fall inside a hole
Mickey Poppo Set (1990)
Originally written March 22, 2024
The Mickey Poppo Set (ミッキーポッポセット) was released in 1990 and was the first and only old power Mickey Poppo-style set to be produced after the Mickey Poppo toolings were moved to Thailand for 1990. The set features a modified overpass layout with a Japanese-made Disney station and "it's a small world" ride that Tomy had previously produced in the 1980s alongside Japan-made Mickey Poppos.
Being made from a mix of Thailand and Japan-made components, this set is marked made in Japan on the box and uses the liftoff box style.
The front of the box has a Japanese sales permit sticker with a stamp marking it as a licensed Disney product. All of the rails in this set are a darker than usual blue. This seems to have been a one-off color for this set, and it is lighter than TomyTrain/Tomy Express rails and darker than normal Plarail. It is also a different shade than Stelco rails.
Set contents| Quantity |
Item |
Photo |
|---|---|---|
| 2 pieces |
Mickey Poppo
Red (exclusive variant) |
 |
| 2 | R-01 Straight Rail (dark blue variant) |
 |
| 4 | R-02 Half Straight Rail (dark blue variant) |
 |
| 13 | R-03 Curve Rail (dark blue variant) |
 |
| 2 |
R-06 Slope Rail (dark blue variant) |
 |
| 1 | R-08 Stop Rail (dark blue variant) |
 |
| 2 pieces | R-11 Turnout Rail (dark blue variant) |
 |
| 6 | J-13 Bridge Girder (orange variant) |
 |
| 5 pieces | Disney Station |
 |
| 3 pieces |
"it's a small world" ride |
 |
| 2 pieces | J-02 Block Tunnel |
 |
| 2 | Palm trees |
|
| 2 pieces | Mickey and Minnie Mouse dolls |
 |
The Mickey Poppo Red is loosely based on the Colorado engine on Tokyo Disneyland's Western River Railroad which Tomy sponsors and was first released around 1983 ahead of the park's opening. The version included in this set has yellow wheels and orange coupling rods instead of the typical black wheels and yellow rods.
The coach does not have the roofline sticker for whatever reason, although it is shown on the box. The set also includes two Family Doll-esque Mickey and Minnie dolls that can interact with the Family Doll pegs in the carriage and also sit in the "it's a small world" ride.
The Mickey and Minnie dolls can sit in the carriage but it is not really very elegant - they can't sit in the front row because the raised protrusion over the chassis screw gets in their way, and they can't both sit in the same row without facing away from one another. Additionally, the roof can not be put back on the car at all with either figure sitting anywhere, as their ears stick up too much. The wider bases of the dolls does lend well to sitting in the boats on the "it's a small world" ride.
The one-way "it's a small world" ride in this set has some very nice sticker and even cardboard decorations. It is what I call a "catch and release" type destination in that an incoming train is caught and then the friction-drive from the engine's wheels drives the mechanism inside around to rotate the boats and eventually lower the catch that is holding it in place to release it, all without any outside interaction. Sending a train in the "wrong" way causes it to simply pass by unaffected.
The friction-drive pickup drives a small gear that engages with a curved rack on the bottom of the rotating boat section. Unlike the train and rails, this accessory was still made in Japan.
There is an even cooler version of this accessory that was made in Japan in the 1980s for a set that included a Plarail Land-style "Disney Mickey Poppo" that also had a small music box to play the "it's a small world" music and also spin the sign on top of the ride. A video featuring this set from BluePlasticTracks user Super can be found here. It seems that because the ride was originally designed for Plarail Land or Playrail-style dolls that are wider than the family dolls the Mickey and Minnie dolls in turn had to be designed to be as compatible as possible with both standards.
The Disney station included in this set was first produced in Japan in the 1980s and consists of a platform with attached building and separately fitted sign, tree, and roof. Like the "it's a small world" ride, this station was still produced in Japan, and this set seems to be the last time the toolings were used (presumably, after this set they were discarded instead of bothering to move them to Thailand for continued production).
The station platform is the same as the Station Platform from the 1970s and 80s with the building over where the sign usually is, with the sign base installed in one of what is usually the roof support holes and the building screwed in through the central support. The tree only goes into the station base in one orientation.
The signs for both accessories are nicely stickered on both sides.
All of the track in this set is a seemingly set-exclusive darker blue color. The rails are treaded over roughtop except for the pure tread slope rails and roughtop turnouts and are all made in Thailand. They suffer the same shrinking and splitting problems as TomyTrains and Tomy Express, although the shade of blue is lighter and seemingly exclusive to this set, making it much harder to find replacement examples in unbroken condition.
The bridge girders in this set are orange examples of the later clip style of bridge girder. The palm trees in this set are made in Japan with marked leaves and orange bases.
I also have the Japan-printed paper instructions for this set. Although Thailand-produced sets first used fully enclosed boxes in 1989, sets with their packaging and some of their components produced in Japan continued to use the liftoff style boxes. The instructions show where to apply the stickers and how to assemble the accessories, and also explain the shortcomings of seating the Mickey and Minnie dolls in the coach.
The layout is a modified "overpass" type that does not actually properly follow the Plarail rail standard. The raised loop is a regular oval but the lower section uses the straight portion of one of the turnouts on a diagonal which stresses the half-straight sections inside the raised loop. The set fits together just fine, but it does rely on the play inherent in the track joints to fit together. I also really like that the station is situated behind where the stop rail is located so that when the engine stops the coach is actually lined up with the platform.
I do like the expanded layout used in this set. It even includes a half straight which does not strictly need to be elevated in the upper loop. It would have been nice if the set included a few regular Family Dolls like the individual Mickey Poppos to ride in the train (or if the Mickey and Minnie figures properly fit in the coaches). Perhaps this set works best alongside an individual Mickey Poppo Green with its figures.