Toy Biz Spider-Man Animated Daily Bugle Playset

This Toy Biz Spider-Man Daily Bugle playset was HUGE, and I mean HUGE!!

The display box is approx. 3 foot long by 2 foot wide and the front features awesome cartoon drawings of the playset with Spider-Man facing off against Venom, Dr. Octopus, and the Goblin. The back also displays the playset, with some guides on how to use its features, highlights, and images of the other action figures and vehicles available.

The package came with all the parts and accessories in baggies and an instruction manual on how to put it all together. The manual itself was extremely easy to follow, but there were a lot of parts to this playset to construct it. On top of that the “clips” to hold the parts together were as fragile as the building itself and in many cases did not work. Also, some of the parts were poorly made and didn’t fit together properly, if at all!

When complete to whole thing at its highest point is about 20-inches in height by 22 inches in length and 11-inches in width.

This is a very interactive playset. Outside the box packaging, it unfolds into the Daily Bugle building from the series. Although most of the details of the building and design are printed on card. The detail on these is fantastic and really make the whole thing come alive.

This meant that the whole thing was pretty fragile and was easily broken. As a result mint and complete playsets are extremely difficult to find.

Other parts of the set, such as the crane, a tank, a watch light, trashcan, and elevator, are plastic. There are also traps for Spider-Man around the set. The small black tank can hold toxic liquid that could harm Spider-Man, or he could be trapped by Dr. Octopus in his lab. 

Unlike many other playsets made at the time, like the Castle Grayskull, the TMNT Sewer Liar and the Batcave Command Center to name a few, this was not really portable whereas a lot of the other playsets could easily be folded up and carried around.

There were three main sections to this playset. Firstly, there was the Dr Octopus section. This section had a large, long plastic flexible tentacle coming from the roof that could be used for capturing his enemies. Inside his lab there was a plastic buzzsaw that could be rotated. The lab was not connected to the rest of the playset but was a standalone unit, so you could place it anywhere on the base you wanted. 

On the roof of the main building was a retractable spiderweb that could be pulled out and retracted by pressing a button. Also, there were two attachable gargoyle heads that fitted onto the roof section but these were not very stable. 

On the reverse there was a blue plastic cage elevator with a door that could be opened and closed, and it slid up and down to carry figures to different levels. On the right-hand side of the Daily Bugle building was a working crane. 

Behind the retractable web on the roof, and in front of the elevator door was a hidden trap door that could be activated if one of Spider-Man’s enemies came out of the elevator, dropping them back down to the bottom.

The third section was for Venom. On the roof was a black and yellow Venom ooze tank that when opened the ooze glob would pour out of (most playsets are, of course, missing the ooze). This section also had a large trashcan and the inside of his liar had great detail on the card.

All in all this playset was very fragile and not really made to be played with but it was an excellent “diorama” to display and showcase your action figure collection.

MOC: $200-$250

Loose: $150-$195

Resources:

• YouTube
• Toy Mania
• Figures Realm