My Stay Puft Marshmallow Man had no instruction booklet - it was just a few parts which I cobbled together in seconds after popping the box open. It's pretty nice! The only other sizable version of Mr. Stay Puft was my Kenner Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man from 1986. It was a softer vinyl figure with 3 points of articulation, while this one is a hard plastic figure with 4 joints. This one is larger and has articulated wrists, shoulders, and that's it. Kenner's had a neck, but no wrists.
Ray is covered in fluff, and a "clean" Ray with regular hair is in the firehouse. This one has him dripping in the stuff, with special tactical goggles and otherwise similar decoration.
The reason you're buying this figure is for Mr. Stay Puft, which is a durable specimen. The plastic is hard, much like many of the dinosaurs, whales, or other larger creatures. He has partially hollow feed so he can step on things, but the design is strange from a manufacturing perspective. The bib is a separate piece with a bit of a gap over his shoulders. The red tassle on his hat and ribbon are printed on, rather than being raised or molded like on my other toys of this character. It's a departure, to say the least. His mouth is open and happy, with a painted red interior. The eyes are bright and wide, with a clear "STAY PUFT" printed on his hat. He's rotund and round, with a stiff neck and the white plastic sporting the typical fibrous Playmobil texture. If you get in close and squint, the texture you've seen on other hard, seemingly immortal pieces of plastic is here rather than a uniform color. There are little variations in color, and it works. It works nicely.
The figure is ready to go out of the bag, and he can rotate his wrists and shoulders. The biggest surprise to me was that his hands have a little notch to hold accessories. You read right - he can hold a gun! I couldn't believe it. Much like some of the toy dinosaurs or other creatures, they added a fun play feature that while not necessarily canonical is a ton of fun. I wish it was taller, mostly because it's too small to be threatening. I assume a larger one could be more fragile or cost too much, and for the imaginative play Playmobil generally markets I can't imagine it would be worth their while to make him a giant.
The Ray figure is good. He has his name "STANTZ" printed n the torso along with some suggestive splotches from his favorite benign advertising mascot, elbow pads, a belt, zippers, plus sculpted and painted pockets. There's a lot going on here and it looks fantastic - you can even see the "no ghost" symbol on the right arm. If you want to put the goggles on the non-fluffed figure, you can! The hair pops off and is easily swapped between figures. You get Playmobil standard articulation and a Proton Pack with Neutrino Wand that requires a tiny bit of assembly. The proton stream plugs nicely in the weapon and glows under black light. The backpack just enough printed and sculpted detail to be convincing, lacking some of the spare parts from Radio Shack you see in the movie - but at this scale, that seems gratuitous. You can plug the wand into the backpack, but if you do the energy stream has nowhere to go for storage. It would have been super cool if the Marshmallow Man, being largely hollow, could double as a storage container. It was not meant to be.
Playmobil deserves credit for the backpack design and the wand, too. Gravity can be a problem with many action figures, especially when there's a large accessory that can cause the figure to topple forward. This one's clear, flat design put me off at first but actually allows him to aim the blast and not fall over. This sort of thing matters to me, and I assume it would've mattered to me as a child when I would have probably been a total brat when demanding these figures for my own.
Kenner's 1986 monster figure had less articulation and cost about $6-$9 - with inflation, it'd be $13.40-$20.11. I'd say that makes this a comparable product for the money. Considering the size of the large ghost when compared 6-inc figures for collectors and the added bonus gear and second smaller figure, it's decent. Other sets may do more or offer more stuff, but it's not like you get this particular iconic movie creature in those sets. If you're collecting this whole line, you'll probably want this - but if you have another Marshmallow Man from another toy line, you might be perfectly happy with it. Since Ray is not exclusive to the set, you may not need this one unless you want the whole line, and you probably do. I do!
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