to 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he served as Attorney General of Pennsylvania from 1995 t ...

Gunsmoke ''Gunsmoke'' is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. It centers on Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1870s, during the settlement of the American West. The central chara ...

Jungle Jim Jungle Jim is the fictional hero of a series of jungle adventures in various media. The series began on January 7, 1934, as an American newspaper comic strip chronicling the adventures of Asia-based hunter Jim Bradley, who was nicknamed Jungle J ...

later recycled as

Daktari ''Daktari'' ( Swahili for "doctor") is an American family drama series that aired on CBS between 1966 and 1969. The series is an Ivan Tors Films Production in association with MGM Television starring Marshall Thompson as Dr. Marsh Tracy, a vete ...

Johnny Ringo John Peters Ringo (May 3, 1850 – July 13, 1882), known as Johnny Ringo, was an American Old West outlaw loosely associated with the Cochise County Cowboys in frontier boomtown Tombstone, Arizona Territory. He took part in the Mason County ...

The Rifleman ''The Rifleman'' is an American Western television program starring Chuck Connors as rancher Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the fictional town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The sho ...

* The Roy Rogers Show Mineral City (1952) (the first "branded" playset) *

The Untouchables Untouchables or The Untouchables may refer to: American history * Untouchables (law enforcement), a 1930s American law enforcement unit led by Eliot Ness * ''The Untouchables'' (book), an autobiography by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley * ''The U ...

Zorro Zorro ( Spanish for 'fox') is a fictional character created in 1919 by American pulp writer Johnston McCulley, appearing in works set in the Pueblo of Los Angeles in Alta California. He is typically portrayed as a dashing masked vigilante w ...

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References

* Levinthal, David ''Small Wonder: Worlds in a Box'' Zzdap Publishing (1997)
Playsets at Marx Toy Museum

Popular playsets

See also

References

Further reading