Vintage Space Toast Tour Miami part 1: I went to 1984 and all I got were these lousy toy robots ads

I've been thinking a lot lately about the nature of fandom and how the way a person participates in their hobby can show their obsession may actually be something else entirely. The old saying that comes to mind is how sports card collectors aren't fans of sports, but statistics and numbers. I've been thinking about this because I've noticed that the majority of people who go to libraries to look at old newspapers on microfilm fall into two groups-fans of death and fans of numbers. One type is the sports fan looking up old scores, usually from high school games of decades ago when they themselves played. Those guys are a little sad to me because they're stuck trying to relive their glory days one microfilm roll at a time. They are the fans of numbers. The second and by far largest category of people I encounter are the fans of death-little old ladies looking up obituaries. Usually it's for family genealogy projects but I've met some of them and the enthusiasm with which they talk about obituaries is frightening. As I spent last weekend looking through old newspapers for some new* toy robots ads from 1984 I wondered what the fans of death and numbers would think of me if they knew I was right there amongst them, spinning through the reels with my own sad nostalgic frightening enthusiasm with a Playstation 3 duct taped to my chest and a Happy Meal box on my head. More importantly, what would they think if they knew I was wearing homemade GoBots underwear.

THE CHALLENGE OF THE GOBOTS WAS FINDING PEOPLE TO WEAR THEIR PAJAMAS

Zayre 11/11/84

I figure I'll be living in southern Florida for a while so I'll take things slow and just concentrate on one year at a time during my weekly library visits. This lets me do a more comprehensive search than if I was just visiting for a few days, as is usually the case during any regular stop of the Vintage Space Toast Tour. The focus of this past weekend was 1984, the last best year for being a toy robots fan before Optimus Prime convinced everyone that freedom (to buy only Transformers brand robots) was the right of all sentient beings. In '84 the toy robots scene was still quite a diverse mix of brands and there were no clear winners yet. So if you wanted to rock out in your GoBots pajamas there was no shame for not being on the winning team. And if wearing GoBots pajamas didn't put you to sleep you could always watch their show! HEY NOW!

The more ads I find for promotional GoBots tie-ins the more I am amazed at how well a small toy company like Tonka was able to get its brand out there. They did a great marketing job and this next ad that ran in the Sunday comics section during October of 1984 is an example of that. I've previously found ads for the Challenge of the GoBots cartoon and the GoBot watch but the following ad is a combination of those two, plus it's also an ad for the GoBot cereal promotion tie-in. The dirty little secret of the cereal industry is that Cookie Crisp was playing both sides of the bowl back during the Toy Robots Wars of the 1980s. In '84 GoBots teamed up with Cookie Crisp to get GoBots propaganda pamphlets into cereal bowls across the nation well before Cookie Crisp and Transformers teamed up for the Jazz mail away offer later on. Although Leader-1 lost out in the end, he can take comfort knowing that when it came to cereal Optimus Prime got the soggy seconds.

21 October 1984

A COARSER N-4-SR PHOTO EXPOSR

TG&Y 11/11/84

This next ad is the toy robots equivalent of a grainy, blurry picture of a Chupacabra. Back in '84 there was a b-list line of toy robots called Convert-A-Bots made by a company called Village Toys. One of the figures in that line was a transforming robot laser gun named N-4-SR (alternatively, the robot also known as Shockwave in Transformers). That toy was Korean in origin so variations and knockoffs of it are plentiful, but for some reason pictures of the Convert-A-Bots Shockwave still in the box remain elusive in my searches. The only evidence I'd ever seen of the N-4-SR's existence was from the cross sell illustration on the side of other Convert-A-Bots packages. Recently Nala at Plastic Crack was able to find one but it came in a strange, mail-away style cardboard box. So I was excited to come across this TG&Y ad from November of 1984 for what the description calls the "ToBot Laser Blaster". Normally I'd take their word for it but even though the picture really sucks I can tell from the packaging style and graphics that this is instead the best evidence I've found of a boxed Convert-A-Bots N-4-SR. The placement of the gun mode drawing at the top and the grid graphic on the packaging combined with the specific way the text is laid out scream Convert-A-Bots. Plus there's also guilt by association. I've cropped out the ad next to it but when I put this up at the Vintage Space Toaster Palace you'll see that it ran side-by-side with an ad for other Convert-A-Bots figures that had nearly identical packaging motifs. Mystery solved? Not really, but I'm hopeful that proving one of these exist might be accomplished by the right eBay search one day. Hell, proving Chupacabras exist might be accomplished by the right eBay search one day.

