This toy line was based on the popular 1983 to 1987 NBC television series starring George Peppard as Col. John "Hannibal" Smith, leader of the team, Dirk Benedict as Templeton "Face" Peck, Dwight Schultz as "Howlin" Mad Murdock, and Laurence Tureaud as B.A. Baracus. Mr. Tureaud was much better known as the gold-chained star of screen, toy, comic book, trading card and motivational speech, "Mr. T". Galoob must have had a good thing going with these toys as they did them in both 3-3/4" and 6-1/2" sizes. These figures don't show up often and the rarest of them all is the last of the 6-1/2" line, Amy A. Allen, based on the female character portrayed by Melinda Culea.

These large-sized "movable" 11-1/2" soft plastic figures of Johnny West and friends was one of the longest running action figure series in history. It was produced by Marx starting in 1965. The figures came with plastic accessories and clothing. Some very rare figures exist that were only available in England and Canada, making the series difficult for U.S. collectors to complete.

A number of box variations were used over the years, but the figures remained basically the same. For most of the years there was no uniform or logo or packaging style and series names such as Johnny West Adventure, Collection or Series appeared on some of the packages, or no series name was used at all. Unlike most other series, these packaging variations have no effect on value. The five Fort Apache Fighters figures are a sub-series. The four 9" figures are West kids, not a smaller scale line. The last figure in the series, Jed Gibson, a black cavalry scout, is the scarcest and most valuable figure in the series. There were also three figures that were only produced in Canada and/or England.