Tuesday, January 10, 2012

VF MY LIFE!



The 37th seal of the Roboplastic Apocalypse quacks up like a booby duck as I try to do a quick rundown of every Valkyrie toy robot released stateside during the great toy robots wars of the 1980s, but mostly I end up crying like a Minmay about how Jetfire was the worst thing that ever happened to every kid in North America. Thrill in confusion at my attempts to sort out how Shoji Kawamori's toy robot jet idea got spread across multiple different toylines in the U.S., yet we still managed to miss out on a complete line of the best versions of them all-the 1/55 Takatoku Valkyries. What was the connection between Matsushiro, Takatoku, Bandai and Hasbro? Would the Robotech toyline have been a success if Matchbox got the 1/55 Macross Valkyrie instead of Hasbro's Transformers? What do Jetfire, Rudolph the red nosed reindeer and Bozo the clown have in common? I don't know but I complain about it all anyway in this I THINK I'M TURNING VALKYRETARDED edition of the podcastalypse!


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I TOTALLY HAD A SUPER ZARDAK! OR WAS IT A JETFIRE-1S? OR AN AXOID VALKYRIE?

Toys R Us 11/22/84
What trips me out about the American toy robots wars of the 1980s was how it looked like the battle lines were clearly drawn with the GoBots versus Voltron versus Robotech versus the Transformers versus everybody else, but in reality the companies behind the robots were getting along pretty good. Bandai was supplying Matchbox with GoLions and Dairuggers for their Voltron line, Tonka with Machine Robo figures for GoBots and Hasbro with all sorts of Takatoku toys to make into Transformers like the deluxe Autobots, deluxe Insecticons and of course, Jetfire. Smaller versions of Takatoku toys ended up as part of Select's Convertors line, meaning although their larger counterparts became Transformers or Robotech mecha, the tinier versions of the exact same toys ended up with different names, colors and fictional backstories. It was during this crazy, mixed up era of multi-company, international toy robot cross-licensing and distribution that the Macross Valkyrie was born. So it's not surprising that essentially the same core design got released in multiple versions across many different toylines in the U.S.. What is pretty wild is how famous this design became in each of its different incarnations. Everybody knows who Jetfire is and the Robotech Veritechs are pretty unforgettable in their own right. I'm not sure how many Zardak, Meeshak and Moriah fans are out there, though.

TOY BOXES DON'T LIE BUT THE MARKETERS WHO CREATED THEM DO

Thrifty 11/07/84
The Valkyrie invasion of the U.S. began in 1984 with Revell's Robotech model kits. Revell's Axoid, Vexar, and Orbot (scroll down this page to see them in color) were actually repackaged models by Japanese kit manufacturer Imai. Revell also released 1/100 versions, which were sourced from a different Japanese kit maker called Arii. The 1/72s are interesting because of how initially they were branded as robots with names instead of just piloted mecha with Macross VF designations. Ads for the 1/72s pop up a lot in old newspapers but I've yet to find one for the 1/100 scale versions. The prices originally were in the range of $8-$12 in 1984 money depending on the retailer, which comes out to $17 to $25 in 2010 money. This wasn't too bad if you were looking for a realistically proportioned, transforming Robotech Veritech fighter. The Axoid, Vexar, and Orbot could be built and painted into very show accurate versions of their respective VF models but the packaging didn't reflect this. Instead they went with the weird alternate robotty names and non-Valkyrealistic paint schemes. I was ten years old when these came out and to make the connection between these models and the Robotech Veritechs without actually opening up the boxes required more paying attention than I was capable of. Pretty much if you said your robot was named Vexar, I took your word for it and kept on looking for a 'real' VF-1S model kit even though Vexar wasn't too different looking on its box illustration.


Karl's Toys 20 December 1984

GO, MIGHTY ORBOT!

I want to mention how much I love and miss Draddog's Robotech Defenders Model Kits page, which is now only available through archive.org. Draddog's page covered the Revell Robotech model kits thoroughly and it had catalog and packaging photos of valkyries I did not mention here, like the non-transformable gerwalk and battroid kits and also the armored valkyrie Revell released. There sure were a lot of valkyrie models back in the day. By 1986 the Revell 1/72 kits were hitting clearance. I've seen one '86 ad from Circus World where they're being sold for $1.99, which seems like a sad fate for the only realistically proportioned, transformable, Robotech brand valkyries.


