Doesn’t even have a page on Wiki, but man I was totally into this action figure as a youth. Passed by a window display in the mall similar to this one at Christmas, and was hooked. Also had a couple of the knights. Anyone else remember these guys?
Yeah, I had those action figures when I was a kid. Had West, his son, the Cavalry officer guy and the Indian brave.
Man, haven’t heard of half these guys. Oh to be rich and young.
I remember them. A buddy of mine had several of the western figures and the gold knight. I liked the GI Joe line of action figures better.
I may be the only female popping in here 
!
Oh yes, I remember the Johnny West toys…the female was Jane West, but she was butt-ugly, so my Barbies were Johnny’s women. 
I had pretty much the whole shebang, they were all I ever asked for for Christmas, birthdays, etc. I had the horses- Thunderbolt, Flame, Thundercolt, Poncho, and others in every color they came in… I still have some of them, on top of a bookshelf in my bedroom. I had the ranchhouse, corral/barn, jeep, covered wagon, buckboard… for a lonely, horse crazy little girl, these toys were a dream come true.
My brother used to have one, along with a lot of the little accessories that came with it. One day I set the guinea pig, Bob, on the patio, set the toy coffee pot and gun beside him, and put the cowboy hat on Bob’s head. Then I took a picture and labeled it “Cowboy Bob Rides Again.”
I had the George Armstrong Custer figure, who wore a dark blue uniform with a plastron front; his sergeant, who wore a greenish-blue unform with placket shirt-front; Chief Cherokee in full buckskin, an the gold knight in his wollen underclothes.
The reason I remember these details is because, unlike GI Joe, these guys were their outfits: they were made of solid plastic with heads & hands popped into body blocks, with basic elbow, hip and knee joints.
And compared to GI Joe, those solid plastic bodies were heavy. Just a few weeks ago, 40 years after the fact, my brother was recalling how much it hurt to be hit with one of them!
Besides the dolls I had, there was Johnny West, Jane, some cowboy kid I think, a silver knight (with the identical armor that the gold one had; incl. 3 helmets: a standard knight’s helmet with visor, a conquistador helmet, and an English Civil War lobster tail helmet); and Geronimo. I could Google “Best of the West” and see what comes up.
I had a whole bunch of Johnny West stuff. The horses, about four or five action figures, etc. I remember being frustrated that the litle plastic bow wouldn’t shoot the little arrows worth a damn.
They met an ignomious end. We had a big construction site across the street from our house which had huge piles of dirt on it. We’d set them up on the piles on opposing teams, and throw dirt lumps at them from below when they ‘ambushed’ us. It was pretty fun hitting one of them and watching them do a death-fall off a cliff of dirt. Eventually, we managed to break them and they got thrown away.
I can still remember the jingle from the commercial.
"It’s a fight to the finish, as you can see,
Between Johnny West and Chief Cherokee.
A right to the jaw connects with a jolt,
And the Indian slams into Thunderbolt".
Why the dickens do I remember that for forty years, but I can’t remember where I parked my car?
The other thing I remember is that if you put some Greenie Stick-um Caps on Johnny’s hand and set them off, the gun does not go flying as if someone shot it out of his hand. Instead, Johnny loses some fingers.
My best friend was pissed at me for days over that.
Regards,
Shodan
I was pretty genre blind in those days, but I loved my Johnny West and company. They hung out with the 12" Joes and my cousin’s Barbies and Captain Laser. Sometimes they all got together to help out Maj. Matt Mason and Col. Doug Davis (which apart from the Joes were my most peripherally enhanced group of toys.
Moon Crawler – probably the coolest toy ever
Moon Base
Jet Packs
The works.
Ahhhhh. . . so much fun and so much easier to have fun then.
Got a link for these, were they GI Joe stuff?
Probably my favorite toys as a kid. I’ve mentioned them several times on these boards (here among other places). I can still smell the vinyl of the accessories that came in those boxes (and what cool accessories! Saddles, shotguns, derringers, bags of gold, skillets, etc.).
If I ever win the lotter so help me I’ll finally have that complete set those lucky bastid kids on the commercials had! 
Because you have your priorities straight. Cars you’ll have with you always, but Best of the West figures are sadly no longer with us.
Is he related to Johnny Quest???
- Jinx
Illegitimate great-grandfather by Dodge City Whorehouse Barbie. (Actually, in Europe the makers of Johnny West made Knights and Vikings; they apparently never caught on in America, but I think Johnny West was popular in Europe.
Though Johnny West, Chief Cherokee, and Thunderbolt have long been gone from my life, that damn Johnny West cowboy hat still keeps popping up every once in a while at my mother’s house.
Just this past Christmas somebody found it and put it on St. Joseph in the manger scene.
Ha! My sister and I had lots of the Johnny West stuff. A few years ago, I “rediscovered” it, including some of the figures, yep, Jane was there (I didn’t think she was ugly Papsett!) and the horses too. There’s even still some of the plastic clothes!
I was a horse crazy girl, so they were bound to appeal to me.
A Johnny West action figure also surfaces in American Pie 2.
I had them. The best thing was all the kit that came with them. I had the bad guy and I think he came with a safe, dynamite, pistol, vest, black hat (of course) and a dagger that slid up his sleeve. I think I also remember some kind of jailhouse set, but I could be wrong.