Cool Vintage Toys: Kenner’s Stretch Armstrong

It may sound wrong on many different levels, but at that time in the 1970’s there was nothing much cooler if you were a child, than having an action figure toy that was essentially a man with big muscles wearing only his briefs and his blonde hair.

However, the way Stretch Armstrong looked wasn’t the reason for it being such a big hit with kids. It was the fact you could, as his name suggests, stretch the toy to unbelievable lengths.

Nowadays, Stretch Armstrong and most of his stretchy enemies released in the 70’s are collectibles and some are extremely rare.

Stretch Armstrong was a gel filled action figure styled toy that first came out in 1976. Although its original height was only 15 inches, children and adults could stretch his arms and legs to have a fully stretched length of between 4 to 5 feet. As tears would often occur, there was an instructions booklet in his box on how to use an adhesive bandage to fix him. Nowadays the original Stretch is highly collectible and can take prices in the second hand market of up to hundreds, even thousands.

It is hard to find one in mint condition though because of how hard it actually was to store and keep Stretch. Many of the Stretch dolls that have survived the test of time and remain in good condition is down to sheer good fortune rather than deliberate action.

Stretch Armstrong still amazes kids today and over the years there has been many different variations on the theme of dolls that can stretch. There has been Batman, Superman and other superhero variations.

For years, there have been plans to make a live action film. But the idea was finally abandon: Stretch Armstrong movie cancelled (stretched too thin?). I think it’s best, not sure it was such a great idea. let’s not ruin our perfectly good memory of a cool toy.

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