Zark and my mystery brown VF-1A from an unknown line.

IF CONVERTOR THEN ROBOT, ELSE MALADROID

Sav-On 12/01/85
Select's Convertors line covered the gamut of small Takatoku toys and had a couple of Valkyries. Just like Revell's Robotech model kit line they took a lot of liberties with the names of the toys and did some very non-Macross modifications like stickers and color schemes.At least one 1/100 scale VF-1S did get released in a deco unchanged from Macross but they named that guy Zark. They also did a Super Valkyrie with the fast packs and armor, colored it almost completely black and named that one Zardak. Zardak and Zark were brother Maladroids in the Convertors mythology and both were bad guy robots with nasty personalities. Zark came in other colors beyond the yellow/black Roy Fokker deco, including an all red VF-1S (check out this guy's red Zark review on YouTube). A brown cannon fodder VF-1A also exists in the Convertors scale and I've got one but I don't know what line it's from because I'm not the original owner. I suppose it is remotely possible it could be some undiscovered Convertor but if that were true I think someone would have documented it already. I don't know everything Select did so who knows if maybe they might have released the non-VF1S versions of these 1/100 valkyries alongside Zark or maybe even as Zark. One weird thing about Convertors Zark is they didn't change his name when they changed his color schemes. So the Zark package came standard on a couple different versions of the same toy. I don't know how many other versions of 1/100 VF-1As or 1Js floating around out there. There is one online toy store selling a loose 1/100 VF-1S very similar to the Convertors versions, but with green legs and forearms. They also have a VF-1A (also in the 1S color scheme except with green limbs) that they think was the victim of a head swap, but actually these are "Macres" knockoffs. Toyarchive.com has a nice Robotech section with individual pages covering the green limb VF-1S, VF-1J, and VF-1A Macres toys. Maybe my brown VF-1A is some sort of short lived knockoff that came out in the 80s and quickly disappeared from the shelves.


TAKE A HIKER!

From left to right in the picture above there's a 2002 reissue Bandai VF-1A I wanted to include here to illustrate what I call the "reverse Jetfire" color scheme I talk about in the show. Only two 1/55s ever in the history of Valkyries sported this black/red stripe combo and the other was the VF-1S Strike Hikaru released in 1984. Bandai's never reissued that one, though, and I really wish they would. The black/red stripe VF-1S is one of the most iconic Valkyrie color schemes since it's the one Hikaru used in Do You Remember Love to save the day. Then getting back to American Valkyries, there's the ginormous 3 3/4 inch figure scale Playmates reissue of the Matchbox non transforming VF-1S with a VF-1J face originally released as part of the Robotech line in '85. It's as close as Robotech ever got to a 1/55 and it makes me sad that it doesn't transform but with that big bulbous canopy it would look like Jetfire's pregnant cousin in robot mode. Then there's my yellowing old Bandai Jetfire and a Convertors Zark. The only things missing are the superdeformed Valkyries from Convertors and Robotech. I was never really into SD stuff. The Convertors SDs had friction motors and the Robotech ones looked goofy but they were the only transforming Valkyrie that line had outside of the model kits. It bums me out to this day that we got every goofy color scheme and crazy mold variation of Valkyrie under the sun, except the 1/55s in Macross colors.

Karls Toys 12/11/86
Karls Toys 12/11/86
Children's Palace 11/23/86
Service Merchandise 11/27/86
The original 3 3/4" scale Matchbox Veritech (below left) and the Playmates reissue (below right)


THE JETFIRE CARTOON COMMERCIAL COMPREHENSION QUIZ

For most of my adult childhood I didn't have access to the Jetfire commercial like I do today thanks to YouTube. I am very grateful for YouTube because for a long time I didn't have access to this very important part of the American Valkyrie experience. So to celebrate how much I appreciate YouTube Jetfire commercial I've taken a couple screen shots of it and made a few observations about it. I'd recommend watching it yourself a couple times before going further because there's going to be a question at the end. There's something rather peculiar about the closing moments of the commercial that I never caught until just a few days ago. Can you find it before I explain it? Okay let's go!


