The 42nd seal of the Roboplastic Apocalypse is smooshed like a cartoon baby unicorn under the foot of a 2,000 foot tall iron golem in part two of my interview with American storyboard artist Wendell Washer! Yes it's more dungeoney and/or dragonny than an enchanted amusement park ride to 1985 as Mr. Washer takes us on a whirlwind tour of his career in the animation industry from the early 70s to the late 80s. What's the difference between a storyboard artist and a storyboard director? Is it possible to draw too good for Filmation? What's the right way to say Toei anyways? Find out all that and more in this PIE ON THE FLOOR FUNNY episode of the podcastalypse!
Okay so the big news (to me) today is that Google has a massive archive of Billboard magazine going back for decades. I've been looking through it and it's an absolute treasure trove of information. The most exciting development is that I've found Billboard sales charts for VHS releases during the mid 80s boom of licensed character cartoons. Around late '85 they went from just bunching all VHS sales together on their charts to doing a separate chart for children's video titles. This means the popularity of the VHS releases of many kids' cartoons from the Toy Robots Wars of the 1980s can be tracked, which is something I've always wanted to do ever since I did a series of blog posts tracing the Nielsen ratings of kids' shows in Variety magazine. I also found a handful of cool robot related ads announcing the release of a couple of now classic VHS tapes featuring some of my favorite shows. Check them out!
IN THE TRADITION OF STAR WARS...(THE STAR WARS WITH BIG ROBOT SPACE LIONS)
Voltron, the videocassette. Wanted-By millions of kids.
Introducing the first in a series of specially edited, feature film length videocassettes from Sony created from the sensational, number one children's television success story of the year: Voltron, Defender of the Universe.
Every day, three million American kids, ages two to thirteen, see a richly animated story of epic struggles between the forces of good and forces of doom; an adventure in the tradition of Star Wars that has even rages into toy stores where Voltron toys are regularly selling out.
Now Sony brings this spectacularly popular force to your customers with a ninety-minute feature presentation: Voltron: Defender of the Universe in the Castle of Lions. And Sony brings you a hard-hitting national advertising and merchandising campaign with display contests, in-store support and more. Call your authorized Sony Video Software distributor today for details.
Voltron, Defender of the Universe. The first adventure in a series of Voltron videocassettes from Sony Video Software.
Beta / VHS SONY
It's interesting to me that this ad points out the Voltron audience extended to kids all the way up to thirteen years old, and that 3 million of them tuned in to the show every day.
THE TRANSFORMERS ON VIDEOCASSETTE Available for the first time two fully animated adventures featuring the phenomenal TRANSFORMERS.
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE THE ULTIMATE DOOM
Both videocassettes at your local retailer now! $24.95 suggested list price. f.h.e. Family Home Entertainment
This ad is really cool because I think it's only the second F.H.E. promo I've ever found outside of comic books. (The other one was a Sunday newspaper comic strip advertising supplement that ran October 20, 1985.) What is a bit perplexing to me is that the Billboard ad was published in the May 25th issue but other sources I've read say the Transformer videocassettes didn't hit retail until June of 1985. It could be that since the issue was expected to run in late May it wasn't too big of a deal that it jumped the gun on the release date. Heck, the videos may have been in the stores already by late May. For whatever reason the Transformers VHS tapes didn't start showing up in the Billboard charts until August 24 so I'm not certain of their exact release date.
THE BEST SUPER ROBOT JOB DESCRIPTION IS ONLY ONE GOOD P.R. MAN AWAY
His popularity is accelerating as quickly as a Mega Thruster. Everyday, three million plus kids, ages two to thirteen, rush home to watch the mighty Voltron Force that sweeps America everyday!
Voltron, Defender of the Universe. Phenomenal toy sales. Number one children's TV show and videocassette.
You've already seen the extraordinary action of the first Voltron release! Now Sony presents the second in a series of specially edited, ninety-minute Voltron videocassette features: Planet Doom.
A richly animated story of epic struggles between forces of good and forces of evil. A video galaxy alliance for every VCR home.
And Sony supports you with a national advertising and merchandising campaign which includes display contests and in-store promotions. Call your authorized Sony Video Software distributor for details.
Voltron to dealers: Next stop, the stars.
