The nineteenth seal of the Roboplastic Apocalypse meets its repulsively delicious end at the hands of an alien lobster with his brain falling out of his mouth! Yes it's another fifty minute barrage of me talking to myself about aliens, Micronauts, Micronaut aliens, Interchangeables, Micronautical Interchangeables and Interchangeable Micronauticals and other nauts and bots with swappable parts and maybe even a Spaceknight or two gets mentioned. Are you a Slithery Skinned Invader from the Remote World of Visceros or are you just happy to see me? Find out in this WHERE DO MICRONAUTS GET RECOLORED WHEN THEY DIE edition of the Podcastalypse!
Or download it directly
HEY ANYONE GOT AN EXTRA $250,000? I REALLY LIKE THAT ALIEN ELEPHANT ROCKET TANK PAINTING
Service Merchandise 09/07/86 | Best 12/19/85 |
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NO GOOD ROBOID GOES UNRECOLORED
The great Bill Mantlo once wrote that "An idea has to evolve or it begins to repeat itself" and ironically this was proven true by the very toyline he helped popularize in the late 70s-the Micronauts. The Mego Micronauts line died after its parent company went bankrupt but that would not be the end of the toys. Various rehashings of the Micronauts molds have been popping up on the shelves ever since the 1980s and surprisingly there have been as many relaunches and redecos as there have been companies that owned the toys, but never any new additions to the line! Perhaps the most notorious of all were the strangely colored line of Micronaut figures and vehicles released under The Interchangeables banner in 1984. The Interchangeables lasted for two series with the second series consisting of the exact same toys as the first, just in different colors! Even stranger was how the packaging shows each series was released by a different company. What was going on here? Has there ever been another toy robot line that has bounced from company to company and been reissued and recolored as many times as the Micronauts have? I DO NAUT KNOW!
TRU 22 November 1984 | TRU 05 December 1984 |
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200 BUCKS FOR ONE STILL IN THE BOX? YOU CAN'T BE C.I.R.E.S.!
Service Merchandise 03 November 1985 | Service Merchandise 06 December 1984 |
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SHOW NOTES OF THE PODCASTALYPSE
TRU 12/11/85 crappy ad of the month
Zayre 11/03/85
Zayre 11/03/85
- Absolutely no old toy robots gnus
- Rom artbook in the works from IDW
- Spacenite 2 tribute to Bill Mantlo
- Spacenite artworks
- Original Ken Kelley Micronaut package paintings up for sale on ebay
- Know your Micronaut aliens!
- Ken Kelley interview at Innerspace Online
- Michael Golden coming to Wizard World Miami
- Michael Golden interview at Comic Zone Radio (Ctr+F search for "Golden")
- Michael Golden interview at Innerspace
- The continuing saga of the Starrior Thing
- More than anyone would ever want to know about Starrior Runabout knockoffs
- Run about at play time with the Playtime Runabout
- The story of a family (that turned into laser guns) divided by war (between Tonka and Hasbro)
- The Skywarp bop bag ad that's hard to catch as Skywarp is
- Raksha's Transformer artifacts list
- Break-The Interchangeables!
- Takara toy robots history will be your grandkids' bedtime stories
- Early attempts at resurrecting the Micronauts
- PAC Toys' Lords of Light
- Interview with Joe Ruzzi, founder of PAC Toys
- End the light, start the bright (recolors)
- The mystery of the companies behind The Interchangeables
- Metallion is the greatest robot horse name ever
- Interchangeables auctions on eBay
10 comments:
I was just thinking about Lobros a few minutes ago. He's one of my saved ebay searches.
Are they tough to track down in general or are any of them harder to get than the other aliens?
Lobros comes up somewhat often, but very rarely complete. He's also pretty expensive. Incomplete ones go for around 60. Membros, repto, and centaurus got shoddy Palisades remakes, which can be found pretty easily. Antron seems to go for around 40. It's too bad, because I really want a lobros and his impossible to find vehicle, lobstros.
