More MPC page 6

The MPC Triceratops

Marx original issue • Marx reissue • MPC • MPC
The Marx original was made in a 4-piece mold (right, left, between the forelegs, and forehead between the horns). The 3-piece MPC mold deleted the separate piece between the forelegs, but had the piece between the horns. This is the only really practical way to make the two horns free-standing. MPC changed the arrangement of the legs a bit, and the figure is overall noticeably smaller than the Marx version.

Markings - 20' LONG (left side of tail), TRICERATORS (right side of tail), 16 (inside of left rear leg). Note that TRICERATOPS is mispelled.

The MPC Tyrannosaurus

Marx original issue • MPC • MPC • MPC
The MPC Tyrannosaurus is a poor copy of the Marx Tyrannosaurus (b). Fortunately MPC never issued a copy of the Marx Tyrannosaurus (a) - imagination quails at the thought of how that might have turned out. The MPC Tyrannosaurus is a strange club-footed thing, perhaps inevitable given the decision to copy a figure made in a Marx 3-piece mold but using only a 2-piece mold. The resulting embarrassment is, at least, more colorful than the Marx original.

Markings - 50'LONG (left side of tail), TYRANNOSAURUS REX (right side of tail), 13 (inside of left leg)

The MPC Woolly Mammoth

Marx original issue • Marx reissue • MPC • MPC
The Marx Woolly Mammoth is another exceptional figure, and expensively produced in a 4-piece mold (left; right; abdomen and between legs; and front of face, upper trunk, and between tusks). The MPC version is slightly smaller and much thinner, and was made in a 3-piece mold. It is probably the best molding job of all Marx copies made by MPC. The three mold pieces are left half; right half; and front of face and between tusks. Unlike Marx, MPC used no mold piece down between the legs. Nevertheless the fur on the lower body and inside of the legs is well sculpted, and the legs are fully three-dimensional without that strange inside-surface flatness which mars most of the other MPC figures. The only real drawback to the simpler mold seems to have been that the markings couldn't go underneath, where they belong, but are up on the figure's back, where they look dumb.

The Marx figure was almost certainly meant to be Mammuthus primigenius, although when the figure first appeared the generic name might still have been Mammonteus (or maybe even Elephas - the generic name just won't stay put). However, Marx called it a Woolly Mammoth, so that's what MPC called it too.

Markings - WOOLLY MAMMOTH, 26'LONG (both on upper right side of back)

The length marking is indistinct but it looks like 26'LONG. The Marx version says 28' LONG.

... there's more MPC, if you can stand it ....