MPC Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man’s Raft

[hypnotator]

Avast ye landlubber swabs! Languishing for more than a decade before I could get around to making it, I picked this model kit up at a Memorabilia show. I never saw these for sale in the UK before. Like so many American toys in the ’70s, I saw the adverts in my brother’s Marvel comics and I was sold on the idea. The finished kit doesn’t disappoint after all these years.



It seems like an innocuous shipwrecked raft, with a steering wheel that has miraculously retained its function, piloted by a scary old skeleton, but he’s dead, isn’t he? And what’s this? A map left in plain view, doubtless leading to treasure. But what could be inside that huge, hinged case that constitutes such a large part of the kit? Gotta open the lid and find out…



Zap! Ha haaar! It’s another skeleton who springs up and plunges a dagger into the map. Looks like these dead pirates won’t be giving up their secrets that easily.



Pirates of the Caribbean started out as a Disneyland ride and these days it’s a huge movie franchise. It was an inspired idea to jump on the Aurora bandwagon and do a series of model kits. From what I gather, each kit faithfully reproduces a feature of the ride.



I didn’t expect the “Zap / Action” feature to work well, as it is driven by a simple elastic band, but it is actually a beautiful bit of engineering. The case lid is almost fully open before the skelly springs up, just when you think nothing is going to happen. It really does make you jump.



You can see the mechanism in the above pic. A “rope” hook on a moving plank holds the skeleton down by his left wrist against the pull of the elastic band. A protrusion on the case lid pushes the plank forward as the lid opens, and releases him. The right shoulder pivots freely to enable him to stab the map.



This is a very fragile kit and I had a few accidental breakages during the build. I pity the ‘70s kids and their dads that tried to do a decent job.



The elastic band is supposed to get sandwiched between the two halves of the skeleton’s torso, which means that once you have puttied up the seams and painted him, you can’t replace the band if it crumbles with age. I installed a little hook to get around this. Getting the band in place once the case is assembled is very tricky.



Nice box painting, much like Aurora.



You get pix of the other kits in the series, but there are a few more not shown here, including the one I always wanted the most, Freed in the Nick of Time, which has a skeleton trying to escape from an octopus. Why does he care? He’s dead already!

[andymoscarts]

That is great! I seem to remember my younger brother getting one of these back in the day,I think it may have been this very kit.

[TAY666]

The POTC and Haunted Mansion series are some of my favorite memories of kits from back in the day.
PS, MS, and those lines were what drove me back into the hobby over a decade and a half ago.

Keep hoping that R2 will reissue them.

[prescenes2]

Never knew these existed until a decade or so ago! I would jump on the chance to snatch up some reissues if they came to be. Here's to hoping!!!!

[scooke123]

Same here - I've never had any of these either. They have a coolness all their own!

[artdecovampire]

I never saw these for sale in the UK when I was a kid, but I saw them in back page ads in american monster magazines. I think Monsters of Movieland and Monster Mag, the same place you would see dancing ghosts, full size Frankensteins, x-ray specs and 1000 piece WW2 playsets.

[jeffbrown]

These are my favorite models along with the PS line; actually I'm not sure which are my favorite; I do know they along with my PS kits are my treasure; packed away where they're safe. maybe it's because it took 10 years to collect all 7. This was before EBay; the prices were just as high. They were so high I did not dare build them once I actually got them all. So back in the 90s I had what I thought was a great idea; Copy them. The company was out of Buisiness, there were not going to be any more made even if the molds were still around which i assume are not. I had freinds that wanted them so I figured i could make a few bucks to pay for the supplies and get the guys copies.
Well, I didnt know molding and casting at the time and the supplies back then just sucked or I didnt know where to find them. I found Polytek of NJ in the back of an art magazine and ordered some polyurothne mold rubber because it was half the cost of silicone. Polyurothane molds are used for concreate and plaster casting so needless to say things didn't turn out well and I never ended up selling any but it did get me into molding and casting and then into sculpting.
I had a couple PS pieces that were saved from the trash man too; I went dumpster diving as a kid and saved a cro-mag man and woman, a neanderthal and parts to the cave that had got thrown out by the parents of a kid a couple doors down. I'll never forget the kids older sister coming out, seeing me getting the pieces out of the dumpster, grabbing the cro-mag womans legs from me and twisting them to pieces so I couldn't have them but i did manage to save the rest.
I molded the pieces I had to all three cave people plus the sabertooth cat skull and some other random pieces.
I ran out of mold rubber before i could do the live pirate so never did get a couple of the pieces together until last year when i saw an incomplete POTC pirate on EBay cheap and decided I'd get it and build him to go with the resin copies I managed to actually create and put together. I ended up pulling a mold of him because I wanted a solid piece I could work on so now have the mold to the entire set after all; not that the molds are still usable or were ever really usable.
After making the entire series and having plenty of pieces left over i started cutting and repositioning them so have a few different pirates. the funny thing is there are only a couple pirates that are used over and over in the kits with just the legs or arms being different.
There were 5 kits in 1971 originally, then in 72 they combined 4 of the kits to create 2 more for a total of 7 kits.
Because the resin was much more brittle then the styrene plastic I couldn't get the Zap-Action to work without breaking the pirates so I repositioned some of them to look better while static.