What's absolutely insane about the commercial is how fast it moves. Most of the scenes last maybe 1 to 2 seconds at the most before they cut to the next action. At the outset there's a sequence with Jetfire emerging from a mountain, firing off a few shots at Starscream, transforming, and then flying off into the sky. The whole scene takes maybe 2 seconds. I slowed it down and found some really nice frames in there that go by so fast you're hardly conscious of them. One interesting thing to note is it appears there's an Autobot insignia on Jetfire's chest. This was a pretty standard location for an Autobot sticker so it makes sense that at one point they intended it to go there on the toy, but production Jetfires don't have that. Instead it's on his jet nose. There's Autobot insignia on his chest in his regular cartoon model and comic book appearances, though.


So then Jetfire immediately transforms after spending only milliseconds in his toy accurate cartoon model robot mode and he flies off into the rest of the commercial in jet mode. I don't know what this jet color scheme is based on but it's different from both the production toy and the prototype. It's got the white nose but the forward quarter of the rocket boosters are black and the canopy is blacked out. I don't know what this deco is based off of but it's most likely animation errors, especially considering it wouldn't be physically possible for the rocket boosters to change color like that.


So Jetfire's ridiculously huge compared to Starscream and Thundercracker. They must know this so they duck into a canyon that Jetfire doesn't fit in, but that doesn't stop him from magically shrinking down and pursuing them anyway. It's his commercial so I guess he gets to do what he wants. After some more miscolored frames we switch to live action with a kid flying the prototype around in jet mode and things start getting interesting. I believe that a deliberate attempt was made on the part of the commercial producers to avoid filming the Macross symbol on the left wing. I don't know why they didn't just paint over it but they sure do go to extremes not to show it. Here in the opening shot the toy looks like there's a solid stripe on the wing but I think that's because this is actually the other side of the toy and the film has been flipped so it looks like it's flying from the right to left side of the screen when in reality it was filmed going from left to right.


The first thing that got me suspicious about the wing is how when the kid banks to the left he never really does a complete 90 degree tilt. Instead they tilt it just enough that you barely see the other wing before the whole jet goes out of frame. If I'm right and the image is mirrored, they did this to ensure the Macross insignia wouldn't be seen on the other wing. Then a quick montage begins of the kid transforming the toy. The jetpacks are slapped on the back and for the briefest of milliseconds you can see the Macross insignia on the wing. It goes by so fast that it's impossible to catch with the naked eye. Then the rifle with the missile in it gets put into what is obviously Jetfire's right hand. But wait! Did you notice something in the previous frame? The rifle is already in on the toy, and it's in his left hand!


So then here's the crazy weird thing about this commercial in its final moments. We already have evidence that the images are mirrored, but now as you watch the last sequence of the kid transforming it you can tell the footage is being played in reverse! The kid started by putting the booster packs on, then the next scene is the rifle going into the already transformed jet's hand, then the next scene is the figure in half robot/half jet mode, and finally the kid is beginning to transform the jet. The entire final transformation sequence is all reversed! The transform is actually from robot to jet, but each individual scene is played forwards as the kid is going from jet to robot. Why they did this I don't know but I never noticed it until I watched the commercial for the 500th time.



THIS IS NOT THE GREATEST PROTOTYPE JETFIRE THIS IS JUST A TRIBUTE

I so love the look of the prototype Jetfire that I digibashed this version of it. Now this is not what the true prototype would look like since the original would have different, notched head lasers and the sticker placement would be different in a few spots. The original would be a Takatoku version with painted red details instead of the modified Bandai job I've got here. But for the most part this is what the commercial prototype would look like if it were around today. I don't have deep enough connections in the toy collecting community to know where the original is or if it even exists anymore. I believe it's possible that more than one may have been made since the one in the commercial has stickers and the one shown in a newspaper ad from Venture that ran in December '84 (further down in this post) doesn't. Of course it's possible the newspaper ad one is the original prototype before they stickered it, but I really don't know enough about the whole situation to speculate authoritatively either way.

