What started out as a simple cleaning run through my main Toy Closet a few weeks ago turned into a complete re-vamp. I threw up some pictures on my Facebook page, and I’ll try to get some up here soon as well. During the course of this endeavor, I’ve decided I really need to work at least one “Toy Closet Finds” feature into each week if I’m ever going to get through all the stuff I’ve unearthed in there. Plus, I’m almost caught up on my new receivings, so today we’re checking out some Dragon’s Lair figures. But first… get your blanky and your milky baba, because… it’s story time!

Dragon’s Lair hit the arcades in 1983, when I was 11 years old. Holy shit, I’m old! For you young’uns out there, arcades were dark and smoky places where you could go and pay money to play games. Why would you want to do that? Because these games were technologically advanced beyond anything you could play at home. They were also designed to kill you in about 60 seconds or less so as to better suck down all your quarters. Lethal to epileptics, arcades were also places to buy drugs and cigarettes, get the shit kicked out of you by roving gangs, and possibly get lured into panel vans by predators with promises of free tokens. Ah, memories!

I can remember the first time I walked into one and saw the Dragon’s Lair cabinet. There was a mob around it, all eagerly watching this guy play. At the tender age of 11, I knew nothing about how graphics worked or the fact that the game was just pre-recorded video, I just knew that the game looked like a f’cking cartoon and it was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t comprehend how this dude was making all that cool stuff happen on the screen with just a joystick and a button, but I wanted to learn. It was quite a while later until I actually had a go on one of the Dragon’s Lair machine, because it was always engaged by people bigger than me with stacks of tokens on the deck. But I was often content with biding my time and watching the “gameplay” in a state of awe. When I finally did get to play, I was a little disappointed at how simple it was, but I was still drawn to play it so I could see all there was to see.

Fast forward to now and Laser Disc games are seen as something of a joke. Turns out they were really just the video version of a choose-your-own-adventure novel and a dark period in gaming history that would lead to the dreaded FMV era of PC gaming. But that’s never soured me on the likes of Dragon’s Lair. It was the simple and endearing tale of bungling knight, Dirk the Daring, setting out to rescue his main squeeze, Princess Daphne from the clutches of the evil dragon, Singe. The gorgeous and expressive artwork by Don Bluth, the fabulous music, that iconic narrator’s voice, and the character of Dirk the Daring all live on in my memory as a pillar of 80’s nostalgia. In the end it might have been a shitty game, and yet it was so much more. I’ve owned many home versions, I still play the revamped 3D Xbox game from time to time, and I even have vague memories of watching the cartoon. When action figures were announced as a tie in to the Dragon’s Lair 3D game, I jumped at the chance to pick them up.

The initial (and only) assortment consisted of carded versions of Dirk, Daphne, and Mordroc the Wizard. There was also a Deluxe figure of Singe, which came in a window box. Singe is the only figure in the lot I never got around to buying. They didn’t have him on the shelf when I bought the others, and since his scale was way off, I was never too gung ho about hunting him down and now he sells for a lot of money. These figures were made by a company called Anjon, which seems to have already vanished into the dustbin of history. Let’s get Mordroc out of the way first, and then tomorrow we’ll come back around and check out Dirk and Daphne. I don’t have a packaged shot of Mordroc, so enjoy the above stock image that I cribbed off of Ebay.

While all of these figures are tied in to Dragon’s Lair 3D for the Xbox and PlayStation2, Mordroc was originally featured in Dragon’s Lair II, so if you aren’t a fan of the revamp at least these figures offer a little something from each of the two vintage Laser Disc games. I honestly don’t think I’ve played Dragon’s Lair 2 more than once, so this character doesn’t have a whole lot of gravitas for me. He is, nevertheless, a cool figure and a nice example of the Don Bluth character design in 3D form.

Mordroc always looked more like a witch to me, probably because of his warts, and his long protruding nose and chin and the long grey hair that hangs down each side of his head. There’s definitely something asexual about him, maybe a goatee would have helped assure me of his manhood. The sculpted skin texture is all very good and I like the pale green paint they used for his flesh. The face is very expressive with one eye squinting and he’s got a really creepy smile and piercing yellow eyes. His robes are all sculpted in soft plastic and separate from the figure’s body and his long hair is also cast in very rubbery plastic.  This guy couldn’t have been an easy design to work with for an action figure, but I’ll hand it to Anjon because they did a mighty fine job of it, right down to his hump.

You get some basic articulation here. The neck and shoulders are all ball jointed, the wrists have swivel cuts, the legs feature a T-crotch, and his ankles have swivel cuts. It’s pretty obvious Mordroc was meant for one specific pose, holding his staff in both hands across his body as if he’s about to unleash some bad mojo on you, but you can get a little bit of variation out of him.

In addition to his staff, Mordroc originally came with a pair of “Ding Bats,” which were just little rubber bats. I can’t find them for the life of me. If I ever turn them up, I’ll be sure to do an update, but you can see them well enough in the packaged shot. Found them! They were at the very bottom of the drawer and I had to pull out about a thousand McFarlane figures to find them. They’re just little squishy guys that remind me of Trash Packs or Squinkies only much better sculpted and painted. They’ve got a lot of personality, but they’re not easy to display and I never really knew what to do with them.

Despite being the main baddie in the second game, Mordroc certainly doesn’t have the street cred of Singe. I still dig this figure a lot. The quality and paintwork are both good and it captures the style of Don Bluth’s animation perfectly. If nothing else he’s a nice companion piece for the two real stars of this collection. Tomorrow, I’ll check out Dirk and Daphne.

Dragon’s Lair cabinet images and artwork courtesy of International Arcade Museum.