By Joe Grossberg

This is the final article in a four part series detailing Captain Action sets that made it to the planning stage but were never produced.  In it I will complete the story of Playing Mantis’s Captain Action by covering their last prototyped sets and give a little sneak peak to what was next on their drawing boards.

If the retro-boxed series had been issued as originally planned, PM would have produced an equal number of Captain Action and Kid Action sets as in the initial releases by Ideal.  Add to this the four sets planned for Dr. Evil and you have a very impressive line up considering today’s aggressive and expensive toy licensing market. 

In terms of character choices, not only did Playing Mantis expand on the original list, but they remained true to the time period of the original toy.  I think this consideration would have been an important element to the baby boomer fans of the original series.  These additions are the previously documented Speed Racer (Speed, Racer X/Captain Terror) and the focus of this article, Jonny Quest.

As the article will show there are many differences between the way Playing Mantis attacked Speed Racer and Jonny Quest.  The most significant one is that while the Speed Racer figures started as Captain Action sets and were later repurposed as stand-alone figures, it was the exact opposite for Jonny Quest.  Playing Mantis never planned to solely release Jonny Quest as Captain Action sets. It wasn’t until Diamond expressed strong interest in the characters that Playing Mantis started to think about re-purposing them as Captain Action.

COSTUMES AND ACCESSORIES

The story of Jonny Quest as Captain Action sets is a bit involved so I’ll first attack the work on the sets themselves.  NOTE:  The costumes and accessories detailed in this section are for the stand-alone figures.  The only material specific to the Captain Action sets is the additional material listed in the accessory list and I put this in bold to maintain this distinction.   I also do a little editorializing in terms of these characters for Captain Action.  Once again I put this material in bold to maintain that this was not a Playing Mantis consideration while the work on the stand-alone figures was being carried out.

As shown in the previous two articles the work on the Speed Racer Sets started with Character and Accessory guides generated by the licensee.  These not only specified appropriate characters but also detailed the accessories each set should have.  PM then generated detailed turnaround drawings from those guides that were executed by the PM affiliate in China.  This process would vary somewhat for Jonny Quest.

To start with the choices of characters fell into the hands of PM’s Creative Development Department.  This consisted of Product Development Director Brain Kolbus, Bob Plant and Michael Murphy.  Interestingly Brian had previous Jonny Quest experience, he had come from Galoob and worked on their “Real Adventures” JQ line. 

In terms of character choices, the Captain always had a duel identity problem (Captain Action as both the Lone Ranger and Tonto is a good example), but this set would have held the record.  Not only did they plan multiple Jonny identities for the Captain but for the Kid as well;  Dr. Quest and Race for Captain Action, Jonny and Hadji for Kid Action and Dr. Zin for Dr. Evil.

Here is a list of the sets and a brief description of each character:

1) Jonathan "Jonny" Quest: Jonny is the bright and inquisitive son of Dr. Benton Quest.  With his dog Bandit in tow, this globetrotting 11 year old is always one step away from adventure. 

2) Dr. Benton C. Quest: A brilliant scientist and inventor, Dr. Quest is often called upon by the government to investigate mysterious phenomena and situations involving sensitive security issues.  His calm demeanor and superior intellect have served him well in the most challenging of circumstances.  If you add up all the degrees that DR. Evil must have with the classic Dr. Tracy and Dr. Ling masks and a few of my 2GFX customs, Dr. Doom and Dr. Octopus, not to mention Dr. Zin, it’s about time the Captain got one of his own!

3) Roger T. "Race" Bannon: A former secret agent with the U.S. government, Race Bannon is friend, tutor and bobygaurd to Jonny and an invaluable assistant to Dr. Quest. 

4) Hadji: A native of Calcutta, Hadji joined the Quests when he saved the doctor’s life during a knife attack by an assassin.  Thoughtful and good-humored, Hadji’s mystical abilites and sleight of hand have saved the group on more than one occasion.

5) Dr. Zin:  Zin is Dr. Quest’s equal in intellect, but does not share Quest’s concern for mankind.  An evil mastermind, Dr. Zin utilizes an international network of criminals to help carry out his plans for world domination.

As you can see each character is unique in terms of the entire Captain Action line and like the Speed series is a neat addition in terms of abilities and specialties.

Going next to the choices of accessories, Hanna Barbara didn’t generate any specific guides for PM.  They sent over an in-house Jonny Quest: Character Reference Guide and a handful of what looked, to Bob Plant, like  “hundrenth generation” model sheets.  Bob Plant and Michael Murphy made the final accessory choices.

"JQ was running on Cartoon Network at the time", said Bob "and I taped all the episodes for reference. I ended up with hundreds of frame grabs that were invaluable when designing accessories and planning the uniforms".