THE 1985 HASBRO TOY FAIR CATALOG PART 11

5797
The Transformers
Autobot Air Guardian

Jetfire, the swiftest of all the Autobots, zooms down over the evil Decepticons and quickly transforms into a fully articulated robot. This fierce air guardian sincerely believes that victory over the Decepticons can only come through advancements in Autobot technology. He features spring-action landing gear, ratchet-action arms, legs, and wings, and 9 pieces of removable battle armor. The secret liquid crystal logo proves that it is a "true" Transformer! Jetfire is packaged as a super jet with attachable weapons, bio card, Tech Specs chart and decoder.

18 1/4 x 2 5/8 x 14 1/2" CU: 2.26
WT: 9,9 lbs. PK:6 TV

Jetfire's appearance in the 1985 Hasbro Toy Fair catalog is notable in that he is not labeled "New for '85" like other releases in the same catalog. This is of course because Jetfire was an '84 release and retailers were already used to it being part of the line, so it would've been incorrect to introduce Jetfire (and Shockwave) as new that year. The figure shown isn't the early white nosed prototype nor does it carry a missile in its rifle. Hasbro really had their Transformers act together that year as is evidenced by the elaborate backgrounds and tech spec inspired personality profiles incorporated into the case assortment descriptions, two things that were lacking in their 1984 Toy Fair book.

RandE Toys & Things 07 October 1984


I love love love this R ad E ad from early October 84 because it's the earliest mention of Jetfire I've ever found in a newspaper ad. What's even better is that they announce it had just arrived, cementing my theory that Jetfire was purposely timed for release around the holiday season of 1984.

Cut Rate Toys 25 November 1984


Cut Rate Toys was one of the last great independent toy stores in Chicago. During the 70s and 80s it would run gigantic full page ads full of toys and toy descriptions. The ad above is from their black Friday 1984 ad and mistakenly uses Starscream line art in place of Jetfire. This furthers my suspicion that Jetfire line art either did not exist or was not widely distributed in late '84. It was commonplace for retailers to describe Jetfire but not run line art until 1985. Early ads for the figure like this JC Penney one from 14 December 1984 typically included text describing Jetfire but not showing it.

Venture 09 December 1984
Circus World 29 November 1985
These are my two favorite Jetfire newspaper ads. The one on the left is from Venture, a retail chain that I've noticed would sometimes use prototypes in its toy ads. Here they've got a prototype Jetfire with the unpainted white nose and no stickers. It's significant as the only ad I've found from 1984 using any sort of graphic of Jetfire. It's also available on Google's newspaper archive in the 09 December 1984 issue of the Pittsburgh Press (use the menu buttons to skip to page 107). The other is a nice Circus World ad from late November '85 that uses the figure's standard line art. Although the line art doesn't show the white nosed prototype, it clearly depicts the missile firing rifle with a projectile sticking out of it, a feature production Jetifres didn't include.

SHOW NOTES OF THE PODCASTALYPSE
Posted by Evil King Macrocranios at 6:35 AM 2 comments
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Saturday, January 07, 2012

THE RETURN OF VINTAGE SPACE TOAST TOUR ST. PETERSBURG



Robot Japan Summit 2012 is next month and it is written (on my refrigerator calendar) that the Nostrodomatron shall be in attendance! Yes this February 18th will once again see a vast conglomeration of madmen, machines and mad machine men converge upon St. Petersburg, Florida like so many rocket fists returning to their super robot elbows. MegaCon is also that weekend so we'll see if I hit that up and see some old friends like I did there last year, too. Hopefully this time there will be more podcastalypsing and picture taking (and less pizza burning and hotel room alarm alarming) than last year.
Posted by Evil King Macrocranios at 7:22 PM 1 comments

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Welcome to Sloppy Shoguns Episode 36 with George and Bobbay



It kind of figures that only well after I finished my last big Shogunianpalooza podcastalyspe I'd find some more Shogun Warrior ads and come up with additional brilliant thoughts perfect for that show. It's like when the right thing to say pops into your mind days after the conversation. Except in the world of blogging and podcasts there is the advantage of being able to edit material in afterwards to make it seem like I was actually prepared with good material the first time. So I suppose through the magical power of computers I could just retroactively sneak in this additional stuff and add it to the show like it was always there, kind of like how George Lucas does it. But I'm not going to do that because I know I would hate to live in a world where George Lucas does podcasts of him talking to himself about Shogun Warriors for 45 minutes. Well actually that would be pretty cool but I wouldn't like the eventual Special Edition George Lucas Shogun Warrior podcast where he goes back and re-edits so it sounds like Bobba Fett was there with him the first time. Hell, that would be pretty awesome, too. That would actually be the greatest Shogun Warrior podcast ever. (Honestly the main reason I didn't want to go back and ad this stuff in to my last show is because I am tremendously lazy.)

