1989 wasn't a banner year for poor Freddy Krueger. Not that it was necessarily all bad. Please indulge me while I explain.
Having slowly morphed into a sort of splatterpunk's Groucho Marx given the increasing frequency with which he would deliver a quip or one-liner before dispatching one of his victims, the wisecracking child killer had by this time become embraced by the MTV generation as an unlikely pop culture icon.
With each movie up to that point outgrossing the entry that preceded it, the four films in the Nightmare on Elm Street series had been nothing less than a box office juggernaut for New Line Cinema. So much so that the previously struggling independent production studio came to be affectionately dubbed "The House That Freddy Built."
However, released on August 11, 1989 to a disappointing third-place $8.1 million opening weekend, The Dream Child would go on to gross a mere $22,168,359. This paltry sum was less than half the intake of its immediate predecessor and places the fifth chapter in the Nightmare cycle second to last overall among the franchise's eventual nine entries.
This was not unique to Elm Street, as a serious case of slasher burnout from a creative standpoint had begun to settle in as the decade drew to a close which had a snowball effect in terms of a decline in fan appreciation leading, naturally, to a fiscal downtrend. As a result, 1989 would similarly produce two of the most artistically lackluster and financially underperforming films in the Halloween and Friday the 13th franchises as well.
All things considered, New Line's founder and executive producer Bob Shaye saw the writing on the wall which would soon enough spell out Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. Needless to say, the studio's 1991 good-faith effort to kill off their flagship character didn't last, both for good (Wes Craven's New Nightmare) and not so good (Freddy vs. Jason, and the 2010 remake starring Jackie Earle Haley).
If Freddy Krueger the hideously disfigured cinematic child murderer portrayed by Robert Englund was proving difficult to drive into the grave of diminishing returns, eliminating Freddy Krueger the 18-inch talking doll made by Matchbox in 1989 was far easier than anyone might have dreamed possible, if you pardon the pun. And it didn't require him to be stabbed with his own bladed glove by Heather Langenkamp's Nancy or blown to 3-D smithereens by his long lost daughter Katherine or decapitated and having his severed head carried around by Jason Vorhees either. The threat of a boycott from an influential rightwing zealot was enough to remove the green and red sweater-wearing serial killer from toy store shelves.
Obviously best known as a manufacturer of diecast toy cars, Matchbox ventured into the realm of action figures as early as 1974, allowing children to have adventures on the high seas in their very own living rooms, for example, by playing with the likes of Captain Hook, Captain Peg Leg, and the glow-in-the-dark Ghost of Captain Kidd. If you weren't so much into pirates, Matchbox's Fighting Furies had the cowboys and Indians crowd covered too, in the form of Black McCoy, Crazy Horse, and Kid Cortez. Accessory packs with alternate costumes were sold separately. Another popular line of figures, vehicles, and playsets from Matchbox was their Mobile Action Command which featured a variety of quasi-futuristic soldiers and first responders.
In the 1980s, Matchbox would begin to merchandise toys based on pre-existing properties like two of the more popular animated series at the time, Robotech and Voltron. The irreverent humor of Paul Reubens resonated strongly with kids, not to mention many adults, which made Pee-Wee's Playhouse a particularly hot commodity Matchbox capitalized on courtesy of action figures, a Playhouse playset, and even a scaled down version of Pee-Wee's scooter a particularly lucky youngster could ride around the neighborhood and be the envy of all their friends.
1987 saw the release of a talking Pee-Wee doll which
stood an impressive eighteen inches tall and came packaged in a wonderfully illustrated window box with a hole in the back granting access to a pull-string by
which you could get the kooky comedian to speak six of his signature catchphrases. Two years later, with Paul Reubens' theatergoing misadventures still to come in 1991, Matchbox would make the ill-fated decision to give Freddy Krueger the same treatment, making a literal plaything of A Nightmare on Elm Street’s “bastard son of a hundred
maniacs.”
Not quite four full weeks after the substandard theatrical debut of A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, Matchbox revealed to an unsuspecting public on September 6, 1989 that their Freddy Krueger doll was going into production. Retailing at $24.99, it was slated for release in October to coincide with, and cash in on, the excitement horror fans experience around Halloween.
Like Pee-Wee before him, the boxed but articulated and poseable Freddy doll would measure approximately 17.5 inches in height and have a plastic ring attached to a cord coming out of his back which, when pulled, would trigger the built-in voice mechanism. In Freddy's case, each yank on the string would issue either his sinister laugh or one of five random lines from the movies like "Hi, I'm Freddy," "Pleasant dreams," "Let's be friends," "Watch out, Freddy's back," or "Welcome to Elm Street!" Inconceivably, the original recommended age for the Freddy doll, printed on the upper right corner on the front of the box, was 3 and up. This was amended before they left the factory, and a sticker was placed over it reading "Ages 8 and up."
