Franki

I don’t know exactly why, but I was immediately impressed by this item from the moment I saw it. Maybe it was something to do with the sad, droopy eyes, or maybe it was the fact that it is both a bust and a game, but for whatever reason, I decided I’d love to have one. I was lucky enough to get one on Ebay last year and ironically, although the game originates in Spain, I got it from a seller in Canada…and it had a price sticker from Outer Limits in New Jersey on it. So this thing has seen the world, it seems!

As you can see above, Franki has pretty cool artwork on the box, with a weathered stone wall in the back and the name written in a dripping, wax-like font. The image of the game itself seems to be the prototype, and a photograph of a child’s hand as he or she plays is superimposed into the image.

The back of the box is a wider shot with the same background and logo, the game, and now three children as they all play together. Look closely at the girl on the right. See how she just sort of disappears from about the waist down? Yeah…

The other two sides of the box feature the same artwork, a nice comic book style image of the mad doctor at work on his “patient”, and what I assume are directions along the top. All four sides, however, have different writing along the bottom edges.

OK, so how is this game played? Well, if you haven’t already guessed from the pictures, there are four little sticks that are stored in the shoulders of Franki, and each player takes turns inserting them into holes that run along the head.

Eventually, one player will activate a bar in the interior of the head that shoots up, pushing the top of Franki’s head off, with accompanying voice and sound effects! I can’t read Spanish, but I assume that that player loses.

Whenever the game is reset, the losing hole is moved to another spot so that the game is not predictable.

Of course, for me as an adult collector, I really only care about how it displays. At approximately 12″ tall and 9″ across, it has decent size, but is not huge. Probably just about the right size to mix in with some other monster toys. In fact, now that I think about it, it’s about the same size as the “Mad Labs” Frankenstein head game that I also have. Anyway, besides the size, I also like the understated sculpt and paintwork on this. The green has a nice, lifelike texture to it, and is shadowed effectively by the black. The whites of the eyes are a separate piece of plastic, adding further depth.

Also included are two stickers that can be applied to the interior of the head. I haven’t bothered to put them on mine, but I guess any extra feature is a plus. Each sticker depicts a brain, one with a tag saying “University Laboratory” written in English on it.

I’m not sure what year this was made, but I would guess maybe sometime in the 1980s. It was made and released in Spain by a company called “Cefa”. I’m not sure if it’s very rare or not, but often when I show people my monster toys, they say “What’s that Frankenstein head?” Well, this is that Frankenstein head…