Venture 12/10/78
My house 10 minutes ago

THEY LET THE WOOKIE WIN

The Venture ad from December 2, 1978 up top to the left is something I was really excited about finding recently. I've only ever seen one other ad for the 5 inch Shogun Warriors so finding a second one featuring Raydeen and the super rare Gaiking is really awesome. The five inch Shogun Two-in-Ones were a tremendous milestone in American toy robots history as they were the first line of transforming robots in the U.S. that converted without extensive parts swapping. It's frustrating that I don't find more ads for this line but I think they just got drowned out in the contest for ad space by Star Wars and Micronauts. I've noticed that although line art exists for the first four non-transforming 5 inch die cast Shoguns (Mazinga and the Getter Robos) I have never found ads with line art for the Two-in-Ones. A lack of manufacturer supplied line art may be the culprit in why ads for these Shoguns are so rare. Actually, with the exception of the jumbos Daimos and Gaiking, line art for the later waves of all Shogun Warrior sublines is practically nonexistent. I don't know if this is Mattel's fault for not creating it or if retailers just didn't run it in their ads. Who knows. Oh hey heck out how the packaged robot is actually Gaiking in a Raydeen box!

FIRST BUT NOT BEST

Up to the top right is a demonstration of one other thing the Shogun Warriors did before the Transformers-flappy boxes! I personally hate boxes with those easily bendable flaps on top. I know Shogun warriors didn't invent this kind of packaging, but they did do it before other robot lines so I thought I'd mention it. What's interesting is how although Shogun Warriors and Transformers were packaged in the same kind of box, the windows are on opposite sides relative to each other. So what would be the front of a box for a Transformer is the back of the box for a Shogun Warrior. Plus the Shogun boxes were meant to be stood up vertically instead of laid flat like a Transformer. Yet there are enough similarities that I wonder if Hasbro was taking notes when Mattel was marketing the Shoguns because they did so many things similarly. Still I wonder what's the point with box flaps anyway. Maybe it's the extra square inches of promotional printing flaps allow or that that the extended portion makes better use of existing shelf space by making the packages look bigger than they are or something psychological like that. All I know is from a practical collector standpoint I hate box flaps and Shoguns did them first before other robots (which isn't exactly a good thing in my book).



30 YEARS LATER THEY STILL CAN'T GET THE VEHICLES OF THE $100 COMBINERS TO TRANSFORM

And finally, speaking of ads for super rare stuff I hardly ever see, here's another Combatra giftset ad, this time from Wieboldt's. I knew I'd come across another Combatra giftset ad almost immediately after telling the world how virtually non-existant they were in the last episode of the podcastalypse. Wieboldt's also had the same regular retail of $49.99 as Hechts but their sale price was an impressive 20 bucks off, bringing Combatra down to $29.99. That's still $99.10 in inflation adjusted 2010 money so they weren't really doing you any favors. My opinion is changing on how extravagant the purchase of a Combattra giftset was back in '78. Sure it was a week's groceries but even nowadays it is not all that unusual to see $100 robots made of combining vehicles live and die on the shelves during the holidays. I guess that's one other thing Mattel did before Hasbro.
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Saturday, December 24, 2011

Oh please ghost of Christmas past take me back to 1978 I have been a bad boy

So the other night I was watching that musical version of "A Christmas Carol" where Sir Alec Guiness played Jacob Marley and I realized that going to hell is actually not a bad price to pay for time travel. When I got to thinking about it, Scrooge accomplished what Einstien and eveybody else who wishes they could relive the 1980s could only dream of. He traveled through time both backwards and forwards and all he had to do was be cheap and a little stingy for most of his adult life. Hell I can do that and I'm already pretty cheap. Somebody tell me how bad do I have to be for Obi-Wan Kenobi to give me a ride to 1978?