That's right, moms and dads of 1989, Matchbox saw fit to give you the opportunity (albeit for what would ultimately amount to a brief window of time) to send your little son or daughter off to a peaceful slumber with their very own Freddy doll clutched tight to his or her chest. You know the guy. The one whose mother was a nun gangraped by a hundred asylum inmates, begetting the homicidal lunatic who wore a filthy fedora and Christmas-colored sweater, brandished a glove with knives for fingers, was covered in third-degree burns suffered when he was set ablaze by a vigilante mob consisting of the parents of the kids he murdered and very likely molested, and took out his revenge on the new generation of Springwood's youth by stalking and killing them in their dreams? Yeah, that guy. Nighty-night, kids. Sweet dreams. See you in the morning. We hope.
Don Wildmon, who also headed CLear-TV (Christian Leaders for Responsible Television), had made headlines just five months earlier when he strong-armed Pepsi into breaking their $5 million pact with Madonna, whose two-minute-long commercial for the soft drink company in which she performed "Like a Prayer" had aired just twice on network TV, premiering during a March 2 broadcast of The Cosby Show.
"The whole purpose of this is to prove we have the numbers to make a dent in the company's bottom line," Wildmon said of their successful effort to have Pepsi pull the plug on future airings of a truncated version of their controversial Madonna ad. "Then next time it won't be so difficult for us when we appeal to the advertiser. They'll know we got clout."
That Wildmon had clout and was eager to wield it to alter what he perceived to be the moral bankruptcy in the entertainment industry was already a well-established fact. It was easy to dismiss him as a cut-rate Joseph McCarthy or wannabe Jerry Falwell, but Wildmon made it abundantly clear that it was folly to laugh off his holy crusade against popular culture.
"They've said I'm a Mississippi redneck. A stupid, fundamental, hellfire, damnation, Bible-totin', scripture-quotin' preacher. Ok, if that's what I am, the public will soon learn that," Wildmon uttered cryptically in 1981 during the preliminary phase of his ongoing attack on the television networks and their advertisers. "And if I'm not, they'll learn that too. I'll take my chances."
He reportedly had as many as 4,000 members of the NFD acting as television monitors (an early version of CLear-TV), dutifully compiling lists of what they deemed to be the programs with the most egregious sexual, violent, and profanity-laced content airing at that time. M*A*S*H, Three's Company, Charlie's Angels, Soap, and The Incredible Hulk were singled out as being among the chief offenders of the early 80s. Such was Wildmon's specific disdain for Saturday Night Live that he successfully pressured AT&T, Domino's Pizza, Dr. Pepper, General Mills, Honda, Mazda, Ralston Purina, and Wendy's to pull their ads from the sketch comedy show's timeslot.
If you can believe it, even Mighty Mouse came under Wildmon's scrutiny, alleging that the animated rodent superhero snorted cocaine in "The Littlest Tramp" episode of Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures in 1988. "Mighty Mouse is down in the dumps and he reaches in his cape, pulls out a substance, and sniffs it through his nostrils," the preacher detailed in his statement. "And from that point on in the cartoon, he is his normal self." The show's creator, executive producer, and sometimes director, legendary animator Ralph Bakshi (Fritz the Cat, The Lord of the Rings), retorted by pointing out that Mighty Mouse was quite innocently sniffing the petals of a crushed flower. Nevertheless, CBS caved to Wildmon's censorship request, removing the sequence in question from future rebroadcasts.
Without going into explicit detail of every bit of handiwork involved in Wildmon's self-described "spiritual war," suffice it to say that entities as diverse as Playboy, Penthouse, Burger King, Blockbuster Video, and Levi Strauss all suffered the consequences of his fire and brimstone crusade. In a show of solidarity with then-vice president Dan Quayle, the reverend would put Murphy Brown and its star Candice Bergen in his crosshairs. He also made a spectacle of attempting to block KISS from performing at the Coliseum in Jackson, Mississippi.
Wildmon had gained his largest measure of notoriety to date in 1988 by publicly taking Martin Scorsese to task over the pending release of the filmmaker's latest opus, The Last Temptation of Christ. He wasn't alone, of course. Not by a long shot. A hailstorm of condemnation from religious hardliners the world over greeted the news that Scorsese was making a movie based on the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, which had itself been a lightning rod for controversy. Besides having his book banned by the Vatican, the author was excommunicated from the Greek Orthodox Church upon its publication in 1955.
Not surprisingly, Jerry Falwell jumped into the Last Temptation fracas, his name at long last linked in the press to Wildmon's in an official and cooperative capacity. Whether this was his hope or not, this alliance pulled Wildmon under the umbrella of the so-called Moral Majority, lending further legitimacy to his zealous brand of defending family values.
