Monday, August 11, 2025

Hey Kids! It's Tin Tank Turnover Time!

I recently found this fun, and very rare Casper the Friendly Ghost wind-up tank toy, wonderfully adorned with a variety of lithographed Harvey characters. Little Audrey, Herman and Catnip, Baby Huey, and Buzzy the Crow are all aboard, and aiming their silly sights at you! Made in Japan by Marx / Linemar, what makes this so unique is that after giving the 'ol tank a good windin', the full body, flat Casper piece on the underside pops up, turning / flipping the tank over until it rolls back on its wheels, where it then continues on down the path to do more hilariously haunted tank destruction ahead. Okay, there wasn't much damage done to my wallet though, fortunately, as this thing was way out of my price range, but it was still cool to play with at the antique mall until an employee waltzed by and gave me a dirty look. Marx / Linemar made a ton of different tank type toys like this, they even teamed up with the DCU for an oddly off-model, yellow color costumed Superman tank variant-- check it out by FLIPPING OVER HERE!

4 comments:

  1. Old tin toy? Yeah, that's probably out of our price ranges -- what was it if I might ask?

    I love the color, that weird kind of sea foam and the printing is nice, but I don't think Casper's nose is right, and the other figures are that uncanny value of just slightly off model, which gives it a more haunted look!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can only imagine the scary price tag on that windup toy.
    Wouldn't this be considered the original Haunted Tank?

    As for the Superman tank, I recall seeing a Super Fan of Superman who had nearly everything made of the man of steel from a TV show titled "Kovel's on Collecting". Some of the Superman watches went for prices that made Mickey Mouse watches seem dirt cheap in comparison.
    Sadly, I can't find the VHS tape I used to record the episode, and it isn't online anywhere.
    Thanks for posting that toy tank, I never would have seen that in the wild around my neck of the woods.

    ReplyDelete
  3. At least a tank will do less damage than the ICBM the Harveytoons gang is launching here:

    www.comics.org/issue/265052/cover/4/

    ReplyDelete
  4. Tin toys are the best! I'm sorry you were clerk-blocked before you got the chance to take a video of that tank in action.

    ReplyDelete