Founded 1964 | ||
Azrak-Hamway International, Inc., was a New York toy company founded in 1964 that initially offered inexpensive novelty-type toy items. In 1974 Azrak-Hamway acquired the Remco Toy name and produced toys of more substance under the Remco brand, including several popular culture licensed items like Universal Monsters, Space 1999, Batman, Marvel Super Heroes and other TV Tie-in products. Azrak-Hamway created the Child Guidance division in 1994 in an effort to produce child learning toys. In 1997 Jakks Pacific acquired Child Guidance and Remco from Azrak-Hamway International. Many of the inexpensive items offered by Azrak-Hamway were licensed products that featured climbing, hanging, or parachuting figures sold on simple bubble cards.
These toys include:
For toy collectors, the most significant AHI toy contribution was the Official World Famous Super Monsters toyline, licensed from Universal Studios. These toys, released in 1973 (with additional monsters added through 1976) were an effort to capitalize on the Mego Corporation's popular Mad Monster Line. The set of 8-inch action figures included: Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman, Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. All except Dracula were officially licensed from Universal Studios.
The Mego Corporation forced Azrak-Hamway to remove their line "Action Apemen" through injunction, as it was agreed to infringe on Mego's license rights to produce Planet of the Apes figures (Mego outbid AHI on the figure license, even though AHI produced many ancillary Planet of the Apes products).