R.I.P. TO MY HOMIES MULTI-FIZZLE ONEFOUR AND DOUG-RIMMY SIX-INCH ROWBO SOLDJA

Zayre 10/14/84

ToysRUs 11/08/84

I look at these ads for two long forgotten and extinct Takara toy robot lines and I realize there is absolutely no difference between me and the little old ladies obsessed with death and obituaries...

SETTING NEW RECORDS FOR EARLIEST DOCUMENTED OBSESSIVE ROBOTARDATION

...and nothing makes me feel like those has-been high school sports stars reliving their glory days like a good 1984 Transformers ad. The next two from Toys R Us and Jefferson Ward are very special because they're chronologically the earliest Transformer ads I've ever found. They both ran August 19 of 1984, a full ten days earlier than the current earliest TF ad I have up at the Transformers 1984 page of the Vintage Space Toaster Palace.

ToysRus 08/19/84

This Toys R Us ad appeared in the main body of the paper where the print was in black and white so they had to go with line art. Jefferson Ward meanwhile was able to use a picture of Jazz, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe in their color circular. I'm personally intrigued by these two types of ad (line art and color picture) that were so prevalent in the late 70s/early 80s. I wish I knew more about the process by which line art and ad text was distributed by Hasbro and other companies. To see them both in use in my earliest found examples of Transformer ad was interesting and I hope one day I'll get some answers on line art. An upcoming post I'm working on is an examination of 1984 Transformers line art and where it comes from-or more accurately what the visual basis was for the drawings. This leads me to the conclusion that just as I have found the underlying motivations of the little old ladies and sports enthusiasts, I have never been more sure that I am best defined as a fan of grainy pictures of toy robots instead of the toy robots themselves.

Jefferson Ward 08/19/84

You may notice the Jefferson Ward ad's price is blackened out. This is due to the low resolution of my camera and the microfilm transfer process, which renders areas of deep color as unreadable blobs. But never fear, my fellow Macrocranians. I looked really hard at the microfilm scanner screen and was able to make out that the price was $8.99. (Dedication like that is what sets me apart from the average toy robots obsessed weirdo library patron.) Documenting the price at $8.99 was important to me because there's a point in my 1984 Transformers page where I stick my neck out and write that on average, Autobot cars cost $8.99 back in '84. I know that's a controversial stance to take in the current global economic crisis but I'm not running for the supreme court anytime soon so I can have wild outspoken ideas like that.

Finding further support of my $8.99 average in the October 1984 Richway ad below was a bit of a bonus. The only problem I have with it is its composition. If it were me I would have put Wheeljack in front of Trailbreaker for the vehicle mode picture because the white of the Lancia Stratos Turbo would have contrasted nicely against the black of the camper. Judging by the way they positioned the cars I think somebody at the photo shoot lost Wheeljack's spoilers or didn't know how to put them on. Idiots! This is why I don't spend much time hating on Michael Bay. I'm still stuck having roboplastic apocalypses over the incompetence of a toy robots photographer from 25 years ago.

Richway 10/07/84

The final ad I'd like to highlight is this super collection of '84 Transformers lineart from Super Rx, which I think was a pharmacy of all places. I don't think I've ever seen so much TF lineart in one ad before. Nearly every 1984 size class is represented here-the only ones missing are the Decepticon cassettes and Shockwave/Jetfire. The ad is also unique because it has some strange mistakes in the text like the repeated use of the term "Autobats" and the mention of a tractor trailer in Megatron's flavor text (where they refer to him as a "weather P-38"). The copy writers also went a bit crazy with the usage of trademark (TM) annotation-they put it after every item description. Usually I see the TM only after "Hasbro" or "Transformers" in these old ads but holy hell these guys put it everywhere, even after words like "Autobat Cars". This sucks because their typo mistake trademarks that term forever and prevents me from making my epic movie about evil vampire Lamborghinis. Evil sexy exciting vampire lambos.

