2008 saw the theatrical release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the fourth chapter in the Indiana Jones quadrilogy and first new Indiana Jones film since 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Along with the release came the usual slew of multimedia products from a LEGO Indy video game to a fake whip for kids to the collectible action figure collection by Hasbro toys that encompassed all four of the Indy movies.

We found this price tag at a Wal-Mart store a while back where the Indiana Jones movie action figures were supposed to be.

I was excited at first when I saw this label because I had been eagerly anticipating the release of the Temple of Doom action figure line. Not only was it my favorite of the films when I was a child but this wave of figures contained the one figure that I had been waiting for since the launch of the line, Thugee cult leader Mola Ram (the guy that pulls the guy’s heart out in the movie). At first I didn’t even notice the strangeness of the error on this tag and began searching vigorously through the nearby pegs of action figures, none of which were Indiana Jones. In fact, there weren’t any Indy figures around and the peg that this tag was on was filled with Batman action figures that hadn’t sold.

Really. No Wal-Mart employee thought this was out of place? Really. Maybe they did it on purpose because they hated the film. Why not just call this “TEMPLE OF DOOM FIG” or something? And why did they bother to include the size of the figures (3.75 inches) in the title if they couldn’t even fit “doom” in there? They even included Indiana Jones in there twice, both as “IJ” and “INDY.” Seriously. How could they screw this up so badly?

I really over-analyzed that poop joke, didn’t I.

Remember that psycho guy in Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom that runs the cult?  It would have been nice to have an action figure of that guy.  In fact, he’s really the only character other than Indy himself that I wanted an action figure of, but it never happened.

Hasbro even produced Temple of Doom  figures as the last batch of their 2008 Indy figure line, but they were so scarce that most collectors–including myself–never saw them.

Join me as I investigate the causes of why I can’t get my hands on a Mola Ram figure in this investigative look back to 2008’s Indiana Jones action figure collection.

I initially wrote this article in April 2009 and held off on publishing it since I figured it was too hardcore for what I normally write for “Flashback,” but I felt that since I’d devoted so much time to it back then that I’d publish it for anyone that might be interested.

Take a trip down memory lane: 2008! Where are the Temple of Doom action figures?

I know it is a little soon to “flash back” to something that happened two years ago, but I couldn’t wait. This needed to be done.

It all began under my “Temple of Doo” article as an explanation as to why I was amazed that Wal-Mart was advertising for Temple of Doom action figures. It quickly began to expand to over 5 pages, so I had to move it to its own special section here in “Flashback!”

Let’s begin with what I was saying in the “Temple of Doo” article:

“I was excited at first when I saw this label because I had been eagerly anticipating the release of the Temple of Doom action figure line. Not only was it my favorite of the films when I was a child but this wave of figures contained the one figure that I had been waiting for since the launch of the line, Thugee cult leader Mola Ram (the guy that pulls the guy’s heart out in the movie). At first I didn’t even notice the strangeness of the error on this tag and began searching vigorously through the nearby pegs of action figures, none of which were Indiana Jones. In fact, there weren’t any Indy figures around and the peg that this tag was on was filled with Batman action figures that had hadn’t sold.”

My disappointment over the lack of the Temple of Doom figures led me to re-examine the label to see if this was actually advertising for the elusive Temple of Doom wave as well as some from the first Indy episode, 1981’s Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. The problem with this batch of figures was that there was little-to-no quality control on them, which ultimately resulted in horrible paint jobs on the faces of the action figures. Some of these paint jobs were so egregious that the figure’s eyes were painted half on their brow line, causing them to be downright silly figures at times.

This lack of quality control turned a majority of line into what is known in the action figure collecting community as “peg warmers,” meaning that the figures stay unsold on the pegs that they are hung from for product display for so long that they “warm” these pegs. A common example of a peg-warming figure is always a topless fat guy, such as Malakili, the Rancor keeper from Return of the Jedi. Remember this guy? Yeah, you probably don’t. Here’s a page about that guy: http://www.rebelscum.com/POTF2malakili.asp Its a bit outrageous to assume that kids are going to want to buy a figue of a topless fat guy that kind of looks like Colin Mochrie from TVs Whose Line is it Anyway? when they could instead buy someone cool like their 15th Luke Skywalker or 20th Han Solo.Maybe Hasbro actually did something right with the Indiana Jones figure collection and avoided topless fat guys. They could have made the topless (but not very fat) German mechanic that Indy knocks into a plane and splatters, but they didn’t. (Side note: they actually did produce this character in the Indiana Jones Adventure Heroes minifigure line, which is pretty much targeted explicitly at kids. Go figure).

It was a big shame that a line that had such potential was struck down before it even was released in it’s entirety by a near-total lack of quality control. I don’t know how these ended up so badly while the quality in Hasbro’s Star Wars brand had been stellar for nearly 15 years virtually across the board.