Ghosts of Christmas Past: Domo Arigato All You Robotos

One thing that would make a toy stand out to young Cap'n Neurotic more than anything else was this: versatility. A spaceship was cool, but a spaceship that could also turn into a host of other toys?

Priceless.

Yes, the Micronauts Battle Cruiser (click here for more detail) was yet another cherished toy from my childhood. LovedlovedLOVED this thing; think nine times out of ten I pretended it was the spaceship Phoenix from the cartoon Battle of the Planets, which was one of my favorite (although seldom viewed) cartoons as a youth. Although the only other official Micronaut toy I owned was the previously mentioned Hornetroid, I would later purchase the total Baron Karza knockoff Count Magno and steed, which also had the bonus of possessing interchangeable parts for customized playtime.

My other big interchangeable toys were the Starriors, which was another line of toys I had completely forgotten about until I started this stroll down memory lane. Which is strange, because I loved this things with their removable (and movable) limbs. I owned three of them:

HotShot,

Gouge,
and Sawtooth,
although in my mind Sawtooth was renamed "Purple Rain," which should give you a pretty good idea of about what year I first got these. The most commeon configuration was for me to mount their legs on their shoulder pegs like wings and put their arms on their leg pegs since they resembled bird legs with talons. The other cool thing about the Starriors line was that they came with mini-comic books; if I weren't already broke, I'd probably waste a ton of money trying to track them down. So, yay for having no money!

While Micronauts may have been my intro to interchangable toys, GoBots were my introduction to the whole transforming robots phenomenon. My very first one was the incredibly rudimentary Loco
followed by the slightly more complex Scooter


I would soon graduate to the much larger and intricate Transformers, but would pick up the occaisional cool looking GoBot from time to time. My two favorites: Water Walk

and Scorp



And then there were my few Transformer purchases, such as Trailbreaker


and Prowl



I find it worth noting that, a lot of the time, I modified the backstories of the figures so that they weren't really transforming robots, but actually super-high-tech action vehicles with multiple attack formations which could be derived by placing the figures in various states of transformation. Thus, the toys which most easily lent themselves to such reimaginings (Trailbreaker, Water Walk, Scorp) were the ones most played with.

And finally, we will wrap up our tour down memory lane's toy aisle with a look at some robotic toys that didn't really fulfill my need for versatility: RoboForce




And yet, they had suction cups on the bottom, and somehow that made them cool. Go figure.

Ghosts of Christmas Past - Memory Lane

Going through the old Sears Wishbooks brought up lots o' memories for me, as seeing one toy pictured would remind me of two or three that weren't. So, let's take a quick rummage around the toy chest of my mind, shall we?

When I saw the Wishbook ad for the Fischer Price yacht, the first thing it made me think of was my other playset which often served as an expansion for the Fisher Price figures: the Sesame Street Clubhouse.



Loved that little playset, with its hand cranked conveyor belt that you can see is pushing Big Bird over to the red slide in the picture; and then there's that white rectangle next to Grover, which is actually a trap door -- I loved me some trap doors when I was a kid.

Couple of other early favorites were my Superman Big Wheel

and my Sit and Spin
which I covered in the Six Million Dollar Man stickers which didn't wind up plastered all over my bedroom wall.

As I may have mentioned before, my toy collection was pretty scattershot; I never picked one toy line to focus on above all others, but instead dabbled in a wide variety. Of course, my earliest action figures were those which any self-respecting child of the late 70s had: Star Wars. And while I mentioned a few of the figures I used to own in some of the Wishbook posts, there is one seminal piece of Star Wars paraphernalia which was not pictured: the Death Star Space Station playset.

Which, in addition to a neat cannon and elevator (not to mention a trap door) also had the nifty trash compactor toy complete with trash compactor monster which, I have learned while doing image Goolges, is technically known as a dianoga.



I had this funky looking thing for many years longer than the actual playset lasted. My other beloved Star Wars toy was my Tauntaun.

As mentioned previously, I had my fair share of Masters of the Universe toys. In addition to Orko, Buzz-off, and Ram-Man, I was also in possession of Teela


Webstor,
and the unfortunately named Fisto.

Seriously, Fisto? And someone got paid to come up with that? Sheesh.

I liked the concept of Webstor, with his grappling hook back pack which served as a zip line, but in practice the line was constantly getting tangled and it wasn't long before it was totally useless.

As for Teela, well, my biggest memory with her was taking her to school and having one of the older kids swipe her and scratch off paint around her chest to reveal the flesh colored paint underneath, making her suddenly, if not an R-rated toy, at least PG-13. And, sadly by that point I had already lost the snake-shaped helmet/breastplate which would have effectively covered her shame.

Although the following were definitely birthday presents* and not Christmas presents, I figure we may as well ride the nostalgia train for as long as we can.

I remember coming up with some scenario in which Pegasus was wounded, and I decided to use red crayon for the effect, not realizing that the red streaks would be pretty much permanent.