SuperRx 10/03/84

Ever since I hit up Fortlibrarius Maximus in Fort Lauderdale back in '07 I knew southern Florida had a great mix of 80s toystores and other retailers running toy ads. I just didn't have the time to look through all the microfilm during my first go-round. Now that I'll be living here for a while I hope to bore myself to tears looking through all those reels of grainy robot chupacabra ads with hard to read prices. Oooh what fun. I have never been more sure that I am best defined as a fan of crazy little old ladies at the library. STAY TUNED NEXT TIME SPORTS FANS FOR ANOTHER NUMBERS FILLED EPISODE OF MIAMI ROBOTS WEIRDO LIBRARY ADVENTURES!

*25 year old

VINTAGE SPACE TOAST TOUR PASADENA (CONCLUSION): Mired in the past like a wooly mammoth in the La Brea tar pits of roboplastic history

Digging through the reels and reels of library newspaper microfilm searching for 25 year old toy robots ads is like fishing for fossils in the La Brea tar pits. Deeper and deeper I dove into the tar of time to find fossilized records that stand as the only proof these invincible guardians of world freedom and robot cars from the future roamed the southern California plain ages ago. As I waded through the amassed murky microfilm depths of the Pasadena Star and Los Angeles Times, I wondered what great catastrophe caused all these mighty robots and mighty vehicles to become extinct? Why is it that only the Transformers survived today, the coelacanth cockroaches of toy robot space toaster evolution? Considering the colossal marketing failures of many of these lines it's a miracle that toy robots ever found an audience. As I dug deeper I realized these ads weren't the fossilized historical record of a great catastrophe that wiped out toy super robots, they were more like the Darwin awards of la evolución roboplastico.

IF YOU HAD TO ASK HOW MUCH A GODAIKIN COST YOU COULDN'T AFFORD TO PILOT ONE

Toys International 11/29/84

I noticed that early GoDaiKin ads tended to not specify the cost of individual figures but instead included a general range of prices for the whole line, or not mention price at all. The cost of these figures is often cited as the reason GoDaiKins became extinct, but what a beautiful failure they were. I've found that during the early years of the line, GoDaiKins were advertised mostly by department stores and independent toy stores who were trying to cater to a more discriminating toy robots buyer-someone who didn't mind paying extra for imported Japanese robots significantly larger than what Transformers or GoBots had to offer (and with crazier helmets). By 1985 Toys R Us began advertising them but they were still amongst the most expensive robots TRU carried. I once talked to the husband of a former toy store owner here in Rapid City and he said the market was just not ready for GoDaiKins because there was no reasonably priced entry level robot-they only came in "expensive" and "more expensive". But boy were those ads pretty. GoDaiKin was the only way you could get a Voltron toy in 1984 and oftentimes during Christmas season of '84 retailers would take full advantage of this, prominently placing GoDaiKin GoLion at the center of attention. One such example is this November 29, 1984 ad from Toys International. There are no prices stated but it features a great lineup of robots including the GoDaiKin Gardian, Combattra, GoLion, Daimos and a Scopedog from Armored Trooper VOTOMS. Here's to you, GoDaiKin and all the other early 80s high end imported Japanese super robots-the world has never seen a finer display of ornate robots with complicated space hats.

WHEN THE ROBOT CAR OF THE PAST JUST ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH

The Guild 12/14/83

I've been doing this ad looking thing for a while now and in all my travels I only ever found one for Takara's Diakron Robot Cars of the Future. That was during Vintage Space Toast Tour Denverado and boy did I almost die of excitement that day. After running a couple rolls in Los Angeles it became clear to me that there wasn't a Circus World there in '83 so I wasn't expecting to find Diakron ads. I thought it was possible Diakron was exclusive to that chain, since George Dunsay said it was exclusive to Toys R Us and I figured maybe he just meant Circus World because they were the only place I've ever found running an ad for Diakron Robot Cars. But lo and behold, a store I've never heard of called "The Guild" had 'em and they even mention a competitor selling them for $11.95. That makes at least three places in '83 selling these things. Now that I've got ads for the cars, the Multiforce 14 and the Robot Watch, the only Diakron ad I'd like to find now would be one for the Power Dashers. Normally I'd say my chances of finding those wouldn't be that great, but who knows what the future holds? (Besides robot Lamborghinis, of course.)

THIS MUCH ROBOTECHS FOR 10 SPACY DOLLARS!