One thing that really impresses me about Voltron is how much press he got in trade magazines. There's the two full color, full page ads in Billboard shown here and also a ton of ads in the entertainment industry trade publication Variety. All of them mention how strong the cartoon was but this one goes a little overboard with the hyperbole. (Who were all these two year olds that were running home to watch Voltron?) A galaxy alliance for every VCR home? I think that's Voltron's way of letting you know the likelihood of your family being eaten by Robeasts was inversely proportional to the number of Voltron VHS tapes you owned.
Unfortunately I can't make out much of the text of this ad from the June 21, 1986 issue. But I can tell it's advertising the first five volumes of Challenge of the GoBots. I'll get to work on deciphering it later.
ARE YOU READY FOR THE COUNTDOWN?
I'm pretty excited about all this and am right now planning a future podcastalypse about these old VHS tapes and how well they sold relative to each other. But if you don't want to wait for my analysis, go check the lists out at Google's Billboard archive right away!
Veteran storyboard artist and special guest Wendell Washer cracks the 41st seal of the Roboplastic Apocalypse! Yes it's the first part of a two episode interview with a man who had a hand in creating many of the most memorable shows and scenes from the animated shows I grew up watching! From Filmation to Hanna Barbera to Marvel and beyond, Mr. Washer worked as a storyboard artist at many of the great American animation studios of the 70s, 80s and 90s. He shares in this episode the early beginnings of his career and what it was like to grow up a fan of cartoons while pursuing an education that had him headed entirely in another direction. How did a science major aspiring to be a nuclear physicist from Chicago end up working in animation in Hollywood? What Donald Duck short was the first cartoon that inspired him? Who would win in a fight between Gigantor and Optimus Prime? Find out all that and more in this I'M 99% HYSTERICAL edition of the podcastalypse!
Between the Planet Retro Gallery and Ed's house I have never seen so many robots in so few garages.
Professional artist Robby Musso's work was stunning as usual. That's my favorite Carly ever and this year's RJ poster was great, too.
Summit organizer Ed demonstrates how before global Starcraft domination, South Korea's greatest accomplishment was a green teapot head robot show guy.
Anime cel enthusiast Brian Powell shared some great mecha and comic art during his presentation.
The mysterious dealer/collector known only as Lunchtime Charlie had much for sale and on display.
TO SUMMIT ALL UP...
I want to thank everyone at Robot-Japan for making the Summit a great time, from Jonathan who gave the heads up about Planet Retro on the Robot-Japan Facebook page to Myles for reminding me the Summit was coming up in the first place. Of course Ed thank you and your family for opening up your home and letting me charge my computer and camera while I was there. And of course thanks to Jack for helping me do this show. Thanks to everyone who bought some stuff from me, too! Also thanks to Robby Musso for talking robots, Botcon, Transformers and black repaints with me. You guys all made the trip up to St. Petersburg really awesome.
This weekend saw not one but TWO St. Petersburgian events of great interest to toy robots historians and other retro roboplastic enthusiasts. Yes the Planet Retro Gallery was open for business Saturday and Robot Japan Summit 2012 was happening not very far away. Planet Retro is an interesting hybrid of action figure store and vinyl record shop with a retro focus in both areas. Robot Japan is of course an interesting robot themed website also with a focus on vintage action figures, but of the Japanese robot variety. The summit only happens once a year and Planet Retro is only open for a few days every month so to have them both happen on the same day was like a planetary alignment of robotastic proportions. (And you don't have to be a Nostrodomatron to know nothing kicks off a roboplastic apocalypse like a good planetary alignment.) Here's some highlights of my trip to Planet Retro Gallery and the full dump of all the pics I took there is over at the Robofacial Bookocalypse.
SHOCK ME!
On the outside, Planet Retro Gallery looks like a store run from a storage locker unit but on the inside it's what I imagined heaven looked like when I was a teenager in the 80s. It's half full of vinyl records and the other half is loaded with toys from the 70s, 80s and 90s. I've never seen a record store combined with a vintage toy store before and I wonder why there aren't more like this because it makes so much sense. It's an awesome idea. When I was growing up I was always either into music or toys and this place is those two things combined. There's really no other place outside my own bedroom in 1989 that I've ever listened to Love Gun while playing with toy robots. All this place is missing is some posters from He-Man magazine on the walls and a dresser drawer full of Iron Maiden shirts and it'd be my bedroom circa 1988.
