I think the one on the chariot looks a little bit like Charlie Heston.

Ben Hur anyone?

Spartacus?

I have a Playmobil set of a hobo and a park bench, complete with wine bottle.

On the back of the box, it shows how that kit could interact with others -- the Playmobil cop can 86 the guy from the bench so the fancy ladies can sit down. Fun!

Personally I would be more offended by the price tag. $29.99 for a hunk of plastic? Buy the kid a soccer ball or something else that doesn't require them to be relatively stationary and they'll have a lot more fun and help avoid diabetes at the same time!

It's compelling discussions like this on that keep me coming back. Maybe we should all throw in on a Christmas gift for Barrett and whoever else runs this thing ...

When I was a kid, Playmobile were the toys that the stuck up rich kids would have. I can remember groups of us going over to the home of a Playmobile collector and seeing all of these kick-ass scenes set up and being told not to touch them. We usually just end up going home to play with our Legos.

Was ginormous even a word before "Elf"? Now I have to watch that movie!

My brothers & I would've been all over this. If we'd had this when we were kids, countless Lego guys and Smurfs would have faced an untimely end at the hands of their Roman Playmobil oppressors.

And then the monkeys from our zoo set would've shown up and stolen the chariot, and after my older brother found a way to get the torches in their hands they would've stormed my dollhouse on the other side of the house...oh, the humanity!

(We had Playmobil toys and junked-out cars & snowmobiles in our yard, so I'm not sure what that made us...)

I've always been suspicious of the Playmobil Noah's Ark set. Does it come with drowning sinners that surround the boat crying for mercy?

Barrett made me snort coffee. I can totally see the little playmobile people wearing robes, kneeling, looking morose...come to think of it they could have the same figures in the Roman set, too.

I always find it odd that Noah's Ark is considered such a cute kid's story. It starts out with the frailty of the human condition, wickedness beyond description, derision, and contempt. Then God responds with a wrath impossible to comprehend: mass extermination, ecological disaster on a global scale, the near complete annihilation of the human race. And then it ends with God's redemptive grace and the ultimate goodness in humanity polishes off for a rainbow finish ...

Is that a children's story? I've discussed it at length with great thinkers and theologians and even they struggle with this text.

But the board book publishers and toymakers seem to have boiled it all down to the animals going in two by two, and isn't Noah cute with that beard ...

It's also the only story where God sort of admits he was wrong, or at least is learning as he goes along. At the end he's all like "Whoa. That was horrible. I'm never gonna do that again."

You thought the Gladiator set was goofy? Check out the Top 10 Playmobile Oddities:

http://www.thingamababy.com/baby/2006/06/top_ten_playmob.html

" God Kills 70,000, Adultery & Murder, David Flees Jerusalem...
34 stories with 345 illustrations" http://www.thebricktestament.com/

The unflinching folks at Playmobil also offer the barbarian warriors add-on set (#7924). For when your child gets bored with the whole decadent imperialism thing. City gates sold separately.

As long as you're poring through xmas catalogs, you should consult the Greatest Post in the History of the Internet...
( http://randomshelf.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html )

I bring this up because I received the "Iwo Jima Jungle Mountain" one Christmas around 1980 or thereabouts, which I feel offers reasonable competition for the gladiator arena in the Tasteless category.

http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2242/1570/1600/316134/battlemountain.jpg

[Of course Iwo Jima isn't exactly covered with jungle, "authentic" or otherwise, but that didn't hinder my overenthusiastic enjoyment.]

Noah's ark is a common theme for nursery sets, too. You can surround your newborn baby with images of the earth's imminent destruction.
Danny G's link above includes the Hazmat Playmobil toy, which I've always thought was the weirdest one.
As for Romans, there's also a larger coliseum toy for about $100. I saw it at Explorations toy store downtown.