Karls Toys 12/18/86

Last time on Spacy Vintage Pasadena Toasters I was writing about how some good stuff from Robotech wasn't in the Robotech toy line. There was at least one great piece, though-the large Robotech SDF-1 by Matchbox. But ads for it have proven to be the most elusive 'moldy grails' I've searched for in my career as a toy robots archaeologist. The large SDF-1 was the Omega Supreme of the Robotech line and I know I saw it at Playworld lots of times as a kid, but why why WHY couldn't I find anyone amongst all the different 80s toy retailers advertising it? Well leave it to Karls Toys in Los Angeles to come through, and not only once but a couple of times. Thanks to Karl I now have ads for the SDF-1 at both regular price and this clearance "coupon" for $12.99. Karls was always a bit on the high side, though, and Kay Bee ended up trying to give these away at 10 bucks. I think it's funny how in the cartoon they could never get the SDF-1's spacefold system to work but ultimately it did do one last successful hyperspace jump-to the clearance bin galaxy.

LIONS AND CAMERAS AND BINOCULARS OH MY!

With the licensing frenzy that surrounded Transformers in 1985, one would think Hasbro had the monopoly on crazy transforming licensed merchandise. But while there were Transformers robot wristwatches and some TF radios with detachable figures, that was as far as the Transformers went in terms of transforming mechanical or electronic merchandise not part of the figure line. Actually it was other toy robots lines that way outdid the Transformers when it came to tie-in transforming robot products that had real world applications. GoBots had the transforming radio car and Voltron went all sorts of crazy with flashlights, binoculars, calculators and even 110 film cameras, all of which had an element of Voltronic transformation to them. In the study of roboplastic evolution this gaining of extra functionality demonstrates how toy robots were extremely adaptive to their environments. However, just because you can make a Voltron that turns into binoculars doesn't mean you should. Toy robots archaeologists have a term for these failed adaptive mutations as demonstrated by Voltron's willingness to turn into just about anything-it's "bad third party licensing".

Karls Toys 12/12/85

What's great about this Karls Toys ad from December of '85 is how it features many of the more interesting products from the world of transforming Voltron calculators and other wilderness survival gear. But as I look at these things I'm beginning to understand why a primary license holder like Hasbro would be reluctant to let other companies make transforming figures outside of Takara. Some of these Voltron transforming things don't communicate effectively the core aspect of Voltron-combining space lions-and they don't fit well within the established Voltron fantasy. Sure there were Voltrons in multiple places throughout the fictitious Voltron galaxy, but in what universe could you count on calculator Voltron to save the day? Hasbro doesn't seem so wrong now for not licensing everything that came their way (but I think that 110 camera would have been the basis for a great Reflector). HASBRO KNEW SOME THINGS JUST DON'T MAKE SENSE WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF A TRANSFORMING ROBOT SPACE WAR.

PLANT TANKS CAN'T SIGN THINGS BUT I WOULD'VE TOTALLY LET ONE RUN ME OVER

While I'm searching through the old newspapers I come across a lot of announcements promoting 'live' appearances by many action figure celebrities. Darth Vader is the king of these types of celebrity appearances, followed closely by He-Man and then probably Spider-Man. So when I saw this ad for a Mattel "Mighty Toys Explorama" being held at the Glendale Galleria from October 31-November 3 1985 I figured it was just another He-Man appearance. But then I looked closer and holy crap was I surprised!

10/31/85
It was also a Wheeled Warriors live appearance! Oh what I would give to see pictures of a golf cart sized Saw Boss! Knowing that once there was a time when giant talking, spinning Wheeled Warriors roamed the California basin is almost too much to take! Since the Wheeled Warriors online fandom is super small and powerless I don't know where to even begin looking to find out more about these or see if they even still exist. Chances are they were probably lost, destroyed or people working at Mattel still use them as personal mobility scooters to ride around their offices.