SPLITTING O'HARES
Ever since I got to talk to Michael Golden I've wanted an A.F.C. Blinky figure from Bucky O'Hare. Unbelievably, Planet Retro had not only Blinky but all the other Bucky O'Hare figures ever released. I didn't think the store owner would be willing to break up the set but he did. I almost regret not getting the rest of them but my goal in coming to St. Petersburg was to sell robots and not buy them. For someone who was trying to cut down on buying stuff I sure was in the wrong place. Still, I never in a million years thought I'd be staring a complete set of Bucky O'Hare in the face (or a Charlie Tuna, either).
GRENDIZER TEST-if you noticed the hula girl I've got some bad news for you...
IS THIS A DREAM OR IS IT NOW?
The selection of albums dominated the vinyl side of the store but there were a couple boxes of some great 45s. There were singles from Metallica, the Anti-Nowhere League, Madness, the Beatles, and all sorts of other British and American punk, metal and rock bands. There was even a single from the Banana Splits! It was great going through all those. The only thing Rob the owner didn't have was Whitney Houston. (I know because I asked)
JUST DuWITT!
Well there's a ton more pictures of the Retro Planet Gallery over at the Robofacial Bookocalypse. I still didn't get pics of everything but you can get a good idea of what it was like. I was impressed by the wide range of mainstream and lesser known items there in both vinyl and plastic. Seeing the gallery and getting myself a Blinky (and a Conky wind up from Pee-Wee's Playhouse for my son) was a highlight during my trip to St. Petersburg. It was a great lead-in to Robot Japan Summit 2012, which I will have pictures of later. The Gallery will open its doors again in two weeks on March 2nd and 3rd. If you go, tell Bucky O'Hare hi for me and have a great roboplastic apocalypse.
The 39th seal of the Roboplastic Apocalypse is erased from existence like the brain of your giant talking robot Tyrannosaurus bulldozer! Yes it's a Robotixciting edition of the Podcastalypse as guest co-host Colin from fairplaythings.com and I fire up the GoBackaTron 1984thousand to talk about the intriguing early years of the part robot, part action figure, part construction set toy line Robotix. Was the interfacing of humans and robots in Robotix the inspiration for the Transformers' Powermaster engines? Was Herb Trimpe the Bob Budiansky of Robotix? More importantly, is Paul Stanley the Stan Bush of Robo Force? Find out all this (or don't) in this I'M SO ROBOTIXCITED AND I JUST CAN'T HIDE IT edition of the podcastalypse!
Before I got on with the Robotix portion of the show I wanted to share a couple ads that support my theory that Robo Force wasn't immediately cancelled in 1985 but lived long enough that at least a few cases of the 1985 assortments depicted in the 1985 Ideal Toy Fair catalog made it out. So I spend a couple minutes on the show discussing the two ads below from a store called Dart Drug that use line art and descriptions of the "unreleased" 1985 Robo Force figure assortments. It would kind of help me out more if Dart didn't put a picture of bad guy Hun-Dred in its ad for the Heroic robots and do-gooder Maxx Steele in the ad for the Defiant robots. But hey if the supporting evidence were totally solid it wouldn't be a good conspiracy theory.
Dart Drug 01 December 1985
Dart Drug 10 November 1985
The case assortment numbers in these ads match the assortment numbers listed in the 1985 Ideal Toy Fair catalog
WITHOUT COMMANDER X THIS SHOW WOULD HAVE NO PILOT
Note the early box art for the first two Robotix sets
What happened with this show is I started recording it back in October during a bike ride to the comic shop near my house, on a hunt for Robotix #1. Snagging the book was a crucial part of my preparations for not only this episode but also for a convention I went to later that month. Although it was more of a Star Wars con, I was really excited about going and getting to meet one of the guests who also happened to be the artist/writer that worked on the Robotix comic book, Herb Trimpe. He rarely comes down south and although Texas is 1,300 lateral miles from my house, based on his appearance alone I bought tickets and went over there hoping to see him and maybe ask a couple questions about Robotix. The first 25 minutes of this show were recorded before I went to the convention when I was all hyped about the con. It was a time of high hopes which of course were dashed the first day of the convention when Mr. Trimpe couldn't make it because he missed his plane to Texas. Although I'd recorded 25 minutes of show, my enthusiasm for completing it alone waned. Then one day action figure customizer/toy robot blogger/giant Robotix fan Colin aka "Commander X" got in touch and said hey, let's do the Robotix show! So my huge thanks go out to him for rescuing this idea from the abyss of my hard drive and making my Robotix episode dream come true. Without his expertise and catalog page contributions this show may never have come out and definitely wouldn't have been as good.