[hypnotator]

Thanks for the comments, guys!

It would be really interesting to know whether the original moulds exist. You might imagine that if they did, the kits would have seen a reissue with the popularity of the recent films, but then again none of the kits resemble Depp, who is so pivotal to the franchise these days.

The reissues I’m waiting for the most are the MOTM Wolfman and Mr. Hyde. If I knew they were never going to do these, I’d splash out on vintage and, yes, ruin their value by building them, although I’d happily restore built ups. I’ve certainly no regrets about ruining the value of this beauty.

Recasting these must have been tricky, Jeffbrown! These are fragile kits, much less sturdy than the Forgotten Prisoner, for instance. I had no idea the two later kits reused parts from the others. Great to see your pix.

[lowelker]

I doubt that Disney will let the copyrights go. I seriously doubt too many people over at Disney even know of their existence. When the movies series was released I imagine the model sales would have been freakin' awesome.
I had the entire series sealed. I offered them to my family to sell to help come up with the down payment on a house. I still have a set opened to build. I love those kits.

[TAY666]

When the movies were hot, if Disney would have went for it, the price would have been outrageous.
I know Round2 has been looking into it. Not sure of the status.
But being patient and keeping my fingers crossed.
I've waited this long.

As far as Hyde, that will probably be Monarch.
Wouldn't hold my breath on the Wolfman.

[lowelker]

A few years back someone over at Culttvman's site they offered the Wolfman resin repop. I picked one up.
Never saw the kit offered again.

I do want the jekyll and Hyde set as well.

[TAY666]

Yeah. I was going to mention the resin one from Cultman, but when I checked the site, it was no longer listed.

[prescenes2]

Glad I got one when I did then!

Wish I coulda jumped on the MOTM Metaluna Mutant at the time too!

[hypnotator]

Yow! The things I missed! Was the Metaluna Mutant sculpted by Molemento Pete? I have his Invisible Man, much loved. I have a Tsukuda Metaluna Mutant but it's a big vinyl thing, a world away.

[TAY666]

No. Metaluna Mutant was a limited number of copies of an Aurora prototype.

Do you have Pete's other 2 kits?
Scream Queen, and Bride of Dracula.
www.tylisaari.com/models/gallery/ms/addon/pete.htm

[hypnotator]

I had no idea the Mutant got further than sketches. I haven't been attentive to the Aurora scene I guess, what with all my unbuilt kits and my interests in toys like Henshin Cyborg in recent years, that don't sit in a queue before you can enjoy them on the shelf. I love Aurora so much though, that it breaks my heart to have missed these crucial beauties.

[TAY666]

Pete still has those kits for sale.

As for the mutant. Don't feel bad. That was offered years ago. I think like 2002 or 2003.
(I'd have to go back in the archives of the Aurora list to find out for sure)
It was limited to something like 13 castings.

Then, a few years ago, Al turned up selling a few more. Saying they were test pours or some such thing.
Said they've been laying around since he molded the prototype.
Either way, it left a bad taste with some who owned one of the original 13.
But also made a few other modelers pretty happy.
Still, there are less than 20 of those mutants out there.

[mynameisbrent]

Wow, I had completely forgotten about this series. I've always been a huge Disneyphile, so of course I loved this series as a kid. The moving elements added a fun dimension, and they worked surprisingly well.

[FrankVilla]

Stupid question for Jeff Brown. Any chance you want to part with any of that? The lot pics made me drool.

[artdecovampire]

Check out Fizzytweety on e bay for some POTC recast parts