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

Deep down we are more like than unlike Super Ninetndos

I had a 'scary' dream last night that I could tell was my mind trying to scare me but not doing a very good job at it. Since it is my mind, it thinks it knows what I think is spooky but it half asses everything. What it tries to do is trigger feelings of fear and just tape them over some pseudo-scary situations that it makes up. I remember the dream had something to do with aliens following me and it climaxed with an alien in the bathtub looking at me while I was brushing my teeth and I saw him in the mirror. I ended up feeling slightly scared but more annoyed and embarrassed for my mind. Was this the most scary thing I could think of? An alien in the bathtub? I turned around and punched him in the face.

AND I THOUGHT THIS MUST BE WHAT A SUPER NINTENDO FEELS LIKE WHEN I PUT IN A NEW CARTRIDGE

As I punched the alien in the nose I saw the fabric of dreamland reality warp around my fist like a whirlpool and I began to wake up. What I found strange was that as I was waking up I could sense the transition from the dream reality to the real reality. While I was inbetween realities I felt like a blank slate. Then I became aware of informations being downloaded into my mind. It was as if facts were being inputted to me a little at a time and I began to understand who I was, then where I was and at what point in my life and once the download was complete I felt awake and aware. For a little while before all the pieces fell into place I remember staring at the ceiling fan and wondering where I was but not being very concerned about not knowing. It was strange to feel like a blank slate being filled with memory or instructions or programming. I wonder what would have happened if at the instant the "who I was" information came to me, my wife would have leaned over and whispered "YOU ARE THE PILOT OF BLUE LION".

JUST SAY PAUNCH STEVENSON!

The Kingdom of Macrocrania continues extending its physical and political presence throughout the podcastosphere! The Paunch Stevenson Show episode 108 features me talking about my time in Air FOrce, Antractica and of course, roboplasticos.

VINTAGE SPACE TOAST TOUR EL PASO

I was thirteen years old in 1987 when I started clipping out Transformers ads from Sunday newspapers in my hometown of El Paso, Texas. To this day I don't know why. You couldn't say it was for research purposes because I wasn't keeping track of what store they came from or what day they came out. Even after growing up, even after I stopped watching the Transformers cartoons, even after I stopped buying Transformers toys, and even after I stopped buying Transformer comics, collecting old toy robots newspaper ads has been the one thing I never stopped doing. I guess "toy robots ads collecting" best describes my hobby more than anything else. Like I'm a toy robots ads archaeologist. (Actually I prefer thinking of myself as the Indiana Jones of toy robots ads.) I don't know if Transformers was ever my hobby so much as clipping out their ads was, and all these years later I've never been able to cut it out.

ETERNAL CHILDHOOD OF THE TOYROBOTS KIND

I came full circle when I went back last June and hit up the newspaper archives of the El Paso main library as part of Vintage Space Toast Tour 2008. I looked at microfilm archives of the very newspapers I used to clip ads from 20 years ago. It's embarrassing to admit but I don't remember a lot of details about the Toy Robots Wars of the 1980s and I was hoping this trip would help me remember just how my childhood unfolded. When I sat in front of those El Paso microfilm machines reading newspapers from 1984 through 1987 it was like I was living it all again for a second time, except now I was paying attention. There were so many forgotten details about my childhood that popped up through those ads. So many questions I had would finally be getting answered. When exactly did Lionel Playworld and Toys R Us first open in El Paso? When exactly did those Transformers ads I used to clip from newspapers as a kid first get published? HOW MUCH ROBOTECHS COULD I BUY FOR TEN BUCKS?

Lionel Playworld 31 October 1985

I think I remember watching Jimmy Stewart on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson when Stewart said he would divide his life into 15 year periods and then look back fondly on the big events in each period. Well the biggest event in my 30-45 year period so far has been the birth of my son. The biggest event from my 15-30 year period was getting married. And the biggest event from when I was born up until I was 15 was the grand opening of Lionel Playworld just a few blocks from my house on November 1st 1985. I think the only dedicated toystore in El Paso at the time was Toys By Roy in Basset Center mall and there was no Toys R Us yet so Playworld was a huge deal. I still remember that opening night. Playworld had a weird mix of celebrity appearances during their opening weekend, including their mascot Kaycee Kangaroo, Dargon and Spidrax from Coleco's Sectaurs action figure line, some soap opera actor named David Wallace and Bob Lily, the first player ever drafted by the Dallas Cowboys. And just in case all that star power wasn't enough, the Lorenzo Duras Mariachi band was there. (Unfortunately I cannot find the Wikipedia page for the Lorenzo Duras Mariachi band).

