Stiff armed Reference Thread.

Hasbro designed many different mam figures that where stiff armed and could only rotate. Here are some examples of the stiff armed figures.

Plastic body with stiff arms.


Head that rotates up, down, left and right.


Knees and feet that can bend.




Plastic upper.


Head that only rotates around in a circle.


Rubber legs and feet.



Plastic body, arms, legs that don’t bend. Feet can be pointed downwards.


If you rotate the arms around in a circle lots of times until you hear a click, then let it go the armes spin really fast.





His weapon is permanently attached to his arm and the reason is that the gun trigger mechanism is actually built in the Action Man tattoo on the upper left arm.


By pressing in the tattoo it fires the silver missile from the gun.

Swimming action and dart firing action captured on camera! How cool is that! Great work, Alex!

Great shots, Alex!!!

I love how you captured the motion and now I can see how the tattoo is a button -- cool!

I am most definitely NOT a fan of the stiff armed figures, and use them only for static costume displays. There are also stiff-legged versions, or ones with the three click "Barbie function".
The arms and legs with no articulations certainly LOOK better when on display but are virtually useless when posing for action photos.
I have a box of the things, ....mainly coming from job lots at charity stores, including a lot of those useless ones with the huge red device moulded onto the right arm. I have never quite worked out what it is supposed to be or do.

Nice documentation of the various forms though Alex.
I understand the rapidly rotating armed bloke is meant to be a swimmer when wound up and then placed in water, but he thrashes about like he's having some sort of fit, and would only attract sharks! The hands are not moulded for swimming at all, ....just the usual ones.

SCU_HQ wrote:

 Swimming action and dart firing action captured on camera! How cool is that! Great work, Alex!

Thank you very much Dave.

gibri wrote:

Great shots, Alex!!!

I love how you captured the motion and now I can see how the tattoo is a button -- cool!

Thank you very much gibri.

LeStryge wrote:

I am most definitely NOT a fan of the stiff armed figures, and use them only for static costume displays. There are also stiff-legged versions, or ones with the three click "Barbie function".
The arms and legs with no articulations certainly LOOK better when on display but a virtually useless when posing for action photos.
I have a box of the things, ....mainly coming from job lots at charity stores, including a lot of those useless ones with the huge red device moulded onto the right arm. I have never quite worked out what it is supposed to be or do.

Nice documentation of the various forms though Alex.
I understand the rapidly rotating armed bloke is meant to be a swimmer when wound up and then placed in water, but he thrashes about like he's having some sort of fit, and would only attract sharks! The hands are not moulded for swimming at all, ....just the usual ones.

Oh I’m definitely NOT a fan of the stiff armed figures ether. I agree with you on that the arms and legs with no articulations certainly LOOK better when on display but a virtually useless when posing for action photos. I only wanted to document the various forms of stiff armed figures that I only have in my collection. I know there are quite a few more stiff armed mam figures that have a special function figures that Hasbro created but I won’t be collecting them. They are mam collector’s out there that are fans of the stiff armed special function and I totally respect them.

Plastic upper.


Head that only rotates around in a circle.


Rubber legs and feet.

Alex, please tell me what the function of this red thing on his arm is. What does it do?
I am accumulating FAR too many of these particular figures and for my purposes, it makes them virtually useless.

This YouTube video on Action Man Ad - Power Arm Ninja And Dr X will tell you what function of the red thing on his arm does. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjdPw_XcriU

So it just rotates very quickly like some personal fan?
Wish I could remove those arms and replace them!