When I was a kid I had this toy called the Mighty Men and Monster Maker. It allowed you to mix and match head, torso, and leg plates of various monsters (and a few super heroes) and create crayon rubbings of them. Because this thing had so many different little pieces it is very expensive on eBay (often going for between $50 and $100) and very rarely has all the pieces, much less the box.

I found an essentially complete one at a garage sale Saturday for $2. Shall we?

Here’s the box of the Mighty Men and Monster Maker. I never had a crayon rubbing some out quite as clean as any of the ones shown on the box, but that doesn’t make the toy any less fun.

The area on the right contains all the plates. There are 6 head, 6 torso, and 6 leg plates in all. Most of them are double sided while a few contain “textures” that can be used when coloring in your creations.

The area on the left is where you assemble your creations. The purple plastic holder acts to (mostly) hold your paper in place. With everything set up, it’s time to start rubbin’!

Not bad, not bad! Once the outline is completely transferred, all that’s left is the coloring!

I had hoped this review would take ten minutes to write up but instead I spent half an hour on this stupid thing.

Not to be outdone, Morgan named her creation and added two sidekicks.

There was a girly version of this toy (“Fashion Plates”) but when I told Morgan about it, she said this one sounded like much more fun. I agree.

The back of the box says that the plates can be combined into “millions” of different monsters, but even I (a C-level algebra student) come up with 12*12*12 = 1,728, unless they were also including how you colored each one in with the included colored pencils?

My copy of Mighty Men and Monster Maker is missing a few of the head tiles (help?) and the small plastic utensil included to hold the crayon in place, but there’s still enough here to give us a few days of enjoyment and a lifetime of nostalgic happiness. Not bad for $2.