Entertainment industry trade magazine Variety wasn't on my radar as a source of old toy robot cartoon information so it was an awesome surprise when I found a great deal of Voltron ads in issues of Variety from 1984 and 1985. These weren't traditional toy or cartoon ads aimed at the average consumer looking for a toy robot to buy or a cartoon to watch. Since Variety's readership was people who worked in the entertainment industry these ads were created as pitches to television station program managers to carry the Voltron cartoon at their stations. Because programming decisions had to be made well in advance of the fall '84 cartoon season, these ads appeared many months before the Voltron cartoon hit the air and are some of the earliest appearances of Voltron in any media.
15 February 1984
 | 23 May 1984
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The earliest Voltron ad I found was from February 1984. I didn't look in any issues before that so there may still be some earlier ads. This February ad (above left) had to sell the Voltron show on just the concept alone and it's a pretty cool concept-a super robot show in stereo with lots of speical effects. Mention is made of it being a trilogy but there are no details on what was meant by that. The ad doesn't list any stations signed up and no ratings figures could be used because the show hadn't aired yet. Then in May of '84 the next ad (above right) appears and lists many of the first stations and cities where Voltron was scheduled to show.
10 October 1984
 | 05 December 1984
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The next two ads above appeared shortly after the show first aired and the initial ratings came in. Voltron would go on to be the #1 kids show in syndication in 1984 and the early numbers were really strong. One of the advantages to advertising in Variety was that it was a weekly magazine and if the ratings were good this information could be spread really fast in the hopes of getting more stations to sign on. The terminology used with these numbers is a bit confusing to me though. I'm pretty sure "share" is the percentage of how many televisions are tuned in to a show in a certain market at a certain time. Ratings points confuse the hell out of me and I think they mean how many televisions in all of America are tuned in to a show. Regardless, the ad above right is impressive when it states Voltron performed so well that it increased both share and ratings percentages by 50% over the same period a year earlier.
13 February 1985
 | 11 September 1985
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I think these last two ads are really pretty. They're both from 1985 after Voltron had enjoyed much ratings success. The February ad featured Voltron at the height of its popularity just before the toys began hitting the shelves. By the time the September 11th ad was published it was apparent that people loved the Lion Force and wanted more so all talk of a trilogy was out the window. The ad promotes the third "season" which would be the brand new episodes commissioned by WEP to continue the Lion Force story arc, all of which would be kicked off by the "Fleet of Doom" team up special which
I thought was pretty craptacular. The ad is really cool, though, because it featured the Voltron characters breaking the fourth wall and talking about how great the new episodes were going to be. Unfortunately the viewing public wouldn't agree and Voltron's reign would be usurped in 1985 by another team of space cats, but this time
not of the mechanical kind.
5 comments:
Those ads are so cool. Who is that 5th Thundercat all the way on the right? Jaga?
That's kind of who I thought it was supposed to be but I'm not too good on Thundercats lore. I was considering going over to a Thundercats message board and telling them about it but I don't know if it's old news to those guys plus my pictures aren't that good.
I'll send you the raw picture of the Thundercat ad via email. I've also got a couple He-Man ads and a full page Filmation ad that I only grabbed because I thought you might like them. I took them at 5 megapixels so they're kind of big. Let me know if your email overloads!
That "Vehicle" Voltron ad has finally lit my fire to get a hold of the Armored Fleet Dairugger DVD.
Thanks, toy robot Indy!
Great! Now we both need to do reviews of Dairugger! Or maybe if you're up to it (and once I get the right software to record Skype calls) we could both watch it and then do a podcast review of Dairugger on a future episode of the Podcastalypse!
That's pretty much exactly what "share" is - of all the TVs that are turned on at a given time, how many of them are turned to your program.
Rating is measured out of all POSSIBLE televisions, both turned on and turned off.
(three years in a TV newsroom taught me something, I guess.)
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