Stand-up figures
Trumptonalia.
Camberwick Green "Stand-up,Cut-out Figures" produced by Philmar.

Unusually,there's no copyright information or date,just a Philmar reference number - M812.
But I do know that..... it's definitely 1970's ..... it was a Trumptonshire one-off,although they also did a version for the Magic Roundabout at around the same time ..... oh,and it wasn't very good !
The box is 39cm x 19.5cm.
The figures range in height from 11.5cm to 10.5cm.
Each figure consists of 3 jigsaw pieces,and they're all made of 1cm thick sandwich plywood.

The artwork is uncredited,but it'll strike a chord with anyone familiar with the Camberwick books produced by Dean & Sons,because this particular artist's work features quite heavily.

And I think the box shown is incomplete.As there was probably some sort of pre-formed insert to keep them more firmly in place.
Whilst they did make other toys,Philmar's bread & butter products were the standard,lay-flat jigsaws we're all familiar with. 

So this variation must've seemed like a business no-brainer,as it was different enough to market seperately,yet still fundementally a jigsaw that didn't require large amounts of money to be spent on things like re-tooling.

Which is great if the product was any good.
But when you launch on the back of 2 hugely successful tv series like Camberwick & the Magic Roundabout,and the concept still doesn't do well enough to be rolled-out then you know there's a problem.

In fact,the only real surprise is how such a poorly-executed product ever got past the design stage.

Don't be fooled by my photo.
The figures require a fair amount of coaxing just to stand-up,nevermind actually stay up.
As the bases are insufficiently wide,the figures too top heavy and the pieces far too loose a fit to give them any stability.

And they're not even proper "cut-out" silhouettes,because random bits of scenic background are included.
Which would at least make some sort of sense if they were also designed to slot together to form one coherent picture.
But they weren't.
So they just look slightly odd -as though they weren't finished off properly in the factory.

Yes,they do "stand up".And yes they have been "cut out".So the product name does at least have some basis in fact.
Unfortunately it also happens to be as tenuous as Mr.Kipling's use of the word "cake" !

But this is Trumptonshire,so let's end on a suitably upbeat note.
Forget lazy thinking and poor design.And see how this should've been done by taking a look at the Camberwick version of a fab product called "Jigbits" here.