1981 Tonka Play People Newspaper Advertisement
November 29, 1981. I’ve shared a few ads for the Tonka Play People series before (here, here, and here), meaning that everyone reading battlegrip.com today is likely aware of this old action figure line.
As a kid, I rarely encountered these toys, more often encountering the Fisher-Price Adventure People than I did the Tonka Play People action figures. Still, looking back, I can totally see how this marriage of figures and Tonka trucks lasted as long at retail as it did. And the Steel Monsters line of 1986 doesn’t look as out-of-place in the Tonka line once you realize the company had made figures for their trucks before 1986.
