by Joe Grossberg 

My last article explored what was to be Playing Mantis's first Kid Action costume set– the unproduced SPEED RACER.  Speed however was not to be alone on the racetrack; Playing Mantis (PM) also planned to fulfill the dream of many a Captain Action fan by producing a complete Captain Action Trio.   For the good Captain PM had planned the character of Racer X and for Dr. Evil, the Speed Racer nemesis Captain Terror.   In this article I will explore the steps taken by Playing Mantis in designing these sets and just how far along the sets were before the line was canceled.

But first a little background on the characters.  Racer X first appeared in Speed Racer episodes 3 and 4,  “Challenge of the Masked Racer.”  In this episode Pop refuses to let Speed be a Race Car Driver and relates the tale of Speed’s older brother Rex.  Rex Racer had entered a race without Pop’s permission and crashed Pop’s car.  Pops, of course, blows a gasket, and refuses to let Rex drive again.  Consequently, Rex leaves home for good swearing to become the world’s greatest racer; becoming Racer X. 

The next time we see Racer X is in episodes 7 and 8, “The Race Against Mammoth Car” in which he saves Speed and Trixie and helps uncover Mammoth Car's, mammoth secret. 

His next appearance is of special interest because it is also featured Captain Terror, episodes 9, 10 and 11 “The Most Dangerous Race.” Captain Terror is the leader of the dreaded Car Acrobat Team.  He has super-hero-ish garb and with his skull like face and sweeping feather, he would have made a unique Captain Action villain.  As a quick aside this episode also features Snake Oiler.  If the Speed sets had sold well, PM was maintaining the possibility of doing multiple Dr. Evil disguises and Snake was first on this list.

Racer X would make several more appearances including episodes 16/17, 31/32, 38/39, and episode 40 “The Man Behind the Mask” in which Racer X is revealed to be a secret agent, Agent 9. 

Racer X’s next appearance, episode 50 “The Trick Race,” is perhaps my favorite for two reasons.  The first is that it marks the return of the surviving members of the Car Acrobat Team, lead of course, by Captain Terror.  In this episode Captain Terror, after first vowing to destroy Speed, ends up teaming up with both him and Racer X. The second neat thing about this episode is that Speed finally confronts Racer X and asks him directly if he is his brother.  Rather than reveal his secret, Racer X punches Speed in the stomach and knocks him out.  Rather an unexpected way to answer a question.

Racer X’s last appearance is in the last two episodes of the series 51 and 52 “Race around the World" in which Speed becomes the World's Champion Racecar Driver.


Having chosen the characters, PM next needed to flesh out the sets by designing the plethora of accessories that every Captain Action fan expects.   The creative team on this project was headed by Eileen Maloney-Crouse, PM's Product Development Director.  The product design and graphic art  was executed by Bob Plant and Michael Murphy.  The first step taken was when Eileen Maloney-Crouse approached Speed Racer Enterprises (SRE) for suggestions in terms suitable accessories.  Here is the artwork that SRE provided.
 

As in the case of Speed Racer, SRE provided artwork detailing ideas for appropriate accessories.  Additionally, SRE provided artwork for the Racer X facemask.  The biggest surprise is that from the start PM had planned to break out Rex Racer and Racer X as two separate masks.  The feeling was that it would be a nice way to fill out the set.  Sculptures for the masks would be done by the same vendor who did the work on Speed.  As stated in the last article they were located in China and shared offices with PM's business partner, Mantis Hong Kong.  Here are images of the in progress Rex and Racer X plasticene sculptures.   At this point they had gone through one set of revisions and the  Rex was in pretty good shape but Racer X had a ways to go.
                              

Having received these images, Bob Plant had many notes on this sculpt including the thickness and placement of the 'X', the expression and most notably the intergration of the visor.  To convey these, Bob sent over turnaround drawings2 redefining the look of this character.  Here are the drawings for the Racer X mask.
       


Once these drawings were completed they were then sent to China so new sculptures could be done.  Images of the new sculptures were sent to PM for feedback.  Although the Artists had done an excellent job of bringing the turnaround drawings to life, Bob and Michael still felt they needed further refinement.  But what would be the best way to communicate these ideas to artists 1000’s of miles away who spoke a different language?  The industry standard solution to this was to communicate visually by using Photoshop to retouch the sculpts in progress images.  This would give concrete direction of the needed changes.  Here is Bob’s before and after for the Racer X mask.
 