There are a few toys that I have fond memories off that have so far eluded my attempts to find photographic proof of online, such as the Spider-Baby doll or the strange looking drag racer figure whose car looked like it was more suited for underwater travel or outer-space use than land activities, and so that's precisely what he became. That was a common theme of my play time as a kid, creating new worlds, powers, and back-stories for my action figures; seldom if ever were my imagining straight-forward interpretations. This was true of my Star Wars figures, my Masters of the Universe figures, my G.I. Joe figures, and, of course, the vast array of robotic figures which I'll be discussing in my next post**.



*Have a very clear recollection of getting these at my McDonalds birthday party in 80 or 81, for some reason
**Hey, gotta milk this for all that it's worth!

Ghost of Christmas Wishbooks Past - 1986

We now reach the end of our trip down Sears Wishbook memory lane with the joys of 1986, which was a veritable explosion of TV show related action figure goodness. Of course, by this point in time, while my interest in the toys was great, my drive to own them had waned, whether due to lack of funds or a decision that 6th grade was a good enough time to move away from toys as any. So, most of the following will be more "ooo, I always thought that was cool" rather than "oooo, I loved having that one!"

• I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to any of my family members who spent any money on any of the items listed on this page; I was the stereotypical boy who cries "Wow, it would so cool to have a microscope/chemistry set/insert-science-based-hobby-here" only to briefly look at the kit a couple of times and then stick it away on the shelf to gather dust.
• Ah yes; Photon is to Lazer Tag as Betamax was to VHS, I believe. Of course, I never had either of them.
• I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I have never owned a video game system of my own; all of my video game experience comes courtesy of arcades, game consoles of friends and roomies, and the occasional bit of software that gets installed on my computer. Still, I look at this page and just have to wonder: how many people out there actually bought Item #3?
• Two pages of Rambo inspired toys. Two. Pages. Meanwhile, the force of nature that is Chuck Norris only gets a quarter of a page. Wow, this is just mind bottling*.
• This page gets included just for my current roomies, who were both fans of the show/toys; afraid it never aired on any of the stations we got.
• Back down to just one page; Masters of the Universe were slipping, eh? Oh, and look, I actually own one of the figures pictured, Buzz-Off . . . not that it's actually offered for sale anywhere on the page, mind you.
• Oh, look: Over the Top official arm wrestling toys! I bet those were a hit that Christmas huh? Can you imagine the joy and wonder the children felt as they opened up their gi . . . BWAH-HA-HA-HA! Sorry, tried to keep a straight face, but couldn't hold it in.
• And in addition to all of the above, we also had pages for cartoon inspired toys like Thundercats, M.A.S.K., Inhumanoids, Transformers, Defenders of the Earth, etc. Got to play with some of the stuff thanks to Ol' Vick, who I was still friends with at the time, but seeing them all laid out like that makes me realize that by 1986, I had started to move away from action figures and onto . . . well, books. Lots and lots of books.
  

Well, that may wrap up Sears Wishbook posts, but it has really just opened up a cornucopia of nostalgia that's sure to result in a flood of related posts . . . and by "a flood," I of course mean "one or two, if I get around to it."

*You know; like your mind is trapped in a bottle.

Ghost of Christmas Wishbooks Past - 1985

Well, it looks like our faithful scanner of Sears Wishbooks has not been able to get the 1984 catalog scanned in, which is a shame, since that was the year that Transformers and GoBots and the like really took off; curious to see what might have caught my eye from then. But, for now, let's just take a look at 1985.

• No, I never had any of these, but I always wanted one, especially the giant version of Maxx Steele from RoboForce.
• Poor GoBots; never quite got the following of some other series of transforming robots. I had a few, but the only GoBot toy from the catalog was Item #13. Man, was that a funky looking playset or what?
• And here are the winners of the transforming toy robot war: on this page you'll see my favorite Dinobot Swoop, which was, not coincidentally, the only Dinobot I owned.
• I present this page not for the rest of the Transformers toys, but for item #24, which I had completely forgotten about until I saw it here; what a hassle to keep track of that was.
• By this year, Masters of the Universe had graduated to a full 2-page spread, not to mention the She-Ra page later on. On the first page we get to see one of my favorite toys, Item #3, Orko, which would spin around like crazy when you pulled a ripcord; way too much fun with that one. There's also the Battle Armor He-Man which had a rotating plate on the chest that would record "damage," and the funky little Dragon Walker which looked oh so cool on the commercials, but was painfully slow and uninteresting in person. On the second page is another of my favorite toys, #24: Modulok. Or, as anyone who remember the toy commercial might hear in their head: Mod! U! Lok! Modulok, Modulok, Modulok!
  
  
  
  A better look at the joy which was Modulok can be found here., which includes the package art and instructions as well as a look at all of Modulok's modular parts. Had way too much fun playing combinatorics with this one.
  
• Again we have entrants into the "toys I never had but always wanted" category: M.A.S.K.
• And here we have something which you know could not help but catch young Cap'n Neurotic's comic geek eye: lucky Item #13, a random grab-bag of 30 Marvel comic books. This one became a Christmas staple for several years; yes, I always wound up with duplicates of books I already owned, but surprisingly very few. Probably the biggest benefit for me was that one of the random issues later inspired me to track down the full series of Nth Man: The Ultimate Ninja, which was so far removed from what the title implies you would not believe it.

