Playing Mantis Johnny Lightning The Challengers Nucleon (Yellow) Playing Mantis, 1995
Day #2,722: June 21, 2024
The Challengers Nucleon (Yellow) Commemorative Limited Edition
Johnny Lightning The Challengers
Item No.: No. 100-142 Manufacturer:Playing Mantis Includes:Silver Plastic Limited Edition Coin, #19510 Action Feature:Rolls Retail:$2.99 Availability: ca. 1995 Other: Available in many other colors
Since the 1990s there's been an ever-increasing market of toys to adults, including the Playing Mantis reissues of the old Topper Corp. Johnny Lightning. As far as I know I never saw or took notice of the Nucleon (Yellow) - sold in the 1970s in various colors, and sold at Walmarts and Kay-Bees in the 1990s for a couple of bucks. This toy seems to be a pretty good remake of the original - but they changed up the tooling a bit.
The original Hot Wheels were a phenomenon, and more or less "inspired" by Matchbox. Hot Wheels started with 16 cars - some real, some original designs - in pretty gonzo colors. Johnny Lightning's cars followed suit, but the 1990s reissues are a little less zany - this yellow isn't metallic nor does it seem to want to ape the Spectraflame paint or red line wheels. Looking at the castings from the very original line, they sure seemed to be doing a "plays with" line. But to me in the 1990s, I knew this brand mostly for Lost in Space and other sci-fi and licensed vehicles. Those things did good business, and some of them are still doing well - I saw a Munsters Drag-U-La in Trivial Pursuit packaging just the other week at Target. I remember those in the 1990s!
I spotted this one in June of 2024 at an antique mall in Phoenix and thought "Wow, that's super cool and weird, I wonder if it's any fun?" And then came back to get it six days later. Thankfully toys of the 1990s - especially for adults - were over-produced and under-loved, so this is pretty much worthless today. Both the top and bottom parts are die-cast metal of some sort, with a clear plastic window for the driver in front and a chrome engine of some sort in the back. These seem much more fanciful than Mattel's concept offerings, basically being two circles with a bridge in the middle and pegs sticking out the sides. Why? I don't know. It's weird, it looks sort of like something a kid might draw in art class and I found that incredibly appealing. The yellow lacks significant sparkle but in some light you can see a hint of it.
It's light on detail - the chrome engine has a few raised bits, the car itself is smooth and the underside has some vents on it. There's not much here, the seat inside the bubble has more going on than the entire car. Meanwhile, the wheels look more or less like any decent 1:64 vehicle - no tread, low-friction, and they roll great on the orange tracks you can get at the Dollar Tree. It glides smoothly but I can't vouch for the packaging boastingn "Beat Them All!' or "Lightning Fast!" as I don't have the tracks that can measure such things in races as of yet.
I liked that it went a decent distance - not amazing, but good - when I used a launcher on orange track. On a gravity roll it did very nicely, but most cars do well unless they're a real stinker. It rolls smoothly and is the kind of toy car that people who bought The Outer Space Men should get, the whole retro-futuristic thing is so cool and was done so well from the 1960s to the 1980s. After that, it just seems normal to me - but that could be my age. I think cars after the 1970s are pretty dang boring too, and I go out of my way to drive the most boring vehicles I can afford.
The only accessory is a coin that's plastic with sticker on it. It's big, but not huge - about 1 1/2-inches across.
This could be your (heck, my) new obsession. If antique malls have these things collecting dust at $4 after being $3 (or less) in the 1990s, I'll pick one or two up as I see them. I can't imagine today's kids would pounce on them if the current Round2 company brought them back again, but maybe they would. If Mattel made it, I'd buy it - and since they didn't, I guess the antique malls are going to take some of my lunch money this summer. I like it, get one.
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