"We are offended because, as Christians, we owe everything we have to Christ. He is our God. We deeply love him. For someone to lie about him is offensive. For MCA/Universal to spend millions of dollars to put this lie on a movie screen and arrogantly say that 'Christians will not stop us from distributing this film' is intentionally insulting," Wildmon wrote about Scorsese's film in a lengthy op-ed piece that appeared in nationwide newspapers courtesy of the Associated Press. "For a company to intentionally insult the most deeply held religious beliefs in the name of freedom is the height of arrogancy and bigotry."
All of this is mentioned to illustrate just how wide Donald Wildmon's sphere of influence had cast its net by the late 80s, the "clout" of which he boasted having grown so commanding that he had transformed himself from a smalltime crackpot preacher from Mississippi into a nationwide force to be reckoned with that had network executives, advertisers, and manufacturers collectively shaking in their shoes at the mere hint of a protest from the American Family Association, not to mention its ever-expanding fundamentalist constituency.
Circling back to where we left off with Madonna's "Like a Prayer" Pepsi commercial, Bob Garfield, current cohost of NPR's On the Media with Brooke Gladstone and, at the time, a leading critic for the Advertising Age trade paper, sounded the alarm bell regarding the ease with which the corporation conceded to Wildmon's demands. "It's disturbing that a self-righteous blowhard can extort a major company into so Draconian an action," Garfield began, going on to say, "it was good advertising, of which there was far too little already, and now presumably there will be less." Lastly, he lamented that "it raises disturbing questions about the intelligence of the American people."
Garfield really hit the nail on the head with this last point. One of the main reasons why the efforts of fundamentalists like Wildmon are so insulting, not to mention dangerous, is that they presume the average person lacks the basic education, good sense, or human decency to make an informed decision for themselves or their children without needing to be condescended to and told by a third party with a pointed agenda what books to read or what shows and movies to watch or what music to listen to or what toys to buy.
"Aside from desperation, what prompted a hitherto reputable toymaker to manufacture murdering dolls? No, don't answer. I'm too frightened to know," mused Associated Press staff writer Ana Veciana-Suarez. "I'm no puritan about child's play. While some mothers have banned toy guns from their homes, my sons still have their pretend machine guns and revolvers. Yet, no matter how much they cajole, I'm not getting them Freddy. Not for Halloween. Not for Christmas. Not for their birthdays. And I'm not being hypocritical." Fair enough.
In the Nightmare on Elm Street dreamscapes, Freddy Krueger was one scary movie monster. But, in the real world he was no match for the equally terrifying Donald Wildmon. As is the case with every story, there are a lot of moving parts to this one. Putting them in their proper context allows us, with the additional benefit of hindsight, to see just how regrettable yet predictable the killing of the talking Freddy Krueger doll was, a problematic cause and effect.
In other words, if globally prestigious corporations like CBS, AT&T, Pepsi, Levi’s, General Mills, and Mazda laid down for Wildmon without a fight, what chance did Matchbox have? And, in an act of guilt by association, retailers who stocked any and all Matchbox products on their shelves were summarily swept up into the American Family Association boycott.
The folks at Matchbox were initially reluctant to discuss the situation, other than to offer noncommittally that they were considering their options for the planned October rollout of their Freddy doll. For what it's worth, they did put up a struggle, defiantly shipping out 40,000 units before bowing down to Wildmon and assuring him that orders for an additional 160,000 dolls would not be filled. Furthermore, an anonymous spokeswoman for the toy company told the press, "Matchbox will not advertise or promote the doll in any way."
"We feel that the decision by Matchbox is a very positive and socially responsible one," Wildmon remarked in a news release, "and we commend them for their decision."
Conditional upon her identity remaining undisclosed, the aforementioned Matchbox representative did suggest somewhat promisingly, "As far as 1990 goes, I don't think any decision has been made."
Despite the Matchbox employee's cautious optimism, 1990 would be a year devoid of Freddy. For the most part, anyway. You wouldn’t find him in movie theaters and certainly not in toy stores. However, the second season of the hour-long anthology television series Freddy's Nightmares had premiered early the previous October, coinciding with the release of Matchbox's talking doll, and staggered into the early part of 1990. Due to budgetary concerns as well as complaints from parental watchdog groups, the highly-rated show was canceled, airing its final episode, "Life Sentence," on March 11.
Otherwise, New Line was biding its time until they could devise a suitable sendoff for their horror icon even as the remaining Matchbox dolls that had managed to sneak their way onto store shelves were hastily tossed into bargain bins in an effort to get these contentious items out the door and out of sight as soon as possible. Rabid Elm Street fans and enterprising secondary market re-sellers alike were eager to oblige, and happily snapped up the few they could find.