Carsons 10 December 1978


IT ISN'T CHRISTMAS 1978 UNLESS AT LEAST ONE PRESENT COMES IN A BOX BIGGER THAN YOU

Here we have a really cool ad from Carsons (they're still around!) that is unlike most of the ads I've seen for old robots in a lot of ways. Not only does it qualify as a robotastic smorgasbord as defined in episode 32, but it also has a bunch of loose robots hanging out AND there's an actual kid in the shot. It's more than an ad-it's a vicarious 1978 Christmas experience. This must have been what it was like to be a dad during Christmas Day of 1978 looking down on all the money you blew on robots as your kid gently breaks their arms off one by one, loosing all their pieces while you dread how much of a pain in the ass it's gonna be to put that Micronaut Microrail City together. I once read that Baron Karza's motivation for being evil was he wanted to become immortal by committing such horrendously inhumane atrocities that he'd loose all his humanity. But I think the real reason was he just wanted Ben Kenobi to give him another crack at Carson's tremendous Micronauts sale that ended December 17th all those years ago.
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Wednesday, December 07, 2011

How to make Rocket Punch (and other lessons in Combatra-tive Dissonance)



The 36th seal of Roboplastic Apocalypse gets ground into a great big juicy super alloy flavored smoothie like a giant robot's arm caught in a blender! Yeah it's another round of Heavy Mattel Mania in the Kingdom Roboplastico as we fire up the GoBackatron 1978thousand on a mission to complete my list of 10 things Shogun Warriors did before or better than the Transformers any other American Toy Robots of Japanese Toy Robots! It's a celebration of everyone's favorite invincible guardians of world freedom and all their milestones in engineering, marketing, cross merchandising, and even porno magazine appearances. What cost more in 1978-a Shogun Warriors Combatra giftset or the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars? What costs more now-a 1978 Combatra giftset on eBay or a $375 fruit juicer from Bed Bath and Beyond? Find out all this and more in this ARE YOU READY FOR SOME ROCKET FISTING edition of the Podcastalypse!


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OF JESUS, JEDI, AND FRUIT JUICERS

Today's podcastalypse was inspired by the life changing event also known as eBay Auction 250943800281 where some guy decided to sell five toy spaceships in a box, causing me great emotional distress and much retreating deeply into the pages of my intro to psychology textbook. The psychologists who wrote it have a term they call "cognitive dissonance" which describes the tremendous feeling of mental anguish brought about when your actions must conflict with your beliefs. There are many great examples of cognitive dissonance throughout history, like when Jesus had to go through with the crucifixion, when Lee had to surrender to Grant at Appomattox, when Luke had to fight Darth Vader, and when I had to not bid on eBay auction 250943800281 because I was saving up money to get my wife a fruit juicer for Christmas.


COMBAT! COMBAT! RA! RA! RA!

Of course like all American toy robots of Japanese toy robots, the Shogun Warriors has their roots in Japan where all great toy robots start out with better cartoons and better names. One robot in particular, the 5 spaceship combiner Combattler V, was created by the same guys who would go on to do GoLion. It's like vehicle Voltron done right-only five vehicles and some really fantastic ship designs. Plus in the cartoon he does some crazy things with lightning and yo-yos. But the greatest significance of Combattler V was that unlike the three spaceship combiner Getta Robo which preceded it, Combattler's combination was physically possible and could be adapted into toys. By the time Popy's DX series Combattler V was imported into the US in 1978 under the Shogun Warrior line as the U-Combine Combatra, the Micronauts' combining spaceship robot Giant Acroyear had already been released. So Combatra wasn't technically the first robot combiner in the US, but Giant Acroyear's individual components were never released separately. Combatra then was the first combining robot spaceship team to be sold both individually and in a giftset, which would be the traditional method of packaging combiner teams from that point forward. That is why Combatra is historically significant and highly sought after on the secondary market and why in my household kitchen appliances are named after him.

Hecht's 13 December 1978


NOT THE BIG PUPPY, MOM, THE BIG POPY!

This Hecht's ad from the Washington DC area came out in newspapers on December 13, 1978. I call it a "high fiver". High fivers are those rare ads I come across every now and then that are of such great roboplastilogically historical significance that when I find them I get so excited I want to run around the library giving high fives to all the homeless people, vagrants and college kids there with me. It's truly a rare piece and one I didn't think I'd ever find given the Combatra giftset's extreme rarity. Finally I have evidence of at least one store's original retail price for the Combatra giftset, which is quite elusive in old newspaper ads. Considering that $49.99 when adjusted for inflation is $165.19 in 2010 dollars it is not hard to imagine why these are so rare nowadays. At regular retail of $49.99, the Combatra giftset is not only the most expensive Shogun Warrior of the 70s, but the single most expensive action figure of the seventies!



