Big News From Lanard Toys
The Design Director from Lanard Toys dropped me a line about the company’s new offerings based on the upcoming Kong: Skull Island film. Check out his words and pics below, and you may see some familiar CORPS! molds among the product. We here at JAD have a soft spot for Joe-scaled dinosaurs and gorillas, so these look to be right up our alley…
A little about what we tried to accomplish is an exciting action figure line that’s fun and priced right so that every kid can afford to collect them all. The lines are going to be exclusively sold at Walmart stores here in the USA and Smyths in the UK.
It’s an action-packed series where you can actually take control of KONG- Play out the battles and decide how Kong becomes King! The military plays an important role in the film and we at Lanard are one of the industry top military action figure creators. We have been in the business a long time and keep stepping up our game with high detail sculpts and new sku’s in our military line “The Corps!” so we were a natural fit for handling the Kong Toy line. It’s an incredible toy range and film based on a character that could not be more captivating- Kong has captured kids and audience imaginations for decades.
Get ready for the toys to be hitting the shelves now! We hope kids and collectors alike will love the line. So get out there and take control of the mighty monster as he protects our world from the most powerful creatures on Skull Island. Follow us on Instagram @kongskullislandtoys for other Kong announcements.
Cool! Go Lanard!
As a kid, I would sometimes incorporate rubber or plastic animals like tigers and such into my play with G.I. Joes and other figures. If the animals were especially large, I’d fit them more into my adventures with Masters of the Universe.
That Kong mega figure looks pretty cool. Too bad they weren’t doing the traditional Joe-style figures, because it would be neat to have a Samuel L. Jackson that’s fully compatible with the Joes of the ’80s.
Well, that’s o.k. I plan on making a custom Samuel L. Jackson G.I. Joe figure anyway, even if it means somehow fitting the figure’s head in an o-ring G.I. Joe, or Lanard figure’s torso.
The 18″ Kong will be great for 12″ Joes as well!
I only wish that they had made it bigger. At least something like 25 inches tall, so that it would have looked more real life like when posed next to the figures.
The beasties are exciting and some of those vehicles are CORPS favorites. Depending what they go for, I might pick a few up.
Saw these at Wal Mart today. Interesting to say the least.
This is so cool! Thank you for the update, I’m going to have to score some of this Kong stuff.
I have to say that I’m really impressed with Lanard. If they keep this up, they’re going to be as big as Hasbro, if not bigger. They sure have come a long way from the days when they were using actual G.I. Joe accessories for their figures, like the 1984 Blowtorch’s backpack. I only hope that those Kong figures are the same exact height/scale of the o-ring Joes, and the o-ring Lanard figures from back in the 80’s, and 90’s. But I’m not expecting that. Anyway, the only things that I want from this list, are the King Kong figure(or is it just Kong?), though I wish it had been made bigger, the Jeep, so that I can turn it into a G.I. Joe Jeep, and the Samuel L. Jackson figure, for a Samuel L. Jackson G.I. Joe custom figure. I only hope that Sam’s character does not get killed in this movie. He has already had way too many of his movie characters killed in a lot of movies. And what’s with those dinosaurs without arms? Who’s idea was that?
More t-crotch figures–no thanks. Now the lead designer on that line also informed his Instagram followers that the new CORPS fig will have the newer hip articulation, now that is cool. But still Lanard has no hope of being as “big” as Hasbro–sorry James. However it is interesting that this also-rand has continued uninterrupted at retail throughout Joes lean years(thanks Walmart).
The only thing I wish is that Kong’s legs had some articulation at the hips, but it’s not that big of a deal. He still looks awesome. The Lanard figures always felt more like toys than collectibles to me, so I don’t mind the T-crotch on these guys. It seems like it would be a little more durable over time than the rubber band used in older style Joes.
Hopefully this will bring in a bit more revenue for Lanard. I’d love to see them expand their Corps line with more themes and characters.