I respect you even if you like Starroid Raiders

I still remember that day in 1985. I was 11 years old. I was in 5th grade when I was in the boys locker room getting dressed for the next class. Just as I was getting ready to walk out, another kid stopped me and in his most sincere voice asked, "Hey arn't you going to comb your hair?" I never combed my hair as a kid. I didn't see the point. So I told him no, to which he responded, "But don't you want to get chicks?" At that point my mind locked up. I was thinking, "Chicks? Like other 5th graders? What kind of sick fuck finds those attractive?" So I spent a lot of time from that day forward pondering the advantages and disadvantages of girls versus robots. Until I found a girl who smelled as good as a freshly opened Transformer I was holding out. In the meantime I guess that other boy thought I was gay.

In the sixth grade I still wasn't combing my hair but since I had the highest grade point average of my class, people didn't give me shit. I wasn't gay-I was an eccentric smart weirdo. But the girls question came up again one day when at lunch another sixth grader named Laura Uribari flat out asked me, "When are you going to start liking girls?" She seemed a bit frustrated and upset with me. WTF? I gave her the stupidest answer imaginable because of course I was a sixth grade nerd who hadn't gotten laid yet like all the other promiscuous 12 year olds. I put down the Transformer comic book I was reading (I was a little pissed off that she was bothering me with my robot studies) and I told her "Well, maybe when they start smelling better." At that point females still didn't appeal to me, but I was holding out hope that one day I would find a girl my age who smelled as good as Optimus Prime's rubber tires.

So fast forward to last night and I'm 32 and I'm looking at the library archives of newspapers from 1979. I'm still wondering if 1979 was as cool as I remember it being when I was four. After reading the horrible Shogun Warriors comic I found my faith in my memories shaken. I knew Shogun Warriors were kick ass toys as a kid, so surely the other toys from that time were equally awesome, right?

BOY WAS I WRONG. HOLY SHIT BATMAN, WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE THINGS? MY EYES ARE MELTING!!

Welcome to this Lewis Osco ad from November 27th. Welcome to the suck that was 1979, folks. Welcome to the era of the Starroid Raiders. Possibly the most bizarre line of molded plastic humanoids ever made by man. What toy company marketing executive on crack thought this was a good idea? Were they knockoffs? Did anyone buy these on purpose? And most importantly, how did they know what the demons in my head look like? As my mind locked up in terror at these horrible horrible plastic people, the first thought I had was, "What kind of sick fuck finds those attractive?"

I was mystified. Surely nobody in the history of mankind who was a kid in 1979 would remember having these. Surely nobody would admit that Santa Claus hated children enough to get them Starroid Raiders for Christmas. But guess what? Thanks to the power of the intertron I found out that these cheesy Village People from Mars were actually the coolest toys ever made.

I am envious of fans like Doctor Squid who paid attention in 1979 and who actively pursued a collection of Starroid Raiders. Doctor Squid, I salute you and your love for these crazy outer space mutant teletubby action figures. Once I got over the shock of their horrid deformity I realized that I was being as closed minded as the fifth and sixth graders who thought that heterosexual reproduction should have been the singular aim of my life as a pre-pubescent child. Rock on, you crazy Doctor! Up the Irons!