SUNBWNED!
What I find fascinating about Robotix is that it began as a construction set and stayed very true to that concept in its first year of release in 1984. The sets came packaged with G.I. Joe scale pilots in astronaut suits and no reference was made to the actual constructed machines as independent, sentient entities. Then with the 1985 release of the line the boxes get redesigned with dynamic painted artwork, the line gets a cartoon tie-in where a sci-fi fantasy adventure background is established, and the machines are all given character names. You can see how what began as a simple construction set idea got shoehorned into a more mainstream action figure line with the marketing of the day, even though the sets themselves weren't as action figure like as depicted on the show. Colin believes Robotix would have worked great as a crossover with G.I. Joe where the Robotix vehicles would have had Joe pilots. I wonder if this idea was ever considered by Hasbro/Bradley back in the day because it does seem like the Robotix vehicles would have made awesome bad guy monster machines for 3 3/4 inch figures.
THEY JUST DON'T MAKE STEAM SHOVEL MOUTHED TYRANNOSAURUS ROBOTS LIKE THEY USED TO
Just last night I was in Toys R Us in the Transformer aisle when I overheard a lady ask a TRU employee if Transformers were the only robots they had. "These are all robots but they don't do anything. I need a robot that moves by itself." I watched as they both searched the action figure aisle for a couple minutes but I knew they wouldn't find anything. Robots just don't move by themselves these days. I went to the construction toys section to see if the concept of Robotix has survived in some form and I found one single solitary robot kit that I think was a Lego Technic set. It was kind of sad to see how the once vastly diverse selection of robots and robot based construction vehicles from the 80s has withered down to its current sad state where you can have any robot you want as long as its a Transformer. Transformers are great but long gone are the glory days of motorized walking robots like Trypticon, Sky Lynx and Omega Supreme. That poor lady was in the right aisle, but just the wrong decade. I say judge not a society's scientific and technological greatness on what they have put into outer space, but judge them by what they have put in their motorized robot toys aisle at Toys R Us.
Maybe trying to market Robotix as a traditional action figure line wasn't exactly a perfect fit with what the product actually was but it sure was an interesting try. In 1985 sentient robots were all the rage. I can't blame them for trying to say each set was actually a robotic character. The problem is those astronauts the Robotix sets came with. It's hard to come up with a convincing argument for why a sentient robot needs a human pilot. We discuss that a little in the show. Should Robotix have been spun as a more G.I. Joe/Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors type concept or was it truly a GoBotty, Transformery one? We'll explore these ideas more thoroughly in the next Robotix themed Podcastalypse when Colin and I go over the Robotix cartoon.
ToysRUs 12/04/85
ToysRUs 12/11/85
'TIX R US
Of course no Podcastalyptical look at a toyline is complete without some mention of what was going on in the newspaper ads of the day. I tend to describe Robotix as "obscure" a lot during the show because it seems that way in the lack of mainstream action figure fandom its garnered over the years. But back in the day Robotix was actually very prevalent as evidenced by all of the different stores that ran ads for it. Robotix ads could be found in the circulars for the big toy discounters like Toys R Us, Children's Palace, and Lionel Playworld in addition to running in the circulars of retail chains like Bradlee's, Venture, and even rocery stores like Osco. (I posted some additional Robotix ads from many of these stores at the Robofacial Bookocalypse.)
