Tuesday, July 14, 2026

Army Men in unlikely places

Army Men appearing in an episode of Barbapapa

I know fellow blogger Mark at Man of Tin blog Two often posts updates on his blog when he finds army men or toy soldiers appearing in tv-series or movies. By coincidence I recently found some Army Men in a very unlikely tv-series. I'm actually not very interested in football, but when Norway was going to meet England in The World Championship in football I just had to watch the match. When approaching our tv, I noticed that the present channel was 'nickelodeon junior' showing Barbapa. -with Army Men (!). This was a very unlikely setting so I made some quick screenshots before zapping to The World Championship.

Army Men appearing in an episode of Barbapapa

The Barbapapas were playing with traditionally toys together, including some Army Men. 
Army Men appearing in an episode of Barbapapa

This was as far as I could catch not a very favorable episode for 'Army Men' as the Barbapapa who played the little soldiers eventually used them to dominate the others play...
Army Men appearing in an episode of Barbapapa
Army Men appearing in an episode of Barbapapa

...until another of the Barbapapa children brought robots and dinosaurs to finally take them out. - and invented a wargame (?). I've considered Barbapapa for being 'politically correct' tv for children, so I found this setting was somewhat a little surprising. Perhaps that's why they looked so less offensive only being armed with binoculars, radios or flags. Some of the poses looked familiar:
Army Men appearing in an episode of Barbapapa
Inspired by a Matchbox American WW2 Infantry? 

Army Men appearing in an episode of Barbapapa
Inspired by Airfix Russian WW2 Infantry? 

And the match? That was an exiting and very close one. Congratulations 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 !!


10 comments:

  1. Good toy spotting - and noting the demilitarised soldiers. I remember the original TV series and books from the 1970s translated or dubbed into English, although they are mixed in my memories with The Moomin family.
    Avoiding football …

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. I think the Moomins were even more demilitarised than the Barbapapas. Again, football is normally not my cup of tea, but it was due to the football I found these.

      Delete
  2. Toy soldiers in the Barbapapa that I remember does seem very unlikely, however this one is much more recent I think!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Despite probably being 'the next genetation' episodes, I still think military toys or items would be very unlikely in the 'Barbapapa univers'.

      Delete
  3. Nice one Roger. I have vague memories of this show on the TV in the UK many moons ago. I was "forced" to watch the game here in a bar with family, but managed to make my escape before the end. Only heard of the result the next day. Never been motivated by football, seems a lot of wargamers have a similar mindset.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. This mindset are shared by most railway modellers too, and I'm actually one of them. -But Norway has never come so far in a World Championship ever, so this time I found it a little bit existing.

      Delete
  4. Greetings, Roger.
    Thank you for sharing my blog on your blogroll! I really appreciate it.
    I'll share yours too, if I'm not already doing it!

    About your post on toy soldiers being depicted in unlikely places... appaet from the obvious example in the Toy Story movies, I think I've only seen toy soldoers in Dexter's Lab, in a episode called "D & DD" in which the characters are playing a RPG game and using some fantasy miniatures.

    Cheers,
    Streletsfan1020
    Australusia.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you very much. You already do; we share links to each others blogs. Your comment sparked my curiosity, so I had to search for that episode. -and found it:

      https://www.topcartoons.tv/cartoons/d-dd/

      Since I'm also into model railways I have a similar thing for trying to spot model railways in movies or tv series. There are some of those as well.

      Delete

You may also be interested in: