My best friend swears he had this fig when he was a kid. This site says production of it was rumored or fan made. my bud cant find the fig so i cant obviously prove his case :lionomad:
I was on a TC site the other day where the dude stated that he was desperate to find this fig. Theres even a seller on ebay whom i bought many figs from that uses the bubbler in his TC ads and i think he calls himself the mad bubbler to i think…
It is possible that he had a prototype.. But i dont think it was ever released..
I would pay alot of money for him…
One of the members on here recently did an interview with a former LJN employee, and that employee stated that figure never made it to production, but a few prototypes are known to exist. Jordan Hembrough the owner of Hollywood Heroes, an auction company that facilitates auctions of rare action figures and movie/t.v. show memorabilia, mainly for people that worked at the company involved (like former LJN employees for example) claims to have sold two prototypes in the past. Manny (Mannycollectibles) tried to track these down for photos but, as I recall, was given the end around and it never came to fruition.
They either don’t exist, or the few prototypes out there are in private collections that aren’t being made public. Your friend’s story is the common myth given for the Mad Bubbler: Somebody knows a friend that had the figure as a kid, but can’t find it.
I will say this though, up until a couple of years ago I don’t think anyone thought the Laser Sabre figures existed until a stash was uncovered back in 2008. So its entirely possible that MAYBE there’s a hidden stash out there waiting to be discovered, but the odds of it showing up (having not shown up to this point) are extremely extremely slim.
The Sabre-figure are just existing toys sold together. Maybe the Sabres were not sold seperatly in Italy, and they decided to release a “gift-pack” type of thing using existing stock(?) The Mad Bubbler was an entirely new figure.. We know there is one (mini-catalog), and I can imagine that was the hand sculpted, hand-painted prototype. Maybe that one is out there somewhere.. I don’t think it survived, but who knows..
I was not given the end around for pictures but was given information on deals from the past. Hollywood Heroes is often bound by agreements with buyers not to disclose certain information or material and that was the main reason why I never received pictures. I only got info on a couple of deals for Mad Bubblers that were IMO very early prototypes. If my mind serves me right one bit of info I got was that one was solid red and another was yellow and they sold for a few thousand dollars. Please dont quote me on this because this was a very long time ago
Just want to clarify that Jordan has never given me the run around on info but sometimes he is unable to do so because of strict confidentialty agreements.
It is my belief that there are some out there albeit in early prototype form
Manny, sorry if my story was a bit off as I was also trying to recall from memory as well. I remember an exchange I saw from your handle on a different toy site a few years back concerning the Mad Bubbler and someone you were in contact with either supposedly sending you pictures, or they were going to put you in contact with someone else who that person said had one, and you’d tried for a few months and finally gave up on it. I don’t recall what site that was, but I too want to reflect that I remember it being separate from your dealings with Jordan. Again, it was a different toy site and this was probably 3 or 4 years ago when I was looking around for information on the Mad Bubbler.
Bottom line though is, that there really hasn’t been a confirmation one way or another that any prototype (other than the one in the mini catalog) exists other than word of mouth. At least with the two Berzerkers you have photos for the site, and with the Feliner there are numerous recollections of an old ebay auction. With the Mad Bubbler, we literally have nothing but rumors.
The original Star Wars line has its Mad Bubbler, too. I have friends who swear that their Boba Fett action figure would shoot the rocket out of his back, but I’m fairly certain its been proven that variation never made it past the prototyping stage.
Unless we see the prototype or the figure itself from a collector then the rest is a mythos