Woolly Mammoth (Favorite Co. Ltd.)

Review and images by PhilSauria, edited by Suspsy

There can’t be that many of the major brands producing prehistoric animals in plastic that don’t have a woolly mammoth in their range, and the subject of this review is Favorite’s contribution to the herd (This is my third mammoth review here – coincidence or type casting or maybe I just have a lot of mammoths?). Mammoths do seem to have established a firm foothold in popular culture, from their first depictions in cave art through film, television, cartoons, and comics to the extent that the average man or woman in the street can readily identify one, which is not something that can be said for the majority of prehistoric megafauna.

Woolly mammoths went extinct about 10,000 years ago and many of the fossils discovered in the last hundred years or so have been found frozen in the ice, with a dozen or more soft tissue specimens having been unearthed. However, the species is believed to have originated in a much warmer climate: Africa at around 6-7 million years ago, before moving up to Southern Europe.

As I mentioned before, mammoth figures do seem to curiously come along in a similar size range, although this one is at the larger end of that range, with a height of just under 130 mm and right on 5 inches and 210 mm or 8 and a half inches in length from tusk to tail. It’s very solidly made and quite heavy in the hand except for the tusks, which are made of an almost rubbery type of plastic and so quite bendy. The tusks are cream in colour, but the rest of the figure is rendered in various shades of brown. There is not a great deal of contrast between the lighter and darker shades, almost as if it has faded in the sun. The darkest shade is on the top of the head and back, the bottom edge of the rib area, and feet. The toenails are picked out in a mid grey tone with a subtle pale orange for the very tiny eyes.

There is a fine fur texture all over, but the sculpt in general has a somewhat rough and unfinished aspect to it, at least to my eye. The head seems a bit smaller than the usual proportions seen in figures of this animal, with a pair of the smallest ears that I’ve seen on any mammoth. Not a lot of character in the face, which I suspect is due to the rather tiny and expressionless eyes, unlike say those on the CollectA and Carnegie woolly mammoths, or the Eofauna steppe mammoth, which positively glare defiantly out at you. The trunk tip is tilted up as it ambles along.

We have the standard Favorite packaging of a backing card and blister pack when sold individually, but this one also comes as part of a set called Prehistoric Life which has quite an eclectic mix of ancient animals across the eight figures in that range. At one end of the spectrum you have the mammoth and a Smilodon, while there’s also an Archelon, a C. megalodon, a Dunkleosteus, a Dimetrodon, and bizarre creatures such as an Anomalocaris and a Opabinia. So just about something for everyone in there.

This figure is not what I’d call an essential buy, there are a number of woolly mammoths higher up the quality scale if you wanted a token prehistoric pachyderm on your shelves. But as I kinda like mammoths, this one was bound to end up in my display. The arrival of such quality additions in recent years as Safari’s mastodon and the two ancient elephants from Eofauna to the ranks of furry tuskers has pushed this one even further down the line in terms of quality. Just so I don’t inflict too much of a character assassination on this one, I am still pleased that I picked it up and it is on display and not packed away in a box. So in short, if this one appeals to you, it still seems to turn up here and there on eBay via some of the Japanese sellers and can still be found on the Favorite Co site.