Toys R Us 29 October 1987

Playworld would be the only game in town for a full two years until El Paso got its first Toys R Us. By that time I was a die hard Playworld supporter and wasn't as excited or enthusiastic about Toys R Us opening up. In fact I don't even remember going to the TRU grand opening. I bore a bit of a grudge against that Toys R Us because as a kid I thought it was singlehandedly responsible for the financial ruin of the entire Lionel Corporation. Now 20 years later El Paso ain't no city for old toystores. Playworld is gone, Toys By Roy is gone, Circus World in Cielo Vista Mall is gone and even that first Toys R Us will probably get closed down eventually. I was very excited to get a picture with my son in front of El Paso's first Toys R Us as it still stands today for the beginning of this post. The neon signage may be different but otherwise it looks almost exactly as it did the night it first opened over 20 years ago. I never could figure out what those multicolored steel beams were for but I've never seen another TRU that has anything like them and even if this store closes those beams will be forever etched in my memories.

GEOFFREY HAD TO PAY FOR THAT CHILD SUPPORT SOMEHOW

Okay so Playworld's grand opening sucked for celebrity guests but if you wanted a toystore grand opening featuring some real rock star superhero celebrity gods of childhood, Toys R Us' grand opening on Halloween 1987 would not let you down! They had a Cabbage Patch kid, Kool Aid Man, Teddy Ruxpin, He-Man and not only Geoffrey Giraffe the TRU mascot, but his giraffe wife and two giraffe kids! Compare that to Playworld's mascot Kaycee Kangaroo who only had a baby kangaroo that would pop out of her pouch. She was evidently a single mom as noted by the absence of a kangaroo dad. My wife speculates that Geoffrey giraffe may be Kaycee's baby daddy. She said TRU may have had more star power but they probably paid a lot less money for their celebrity guests, who were most likely kids who worked at the store or possibly illegal mexican immigrants dressed up in those costumes.

NEXT TIME, ON A VERY SPECIAL VINTAGE SPACE TOASTER PALACE UPDATE...

Wow I can't believe I've blown over 900 words already on what was supposed to be a post featuring highlights of the robot ads I found in El Paso. I haven't even gotten to the any robot ads yet! I will just have to do an El Paso centric VSTP update post next week or something. There is still much to be written about that perfect storm of robots and toystores that was my childhood. The El Paso visit was such a big deal to me that I don't know if I want to continue collecting old toy robot ads. Stopping with El Paso would be a nice way to bookend the Vintage Space Toaster Palace (and this 34 year long toy robots phase of my life). Any further microfilm looking seems almost anti-climactic after finally going back home to where it all began. What am I going to do now? You know, I don't really plan that far ahead.

EBAYTATION is the sincerest form of flattery (and irritation)

It is a strange form of flattery to see a robot figure I made get put up on eBay by someone I've never met, especially when they're asking for a price I would never in a million years expect anyone to pay. Then when these people make a couple hundred dollars selling that robot it also irritates me knowing I won't see any of that secondary market money. I guess it's naive and idealistic but I wonder why people bought those things in the first place if all they were going to do was sell them later because that's not really why I made them. Mostly I wonder what the hell is going in those bidders' minds. I'm getting ahead of myself, though.

Cybcon 2005 Jazz on eBay

Here's quick recap for those that have missed out on the last four years of my adventures in making toy robots in my garage. Back in 2004 I got together with some internet friends living in Washington state who had been running their own little independent Transformer fan convention for a couple years. They had seen some internet pictures of the resin cast robots I'd been doing and they asked me to make some stuff for their show anyways.

This show they were doing named Cybcon was unique in that they had been making their own convention exclusive toys for a while before I came on the scene. Pretty much what what they would do was take existing Transformers and repaint them and even add extra parts sculpted out of clay. Then they'd distribute them at the show as toy robot party favors of sorts. This is the idea behind "convention exclusives". They're toys that you can only get at a certain convention. The majority of toy brands with official conventions have some sort of convention exclusive but for a bunch of guys to get together and do this kind of thing in their backyard was a pretty crazy idea. And I'm all into crazy ideas.

Cybcon 2006 Kranix on eBay

Since I was into also into resin casting (the process of making plastic things by hand in your garage) I wanted to do a totally original, from the ground up unique figure never seen before. Now this was a pretty radical idea because even the official Transformer convention Botcon didn't have totally unique convention exclusive molds. It had been explained to the Transformer fandom why Botcon would never have an all original exclusive mold Transformer roboplastico exclusive and although it was slightly disappointing, people came to accept it would never happen. So again, for a couple guys to have unique toy robot party favors at their Transformers party was pretty wild. Now I'm not saying what we did was anywhere near official quality but just the idea was pretty wild. It was all exciting and fun to me. We would be making fan history of sorts. Looking back I can honestly say I had more enthusiasm and passion than actual talent and ability, but I did it anyways.

I made a small number of unique figures for each of the shows for three years from 2004 through 2006. The intention was that people would get them at the show and take them home and love them and hug them for ever and ever. But this is the Transformers fandom so of course profiteering douchebaggery always trumps sentimentality and a handful of the toys I made for Cybcon ended up in the hands of people who weren't there. I've never quite understood why. These robots I've made are nowhere near Hasbro quality and they're not even official Transformers. They look exactly like something a guy made in his garage by hand. I guess the allure of that secondary market makes people do extremely dumbass things (and I'm talking about the people on both the buying and selling side of this).

