Do we know how/why Undertaker ended up with white bootspats?

[buddyboy101]

The white/unpainted boot spats used on Undertaker in the debut line of Classic Superstars series 1 has always puzzled me. He has never worn white boot spats. He did wear grey early in his career, but never with the purple gloves/tie. So I really can't make sense of it. I would like to think this was not done by accident or else it would have been corrected, I would imagine. It's also a pretty big thing to miss. Would love to know what led to this!

[GoldenHulk]

Classic Superstars series 1 is full of inaccuracies: Andre The Giant has an outfit with two straps instead of one because they reused a Big Show body, Ultimate Warrior has elbow pads even though he did not wear them, Bret Hart has no elbow pads even though he actually did wear them. And then there's the Undertaker, with the mentioned white spats and the fact that it's a recycled Titantron live figure in a ruthless aggression line. Basically, the long and short of it is, there's really no good reason for the mistakes on this set, and Undertaker in particular. It seems like Jakks always has communication problems between the design team and the people actually tasked with producing the figures. And then there were always the cost cutting measures like skipping out on a deco. Maybe it cost an extra .00005 cents per unit to paint the spats purple and the accountants made them cut it out! lol

[TheEvilDoink1987]

I remember first seeing that initial Classic Superstars line-up and being completely blown away. With that said, those debut figures really haven't aged well at all.

Ultimate Warrior is by far the best from Series 1 as the only error was Jakks giving him elbow pads when he never wore them. That had to be an eyesore for MOC collectors. Aside from that, it looked great and is still an awesome figure even today.

Hunter Hearst Helmsley and HBK are both decent, but there are some issues still especially with Shawn. The lack of kneepads and inaccurate boots always kept me from totally loving that figure. I don't remember if he had painted details on the back of his tights which is something Jakks was notorious for omitting. Also, it was begging for some kind of entrance attire which they were already capable of doing as Hunter came with his ring coat.

The rest of the series is pretty mediocre to downright lazy. I loved the Bret figure when it first came out, but I think most of my fondness of it was coming from the fact that it was the first Bret Hart figure we'd seen in a long time. The lack of wrist tape and elbow pads killed this one for me. It just looked so incomplete. And while I wasn't mad about him not coming with a leather jacket, I always thought they should have at least included his signature shades. To credit Jakks, all of these issues were rectified with his Series 3 figure which was the definitive Bret in my collection for many years.

Andre was just a lazy reuse of parts. He never wore a double-strapped singlet or wrist tape, but they took the cheap route and plugged an Andre head onto an existing Big Show body. It looked horrible then and looks just as bad now.

The Undertaker from Series 1 sucked as well. Just the idea of Jakks rehashing old parts from the TTL line even back then is pretty inexcusable. The boots were wrong and, as has been mentioned, they painted his boot covers white for some reason instead of purple. The end result was another pretty crappy figure.

For those that might think I'm bashing the entire line, the Classic Superstars series from Jakks ended up becoming the biggest collection of wrestling figures I've ever owned. I don't have them anymore, but there were a few years there where I was a rabid collector and would regularly hunt stores for the latest releases. By Series 2, Jakks started to find their groove. The quality of the figures seemed to improve drastically with each new wave in terms of better parts selection, more accessories and just better attention to detail/accuracy. I stopped collecting in late 2006. My final purchase from the Classic Superstars line was the Ringside Fest Bret/HBK "Montreal Screwjob" pack. Those figures are still amazing! I would think back to their Series 1 counterparts and it was incredible how far the line had come since then.

[slaughendazs]

Yeah this was a terrible start to a great classic superstars line. These were some of my favorites to collect I remember picking this undertaker up and was just never happy with it.

[buddyboy101]

JeremyPadawer Hi Jeremy, I was wondering if you could offer some insight as to why Taker's spats in CS-1 were painted white (or not painted at all?). I don't mean any disrespect by this question. Just curious if it was intentional, due to cost reasons, just an oversight, a manufacturing error that couldn't be corrected, etc.? I loved the facial scan, and it still remains one of my fav figures. I even bought the 1/100 TF glow-in-the-dark exclusive and of course the Taker 3-pack, I loved it that much! Hope you're well. Thanks.

[TheXtremisT]

Dec 9, 2018 5:25:03 GMT -5 GoldenHulk said:

Classic Superstars series 1 is full of inaccuracies: Andre The Giant has an outfit with two straps instead of one because they reused a Big Show body, Ultimate Warrior has elbow pads even though he did not wear them, Bret Hart has no elbow pads even though he actually did wear them. And then there's the Undertaker, with the mentioned white spats and the fact that it's a recycled Titantron live figure in a ruthless aggression line. Basically, the long and short of it is, there's really no good reason for the mistakes on this set, and Undertaker in particular. It seems like Jakks always has communication problems between the design team and the people actually tasked with producing the figures. And then there were always the cost cutting measures like skipping out on a deco. Maybe it cost an extra .00005 cents per unit to paint the spats purple and the accountants made them cut it out! lol

Also factor in the well-believed conspiracy that Jakks would purposely skip out on details (logos, tattoos...) not just because of budget, but to release future figures with said details in order for die-hards to buy them despite having bought the previous version.