Due to its scarcity as well as its corresponding controversy, the doll immediately became a highly desirable collector's item that fetched premium asking prices, more than a hundred dollars over retail. For example, an ad that ran in the Hobbies & Supplies section of the December 16, 1989 edition of The Daily Oklahoman read, "Rare 19-inch talking Freddy Krueger doll (by Matchbox), mint in box. $125 or best offer."
What, you might wonder, was the reaction of Freddy Krueger himself to all of this? Robert Englund, who portrayed the Springwood slasher throughout the entire eight-film run of the original Elm Street franchise, as well as playing horror host to, not to mention occasional guest star and director of, Freddy's Nightmares over the course of 44 episodes, had this to say on the subject of rabid fundamentalists like Wildmon. "Haven't those guys proved themselves already as being some of the most misguided, corrupt, and pathetic people around? As far as I'm concerned, they've set religion back a hundred years."
Speaking from the personal experience he has had interacting with countless fans of the genre, Englund went on to theorize that "these movies take their minds off the very real horror in their own lives that they face. I think there's some kind of substitution that goes on, that watching these movies fulfills some kind of need for our society."
But wait, there’s more. How Rev. Don Wildmon’s protest
did away with the talking Freddy doll is really only half the story. You see,
it was also responsible for the premature death of legendary toymaker Mel Birnkrant’s brainchild. Maxx FX, purchased and intended to be distributed by Matchbox in 1989, would later be eulogized, thanks to pop culture chronicler Tom Tumbusch, as “The Finest Action Figure Line That Never Was.”
Well, as for the “never was” part, that’s not technically true and warrants further exploration. So, fellow monster kids and toy enthusiasts, hop in, buckle up, grab a snack, and use the restroom if you have to before we set off on the last leg of our journey. The home stretch is right around the bend.
For starters, let's answer some elementary questions about the origins of Maxx FX by going straight to the source: the initial sales pitch from Mel Birnkrant:
"Who is Maxx FX? He's an 11 1/2" fully articulated action figure, capable of assuming a multitude of fantastic identities through the magic and illusion of Make-Up and Special Effects. The Maxx FX Monster Make-Up System is a series of instant Make-Up Cassettes that contain everything necessary to transform Maxx into incredible Movie Monsters. The unique Snap-on appliances change Maxx's identity in a snap...Right before your very eyes! Maxx is both a Movie Star and a Crime Fighter. He travels the city in his Miracle Productions Mobile Movie Van, using his Magic Make-Ups and Fantastic Special Effects to fight crime. His secret Make-Up Formula miraculously bestows upon him all the Super Powers and Unique Abilities of each Character he portrays. Who is Maxx FX? Anyone he wants to be!"
Now that we have been formally introduced to Maxx, let's backtrack a couple decades to learn about the man who brought him into being. Inspired by a visit to New York's Cooper Union Museum, where he beheld the automatons, music boxes, zoetropes, and assortment of moving toys on display, Mel Birnkrant found it impossible to resist the notion of innovating "authentic reproductions" of such visionary wonders. In 1964, Mel and his wife Eunice would do exactly that, opening what they called the Boutique Fantastique in midtown Manhattan where they endeavored to "create antiques that never were."
The very next year, Birnkrant received a phone call from Harry Kislevitz, co-founder and co-creator, with his wife Patricia, of Colorforms. Kislevitz was looking to expand his company's horizons beyond the immensely popular magnetic playsets with which you affix one-dimensional vinyl figures of characters from Popeye, Peanuts, Planet of the Apes, and many more besides, to an appropriately illustrated tableau made of glossy paperboard.
They would, of course, continue to manufacture these wonderful little dioramas and I am happy to report that Colorforms are still very much alive and well to this day. Mel accepted the challenge and, though he was never a salaried employee, he would take home earnings over the following sixteen years in the form of royalties based on the sales of the Colorforms playsets he helped develop in addition to his unique creations such as the Inch Worm, the Flower Xylophone, and the Mickey Mouse Seed Shop, which gave kids the chance to cultivate their very own fruit and vegetable garden. Perhaps his most venerated and enduring contribution was his series of Outer Space Men action figures.
Mel Birnkrant, still with us at the age of 85 and world renowned for his jaw-dropping collection of Mickey Mouse memorabilia, first conceived of the idea for Maxx FX in 1988. After beheading discarded G.I. Joe action figures salvaged from flea markets, Birnkrant would fashion new noggins for the prototypes of Maxx and his fearsome alter egos out of a polymer clay material called Super Sculpey. He would touch the new heads up with Liquitex acrylics, then adorn the presentation figures in castoff outfits from the secondhand G.I. Joes or perhaps repurpose duds formerly worn by Barbie's boyfriend Ken.