So when the seller writes that "This one especially brings me to tears to sell" in his descriptions for both Cybcon Jazz and Kranix, excuse me for doubting that (and thinking they're a total ass). I say it's outrageous that the starting bids on these are $50 and $100 but it's comforting to know they probably won't pull that. I don't care if the seller thinks each figure "represents all that is good about the collective creative minds in the fandom". Because I'm thinking right now as one of those creative minds that these auctions represent all that is selfish and retarded about the fandom.

The day I lost my Optimus Prime

My mom said to never take them to school
My transforming robots of plastic
But as a boy all I wanted to do
Was make other kids jealous and frantic

It was nineteen eighty five and I was eleven
and though fifth grade was a bit old for toys
With my favoritest robot hidden in mom's Astro van
I was off to make envious the other boys

It was the day I lost my Optimus Prime
the day I accused everyone of the crime
of stealing my best friend at the time
because the day I lost my Optimus Prime
was the day I lost my mind

It must have been when I went to lunch or recess
or when I went to take a short crap
cause sometime between then was when Optimus
disappeared from my Voltron backpack!

The other kids I suspected and suspects I selected
and I could not stop the my facial ticks and twitches
Some girls in back were giggling at my panic attack
And I screamed, "Shut the hell up you ten year old bitches!"

It was the day I lost my Optimus Prime
the day I accused everyone of the crime
of stealing my best friend at the time
because the day I lost my Optimus Prime
was the day I lost my mind

I got sent to the principal for distracting the students
I said I WAS ROBBED! HELP ME SAVE OPTIMUS'S LIFE!
But he gave me detention and then I concluded
The Decepticons got me real good this time

So for me there was no telling and showing or bragging
Only obsessing and accusing and nagging and scheming
And when the day ended and the Astro van landed
I knew I'd be dealing with my mom's horrid screaming

But without yelling to my room she sent me instead
and there he was right under my bed
with a note from my mom that clearly read
"If you ever do that again you're gonna be dead"

It was the night I found my Optimus Prime
after I accused everyone of the crime
of stealing my best friend at the time
And the night that I found my Optimus Prime
I finally learned to take care of the things that were mine

In America it's "Halloween" but in Mexico it's called "Dia De Los Dorky Costumes"

It is August and according to my junk mail that means Halloween is here. Some company sent me a kid's costume catalog and it got me thinking about what we're going to dress the Prince of Macrocrania up as this Halloween. We did the cutey little baby pumpkin thing last year but this time it looks like his mommy is going to be away on business during late October so I can get away with dressing him however I want. I can't wait to see all the great toddler sized Japanese super robot costumes Toys R Us is going to have this year. Will I dress him up as Voltron or Getter Robo or the greatest super robot ever, Phoenix King? OH WAIT I FORGOT THIS IS AMERICA. Instead, my choices of toddler costume are limited to all-American favorites like baby Yoda, baby the Fruit Loops bird and baby Satan.

Carrs October 1986

The selection gets a bit better in the age 3-4 years range. If the baby was a bit older I could get him one of those Clone Smurftrooper or Boba Smurf costumes from the new Star Warses that are all the rage amongst hip nerdy dads. (On the other hand I'm glad he's too small to fit into the horrible Michael Bay robot chupacabra costume.)

I'm really impressed by how far kid costume technology has come. I like how they incorporate sculpted foam musculature and weapon accessories now. All we had in the 80s were crappy masks with plastic t-shirts. Back when I was a kid the costumes were so horrible that they had to write the name of the character on the costume shirt along with a cartoon rendering of how the head was supposed to look so you could tell who it was supposed to be. So if you wore a Voltron costume you didn't look like Voltron, you looked like Voltron wearing a Voltron shirt. Narcissistic Voltron. It's like when members of Iron Maiden wear Iron Maiden shirts while they're performing. It's all rock and roll. Hell yeah if I was Voltron I would wear a Voltron shirt. But the masks of the costumes were often so awful that kids would end up looking like Voltron got his ass kicked for wearing his own t-shirt. But you know it would be fun to go, "Hey baby let me show you the sixth lion-IN MY PANTS!"

I do give credit to the He-Man costume below for actually trying to be a costume and not looking like He-Man wearing a He-Man shirt. But the problem with costumes back then was they were little more than plastic smocks so it was impossible for wimpy 11-year-old me to pull off looking like anything that didn't have skinny limbs. If I wore a He-Man costume, chances are I would have looked like He-Man with bone arms. But I could do E.T. pretty good. Even at a young age I had that grey alien-like physique I am so proud of today.

K-Mart 23 October 1985

I think this year we're going to go with baby Yoda unless I can find something better. If I were the dressing up kind of guy I would be the adult Smurftrooper or adult Han Solo. I think thematically the Smurftrooper would fit better because Yoda hung out with those guys in the movies or something. I would call myself Commander Chody in case anybody who was more Star Wars than me asks who I was supposed to be, just to show how much I know about this stuff. Then my son and I could reenact that quintessential scene everybody remembers from Revenge of the Sith where Commander Chody the Smurftrooper takes Yoda to Burger King for a Kid's Meal and then Yoda poops himself and the Commander Chody changes his diaper.