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 Louis Marx and Company was an American toy manufacturer in business from 1919 to 1980. They made many types of toys including tin toys, toy soldiers, toy guns, action figures, dolls, toy cars and model trains. Some of their notable toys are Rock ...

, Superior Toy,

Remco Remco Industries Inc. was an American toy company. Founded in 1949, it is known for toys integrating technology and innovation from their inception. The company's slogan in its early TV commercials was, "Every Boy Wants a Remco Toy...And So Do ...

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 (scal ...

, Multiple Toymakers (MPC) and others throughout the

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

era. Several manufacturers continue to produce playsets today.

Popular playsets

Several popular playsets by Marx were: * Battle of the Blue and Gray (1958) *

Battleground A battlefield, battleground, or field of battle is the location of a present or historic battle involving ground warfare. It is commonly understood to be limited to the point of contact between opposing forces, though battles may involve troop ...

Ben-Hur Ben-Hur or Ben Hur may refer to: Fiction *'' Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ'', an 1880 novel by American general and author Lew Wallace ** ''Ben-Hur'' (play), a play that debuted on Broadway in 1899 ** ''Ben Hur'' (1907 film), a one-reel silent ...

* Desert Fox * Fort Apache (1951) *

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

* 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, c ...

Popular playsets based on

television series A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming plat ...

were: *

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

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 25 September 1955 to 1 March 1959First broadcast in UK by ATV London. See: TV Transmission dates at the B ...

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 c ...

Daniel Boone Daniel Boone (, 1734September 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 beyo ...

Davy Crockett Colonel (United States), Colonel David Crockett (August 17, 1786 – March 6, 1836) was an American politician, militia officer and frontiersman. Often referred to in popular culture as the "King of the Wild Frontier", he represented Tennesse ...

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

The Gallant Men ''The Gallant Men'' is a 1962–1963 ABC Warner Bros. Television series which depicted an infantry company of American soldiers fighting their way through Italy in World War II. Description ''The Gallant Men'' dramatized the experiences of th ...

Tom Corbett Thomas Wingett Corbett Jr. (born June 17, 1949) is an American politician, lobbyist, and former prosecutor who served as the 46th governor of Pennsylvania from 2011 to 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he was also attorney general of Pen ...

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

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 ...

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 Marsh Tracy, a veter ...

Johnny Ringo John Peters Ringo (May 3, 1850 – July 13, 1882) 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 War in Texas during which h ...

The Rifleman ''The Rifleman'' is an American Western television series 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 show ...

The Roy Rogers Show ''The Roy Rogers Show'' is an American Western television series starring Roy Rogers. 100 episodes were broadcast on NBC for six seasons between December 30, 1951, and June 9, 1957. The episodes were set in the prevailing times (1950s) in the ...

Mineral City (1952) (the first "branded" playset) *

The Untouchables Untouchable or Untouchables may refer to: People * Untouchability, the practice of socially ostracizing a minority group of very low social status * Untouchables, word for the Dalits or Scheduled Castes of India * Untouchables (law enforcement), ...

Zorro Zorro ( or , Spanish for "fox") is a fictional character created in 1919 by American Pulp magazine, pulp writer Johnston McCulley, appearing in works set in the Pueblo de Los Ángeles in Alta California. He is typically portrayed as a dashin ...

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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