Azrak-Hamway International, Inc., was a New York toy company founded in 1964 that initially offered inexpensive novelty-type toy items. In 1974 Azrak-Hamway acquired the Remco Toy name and produced toys of more substance under the Remco

Remco

Remco Industries, Inc. was a toy company founded in the 1940s that was best known for toys marketed and sold in the late 1950s and 1960s, like the Johnny Reb Cannon and Mighty Matilda Atomic Aircraft Carrier. The slogan was "Every Boy Wants a Remco Toy...And So Do Girls!" Remco was founded by two...

brand, including several popular culture licensed items like Universal Monsters

Universal Monsters

Universal Monsters or Universal Horror is the name given to a series of distinctive horror, suspense and science fiction films made by Universal Studios from 1923 to 1960...

, Space 1999, Batman

Batman (TV series)

Batman is an American television series, based on the DC comic book character of the same name. It stars Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin — two crime-fighting heroes who defend Gotham City. It aired on the American Broadcasting Company network for three seasons from January 12, 1966 to...

, Marvel Super Heroes and other TV Tie-in products. Azrak-Hamway created the Child Guidance division in 1994 in an effort to produce child learning toys. In 1997 Jakks Pacific acquires Child Guidance and Remco from Azrak-Hamway International.

Many of the inexpensive items offered by Azrak-Hamway were licensed products that featured climbing, hanging, or parachuting figures sold on simple bubble cards.

These toys include:

• 1973 Official Worlds Famous Super Monsters
• 1974 Batman
  Batman
  Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
  
   Batcycle
• 1975 Flintstones Flintmobile
• 1976 Batman Batmobile
• 1977 Batman Batmobile Remote Control Car
• 1977 Welcome Back Kotter
• 1977 Space 1999 toys
• 1978 Parachuting toys (Spider-Man
  Spider-Man
  Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...
  
  , Hulk
  Hulk (comics)
  The Hulk is a fictional character, a superhero in the . Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #1 ....
  
  , Planet of the Apes
  Planet of the Apes (TV series)
  Planet of the Apes was a short-lived American science fiction television series that aired on Friday evenings at 8:00 PM Eastern/7:00 PM Central on CBS in 1974. The series starred Roddy McDowall, Ron Harper, and James Naughton, Mark Lenard and Booth Colman...
  
  )
• 1979 The Incredible Hulk Power Spouter Water Gun

For toy collectors, the most significant AHI toy contribution was the Official World Famous Super Monsters toyline, licensed from Universal Studios

Universal Studios

Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

. These toys, released in 1973 (with additional monsters added through 1976) were an effort to capitalize on the Mego Corporation's popular Mad Monster Line. The set of 8-inch action figures included: Frankenstein

Frankenstein

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...

, Dracula

Dracula

Dracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...

, Wolfman, Mummy

Mummy

A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...

 and the Creature from the Black Lagoon

Creature from the Black Lagoon

Creature from the Black Lagoon is a 1954 monster horror film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Richard Carlson, Julia Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, and Whit Bissell. The eponymous creature was played by Ben Chapman on land and Ricou Browning in underwater scenes...

. All except Dracula were officially licensed from Universal Studios.

The Mego

Mego

MEGO is an acronym for "my eyes glaze over".Mego can refer to:*Mego Records, an Austrian record label.*Mego Corporation, a company that produced action figure toys during the 1970s and early 1980s.*Mego , a Greek motorcycle manufacturer....

Corporation forced Azrak-Hamway to remove their line "Action Apemen" through injunction, as it was agreed to infringe on Mego's license rights to produce Planet of the Apes figures (Mego outbid AHI on the figure license, even though AHI produced many ancillary Planet of the Apes products).

External AHI-related links

• http://www.azrakhamway.com- AHI tribute site featuring many catalogs