It came from the dollar store: Space War plastic aliens

Space War header card

WHAT:  While I try to keep up with all of the greatest weirdo toys that dollar and discount stores have to offer, once in a while some treasures slip past me. One example is Space War, a mini figure set I had never seen at all until my buddy Justin kindly sent me some after coming across a couple bags.

These things are real Little Weirdos-approved gems. They're 2 inch tall hard plastic "army men"-type figures of space creatures, along the lines of classic Galaxy Laser Team figures but without any of the human/astronaut characters thrown into the mix. They came in a clear plastic bag with a header card featuring some typical, Star Wars-eque space battle graphics. There were 60 pieces in a bag and six different sculpts, with each sculpt coming in blue, yellow and red. The plastic used is slightly translucent, which I think makes them look cooler.

Let's take a look at each of the six characters:


This guy is one of the weirdest-looking of the bunch. His design seems to have been copied from the "Amphiboid Scientist" in the mid-1990s line of alien bendable figures, UFO Files. Take a look and see what I mean.


This guy's like some sort of evil robot warrior. He's one of the two robots thrown into the assortment, along with:


I like how this robot's sort of bird-like. His sculpt style reminds me a bit of the old Ro-Gun Robots line from Arco. One of my favorites out of the six characters.


This dude is another one of my favorites from the set. I feel like his design might also be copied from somewhere else, but I can't put my finger on it.


This one's sort of like amphibian-man meets Flatwoods Monster.


Finally, here's another one that was "inspired" by the UFO Files bendable line. This cyclops alien looks an awful lot like the Muskel Eliminator from UFO Files.


WHEN:  The specific figures I have were found recently, but I would guess that these first became available many years ago. The company responsible for them, Toy Major, shows them on their website, which looks really old and says "Toy Product Catalog 2001" when it shows in Google search results.


WHERE:  The figures I have were found in a discount store in Australia, but I'm guessing they could at some point be found in the U.S. and probably other countries as well.


WHO:  Toy Major Trading Co., Ltd., which--from looking at their website--produced a bunch of other cheap fantasy and animal-themed toys.