"Michael Murphy and I reviewed the episodes (a pleasurable chore!) and it became pretty easy to start putting together a dream list of accessories we'd like to see with Jonny and his pals. Each figure would come with a few basic accessories to start out with. Once the line took off (hah -- how naive we were!) we would add accessory packs or, more likely, create special re-releases of the figures in new costumes and different accessories. Imagine Jonny with the flying jetpack from  'The Invisible Monster!'"

As shown in these final turnaround drawings the accessories are even a cut above the fine work that Bob and Michael had done for Speed.

Here is a final accessory list for each character.  The material in bold are the additional accessories that PM planned to add to distinguish the re-purposed Captain Action sets from the original stand-alone figures.  PM did something similar when they released the retro-boxed costume sets.  They made variations in items and added accessories to keep it fresh.

JONNY QUEST – Mask, basic uniform, Bandit, camera, rope with grappling hook, Vue-Comm plus a jacket, Keiko the monkey (from the episode “ Double Danger”) and a Rocket pack.       

DR. QUEST – Mask, basic uniform (short-sleeve version), color-variation lab coat (light turquoise, as seen in some of the episodes), test tubes with rack, Unice computer, clipboard, Vue-Comm, beaker stand and coil, laser test device (from the episode “Mystery of the Lizard Men”) and rocket pack.            

RACE BANNON – Mask, basic uniform, Quest Rifle, watch, pistol, Vue-Comm, additional rifle and/or other weaponry, sonic weapon (from the episode “Calcutta Adventure”) and rocket pack.        

HADJI - Mask, basic uniform, jacket, flute, Cobra, Cobra basket with lid, Vue-Comm, mongoose (from “Calcutta Adventure”), “magic” climbing rope, rocket pack.  

Dr. Zin – Mask, basic uniform, computer console with microphone, robot eye, pointer/staff.

The Quest Rifle with folding stock and telescoping barrel, communicator with working clip and computer with removable housing are straight out of the original show with the added touch of moving parts.  This is one PM innovation that was not seen that often in the original Captain Action sets.

As this work was going on PM had engaged local artists to begin the head sculpts.  For all other PM Captain Action sets this work had been done in China.

Bob said "When CA started out, all the creative work, such as sculpting, was being done in the Orient. While we still took that approach to some of our product lines (sometimes budget dictated that we go with the cheaper overseas source) my frustrations with some of the early CA sculpts (and the incredibly disappointing first-release PM Action Jackson) prompted me to push for having the JQ character sculpts done in the states, where we could keep a better eye, so to speak, on the work in progress and also have someone work on the sculpts who cared about and understood it."

The original sculptures were by James Groman and the costume mock-ups by Maria Murillo.  Here’s what Bob had to say about how this was carried out:

"My involvement was to supply our outside vendors with as much direction and information as possible in order to create authentic likenesses and costumes. This meant creating a packet of frame grabs, showing costumes and characters from multiple views. In cases where there were inconsistencies from episode to episode (or even within an episode itself!), we strove for an ideal look, often referring back to the Jonny Quest Character Reference Guide as the ideal look of the characters. Detailed notes were included with each of these packets, giving the supplier, as much direction as we felt was necessary. I reviewed images of work-in-progress and made comments to help keep the sculpts in line with our vision. The clothing prototypes were almost spot-on. We did request some changes for placement of closures and such, but very little else needed adjusting."

"By the way, the head sculpts on the prototypes were not the final sculpts.  Fine-tuning was done by Anaglyph, a studio run by Scott Hensey out in Sebastopol California. Scott and his team worked on a lot of licensed properties, and had good relationships with many of the licensing folks out in L.A. They would actually take the sculpts over to the licensing department for review and approvals, which really helped to streamline the process somewhat."

Here are images of the final, licensor approved head sculpts

With this material in hand Bob and Michael finished the mock-ups first shown at Toy Fair 2000.  These were under the banner “Hyper Action.”  Here are the figure that were shown:

The first things you’ll notice is that the super cool accessories shown in the turnaround drawings are absent.  I asked Bob about this and here’s his reply:

"The prototype accessories, like the camera, rifle, etc., were "kit bashed" from various GI Joe, Ultimate Soldier and other existing toys. Those are things that I crudely mocked up in-house for purposes of presentation."

Although the mock-ups were done in the states the prototypes and final tooling patterns would be done in China.  As seen in the last two articles the accessories done in China for the Speed sets were excellent.  Unfortunately this work was never started since the mock-ups would be used for sale purposes. Until Jonny had a buyer there was no point in beginning this work.

