Oh, your first. Everything about your first is great; the feeling of anticipation, the joy, the memories that last a lifetime. You’ll never forget it. I’ll never forget mine. Of course it helps if there’s a story to go along with it, something you can tell family and friends, or strangers on the internet. So here we go. The story of my first, the first action figure I ever got.

I was just a wee little lad growing up in merry ol’ England, a little scamp the age of 3, all wide-eyed and care free. On one fateful day my father and I decided to play a game of volleyball with an inflatable beach ball, a fairly normal activity for a father and son to engage in. The only problem was that this game took place in our rather small apartment. My mother protested, but we were determined to have our little game. Fun was had, until it wasn’t. A few rounds in, disaster struck. The ball was volleyed, by whom I do not know, and struck a large brass plate that adorned the wall. The impact was so, that the plate fell from the wall and came crashing down upon my tiny skull. BAM! My mother was horrified, and ran over to check on her son. I was relatively unfazed by the event, except I knew my head hurt. My mother was near hysterics, fearing the worst for her little boy. My father, calm and composed, walked over to me, placed his hand on head, moved it back and forth, and said “He’s fine”. His composure lasted until he removed his hand and it was covered blood!

After a hurried trip to the local hospital, I was being attended to by a very nice doctor who kept me calm during the procedure. My parents however, were a different story. My mom cried more than I did (I did have drugs to help with the pain of my scalp being stitched up) and my dad kept repeating “I broke him, I broke him”. I wasn’t even my father’s first child; I thought he would’ve been used to this kind of thing. While I was getting my sutures I dinned on a large bag of Maltesers and after the procedure I was rewarded for being a brave little solider with this guy:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He’s seen better days, and I have no idea what accessories he may have came with, other that his brightly coloured head. If anyone can help me ID this figure, I’d appreciate it. I think it’s a Go-Bot, but can’t be certain. I tried to look it up before, but haven’t had any luck.

This was the beginning. I began getting so many more action figures after that, He-Man, Thundercats, G.I. Joe. I latched onto Transformers and I still haven’t let go, despite Mr. Bay’s best efforts to soil the franchise. I was hooked. My interest did waiver a bit during my teen years. Not much room for action figures when you’ve got all that angst bogging you down. I returned to my roots during high school and have been collecting ever since. I recently did an office tour video where I claimed what was on display was about ¾ of my collection, I was a little off. I dug up some figures to put back on display and found SO many more figures. I’d guess just under half of my collection is actually on display. I hope to move to a bigger place where I can have a whole room just for my collection and display more of it. Time will tell though. So, that’s it, the story of my first action figure. I still have it on display to this day. It’s on the shelf next to me as I write this. I like to think of it as a symbol of a simpler time in my life, when fun was all that mattered and the scary things in life aren’t so bad as long as you have family, a bag of chocolate and a toy.

What was your first action figure? Do you have story to go with it? Let us know!