Meanwhile, back here in 2011, individually packaged Combatra vehicles have been popping up on eBay. This boxed Battle Jet went for $135 on November 18th. The seller also linked to a nice gallery of big clear pictures of the box and the toy, which is essentially the dismembered head of Combatra. I find it interesting that the Battle Jet from the auction was originally sold at Macy's, which further supports my theory that only upscale department stores carried this subset of Shogun Warriors. I don't think it's coincidence that all the ads for Combatra vehicles I've ever found come from those kinds of hoity toity stores instead of discount retail outlets like Kmart. Also worth mentioning is that recently a Battle Tank went up on eBay but only pulled $61.

May Company 17 October 1980


FIRST COMBINE, THEN COMBAT, THEN COME CLEARANCE

Sadly, Combatra's final battle was fought in the clearance aisle as shown by this May Company ad from October of 1980. I've found one other deeply discounted Combatra vehicle clearance ad from a Los Angeles area store called the Broadway that ran in March of 1980. It's kind of crazy now to imagine these toys just sitting on the shelves at super deep price cuts all year long waiting for someone to buy them, but such is the power of the Force I guess. The individual vehicles were probably a hard sell since they didn't do much on their own and the only fiction supporting them was the Marvel Shogun Warrior comic, which wasn't mentioned at all on the boxes. You pretty much had to complete the set to get the most fun out of them, which was still relatively expensive even at clearance. To complete the set you'd still have to pay 20 dollars and who wanted to pay that when you could get all sorts of cool Star War stuff for around half that.

The Broadway 30 November 1978


SUPER ELECTROMAGNETIC CYLON FIGHTER!

Speaking of The Broadway, they ran this absolutely gorgeous ad back in November of 1978. It's a celebration of Mattel's two big science fiction/fantasy toylines of the time-Shogun Warriors and Battlestar Galactica. I find it interesting that the Battle Jet and Battle Tank are priced slightly less than the other three. This would lead me to believe all the vehicles may have been shipped in their own separate case assortments instead of together in the same case. Back when I tried to construct a chronology of release for the Shogun Warrior line I hit a wall trying to figure out exactly how these Combatra vehicles were shipped and I still haven't got it straight today. If it is true that the ships shipped in separate case assortments I wonder how the stores were able to ensure that enough of each vehicle were stocked so that people could complete their Combatras. If most customers were buying the ships separately it wouldn't make sense for stores to order more of one kind of ship than the other. But if you've ever seen the individual boxes for the vehicles you know they are all different sizes and it'd be difficult to fit multiples of complete sets of the ships in one shipping case without doing some serious cardboard voodoo magic.

Before we leave the subject of Combatra, here's some great covers of the theme song from Combattler-V. (You gotta skip to the 1:04 mark on the one to the right.)

THE TEN THINGS SHOGUN WARRIORS DID BEFORE OR BETTER THAN TRANSFORMERS! (including the first five)

Back in 2009 I started a list of trailblazing events in toy robots marketing and merchandising that all first happened in the Shogun Warriors line, or at least before they happened in Hasbro's Transformers. But I only got halfway through the 10 things Mattel's Shogun Warriors did in the 1970s before or better than Hasbro's Transformers did in the 1980s (but just the first five) before I realized I was dumb about Shogun Warriors and I ran out of ideas. I figured I'd need to do some more research and get a little more experience with the line so that I could do the list justice. Well it's two years later and I'm still dumb about Shogun Warriors but I'm finishing the list anyways because I found this inspiring ad from the now defunct retail chain Barkers that ran 26 November 1978 featuring some truly incredible Shogun Warriors artifacts. Shogun Warrior bop bags! I saw that ad and I immediately knew the time had come to finish that list (or at least get to number six). And so without further adieu, here are the ten things Shogun Warriors did before or better than the Transformers (and almost any other line of toy robots, too!):
Barkers 11/26/78

  • #1-They sold the same robot character in different sizes-This is a no brainer nowadays but Shogun Warriors were the first to have the same robot characters concurrently on the shelves with larger or smaller versions of themselves.