The initial lineup of beasts that Birnkrant devised for his crime-fighting makeup master (called Max Miracle in an early iteration) to transform himself into consisted of generic, trademark-free monsters like the Werewolf, Mummy Dearest, Swamp Creature, and Caveman. Birnkrant knew very well that a hero is only as good as his arch rival, so he came up with Ultra FX, an android who had the ability to alter his appearance and imperiled Maxx at the bidding of his creator, the evil Dr. Mad FX. Additionally, in the hopes of having his toy line appeal to fans of contemporary slasher flicks, Birnkrant also produced prototypes of Friday the 13th's hockey mask-wearing maniac Jason Vorhees as well as, you guessed it, Freddy Krueger.
As far as shopping around for a manufacturer and distributor for Maxx FX, sending out feelers to the big dogs of the toy business like Hasbro, Kenner, and Mattel would have been the logical jumping off point. So, the fact that Mel Birnkrant wound up going into business with Matchbox seemed to be a matter of convenience more than anything, leading almost immediately to a serious case of seller's remorse.
"I never lost my lifelong fascination with monsters. But the ability to be frightened by them was gone forever," said Birnkrant. "Or so I thought...until I met the idiots at Matchbox, and watched in horror as they destroyed Maxx FX."
What appeared to be an independently owned and operated branch of Matchbox was maintained in New Jersey, a short car ride from the offices of Birnkrant's collaborators Andy and Adam Kislevitz, the sons of Mel's Colorforms boss Harry with whom he had formed a development company the three of them called KISCOM. They drove the existing prototypes over to the Matchbox offices and "the rest, as they say," Birnkrant groans regretfully, "is history."
Mel was aghast at the lack of enthusiasm or even basic knowledge the Matchbox execs in New Jersey showed toward the monsters he loved so dearly. "They had never heard of Freddy Krueger or Jason from Friday the 13th," recalls Birnkrant. "So right from the start, they eliminated them, and returned the prototypes to me."
Gone too was Mel's 11 1/2-inch schematic for the figures. Matchbox had acquired an entire warehouse full of 8-inch Mego bodies left over from the sad demise of the beloved Long Island-based toy manufacturer in 1983 (since resurrected in 2018) and insisted on going into production employing the use of these. To add insult to injury, they found Mel's off-brand monsters not so much to their liking, and retained only his conceptual designs for the Mummy, Werewolf and Caveman characters.
Matchbox requested that he incorporate the Xenomorph from Alien into his rogues gallery, as they had already acquired the marketing license, and this was to be accompanied by three more or less recognizable Universal Monsters. The Creature from the Black Lagoon would be swapped out for Birnkrant's original nonspecific Swamp Creature, a Frankenstein Monster bore the unmistakable likeness of Boris Karloff, and a ghoulish-looking Dracula had bat wings sprouting from his shoulder blades. Not surprisingly, the Lugosi family, still to this day known to be tough to negotiate with, refused to cooperate with Matchbox in licensing the rights to Bela's likeness, hence the Dracula prototype's grotesquely vampiric head sculpt.
Six of what was advertised by Matchbox in the Toy Fair 1989 catalog as nine figures in the Maxx FX line were ready for their closeup in time for the convention. Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy, the Werewolf, the Caveman, and Alien were all previewed for retailers and collectors by Matchbox, whose Toy Fair booth was patrolled by someone dressed in a monster costume to provide additional ballyhoo.
Originally spelled by Mel with only one 'x,' Matchbox saw fit to add the extra 'x' to Maxx's name without consulting Birnkrant. He's still unclear as to why, but Mel suspects it was "to facilitate trademark registration." It could be too that they were capitalizing on the marketing trend popular at the time which peddled any product that was cool and cutting edge as being eXtreme! Why settle for one 'x' when two was that much more extreme? I'm merely speculating of course, but it makes sense, right?
Although they had jettisoned Birnkrant's concept for a Mobile Movie Van playset, they mocked up an elaborate diorama for Toy Fair they called the Special FX Theater, which folded out into a stage set that had a dressing room with a revolving mirror and walk-in closet which would give kids a place where they could store the interchangeable monster accessories each set would come with.
Speaking of the Maxx FX monsters, the three models Birnkrant was still in the midst of working on, and which were mentioned in Matchbox's Toy Fair ad, were the Creature from the Black Lagoon as well as Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krueger. That's right, their reluctance to include the Camp Crystal Lake killer and Springwood slasher in their toy line notwithstanding, the folks at Matchbox ultimately relented to external pressure, hoping that everyone else knew something they obviously didn't and that the two modern horror icons would turn out to be big sellers for the company.