It just occurred to me: Star + Warriors = Starriors.
Maybe I'm a few years too young- I was born in the late 1970s- but I don't remember Starriors, Micronauts, Lords of Light, or Interchangeables (or Robo Force/Max Steel). I remember the Rom comic book series though.
I have zero memories of Micronauts or Starriors. Guess they weren't so popular in my area or I wasn't paying attention.
Jack, do you pronounce Lobros as "LOW-brouhs" or "LAH-brouhs"? I'm trying to figure out how to say things right or at least use the most widely accepted mispronunciation.
Rob, Starriors could have been the nerdiest toy robot name ever if print media had their way. I've run across a couple of newspaper articles from the last few decades where reporters were trying to be clever and come up with nicknames to call Star Wars fans. A lot of them used "Starriors". I'm glad it never gained widespread acceptance in society the way "Trekkies" did. (Although I am kind of sad that "Trannies" never stuck for Transformer fans.)
If "Starriors" meaning "Fans of Star Wars" ever caught on before 1984 it would probably have annoyed fans of both franchises. Instead of Starriors bringing to mind the idea of "Warrior Robots from the Stars", it would have had the connotation of "Warrior Robots who Really Like Star Wars".
Imagine if there was a robot who really liked Star Wars and decided to turn into a Star Wars vehicle. Would that be considered cosplay? I think I'd be more interested in the Star Wars Transformers line if it was named "Transformers: Cosplayers". It would excuse the terrible robot modes if you understood that these guys are the Cybertronian equivalent of nerdy Star Wars fans. Some of them even have giant bellies and neck beards!
As for being in your thirties and not being aware of Micronauts, I think it was hard to take notice of anything back then that was not Star Wars, especially if you were only 4 or 5 in 1978. The Micronauts following skews older and typically are the big brothers or older cousins of Transformers fans. These are the kids who were around 10 years old by the late seventies. The only reason I grew up aware of Micronauts is because I had an older cousin who had the Battle Cruiser and Hydrocopter, amongst others. I also got Betatron when I was little. Otherwise they wouldn't have registered on my radar at such a young age. Later on when I got into comic books I remember picking up Micronauts The New Voyages issues, so the initial early Michael Golden/Bill Mantlo run wasn't "my" Micronauts.
Okay missing out on Lords of Light is totally understandable because that was one obscure line. But I'm not sure how other toylines like Starriors and Robo Force could escape the awareness of any kid in the 80s even despite their short shelf life. Their commercials played a lot and are the main reason I remembered/was aware of them. I used to sing the jingles because they were catchy and got burned into my brain. This was funny to me because by the early 90s I was still going around with some guy shouting "MAX STEELE'S ROBO FORCE!" in my head with absolutely no recollection of what it meant.
Man wants to sell seven paintings with an admittedly devoted but limited audience for $250,000, but WON'T THROW IN THE FIGURES? COME ON!
Well that free shipping's gotta come out of somewhere. eBay and paypal fees are a killer nowadays, too. Can't expect $250,000 to cover it all I guess.
Oh yeah, and lots and lots of crack.
Just finished the full podcast. It dawns on me that Micronauts spoiled me for Star Wars. Man, I wanted bendable joints in my figures. Micronauts must have been purculating in my brain and opened me up for GIJoe.
With respect to the Interchangeable (which look awesome because I love gaudy colours), I suspect they are an example of everyone pushing robots after Gobots and Transformers. The company likely got the toy moulds cheap from Mego's bankrupcy and pushed out the lower price point items (or the ones where the moulds were in the best shape). But since they couldn't go back to Takara for more product, they just reintroduced them again in new colours when demand called for new product.
Gotta say. I'd love to have more info on this company.
The current rumor amongst Micronautian scientists is that Marty Abrams himself was somehow involved and both M&D and Hourtoy were actually attempts by him to try and get back into the toy biz.
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