Top Five Holiday Action Figure Lines

Cornering the holiday special action figure market, Playing Mantis released an extremely complete series of action figures based on Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, or more specifically, the stop-motion special by Rankin-Bass. From every misfit toy under the sun to King Moonracer and the Abominable Snowman, someone who owns the complete series could easily create their own stop-motion version of the show if they wanted to. This special still gets high ratings even decades after its debut, so it’s no wonder that these are very popular holiday action figures to own.

Forget the action figures that came out with the release of the 2000 live action movie version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas with Jim Carrey. Everybody loves the original designs by Dr. Seuss, faithfully recreated in the television special by Chuck Jones. In 2007, McFarlane Toys made action figures (though they could be more accurately described as “miniature dioramas”) based on this beloved special, and they turned out phenomenally well. If you can find them in stores this year, be sure to snatch them up, because I don’t think any toy company can improve on what McFarlane has achieved with these figures.

As a television special, A Charlie Brown Christmas has been around for over 40 years and is considered by many to be the best animated Christmas special ever made. The figures, originally released by Playing Mantis, capture the essence of the special perfectly, from Charlie Brown’s small but real tree, Pig Pen’s dirty snowman, and even Sally’s letter to Santa. Though first released several years ago, the figures have been reissued by other toy companies since their debut in 2003, and through several different boxed sets, it’s easy to assemble your own plastic cast of Peanuts characters.

Though this only includes four pieces, the Star Wars Holiday Exclusives have turned out to be some of the best investments in the entire Star Wars line over the years. The first three were based on holiday artwork created by Ralph McQuarrie, the man responsible for creating the look of most of the Star Wars universe. Hasbro hasn’t released a holiday exclusive Star Wars figure in a few years, but the ones they have released (C-3PO and R2-D2, Yoda, Jawas , and a bright red Darth Vader) are always in demand this time of year for the people who missed out on them.

Rankin-Bass cornered the market with its holiday action figures, but Palisades managed to get a hold of the license for this special instead of Playing Mantis. Though no longer around, Palisades was one of the best toy companies of its time and probably most remembered for its incredible Muppets toy line. If you want toys that look like the original source material, you’d be hard pressed to find a better example than this line. Heat Miser and Snow Miser are extremely well done, as is Santa himself. These were originally sold through Musicland stores (Sam Goody, Suncoast) a few years ago, so you might have to resort to online auctions to find them now.