There was so much Jaws merchandise available it was unreal. Today I am going to talk about the Jaws toys. There is a hell of a lot to go through so today I am just going to talk about the stuff that caught my eye and stuff I actually own.
If you are interested in finding out about ALL of the Jaws merchandise that was released then please go and check out this website Jawscollecter.com. It is an amazing site which is packed with awesome content.
MCFARLANES MOVIE MANIACS JAWS AND THE ORCA
Mcfarlane were the toy company that rose the bar when it came to making realistic toys and action figures. They started making authorized horror action figures in the late 90's with great success. The toys of Freddy Krueger, Jason, Leatherface, Michael Mysers and all the other top players in the world of horror, flew off the shelves and was a great success. In 2001 they released a model of Jaws taking down the Orca re-enacting one of the most iconic scenes of the movie.
The model came complete with a miniature articulated figure of Quint. The figure could be pulled into two parts separating the lower body and torso. When the figure is pulled apart Quints internal organs are put on display in the goriest of fashion.
The model is highly detailed to even the most tiniest of details like the inside of the boat is completely furnished with all the exact same arrangement shown in the movie. The shark looks incredible and Quint fits nicely inside the sharks mouth. This is by far the best and most detailed Jaws toy ever made. My cat knocked mine off a shelf a few years ago and certain parts have had to be superglued. I was almost in tears when that happened.
JAWS THE GAME
A short time after Jaws was released a Jaws home game was released. This one was kind of like Buckaroo but with a shark. They could have named it "Sharkaroo".. there's another reason why I never get asked back to marketing meetings!
The rules of the game were very simple, you had to remove items from the sharks mouth without triggering the jaws to close. I never actually played the game with others so I cant say wether the game was a classic or not. My mum was friends with some one who had one of these in their house and they used to let me play with it when I was a kid. I used to sit there for hours feeding GI Joes to it. Looking back that was a very happy time in my life. What can be better than feeding action figures to Jaws?
SIDESHOW'S JAWS MARQUETTE
In recent years Sideshow released a massive marquette of Bruce the Great White Shark from Jaws. The model is huge and is greatly detailed with a stand. Not as good as the Mcfarlane toy (in my opinion) but a very close second.
JAWS PLUSHY WITH SOUND
This Jaws plushy was also released in recent years. When you press the button on the fin it plays the music from Jaws. For an actual licensed item from the franchise this item is quite poor quality. The shark looks ridiculous and if it wasnt for the packaging you could mistake this one for a bootleg toy.
JAWS LUNCHBOX
Nothing says "lunch time" more than a lunch box with a giant Great White Shark on the front. Even though this may be the coolest lunch box I have ever seen I do see one flaw with this item. Try and imagine one of those really fat kids you see on American reality TV carrying one of these without laughing.
THE IMAGES FOR THE FOLLOWING ITEMS WERE VERY GENEROUSLY DONATED TO LOST ENTERTAINMENT VIA JIM THE JAWS COLLECTOR FROM JAWSCOLLECTOR.COM
ADDAR SUPER SCENES JAWS HOBBY KIT
If you have ever read a model magazine, then you will know that horror movies and hobby kits go hand in hand. This one is probably one of the most unique hobby kits I have ever seen. Its a water bottle with a shark attacking a diver.
JAWS PADDLE BALL
This is an amazing paddle ball item with a Jaws design. Even if the shark looks more like an evil piraña fish its marketing items like these I love the most. Just simple ideas made into fun products.
OFFICIAL JAWS INFLATABLE SHARK
Spending a lot of my childhood growing up by a swimming pool I can honestly say I have owned (and punctured) 90% of inflatable toys ever made. The great white shark goes in the 10% category of inflatables I never got to own. Having 2 older sisters we always ended up having to get a dolphin or something. Once I got really screwed over in a beach hut by my mum and sisters when we ended up buying a giant ladybird one. When the day comes that I have children they will be getting as many blow up sharks as they wish.
500 PIECE JAWS PUZZLE
This is another wonderful unique Jaws item, a 500 piece puzzle of a scene from the movie. I have seen Jaws well over a 1000 times in my lifetime and I am pretty sure this is not an official scene from the movie. I think the top half is from the scene where the fisherman are trying to catch the shark to collect the bounty put up by Alex Kintners mother. The bottom half looks to be just a picture of a real great white pasted in. Still this is an awesome puzzle.
MATCHBOX STAR CARS JAWS BUS
A few years back Matchbox started releasing the Star Cars line. This line of toys were of famous cars from movies and TV like for instance, the A-Team Van, the Starsky and Hutch car and even Chief Brody's jeep. After releasing a few lines of these they started running out of ideas and then they just started to make buses with movie posters on the side. This is the Jaws bus and the Jaws bus is hands down the coolest bus I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of buses.
THE JAWS RIDE 3D VIEW MASTER
The 3d View Master was a very popular toy that was released in the 70's and survived all the way to the late 80's. Before Game Boy's, Game Gear's and PSP's the view master was one of the only handheld entertainment toys available. The View Master was a red box with eye lenses and when you put reels of film in you could view the negatives. Now this may sound quite crappy compared to todays standards but it was really quite fun. The real fun was collecting the films and there were so many to choose from. Most TV shows and movies had view master reels released. Another awesome thing about the view master cards was that they made good ninja throwing stars.
Well thats it for Jaws this summer I hope you have enjoyed reading the Jaws related articles on Lost Entertainment. I would also like to say a huge thank you to Jim Beller the Jaws Collector for kindly donating images for this article. Please visit jawscollector.com and join his facebook page by clicking here.
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