Ghost of Christmas Wishbooks Past - 1983

The 1983 Sears Wishbook is a tad disappointing compared to the previous two I've discussed, since there are only two pages with anything that jumped out and caught my nostalgic eye. Makes me wonder if some of the stuff in the 1982 catalog didn't make it my way until 83, or if I got a large number of items from the Penny's catalog that year; sadly, nobody seems to have much in the way of Pennys catalogs online as of yet.

• Masters of the Universe toys were obviously increasing in popularity since the previous year, with them now taking over half a page instead of just a third. Of course, out of the figures shown here, i only owned one: Ram-Man.
• While I do have a soft-spot for several of the games shown here -- especially Hungry Hungry Hippos -- the one that jumped out at me was Bargain Hunter, which I remember because it had this "credit card machine" which would spin and tell you if your card was accepted or not; for some reason, running the fake card through the fake machine and listening to the little drum inside roll around was slightly hypnotic to me.
  

Ghost of Christmas Wishbooks Past - 1979

Turns out that the 1982 Sears Christmas Wishbook is not the only volume to be scanned and provided online, so today we'll continue our trip down memory lane be going back a few years see what nostalgia comes welling up from 1979, when a 4-year old Cap'n Neurotic was enjoying his first few blissful years of consumerism.

• Item #10 was one of my favorite toys as a kid; have no idea what happened to all of the firefighter figures, but that treehouse would work its way into many a imaginary scenario over the years; I think the collapsible top played into my youthful obsession with secret passages and hidden doorways and the like.
• Wow, did the memories come back thanks to this page: the Fisher-Price Houseboat is familiar, but not as much as the Fisher-Price figures on it. I also have strong memories of parts of Item #4, particularly the helicopter and the black chains you can barely see on the front of the small blue boat; the designs of the chain made it look like a face with two dangly, hooked limbs hanging off, causing it to become some sort of creepy alien creature in my imagination. And then of course there's Item #6, the faux doctor equipment; again, parts of this would outlive others, and be put to uses other than what they were intended -- the thermometer, which had a little twist knob that turned it's center line from white to red, became some sort of laser pen or tricorder or whatever I wanted it to be at the time. Did I mention I spent a lot of time playing alone as a child?
• More familiar items on this page: Items 8 and 10 are familiar, but may have belonged to our church's nursery rather than to me, but I know #13 was mine because I remember using the silo to transport other toys around with me. I also remember how the barn doors would make a mooing sound every time they were opened; bet my parents loved that.
• Item #4: the Hornetroid. LovedlovedLOVED my Hornetroid. I mean, look at it; how could I not?
• Star Wars! Had quite a few of these figures: Snaggletooth and Walrus Man, Darth Vader and a Storm Trooper*, a Jawa and a Sand Person, and the Patrol Dewback as well. Oh, and Boba Fett, but I don't think I got him until after Empire came out.
• One of my other favorite toys: The Millenium Falcon. I also wanted the Tie Fighter and X-Wing, but the Falcon last me a good long while. Oh, and I once knew someone who had that Shogun Warrior figure which is crammed into the bottom corner.
• Item #2: Skedoodle. Had totally forgotten about Skedoodle. Many hours of mindless entertainment with this obscure drawing toy.**
• And finally, while I never owned anything from this page, I had to share because the kids' poses crack me up.

*Both of which wound up becoming part of my legless legion as I mentioned in my post about weird things about me as a kid.
**While it wasn't the exact same set as Item #3, my childhood best friend Ol' Vick had a similar mix-and-match super-hero creating toy which occupied many hours of my youth.

Ghost of Christmas Wishbooks Past - 1982

Zinger forwarded a link to me earlier today, and suggested I do a quick blog post about it. I, being lazy and hard up for blogging topics at the moment, acquiesced. What was the link? A Flickr album of scanned pages from the 1982 Sears Wishbook Catalog. Dox knows how many countless hours I spent pouring over the Sears and JC Penny's catalogs as a kid around Christmas time. A few thoughts that came to mind while browsing the pages:

• I had items #2, 7, 8, and 9. . . and had completely forgotten about all of them until I saw this page
  
• It amuses me greatly that back in 82 "Masters of the Universe" Toys were smooshed into the bottom third of a page with a bunch of generic "themed" toys. Oh, and the Battle Ram Mobile Launcher (item #15) is another toy I used to have which had fallen into the mists of memory until this page brought it all back.
  
• At a certain point in my life, I would have conceivably killed to have items #11 and 14
• I didn't own any of these, but my uncle did
• Another in a long list of things I always wanted as a kid: #14
• Gotta love the hyperbolic advertising. "It's amazing! It's unbelievable! It's a product that will soon become obsolete because a competitor will become the industry standard!"
• Don't know what's odder: that there was a point in time when there were 5 pages of catalog devoted exclusively to Smurf memorabilia, or that that even more pages were given over to Little Orphan Annie merchandise.