THE CAPTAIN OR STAND ALONE - THAT IS THE QUESTION

The above went into detail about the actual work of designing and fabricating the final prototypes PM created.  But as eluded to earlier, the story of Jonny Quest for Captain Action is more complicated than that.  In my first article of this series “Davy Crockett” I had mentioned that the reason that these sets went from Captain Action suits to stand alone figures is that Hanna Barbara had objected to there characters being simply a disguise for another hero.  It turns out there was an objection, but not by Hanna Barbara.  Here, for the first time, is the full story in Bob Plant’s own words:

"Jonny Quest was initially discussed as a Captain Action set, but after some (actually, very little!) discussion, our team felt that JQ had enough depth that it could be a stand-alone line. I am a huge JQ fan, and felt that limiting JQ to a handful of costume sets wouldn't do justice to the property. I felt there was a lot of depth and product opportunity here; shoehorning it into the CA line just wasn't going to allow that kind of opportunity, and in many ways, I felt it would dilute the strength of the JQ license."

"It really was almost a moot point, though: by that time, we were painfully aware that CA was pretty much dead in the mass market, and producing JQ as part of the CA line was quickly becoming a non-option. Also, our Product Development Director at the time, Brian Kolbus, had come from Galoob and had worked on the "Real Adventures" JQ line there. I think he had always wanted to do something with the Classic Quest, and this seemed to be that golden opportunity. So, between the fact that you had a group of JQ fans in the PM creative department (myself, Michael Murphy and Brian Kolbus) as well as in the upper echelon (including company owner Tom Lowe and VP of Sales, Peter Collins) we all felt quite strongly that the line had the legs to stand on its own."

"All that said, once Diamond Select revived the CA line with a more retro approach, they strongly felt that JQ would be an "ideal" addition to the CA lineup of costume sets. We agreed to try it. At that point, time had passed and the situation had flip-flopped somewhat. Since the license agreement wasn't fully finalized when the retro CA packaging first came out, it was decided to include the characters as mysterious silhouettes on the packaging. That way, we were teasing the fans without violating any copyright laws." 

The bottom line of all this is that the Jonny Quest was primarily thought of as a stand-alone set from the beginning.  To that end no mask sculpts or window box art was ever produced.  Admittedly these are the only two differences between what would have been a stand-alone figure and a Captain Action set.  All the Quest sets used Captain Action and Kid Action bodies and would have in the final action figures.  In fact, a little work with an X-acto knife and you could take one of these figures and make it into a great Captain Action custom.

I’d also like to point out that when PM was talking to Diamond about including Jonny Quest as part of the new retro series it was in addition to the stand-alone figures.  That accounts for the variations in the costume and accessory list listed earlier.  I’d also like to add that Tom Stormonth at Diamond Select was the one who championed that retro line on Diamond’s end of the deal.  All Captain Action fans owe a vote of thanks for his efforts.

LAST THOUGHTS

In addition to these sets PM had written a proposal to Diamond of upcoming releases.  Some of these follow known variations with a Spacesuit in Photo box for Captain Action, Dr. Evil and Kid Action.  PM had also wanted to make variations on the basic uniform and produce a Stealth Uniform for Captain Action and Metamorphosis suit for Dr. Evil.  These would have been in new painted boxes and would have added a black trench coat for the Captain and a longer tunic with high collar on a brown Dr. Evil.  The final two suggestions were for Masterpiece Edition style sets for the Captain Action and Dr. Evil and an ethic version of Kid Action to go with the Hadji uniform set.

Jonny Quest, Speed Racer and Davey Crockett complete all the known unproduced Captain Action sets that made it to the prototype stage.  There is one additional set that, although it never made it to prototyping, PM had the license in place for their Polar lights model kits, and felt it would be pretty easy to include costume sets as well.  This character was planned as the follow up to Jonny Quest and although Playing Mantis never had the opportunity to pursue it, we at Games and Beyond thought we’d take a crack at it.

As this concludes the story of PM’s Captain Action I have to give my thanks to Bob Plant for his time, dedication and professionalism.  Bob's first love is graphic arts but as these last three articles show, he is a man of many talents.  Also, I'd like to once again thank Tom Lowe, Michael Murphy and the wonderful people at Playing Mantis for having produced such great toys over the years

GAMES AND BEYOND BONUS SECTION: IT’S NEW – FOR YOU!

Since we began this series of articles with a Games and Beyond mock-up of the first unproduced Captain Action set, Davy Crockett, we thought it would be cool to end it with a Games and Beyond visualization of the set alluded to above.

I do want to stress that this custom set was done by Games and Beyond purely as what might have been look and is not work done at or by Playing Mantis.

Click this link to see our Games and Beyond visualization of the last planned Captain Action uniform and equipment set.