"Designed for the rugged play of boys aged 7-12, one minute Maxx plays the classic Frankenstein, the next he's the unstoppable Alien," boasted Matchbox's trade ad for the Toy Fair catalog. "From there he can become that monster of mayhem, Freddy Krueger."
Maxx FX generated a great deal of buzz at Toy Fair, and there was good reason to be optimistic moving forward. Matchbox was inundated by enthusiastic questions that weekend specific to the Freddy figure which was listed in the ad, but not pictured much less available to view in person. With dollar signs in their eyes, Matchbox pushed Freddy Krueger to the front of the assembly line, rushing the dream demon into production.
The finished product was far from what Mel had envisioned, not just in his mind’s eye but on his workshop table. The graphic design department at Matchbox deserves kudos for a job well done with the nicely illustrated packaging with an inventive filmstrip-type sequence of photos running the length of the front box top which shows the gradual transformation of mild-mannered Maxx into the frightening Freddy Krueger. The targeted demographic for what was christened the Maxx FX: Now Showing Freddy From A Nightmare on Elm Street set was recommended on the upper left corner as being for Ages 6 and Up.
The left half of the rear panel shows a fully costumed Maxx holding the Freddy head in his hands, while on the opposite side there is a group photo with the Krueger figure standing front and center and flanked from behind by Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Alien from left to right.
The line had been cut from nine, as promised in the Toy Fair ad, to just four. It could have been that Matchbox was hedging their bets based on what the sales numbers of the Freddy Krueger set were before releasing the other three pictured on the back of the box shortly after, then producing a second series featuring the remaining five characters. Again, this is all mere conjecture on my part.
Birnkrant couldn't help but notice that his head sculpts had been tinkered with. Dracula, for example, now came perilously close to resembling Bela Lugosi, but was given facial features that are more evocative of Conrad Veidt in 1928's The Man Who Laughs. The collar of Frankenstein's black jacket is flipped up in the photo, making him look like a weird combination of Boris Karloff and James Dean. A sort of Monster Without a Cause, if you will. The tag line near the bottom of the back of the box urges kids to Collect The Whole World Of Maxx FX.
Not to say that he was unbothered by all of this, but Mel was seemingly more so perturbed by the changes that Maxx himself had undergone during the production process, and not just the additional 'x' in his first name. Originally conceived and sculpted as a suave man about town with a wavy coiffure, dark shades, and black suit, Birnkrant couldn't fathom why Matchbox had taken it upon themselves to redesign Maxx, as he was now called, "with a head the size of a peanut that looked like it was put on backwards, a hand snagged sweater, and an extra pair of pants."
Maxx's thousand-yard stare and obnoxiously toothy grin are just about as unsettling as the diabolical sneer on the face of the two-piece, snap-on Freddy head. His baggy blue jeans offset a garish yellow short-sleeved turtleneck, all unfortunate choices without a doubt. Completing the ensemble, the other accessories included in the set are, of course, Freddy's trademark knife-fingered glove, green and red sweater, brown fedora, and black pants with boots to match.
There were bigger problems afoot, however. And, by bigger, I mean 18 inches worth to be exact. Much to Mel's surprise and consternation, Matchbox manufactured and distributed their talking Freddy Krueger doll ahead of the Maxx FX set. As discussed at great length earlier, this tactic didn't exactly turn out so well and had far-reaching consequences, up to and including sealing the fate of Mel Birnkrant's Maxx FX.
"Those idiots, who started out not knowing Bat-shit from Shinola, or Dreck from Dracula, became Monster Mavens, and made what has to be the worst decision in toy trade history, a terrifying talking doll of Freddy!" bemoaned Birnkrant. He was ultimately left with little alternative than to grumble understandably about how "the morons at Matchbox managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."
Interestingly, Matchbox's talking Freddy doll and Maxx FX playset were not the only toys based on the fiendish child killer from A Nightmare on Elm Street that were merchandised in 1989. In fact, they weren't even the first Freddy playthings intended for youngsters to hit the market.
Located in the Pennsylvania town from which they took their name, Collegeville Costumes offered a window-boxed Freddy Krueger Halloween outfit in 1987 in the same vein as the Ben Cooper variety with the plastic rubber-banded mask and vinyl smock. The following year, Lexony International, a smalltime toy manufacturer based out of Farmingdale on Long Island, New York put out a Freddy Krueger Stick-Up. The self-described "horribly authentic" mini-Freddy doll had a suction cup attached to a length of string coming out of his hat which would allow kids to dangle the Springwood slasher from the family refrigerator, car window, or any adherable surface.
Birthed in 1970, just like I was, LJN Toys Ltd. manufactured video games and action figures between its inception and 1995 termination which included properties such as E.T., Magnum P.I., Indiana Jones, Gremlins, Dune, and Thundercats to name a few. Endorsed at various times by the likes of Brooke Shields, Michael Jackson, and Boy George, LJN is best remembered by pro wrestling fans for their incredibly popular line of WWF Superstar action figures—namely Hulk Hogan, 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper, King Kong Bundy, Junkyard Dog, the Iron Sheik, and dozens more besides.
