Go...for the GoBalls!

I just put up 50 new* GoBots ads over at the Vintage Space Toaster Palace. Why did I focus on GoBots and not some other crappy robot line I have buttloads of ads for that I haven't put up yet? THIS IS WHY. There's nothing like that contagious enthusiasm that gets me going when I find someone else is also wasting their time doing pointless internet tributes to obscure and forgotten toy robots from the eighties. What I really need is for someone to make a fake movie trailer for Starriors so that I'll get off my butt and update that section. Internet do not disappoint me!

THE MOST ASTOUNDING ROBOPLASTICAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERY THAT...WHO CARES IT'S GOBOTS

Value Club 28 November 1985

In addition to uploading the ads for the GoBots bop bag and GoBots Mold & Paint Set, this update also includes another ad that may be of interest to GoBot archaeologists. This ad I found from a store called Value Club in El Paso, Texas is for a "3-piece set" of GoBots. This is intriguing to me because the only GoBots multi-packs I'm aware of were the Puzzler and Monsterous giftsets. At $7.77 this has to be three regular sized GoBots. I think Value Club was sort of a Sam's Club wholesale warehouse. Sam's Club oftentimes sells multiple regular action figures bundled together within unique packaging. I wonder if this GoBot 3 pack was that sort of thing and I wonder which GoBots were included. I guess I'll never know because nobody on the internet has constructed an extensively researched 200 terabyte wikipedia documenting GoBots wholesale club 3 packs from 1985. In the internet I am disappointed.

MÉNAGE À GOBOTS

This Tuesday Morning ad from 29 November 1984 is simultaneously the most beautiful and terrifying thing I have ever seen. It is beautiful because it has gorgeous hand drawn lineart of the three most ridiculous toy robots ever made, which incidentally is also why it is terrifying. To think that an incredibly talented artist was reduced to rendering immortal the GoBots rifle, cap gun, and water gun is both inspiring and hilarious. Was this an example of art elevating the absurd to the level of the divine, or was it just a really well drawn sketch of a GoBot threesome? I hope that whoever drew this eventually got out of commercial art and later went on to greater things in the art world. I WONDER WHERE HE IS TODAY?

AN AD SO SINISTER IT'S NOT AVAILABLE IN ANY COLOR

And finally I wanted to pimp this Lionel Playworld ad from 17 November 1985. It's notable because it mentions the promotional offer for the mail away Creepy figure. The regular purple Creepy was already available in stores but you got a green version through this special offer. I love how Playworld would go the extra mile and mention these promotions in their ads. I also think this is the only color rendition I've seen of the Leader-1 / Cy-Kill lineart, although you can't tell because the library microfilm I get these ads from are black and white copies. I wish libraries would have gone the extra mile and made color microfilms of these ads but I guess that would have been too expensive. I guess they never expected someone would be using their microfilm to make pointless internet tributes to obscure and forgotten toy robots from the eighties. THEY SHOULD HAVE EXPECTED THIS. LIBRARIES YOU HAVE DROPPED THE GO-BALL.


*meaning over twenty years old