  • #2-They took robots from different Japanese licenses and marketed them all together under one banner in the US-The Micronauts were Japanese but they were all from Takara's Microman (before the aliens). Shogun Warriors were each stars of their own cartoons with their own merchandising empires in Japan.

  • #3-The Shogun 2-in-1 subline introduced transforming robots to the US, including Raydeen the first transforming toy robot ever!

  • #4-Combiner robots-Combattra may not have preceded the Micronauts' Giant Acroyear but Combatra's combined mode and individual component vehicles were way nicer designs. Since the list is "before or better", combining is included here.

  • #5-Comissioning new robots-Mattel had the three inch line of Collector's Shoguns made to fill out the line, much like Hasbro would have to do when they ran out of original Takara molds in the third year of the Transfomers.

  • #6 Bop Bags-This one is a bit of a personal indulgence due to my fondness for toy robot themed bop bags, but in the Barkers ad from 1978 we are shown the first toy robot based bop bags released in the U.S.

  • #7 Zargon-The mechanized, self propelled, battery operated robot death machine released years before Omega Supreme! Of course pretty much every toy line that had robots pre-1978 had a mechanized guy like Zargon so it's not really that big a deal. Heck, the Micronauts Biotron and Microtron precede Zargon and even remote controlled R2-D2 came out the same year as Zargon, but were Micronauts and Star Wars truly toy robot lines? Discuss amongst yourselves!

  • #8 First (and probably last) toy robots in a porno magazine!-Gallery magazine's October 1977 issue features some real rocket fisting!

  • #9 The first combiner giftset made up of toys that were also sold separately-Sure the Micronauts' Giant Acroyear's arms and spaceship torsos separated and turned into robots or vehicles but they weren't sold separately! That counts somehow I think.

  • #10 Beastification-Shogun Warriors was the first robot line to jump the shark by letting animals in as part of the line. Thankfully Mattel canceled everything before Godzilla and Rodan could do much damage.



This auction put the MAN in Mazinga

SHOW NOTES OF THE PODCASTALYPSE

  • A very CombAttractive CombatrAuction
  • The (rocket) fists and firsts of Shogun Warriors
  • Being thankful this holiday season for Shogun Warriors
  • Making Godzilla American
  • Chronological irrelevance
  • Auction update-$371 w/ 55 minutes to go
  • Predicting what the end price will be
  • The most expensive Shogun Warrior at retail in the 1970s
  • That Hecht's ad with Santa on a Viper
  • The danger of becoming a Combatra museum
  • Auction update-$371 still w/ 43 minutes to go
  • Shotgun Warriors
  • The crown jewel of Combatra ads
  • The hoity toityness of old department stores
  • Auction update-$371 still w/ 26 minutes to go
  • Finishing off the list
  • Visiting the Mcallen library on its last day
  • Shogun bop bags-technological breakthrough or toy robot blow up dolls?
  • Auction update-$430 w/ 17 minutes to go
  • How to make a fruit juicer with common household materials
  • Shogun "Bob" bag featuring ROBERT PUNCH!
  • Mr. Machine vs. Mister Zargon
  • Invincible Guardians of World…Vagina?
  • Auction update-$520 w/ 8 minutes to go
  • Combatra cost all your groceries in 1978
  • Auction update-$597 w/ 6 minutes to go
  • Pulling auction pics from eBay at their original resolutions
  • Great Mazinga was just regular Mazinga with cheese
  • Auction update-$618 still w/ 51 seconds to go
  • The end of the auction
  • BREAK-Combattler V Opening English ver.
  • The perspective dangers of being too Shogunny
  • Early Shogun Warrior memories
  • BJ and the Bear vs. Godzilla
  • Merry Godzilla Christmas
  • There should be a Shogun Warriors Thanksgiving
  • Don't Rocket Punch Your Friends!
Posted by Evil King Macrocranios at 9:30 PM 3 comments
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Evil King Macrocranios was voted king by the evil peoples of the Kingdom of Macrocrania. They listen to Iron Maiden all day and try to take pictures of ghosts with their webcams.