In 1989, the same year that Matchbox made their unfortunate decision to go into the Freddy Krueger business, LJN followed suit with their own line of Freddy toys. There was the supposedly pliable Freddy Figure which beckoned to kids 4 and over, "Go Ahead, Pal. Try to Pulverize This Tough Guy." A somewhat similar offering was called the Freddy Squish 'Em, and there was also a pair of Freddy Spitballs depicting the Elm Street dream slayer and nameless "Victim" which could be filled with liquid and produce, if the packaging is to be believed, a "Scary 18 Ft. Squirt!" A Freddy water pistol was featured in a press photo, but never made it past the prototype stage due to declining sales. Had LJN proceeded as planned, Jason Vorhees would have gotten his own water gun as well. Freddy vs. Jason squirt-gun fight be damned.
Don't forget Nintendo's A Nightmare on Elm Street video game developed by LJN which hit stores in October 1989 at more or less the same time as a different game of the same name made for Commodore 64 by Monarch Software. In the Nintendo version, you assume the role of a Springwood teenager on a scavenger hunt for the bones of Freddy Krueger. Once you have collected them all, you must find your way down to the high school's boiler room to burn Freddy's bones and rid the town once and for all of the man who has been menacing the dreams of you and your friends.
The Elm Street merchandising blitz of 1989 continued with the release of a Freddy Yo-Yo courtesy of the Spectra Star company operating out of Pacoima, California. One of ten in the series, Wes Craven's movie maniac was featured along with far more innocuous franchises like Batman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Super Mario, Garfield, G.I. Joe, Ghostbusters, Gumby, Donald Duck, and Nickelodeon's Double Dare.
Marvel got in on the Nightmare on Elm Street action too, releasing a pair of magazine-style Freddy Krueger comic books in October and November 1989. Carrying a cover price of $2.25, each issue, both of which featured Freddy leering at scantily-clad and terrified-looking women, made sure to include a word of friendly warning on the upper left corner that this reading material was "Illustrated Horror For Mature Readers." These Marvel Magazines go for relatively high prices on the secondary market these days, upwards of $75 for the complete set in better than merely readable condition.
And family game night would never be quite the same again in 1989 after Cardinal Industries gave players aged 8 and up the bizarre option to find out "What's going on in Freddy's House? Enter at your own risk, find out who Freddy really is—before it's too late!" Cardinal advertised The Freddy Game on the back of the box as being "A whimsical game of imagination, chance, and creative storytelling for three or more players" in which you are invited to a gathering at the Krueger house (who could say no to that?!) only to learn that one of the guests has been possessed by Freddy, and you have to discover which one by process of elimination.
None of these toys, by the way, are known to have incited significant backlash. Or debate of any kind that I am aware of. Which makes it a curious case indeed as to why the talking Freddy doll from Matchbox was specifically targeted for condemnation. I'd be willing to wager that this very thought occasionally bedevils Mel Birnkrant to this day.
This entire story must seem preposterous when viewed through the lens of modern mores and sensibilities, even while we are collectively mired in the throes of so-called "cancel culture." Take a walk into a local shop specializing in comic books as well as vintage and contemporary toys and you will find a mind-numbing array of fright-film-related merchandise being manufactured by dozens of companies, some of it noticeably high-end and premium-priced.
Hell, even a casual stroll through the aisles of a big box store like Target and Walmart is sure to turn up a vast assortment of NECA action figures or Funko Pops. At the very least, you should be able to find a t-shirt or two emblazoned with an image of your favorite modern horror movie character so that you can proudly let your geek flag fly while quite literally wearing your fandom on your sleeve.
Virtually every shopping mall has a Hot Topic which caters specifically to enthusiasts of heavy metal music or punk rock as well as scary movies, and you can count on annual pop-up stores like Spirit Halloween to offer a wide selection of costumes, coffee mugs, clothing, and dolls bearing the likenesses of Freddy and his many murderous cohorts each and every October. And this isn't even factoring in the online merchants so numerous it'll make your head spin like Linda Blair.
In 2018, nearly thirty years removed from the Matchbox debacle, Mezco Toyz manufactured their very own talking Freddy Krueger as part of their Living Dead Dolls line. Standing 15 inches tall, the Mezco Freddy utters five sayings from the Nightmare movies when you push a button in the back of his sweater. Before we wrap up here, we need to take a quick trip back in time, two decades prior give or take, to contend with some unfinished business.