 
As can be seen in this image Bob’s turnaround drawings resulted in an appropriately stoic Racer X.  Of special interest in his design is the use of a slit down the back to enabled a single piece full head mask to be easily placed on the Captain's head.  Ideal's solution to full head masks was a two piece mask as in the vintage Bat-Man and Phantom sets or all too visible side openings as in the Spider-Man set.  The two piece masks can be tricky to keep in place, indeed some vintage boxed sets used pins under the chin to hold the facemask on the body mannequin.  Bob's solution is simple and would have been invisible in the final  mask.

Also of interest is Bob's solution to keeping a bit of Rex Racer in the final Racer X mask.   He pioneered  a feature that PM would also use in the retro-boxed Green Hornet and Kato sets.  Racer X’s visor was broken out as a separate piece, so it was removable.  This is a great design addition that would allow the visor to be in a translucent blue plastic so Racer X’s eye’s could be seen within. 

Here is the prototype with visor attached.
     

 
And the final painted version.  Note that although this is from the Hyper Action stand alone figure it is indeed the Mask sculpt as it still has the slit in the back to facilitate the mask's removal.  This is the original sculpt without Bob's modifications.
 

 

With the mask in good shape PM began filling out Racer X's arsenal.

The accessories they chose are perhaps some of the coolest designed for a Captain Action set.  Michael Murphy chose to borrow the idea of the briefcase from the Captain Terror artwork and combine it with the knife, walkie-talkie and pistol from the Racer X artwork.  This results in a very retro feeling spy briefcase with the accessories beautifully laid out.  It’s also a nice nod to Racer X’s life as a secret agent.  Here is an image of the tooling pattern and prototypes1. 
    

As in the case of the Racer X mask Bob used Photoshop to convey his design modifications.  These include the addition of a trigger in the pistol and a ball at the end of the handle for the knife.
 


In addition to these accessories, PM had planned to give Racer X the racing license shown in the SRE art, since we can't have the good guys driving around without one. 

Now that Racer X is outfitted appropriately, Captain Terror will need to be well armed to make an appropriate nemesis.

To accomplish this PM went with the Pistol from the SRE art.  Here are images showing both sides of the Pistol.  It is certainly a formidable and futuristic weapon with a nice vintage feel.

But a Pistol alone is not enough to win on the racetrack.  To aid the evil Captain PM felt the Radar Scanner from the SRE art looked appropriately useful.  It has a feel similar to the Hypnotic Eye from the Lab Set.  Here is the original prototype as sent to PM and the Photoshop touched up done by Bob Plant.  The changes include elongating the operating handles on the sides, enlarging the radar dish and adding size, detail and complexity to the front read out panel.  The modification to the operating handles is quite nice as it would add play value by fitting it more comfortably in the evil Captain's fist.
 
 
One remaining Captain Terror accessory was his briefcase with a concealed machine gun feature as shown in the SRE art.  The way it worked was if you slide the handle forward the machine gun would pop out.  With both character's so armed it would be a case of battling briefcases!!

In addition to overseeing the work on the masks and accessories, Bob and Michael oversaw the costumes as well.  In designing the uniforms for Racer X and Captain Terror, they incorporated a nice design innovation which they had first pioneered for the Speed Racer set.  Both characters had glove hands.  This is effectively a new hand and post with glove extension that would replace Captain Action's hand when assuming this character.  It is the best way of maintaining an authentic look while maintaining the ability to hold accessories. 
   

A nugget of information that Michael Murphy revealed to me at Comicon 2000 will be of interest to anyone wanting to own a bit of these sets.  In examining the characters Bob and Michael realized that their belts looked exactly like Ming's belt upside-down.  Ming's Boots with a little reworking also matched. So indeed that is exactly what was used for the mockups.  It is likely that for the final sets they would have molded new belts and boots that were stylistically more accurate to the Speed Racer cartoon. 

In addition to the head sculpts and accessories, the costumes for both sets were also done in china and sent unpainted (and un-emblemed) to PM.  Bob had determined it would be best to do the painting closer to home and hired David Voight of Chicago for this work.  To ensure color accuracy Bob sent David the Pantone numbers of colors he wanted. 

As far as the decals the 'M' on Racer X was airbrushed while Captain Terror's emblem was printed on a color printer and laminated.  The final would have been on foil.