IT IS VERY EASY TO HOLD A CAMERA STEADY ONCE THE THE RIGOR MORTIS SETS IN

Toy City 12/03/90

Finding Zargons buried in those reels was every bit as tough as freeing a mammoth from the tar but Vintage Space Toast Tour Pasadena was a great time with many exciting new things learned about the toy robots wars of the 80s. It was also pretty hellacious because the library was open 12 hours in a row and boy was I tempted to stay that whole time. Of the three days I went, the longest shift I did was 10 hours and boy was I dying. Old microfilms don't turn into robots ads by themselves so I just had to power through it. Even on the days I only did 8 hours straight I never took a break for lunch. I think I lost some weight. I was in danger of being fossilized by my work just like the La Brea tar pits turn sabretooth tigers into bones. And the already old and busted microfilm machine even broke down halfway through but I just took the lens apart and taped the broken bits back together and kept going. It was a marathon endurance test of man and machine but I came away with a couple hundred new* ads of long since extinct roboplastic species for the Vintage Space Toaster Palace. I'm happy with what I found and as I flew back home I was reminded of that last scene in Jurassic Park where Jeff Goldblum is looking out the window of the helicopter. As he watched the birds fly over the ocean I know he was thinking two thoughts: a) the past can suck you in like the La Brea tar pits and b) like the dinosaurs, man and toy robots weren't meant to live together.


*over 23 years old

25 years ago in Transfomrers PART 4: IN SPANISH IT MEANS KRONDAY!

Back in 1993 I was vacationing in Denver when I went into a comic book shop and under the counter glass they had what looked like a red Transformers Sunstreaker and a black Ironhide. I had no idea what they were and the comic shop guy said they were "the rare Japanese versions". Just as goats have an innate fear and distrust of chupacabras, I fear and distrust information from comic shop employees. This was way before I had internet and pre Thoroughly Informative Transformers Themed Internet Entertainment Sites so I had no way of fact checking comic shop man's assertion. But I got the feeling he wasn't very credible because in the same display there was a Hubcap he was trying to pawn off as Bumblejumper. This "Hubblejumper" misidentification is usually indicative of either a) comic shop assholery (if they're trying to rip off people who don't know better) or b) comic shop dumbassery (as in, they are dumbasses). The latter is usually the case.

YOU GOTTA BE FIRST, BEST, OR DIAKRON

Japanese or not, twenty bucks each seemed a bit steep for the wrong colored and possibly knockoff Sunstreaker and Ironhide, but I bought them anyways. I noticed the red countach had a sticker that said "Diakron" on it and years later the internet helped me figure out just what these things were. It turned out Diakron was an attempt by Takara (the japanese creators of many toys that would eventually be sold as Transformers) to market their own line of transforming toy robots in America back in 1983. This was before Hasbro partnered up with them to create the Transformers. The Diakron line was originally made up of a robot called Multiforce 14, three pull back and go Powerdashers, and three transforming robot cars named DK-1, DK-2 and DK-3. Those last three were toys that would eventually go on to become known as Sunstreaker, Ironhide and Trailbreaker once Hasbro picked them for Transformers, except they started out in different colors from their Transformer release. Diakron is also the tenth circle of toy robot hell-after you know about it, forever does that knowledge mark you a nerd.

I'LL SEE YOUR KRON AND RAISE YOU A FORM

Despite being the first attempt at a US release of Takara's transforming robots (which would later go on to become one of the most popular toylines ever), Diakron itself has gone down in history as being unsuccessful. But is this the truth? There exists an interview with Paul Kurnit, the then executive
vice president of Griffin-Bacal during the launch of the Transformers, where Mr. Kurnit states that one problem the line had was that Diakron's name "had no meaning to anyone". I take personal offense at that. Obviously in Spanish it means "Kron Day".

TRU 14 December 1984

Mr. kurnit also goes on to say Diakron's "launch was a colossal failure because in no way, other than the fact that they were ingenious toys, did it connect to anything meaningful in kids' lives". Kurnit isn't the only former exec harsh on the 'Kron. George Dunsay, Hasbro's vice president of research and development in 84, states the line didn't do well because of a lack of marketing. So here we have a pattern of executives involved in the creation of the Transfomers repeatedly stressing the "failure" of Takara to market their robot toys successfully in the US. But I've seen ads that show Takara continued selling the Multiforce 14 well into 1985. While it's true that the Diakron name 'died' after 1984, all Takara did was change it to Kronoform and continue to sell their Multiforce 14 and other robots that were not picked up as Transformers. I also recognize Japanese marketing brilliance in "Kronoform" being a way for Takara to keep their "Kron" while capitalizing off the Trans"Form"ers name. Despite being a marketing failure to some, DiaKron(oform) remained profitable enough that it lasted at least three years. There is no denying that some of Takara's toys would not have reached the level of popularity they enjoyed had they not been reborn as Transformers, but there is also no denying the rage that swept a nation, KRONOFORM ROBOT WATCH!