GemCo December 9, 1985
BETWEEN A BRONT AND A HARD PRICE
This Gemco ad illustrates why Robotix wasn't as collector friendly as the other action figure lines it was marketed alongside. Jetfire up top was the highest price point Transformer in 1984, with a regular retail of anywhere from $25-$30. But spending that much only got you the lowest priced Robotix set. Marketing Robotix as a more traditional action figure line was like asking people to collect only the most expensive Transformers. So imagine watching the cartoon as a kid and wanting multiple Robotix sets because of all the cool looking robots, only to find owning just four Robotix-Venturak, Tyrannix, Bront and Argus would end up costing more than $180 1985 dollars! (That's $360 2010 dollars.) The Toy King ad snippet below right is from November of 1986 when the popularity of the line at retail was on the decline and stores were beginning to liquidate their Robotix stock. Even with discounts of $15-$30 off regular retail they were still on the expensive side for action figures, but those are pretty good prices for motorized construction sets with so many pieces.
The 38th seal of the Roboplastic Apocalypse lies torn and mutilated in the gutter like historical Hasbro documents of incalculable value entrusted to some guy who used them as handlebar warmers on his bicycle! Thrill to a horrific tale of the roboplasti-archaeological universe betrayed when I won an auction for the Dead Sea Scrolls of Hasbro price list history and then I lost them biking on my way to a Star Wars convention. What untold secrets of the universe lie buried in the Hasbro Toy Worksheet from 1984? How much did a case of Jetfires cost at wholesale in 1985? Can Mirage survive the torturous treatment at the hands of Wal-Mart demo boy? Find out all this and more in this GEOFFREY GIRAFFE WAS A SCUMMY G1 SCALPER AND I CAN PROVE IT edition of the Podcastalypse!
I USUALLY SAY $19.99 BUT THE MOM JOKES ARE ALWAYS MORE FUN
It's the age old question-How much did Optimus Prime cost in 1984? And of course the correct answer is it depended on how much your mom was desperate enough to pay to get you to shut up that day. It is in essence the truth because all the different stores had different prices. That's not to say certain estimates cannot be made and I've tried doing that in various sections of The Vintage Space Toaster Palace. But of course the estimates are never really good enough. Looking at the big picture, the only information retail prices from specific stores can give is an approximation of what the retailers paid at wholesale plus whatever each chain's overhead was and how much profit they were trying to make. So I was really happy the day I found seller Bwills auctioning off the 1984 and 1985 Hasbro Toy Worksheet price lists. Finally I knew the wholesale cost of Optimus Prime, which is tremendously empowering information. So the next time I hear somebody ask how much Optimus Prime cost in 1984, I can tell them the wholesale cost and turn a fanciful question fueled by nostalgia into a dreadful exercise in post 1980s recession era economics.
THESE DOCUMENTS I WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO READ AREN'T TAILORED TO ME ENOUGH
I am assuming the prices are per unit and not per case, but I admit that I don't know for sure. I am not an expert in 1984 wholesale toy buying nor connected in any way with Hasbro. (Well I guess I'm connected in the We-Are-All-Peter-Cullen's-Unwanted-Children kind of way, but so is everybody.) I guess it is theoretically possible that I'm misinterpreting this and a case of 24 Autobot Minicars only cost $1.99 at the wholesale level in 1984 but I highly, seriously doubt it. I do wonder, though, that if those minicars were $1.99 a piece at the wholesale level then how could stores like Fiesta Grocery Mart (below left) sell them for exactly or slightly less than that? For the most part, minicars sold very close to their wholesale cost at many stores. I guess they were the gateway drug of Transformers in that regard. Stores didn't make much of a percentage off of them.
Fiesta 10/20/84
R and E Toys & Things 10/07/84
DISAPPEARS IN SUBDUED LIGHT OR NEWSPAPER
Then on the upper right you have the exact opposite of the minicar situation in this snippet from an R&E ad from October '84. The Decepticon tapes going for a full dollar over wholesale must have made a lot of money. One memory I have from around 1987 is going to a Toys R Us and seeing an entire endcap stocked full with pegs of nothing but carded Transformers, the majority of which were the Decepticon cassettes of that year. Although the cassette assortments hung around as long as the minicars did and stores loaded the pegs with them, I rarely ever see Decepticon tapes advertised in newspaper circulars. At least I don't see them as much as the Autobot minicars.