Here's one last bit of information in regard to our friendly chameleon Dr. Evil.  It was Eileen Maloney-Crouse who came up with the idea of the brown Dr. Evil for the Ming set.  Indeed all PM's Dr. Evil mock-ups were done on brown bodies.  As the good Captain and the Doctor are identical from the neck down, the Captain Terror mock-up was actually done on a Captain Action body.

Here, in all there glory are the final costumes.  Note: These are as they exist today as Hyper Action stand alone figures but as shown in the case of the Racer X mask, they are effectively Captain Action mock-ups.
 

 
Unlike the Speed Racer set, the timing was such that Bob and Michael never had the chance to do a sales mock-up3 for the Racer X and Captain Terror window boxes. 

So the art for the window box packages would never be done.  The only art seen for these characters was the inclusion of Racer X and Captain Terror as one of the many disguises on both the retro-boxed figures and window boxed costumes released as Previews Exclusives in late 1999/early 2000.  In fact, these are the images shown on the header of this article.  This art was simply a quick and dirty in-house creation that was only meant to be used reduced size on the figure boxes.  New art was to be created for the final costume boxes.
 

For all the work in designing and refining these sets, they would never be publicized as part of the Captain Action line.  In late 1999 it become apparent that Diamond was pulling out and PM's Captain Action would be no more.  At this point PM tried to repurpose this work as a line of stand alone figures under the banner Hyper Action.  It was only as Hyper Action figures that the Racer X and Captain Terror  mock ups were ever displayed.  The real push for Hyper Action was at Toyfare 2001 with a large display featuring action figures, boxes and artwork from the show.
 

As you can see it is certainly a line that would send any Captain Action Fan’s heart racing.  Bob Plant did an exceptional job with his stand alone long boxes.  He both preserved the style and feel of the vintage sets and enabled the toy to be clearly seen as demanded by today's retailers.  You'd think such action figures would be a shoe-in with today's nostalgic baby boomer consumers.  Alas, retailers didn’t agree .  Hyper Action didn't find support and PM discontinued their 1/6 scale action figure line by spring of 2001.

The final article of this series will explore the PM's last unproduced costume sets, Jonny Quest, with never seen before artwork and prototypes.  Also included will be what they were planning for the next series of releases and a 'what might have been' look at the last Captain Action character set on PM's drawing board.

I would like to conclude this article with a big thank you to Bob Plant for sharing these wonderful stories and great artwork and images of work in progress.  Also, I'd like to thank Tom Lowe and the wonderful people at Playing Mantis for having produced such great toys over the years

I would also like to acknowledge referencing Elizabeth Moran's wonderful book "The Official 30th Anniversity Guide to Speed Racer" (Hyperion Press, 1997) in compiling the background information on Racer X and Captain Terror.  Her book covers every aspect of the classic TV series and should be required reading for any Speed Racer fan.

These definitions of toy manufacturing terms provided by Bob Plant:

1) Prototype - I might sometime consider this term interchangeable with the word "mockup," but a prototype would actually be a more complete mockup that would be taken to the next step; something that's a little more final and works more like the finished product would. Most of the items we create for sales and presentation purposes are more "mockup" than "prototype."

2) Tooling patterns - these are the resins casting of the final, approved sculpt that are sent to the manufacturer/factory/vendor as a definitive guide when making the tools (or molds) that will ultimately be used in the production of the actual product. Tooling patterns are clean, precise castings and show no evidence of mold lines or the imperfections of the casting process. Sometimes tooling patterns are completed to such a degree that all the engineering issues (like joints, fit of parts, etc.) have been thoroughly worked out. Sometimes tooling patterns might be simply a casting of the final sculpt which is then sent to the vendor/factory, who will use their own engineering and mockup department to work out some of the more technical details -- again, like articulation and fit of parts.

3) Mockup - a mockup can refer to any item used to represent (to some degree) what the finished product will look like. Some mocked up product might consist of resin castings that are painted to look like the final product. In then case of the Speed Racer mockup, a resin casting of the head/mask sculpt was attached to a pre-production piece of the Kid Action body. Pre-production/mockup clothing was used, and as I've mentioned, sometimes "found" and customized parts might be used to complete a mockup product. A packaging mockup may be created with the intent to be work used toward the final packaging art -- which is what I did in the case of the Speed package. The illustration was completed with the intent of being good enough to be used for the final art

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Page Layout and Design c) 2004 Daniel Webster Games and Beyond


 
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