MUCH OF MY SELF RESPECT DEPENDS ON THE DISTRIBUTION PATTERN OF CERTAIN TOY ROBOT LAMBORGHINIS

Circus World 28 November 1984

I personally don't remember Diakron on the toystore shelves but it was '83 and at nine years old I was all obsessed with He-Man. I used to beat myself up for not being more sentient as a child because it cost me a chance to be on the Diakron bandwagon from the beginning (and also forty bucks at that comic book store 10 years later). But then that interview with George Dunsay came along and he stated that Diakron was a Toys R Us exclusive line. Since I had a couple of friends older than me who remembered TRU being the only place they saw Diakron back in the day, I accepted that and I stopped hating on my He-Man obsessed 9 year old self. My hometown of El Paso, Texas didn't get a Toys R Us until 1987. I was at peace with myself in the same way that I can accept not being the guy who invented Star Wars because 30-years-older-than-me George Lucas beat me to it.

But then little holes began springing up in that TRU exclusive theory. First off, why have I never seen a Diakron toy with a TRU price tag? Speaking of price tag, there's a picture of a Diakron countach at Super Toy Archive where the badly mangled price tag seems to be that of KB Toys. I rationalized that by theorizing KB oftentimes acted as toy liquidators and maybe they bought up TRU's remaining Diakron stock for clearancing at their stores. I could still live with myself if that were the case because El Paso just barely got a KB in '83 and they were all about new toys, not clearance stuff. So I still never had a chance, right?

THE BEST LAID KRONS OFT GO AWRY

But there were always lingering doubts in my mind. How could Denver, a place that never had a Toys R Us until 1990, have Diakrons in comic shops? Toy robots archaeology was much simpler before eBay because where you found toy robots was usually the same geographic area where they were sold at retail. Finding a toy robot on the secondary market at a swap meet or garage sale or comic shop was strong evidence that the toy robot originated at a toystore in that area. I found the usual exception to this back in the 90s was comic shops near military bases because military people tend to come from everywhere and sell their stuff to the nearest collectibles dealer. But the bases in Colorado were all in or near Colorado Springs, 80 miles south of Denver. How could I have found roboarchaeological evidence of Diakrons in Denver in 1993 if they were Toys R Us exclusives ten years prior?

Circus World 30 November 1983

Then a bomb dropped on me during Vintage Space Toast Tour Denver this month when I was looking for Zoids ads in 1983 newspapers. Again, Denver didn't have a Toys R Us until 1990 so finding a Diakron Robot Cars ad was the last thing I ever thought would happen. But lo and behold, in the Novemeber 30th, 1983 edition of the Rocky Mountain News was a flyer from Circus World advertising Diakron Robot Cars of the Future. I was both excited and pissed off. Excited because a Diakron Robot Cars ad is one of my Vintage Space Toaster Palace holy grails, and pissed off because this proved Diakron was not Toys R Us exclusive, KB probably did have them new in El Paso in '83, and I was a nine year old dumbass.

EVERY DIA HAS ITS KRON

Circus World was a very different, very separate retail chain from Toys R Us. In the wake of this ad and the KB price tag at Super Toy Archive I can only conclude Dunsay misremembered, but I'm left wondering why he'd say Diakron was exclusive to TRU. There's got to be a nugget of truth in there somewhere. Did he really mean Diakron was exclusive to the less prominent Circus World, but he forgot the specific chain? I've never found a TRU ad for Diakron but that means little. And I certainly don't feel betrayed by George Dunsay or anything. This isn't Ben Kenobi telling me Darth Vader killed my father (and then it turns out Darth Vader is my father). It's more like Ben Kenobi telling me Darth Vader had an extensive Diakron collection, all of which he bought at Toys R Us.

A ROBOPLASTICOLOGIST'S WORK IS NEVER KRON

I was pretty happy to find the robot cars ad on this, the 25th anniversary of the Diakron line. I think I will celebrate November 30th as Kron Day in rememberance. Now that I've found a Circus World Diakron Robot Cars ad, the next step is to find one from Toys R Us and maybe even Kay Bee. Then after that, build a time machine and go back to 1983, wait in KayBee Toys in El Paso and smack my 9 year old He-Man loving self in the back of the head when I see him in the action figure aisle.