Like a sequel you didn't know was coming or even knew you needed until it was already there, whether you asked for it or wanted it or not, Spencer Gifts put up for sale in their stores a curiously familiar-looking 18-inch talking Freddy doll in 1995. Individually numbered and limited to 30,000 pieces, the Spencer Gifts version was so similar in appearance to the 1989 original that the only logical conclusion to jump to would be to assume they were repainted, repurposed, and repackaged back stock from the unsold Matchbox dolls. The big difference being that this one has a voice-activated pushbutton in the center of Freddy's chest with a "Try-Me" hole conveniently cut out of the box's cellophane window. Call it Don Wildmon's Nightmare Part Two: Freddy's Revenge.
While not what I would consider plentiful, all of the vintage Freddy Krueger toys discussed throughout, not excluding Matchbox's Talking Freddy doll and Maxx FX playset, can be found, without going to too much trouble at all, on eBay and other secondary-market websites. With the asking prices more or less reflecting the condition of each individual item, whether case-fresh or battle-damaged or somewhere in between, it shouldn't cost you a small fortune to hunt down these weird, wonderful, sometimes controversial little treasures.
The thing of it is, toy collecting is no longer kids’ stuff. It hasn't been for some time now. In fact, the operative word here is “collecting.” Action figures aren’t really sold and purchased these days with the intention of the consumers opening and playing with them like we did in the 70s and 80s when I was a kid and toys were meant to be ripped free from their plastic coffins, enjoyed, and loved to death.
Which isn't to say that I and fellow collectors don't love and enjoy them today, of course. For the most part, however, they have more often than not become costly display pieces that not only retain their monetary worth by keeping them in their package, but hopefully increase in value depending upon the preponderance or rarity of any given figure. Not so much toys as investments to some, or else a financial means to an end by way of buying them at or below retail then flipping them for a profit, the modern day action figure is designed explicitly for adult hobbyists 17 and older and marketed as such in deliberate fashion.
This removes any shadow of a doubt pertaining to a toymaker's potentially questionable motives with the additional advantage of cutting fanatical spoilsports like Reverend Donald Wildmon and his ilk out of the equation.
You and I are now free to navigate through life using the moral compass we have each spent incalculable time and effort calibrating and maintaining to decide for ourselves what types of entertainment we find acceptable. And that awareness allows every one of us to sleep a little easier at night, does it not?
To quote Freddy Krueger, "Might be your dream, but it's my rules."
Sources:
Tom Bailey Jr. 3,000 Prepare for TV Scrutiny (Memphis Commercial Appeal (April 27, 1989)
Mel Birnkrant. The Colorforms Years (melbirnkrant.com)
Mel Birnkrant. The Life and Death of Maxx FX (melbirnkrant.com)
Bill Dedman. Bible Belt Blowhard (Mother Jones Magazine, Nov.-Dec. 1992)
Mike Duffy. He Makes Networks Nervous (Detroit Free Press, June 21, 1981)
Judy H. Green. Mighty Mouse! (Daily World, June 10, 1988)
Paul Lancaster. Attempt to Ban Concert, Krueger Dolls 'Ridiculous' (Clarion-Ledger, September 21, 1989)
Steve Oney. Trials Plagued 'Christ' (Camden Courier-Post, August 28, 1988)
Steven Rea. Pepsi Agrees: Madonna Ads Have to Go (Morristown Daily Record, April 9, 1989)
Ana Veciana-Suarez. Freddy Doll: A Sick Trick Inflicted on Kids (Santa Fe New Mexican, November 8, 1989)
Wayne Weidie. Decency Group Missing the Point. (Charleston Sun-Sentinel, April 30, 1981)
Stanley Wiater. Dark Visions: Conversations With the Masters of the Horror Film (Avon Books, 1992)
Decency Leader Is Engaged in a Spiritual War (Lexington Herald-Leader, December 10, 1984)
Controversial Film to be Released Early (Bangor Daily News, August 6, 1988)
Falwell Joins Protest Against Film, Urges Boycott of Studio's Corporate Parent (Bangor Daily News, August 6, 1988)
Protest Leader Explains His Reasoning (Carlsbad Current-Argus, August 28, 1988)
Toy Firm Creates Freddy Krueger Doll (Desert Sun, September 7, 1989)
Family Group Calls a Boycott of Freddy Krueger Doll (Akron Beacon Journal, September 13, 1989)
Dolls May Pose a Nightmare (Vidette-Messenger of Porter County, September 14, 1989)
Toy Company Opts Not to Market Horror Doll (Edmonton Journal, October 23, 1989)
Toy Firm Cuts Freddy Krueger Doll (Capital Times, October 23, 1989)
Hobbies & Supplies Ad (Daily Oklahoman, December 16, 1989)
boxofficemojo.com
megomuseum.com
Photos from the author's personal collection
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