Happened a lot for debut figures/important guys that they knew everyone wanted.

This practice is still being done today for many toy lines.

For example in the Star Wars Mandalorian tv show products , barely any merchandise has been released with his nice, sleek and more visually appealing metallic armour.




Instead we get the early, more rugged and worn look that is only accurate for episode 1 of the 8 episode season, and for promotional material.



Reason being that they could almost double the sales by releasing the less popular look first, because people are clamoring for merch. So then those same people will buy a re-production if that figure is better.

Therefor increasing profits.

Jakks undoubtedly did this to an extent. Not 100% the reason for this instance with the Undertaker, but definitely for other figures.

Dec 9, 2018 10:14:00 GMT -5 TheEvilDoink1987 said:

I

The rest of the series is pretty mediocre to downright lazy. I loved the Bret figure when it first came out, but I think most of my fondness of it was coming from the fact that it was the first Bret Hart figure we'd seen in a long time. The lack of wrist tape and elbow pads killed this one for me. It just looked so incomplete. And while I wasn't mad about him not coming with a leather jacket, I always thought they should have at least included his signature shades. To credit Jakks, all of these issues were rectified with his Series 3 figure which was the definitive Bret in my collection for many years.

Literally my case in point. Re-release a more complete and accurate figure shortly after, because they know it will sell despite others having bought the worse first figure.

Clever but sneaky. And still done to this day in some respects in other toylines.

[buddyboy101]

May 22, 2020 5:33:38 GMT -5 TheXtremisT said:

Dec 9, 2018 5:25:03 GMT -5 GoldenHulk said:

Classic Superstars series 1 is full of inaccuracies: Andre The Giant has an outfit with two straps instead of one because they reused a Big Show body, Ultimate Warrior has elbow pads even though he did not wear them, Bret Hart has no elbow pads even though he actually did wear them. And then there's the Undertaker, with the mentioned white spats and the fact that it's a recycled Titantron live figure in a ruthless aggression line. Basically, the long and short of it is, there's really no good reason for the mistakes on this set, and Undertaker in particular. It seems like Jakks always has communication problems between the design team and the people actually tasked with producing the figures. And then there were always the cost cutting measures like skipping out on a deco. Maybe it cost an extra .00005 cents per unit to paint the spats purple and the accountants made them cut it out! lol

Also factor in the well-believed conspiracy that Jakks would purposely skip out on details (logos, tattoos...) not just because of budget, but to release future figures with said details in order for die-hards to buy them despite having bought the previous version.

Happened a lot for debut figures/important guys that they knew everyone wanted.

This practice is still being done today for many toy lines.

For example in the Star Wars Mandalorian tv show products , barely any merchandise has been released with his nice, sleek and more visually appealing metallic armour.




Instead we get the early, more rugged and worn look that is only accurate for episode 1 of the 8 episode season, and for promotional material.



Reason being that they could almost double the sales by releasing the less popular look first, because people are clamoring for merch. So then those same people will buy a re-production if that figure is better.

Therefor increasing profits.

Jakks undoubtedly did this to an extent. Not 100% the reason for this instance with the Undertaker, but definitely for other figures.

Dec 9, 2018 10:14:00 GMT -5 TheEvilDoink1987 said:

I

The rest of the series is pretty mediocre to downright lazy. I loved the Bret figure when it first came out, but I think most of my fondness of it was coming from the fact that it was the first Bret Hart figure we'd seen in a long time. The lack of wrist tape and elbow pads killed this one for me. It just looked so incomplete. And while I wasn't mad about him not coming with a leather jacket, I always thought they should have at least included his signature shades. To credit Jakks, all of these issues were rectified with his Series 3 figure which was the definitive Bret in my collection for many years.

Literally my case in point. Re-release a more complete and accurate figure shortly after, because they know it will sell despite others having bought the worse first figure.

Clever but sneaky. And still done to this day in some respects in other toylines.

Good point, but the part I struggle with is proving that the shoddy first run and improved second run were intentional. It's possible that they were just correcting a past mistake or shortcoming that was either inadvertent or driven by other factors that they could not control. I don't mean to defend corporations and they absolutely release weaker products upfront to ensure sales later on (just look at the Mattel/Hulk situation), but sometimes Jakks's mistakes just came off as incompetent not nefarious.

[Scott!]

When you look at the prototype on the back of the box, if that was released you could kind of forgive them for the white boots because the figure actually looked really good. The part I can't get over about the figure is how lazy it was by just releasing it as a straight up TTL release. If the phrase "start as you mean to go on" applied then Jakks failed us with the first set, in a way. The errors in the first set were plentiful, and as discussed it could have been a ploy. But, do we really think it was is the question.