Frankie the Hammer – Works in “collections” for the Family
While cleaning out a drawer, we found a number of small plastic figurines we bought from gumball machines at our local supermarket more than twenty years ago. We had forgotten all about these until our recent rediscovery. After some research, it turned out that these guys were known as The Palermos.
According to Wikipedia:
The Palermos are a series of two-inch plastic collectible figurines created by David Gonzales. Representing an Italian American family and their associates, the Palermos debuted in 2004 as a spin-off of Gonzales’ Homies figures.
In their fictional world, the Palermo family was once one of New York’s most powerful Mafia groups. Trying to “go straight,” they have established a family-run pizza restaurant.
Wikipedia is off on the size. We measured them as roughly 1.25 inches.
I remember it being a minor obsession of ours at the time. We never knew which one of the family 50¢ was going to get us.
Huh, never saw those before… Must have been a Philly thing!
No, I think it was an obscure national thing, a spinoff of another more popular series of figures.