THE BLACK FRIDAY 1984 WAL-MART AUTOBOT SALE
It's not everyday that I see an ad from 27 years ago on YouTube and I can pretty much nail its air date within a few days. But thanks to my familiarity with old newspaper ads I was able to figure out that this commercial recently uploaded to YouTube coincided with a Wal-Mart sale on Autobot cars during Black Friday weekend of 1984. The ad to the upper left is one they ran November 27, 1984. Notice how the ad and commercial point out 11 styles were available yet the '84 worksheet shows the case pack was 12. This is because Mirage was included twice in the first 5750 cases. I found it amusing that the Wal-Mart narrator described the act of transforming as making "a few minor adjustments". I guess he was right because the resultant mangled mistransformations sure weren't successful robot modes. Actually Ratchet kind of looks better that way.
The '85 worksheet. Note the lack of a Devastator giftset listing. Also Shockwave and Jetfire are not "New for 1985" as they had been shipping since late '84.
K-Mart 09/23/84
Sears 12/20/85
A CASE OF DECONSTRUCTICON
Above left is that strange K-Mart ad I mentioned with "Autobot II" vehicles. Since it ran September '84 I think it's referencing a case revision that eliminated one Mirage and added in Skids. The timing of the release of the 5750 Autobot Cars assortment that included Skids has proven difficult for me to pinpoint. This ad is the best lead I have but it's still a matter of interpretation. Had the Wal-Mart commercial included Skids among its 11 Autobot cars I would've been elated. It would be the earliest documented appearance of Skids in a Transformers case assortment that I've seen yet. To the upper right is a Sears ad showing the Constructicons but giving no price for a Devastator giftset. Although a number of stores carried the Devastator giftset I have yet to find an order form or Hasbro price list including it. In fact, no giftsets appear on the 1988 Hasbro price list, either, and that year saw the release of the Seacon combiner Piranacon.
Sears 12/11/85
TG&Y Family Center 12/15/85
STUCK IN THE MIDDLE
The Sears ad to the upper left is the only other occurrence I've found of Decepticon cassette line art being used. It's kind of cheating because the cassettes aren't even being advertised-it's more an ad for Soundwave. Now I admit I haven't seen every ad published but it seems to me the cassettes are well in the minority and use of their line art is ever rarer. Speaking of cassette-ish things, it's kind of strange to me that Blaster line art isn't used in this ad when all the other toys shown are illustrated as drawings. That picture was acually lifted from the 1985 Hasbro Toy Fair catalog. Even rarer than Decepticon cassette line art are ads for the Deluxe Autobots from 1985 like the one to the upper right. These non-Takara toys were rarely seen in papers, unlike Jetfire, Shockwave and Omega Supreme who were all non-Takara but at higher price points. It seems like only the least and most expensive assortments would appear in the papers most often, leaving the mid-price point range figures virtually unrepresented in newspaper ads. Figures like Blaster, the Deluxe Autobots and Deluxe Insecticons all suffer from this under representation.
K-Mart 11/10/85
CLEARANCE CAN HIT TARGETS UNREACHABLE TO BULLETS
I have two Dinobot price memories. The first is seeing the JC Penny price tag attached to the side flap of one of my Dinobots. It was $19.99. So I grew up thinking the Dinobots were at the $19.99 price point. Boy was I surprised all these years later to find out they were more commonly in the $10-$15 range everywhere else. My other Dinobot price memory from childhood is seeing them on clearance at Lionel Playworld along with the Predacons for $6.97 each. It seemed like a super discount to me at the time but now that I know their wholesale cost was $8.99, that Playworld price doesn't seem so low. Still, as a retailer it probably hurt to be selling toys at $2 less than what the chain paid for them. It's crazy to think Dinobots at Playworld on clearance were three times less expensive that they were at JC Penny at full price.
Cut Rate Toys 11/10/85
SHOW NOTES OF THE PODCASTALYPSE
That little site research thing I do
People want answers, not the truth
The superficiality of only using ads for their prices
Who cares what I paid, how much did Geoffrey Giraffe pay?
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.
r lady was in the right aisle, but just the wrong decade. I say judge not a society's scientific and technological greatness on what they have put into outer space, but judge them by what they have put in their motorized robot toys aisle at Toys R Us.
