In January 2002 I acquired 2 Man From U.N.C.L.E. original 1964 Gilbert action figures off eBay. I had been on an MFU mailing list for a few years, and discovered there were a bunch of other middle-aged women who had the same AFs. They dressed and posed the dolls then took pictures to share with other MFU fans on the IKAF group. I wanted to play, too!
Here they are, fresh out of their boxes:
Here they are along with my tiny but growing AF collection:
The original dolls were not that great out of the box. No joints, and of course the clothes were a bit musty. The members of the IKAF group thought that the 40th Anniversary Ken doll made a very nice replacement body. Vicky generously sent me one to get me started with my first Full Body Transplant (FBT). (He still wears that body today!) And of course, the guys had to have names… the naming convention was 4 initials, the last two being either NS or IK. So I dubbed mine BUNS and NIIK: Buffed Up Napoleon Solo and New Improved Illya Kuryakin.
The Ken doll had a different neck attachment than the original body, so I just crammed BUNS’ head onto the neck until I got a better idea. And of course, they needed a change of wardrobe…
I finally fashioned a head holder from a wine cork, and now BUNS looks much better. Here he is, posed with his (my) license plate. You can read details about the head holder here. The lovely suit is taken from a Frank Sinatra doll, and you can read about that here.
After a while I bought another 40th Anniversary Ken doll and did a FBT on NIIK, too. His new clothes, the black turtleneck and black slacks that he wears while helping BUNS get the suit, came from Boris The Enforcer. That’s why Boris goes around mostly naked.