25 years ago in Transfomrers PART 2: People are always asking if I gnu about 1983

If you go to Botcon you'll meet guys born in the early eighties that can trace their involvement with Transformers all the way back to when the franchise started in 1984 and they were 2 or 3 years old. This never ceases to amaze me as I don't remember anything from when I was 3, however, I do think I was still crapping my pants. But at that age these people will tell you they were busy establishing worldwide Transformer penpal networks and other miraculous feats of fandom and sentience. Hell the only thing I clearly remember from when I was 9 in 1983 was how I thought Gary Gnu was a real person.

For this, the second installment in my 25 year retrospective on toy robots that came out 24 years ago, I want to take a look at what was going on toywise in 1983. I consider '83 to be the first year of the great toy robots wars, although the dominant trends in toys that year had nothing to do with robots. Ask people to name popular toys from 1983 and you're more likely to get Cabbage Patch Kids or He-Man before robots get mentioned. 1984 and 85 are often looked back upon as the years that toy robots took off in America, but their success wasn't an overnight sensation. It was during 1983 that a handful of obscure toy robot lines would begin laying the groundwork for the impending roboplastic invasion.

Children's Palace 27 November 1983

The boy's toylines of 1983 were legendary. Action figures from both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi were in stores, Masters of the Universe was still going strong in its third year and G.I. Joe's incredibly popular relaunch was in its second year. These toylines supported by movies, comic books and cartoons were colossal merchandising juggernauts. All of these properties were developed by American toy companies working with American advertising agencies who knew how to market to American children. Owning licensed properties with syndicated television shows was an advantage that toy robots from Japanese toymakers Bandai and Takara didn't have. Consequently the transforming toy robot lines they introduced in the US during 1983 were doomed from the start. It would have been impossible to predict in 1983 that 1984 would be the biggest year in toy sales to date largely because of those same transforming toy robots made by Bandai and Takara that were so forgettable in 1983.

Whistle Stop 05 Dec 1983

In 1982 Bandai introduced their GoDaiKin line of giant die cast robots, many of which featured combining gimmicks and spring loaded rocket fists. (GoDaiKin is notable for introducing GoLion to the US before Voltron ever aired.) It wasn't until 1983 that GoDaiKins really began getting significant distribution. The GoDaiKin robot transformations mostly revolved around combining three or more smaller mecha so they weren't really transformer style robots so much as they were partsformers. Still, the GoDaiKin line is so significant that I consider its introduction to be "the rocket fist heard 'round the world" that kicked off the Great Toy Robots Wars of the 1980s.

The first toylines consisting of a majority of non-combining transforming robots released in the US were Bandai's Machine Men and Takara's Diakron. Both were released in 1983 but I haven't yet figured out which one arrived first. Robots from both of these lines would eventually go on to greater fame as GoBots and Transformers in 1984 (once Tonka and Hasbro licensed them from their respective Japanese owners). But upon their initial debuts in 1983 without cartoons or comic books to help them out both lines hardly registered a blip on the American pop culture radar. For what it's worth, both Machine Men and the Diakron Power Dashers (which can be seen at the bottom of this page) did get mentions as "Best Buys for Under $5" on the Americans for Democratic Action's 1983 pre-Christmas toy survey. Those dudes must not have had very high standards if they were impressed by Power Dashers and $3 GoBots.

I didn't have a Toys R Us where I grew up until 1987 so I missed out on Diakron which was a Toys R Us exclusive line. I also never bought any Machine Men in '83 either. Finding newspaper ads for either of those lines is a personal holy grail of mine. I don't feel too bad at having missed out on Diakron and Machine Men when they were in stores because over the next two years there would be ample opportunities to overdose on all sorts of robots. Back in '83 I was very much into Masters of the Universe but I wasn't totally out of the roboplastic loop. I do remember getting my first Zoids that Christmas and those little robot dinosaurs might have been what triggered my roboplasti-holism. They really blew my mind with their menacing mechanical look. I guess the whole concept that robots didn't have to be wussy pansies was gnus to me.