HONG KONG, CHINA (February 7, 2003) - New toy company, MAJESTIC STUDIOS, will debut its wide variety of collectible action figure toys later this month at the Toy Fair trade show in NYC. On one hand their new DAVEY AND GOLIATH figures are considered the epitome of "family values" toys, and on the other, Majestic is premiering one of the most horrifying creatures seen on movie screens in the past few years, the CREEPER from MGM's horror opus, JEEPERS CREEPERS. The Creeper is just the beginning of a line of horror toys to be called FILM FREAKS.
Majestic Studios is a Hong Kong-based action-figure toy company specializing in internationally recognized licensed characters. American owner Richard "Rick" Phares' goal is to provide a showcase for alternative properties that have slipped through the cracks of the major collectible toy companies, but who still resound in our collective consciousness.
"The popular culture of the past fifty years has given us triumph and tragedy, gods and monsters, beauties and beasts. Majestic Studios will reflect the whole spectrum like a mirror," says CEO Phares.
As another example of bringing opposites together, Phares points to two of his other action figure toys premiering at Toy Fair. "The first release in our 12-inch Film Freaks line, a human scientist with the giant head of a fly, from the memorably gruesome 1950's Vincent Price monster movie, THE RETURN OF THE FLY, stands in complete contrast to cute breakfast buddy, QUISP," says Phares. Quisp is remembered as the propeller-headed, pun spewing pink alien in a green spacesuit from the 60's and 70's who promoted his "quispy, quunchy, quazy energy" cereal for Quaker Oats.
The creation of the new company, Majestic Studios, is the result of owner Rick Phares' crosspollinating his years of toy manufacturing experience with his extensive motion picture marketing background. He has received numerous awards, including "The Best New Toy Line of 1998 Award" from Lee's Action Figure News magazine, for the PUPPET MASTER figures, based on the popular Full Moon Pictures horror film series of the same name. In fact, during his years as a consultant to toy manufacturers, Phares was responsible for the successful launch of many toy series.
"Davey and Goliath will be fondly remembered by Baby Boomers as the stop-motion animated TV show featuring a little boy, Davey, who always learned life's lessons with the help of his talking dog, Goliath," Phares explains, "It was a staple of Sunday morning TV during the 60's
and 70's."
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, who controls the franchise, licensed the characters for a Mountain Dew commercial in 2001 which succeeded in reviving interest enough to release the old shows on DVD and begin production on a brand new holiday special to be shown this December. There are also plans to create brand new half hour episodes for today's kids to enjoy in 2004.
The outlook for the company's Film Freaks series looks good. Horror icons Freddy Krueger, Jason and Chucky dolls continue to sell well through up or downturns in the economy and film companies continue to make sequels of them. Majestic's Creeper figure will benefit from the release of a sequel, JEEPERS CREEPERS 2: LIKE A BAT OUT OF HELL, from Executive Producer Francis Ford Coppola, coinciding with the release of the 12-inch action figure in the fourth quarter of 2003.
Besides Coppola's sequel and 20th Century Fox's Return of the Fly, which is a sequel that spawned two more sequels in the 80's, another filmmaker has already created a sequel to one of Majestic's new toys. John Kricfalusi, creator of the kitschy REN & STIMPY cartoons, has animated a new adventure for the out-of-this-world cereal-eating alien Quisp at "We will begin releasing toys in the second half of 2003. Our 7 and 12-inch toys will be competitively priced and available at toy and mass merchandise stores everywhere, but also in the venues where real action figure collectors shop, in comic book stores," Phares adds.
And as Quisp says, "Have a cosmic day!"
