Pirates were big news in the mid 70’s. Well, Pirates were big news in our house anyway. For a couple of years Pirate action figures hung around, courtesy of Matchbox (who were a lot more famous for their small toy cars) and their ‘Fighting Furies’ range (though when I say range, it wasnt much of a choice – 3 figures in total…)
You had Captain Pegleg;
and Hook;
and then there was another one – a GHOST. The Ghost of Cap’n Kidd lived in a coffin and was a sort of light lime green. Anyway, as soon as you took him into the dark, you could see his luminous ghostly skeleton – aarrghhhh! and aaaaa-hhhaaaarrrrr!
My memory is of the treasure map in the peg leg, and how difficult it was to get it to go back in after thumbing the map a few times. Then, of course, the map got lost. You could press a button somewhere on the body and the figure would wave their sword arm around so you could have fantastic mini pirate battles. I think the treasure map and peg-leg fascinated me more to be honest, that and the purple tattoo on Hooks chest (see top picture).
Saw this on ebay recently – looks to be part of a collection available in Europe, where you put the outfit on one of the action figures you have already – this one is ‘Kung Fu Master Adventure’
and this is from the back, with all the other costumes you can get for the figures;
Links;
The Big Red Toybox talks ‘Fighting Furies’
Plaid Stallions blog with a nice piece about Fighting Furies
Forum discussion on Fighting Furies
Here is a press advert for Matchbox Fighting Furies from the mid-Seventies (looks like it is taken from some sort of Trade Magazine or paper);
Over in the States, but not over here in the UK, you had Mego producing a line of Pirate action figures at the same time as ‘Fighting Furies’, including Blackbeard and the intriguingly named ‘Jean LaFitte’…..
