Forgotten toys of the 80s
When people of the Gen X persuasion look back on the 80s in a nostalgic fashion, I feel like there’s a sort of filter that lets all of the shiny and exciting stuff through while conveniently forgetting all of the weird, obscure, and sometimes downright crappy things. And so, I was sitting around the other day and really focusing on that latter grouping (the sort of childhood gunk, if you will) as it relates to toys of my childhood. Sure everyone remembers The Transformers, G.I. Joe, He-Man, and Thundercats, but what about some of the less shiny stuff of that era? Where’s the love for StarCom: The US Space Force? There were toys that were quirky, innovative, or just darn cool flooding the market in the 80s and I had the pleasure of being a kid during that time. If you’re of my generation, maybe these will bring back some memories for you as well.
#5 Robo Force
Robo Force has such a great and memorable name that I actually had to Google “80s robot toy suction cup base” to get anywhere while figuring out what the vague image in my head actually belonged to. It’s a pretty accurate description of what these toys boiled down to. Released by Ideal in 1984, it was a line of toy robots with large suction cups as their lower bodies (because reasons?) and a sort of trigger / button thing on their backs that would force air into their “crusher arms” and cause the action that was apparently their selling point. They came with small comics to tell kids about the robot they just received, but I can’t say that my 6-year-old brain decided to absorb any of that information. Without that or a cartoon show, it was pretty hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys by looking at them. But does that really matter to most kids? I’m not sure what part of my youth told me that I needed a combination robot and suction cup, but this toy filled that niche like a BOSS. Just look at this TV commercial:
The good folks at I-Mockery.com actually maintain The OFFICIAL Robo Force Page. Because why not?
#4 StarCom: The U.S. Space Force
Another toy that I had to spend a bit of time looking for on Google. These were automatically transforming toys that used magnetic plates to hold figures in place or do things like activate special parts of the base play set. The Magna Tech (as it was called) part was cool, but I had a hard time not losing the tiny space figures. For me, it was all about the Power Deploy transformation action. Transformers were cool, but toys that would change at the touch of a button (even if not as complex) were freaking awesome. Like so many toys of the time, there was a cartoon made to act like half-hour commercials with a loose plot. The main characters were named things like Dash, Slim, and Crowbar who fought against the evil Emperor Dark. Since the toys were wind-up powered instead of battery power (and thus never ran out of power while being played with), these were always some of my favorites. The Wikipedia page can be found here.
#3 Blackstar
Since I mentioned He-Man earlier, it would be a shame to not bring up his predecessor, Blackstar. Seriously, he’s a loincloth-clad barbarian-style hero who wields half of a powerful sword and defends the realm from the evil Overlord. The figures all had colored plastic pieces on their chests and bit of flint with a lighter-style wheel on the back that caused sparks to light them up when used. For some reason, sparking “laser light” at each other was a form of combat. (It was the 80s and we didn’t have Pokemon, okay?) The other interesting thing was that each action figure also came with a small solid rubber figure of either a demon (for the bad guys) or a Trobbit (tree Hobbits) for the good guys. Solid creatures, for the record, aren’t nearly as interesting to young kids as articulated figures with weapons and sparking chests. There were multicolored gargoyle-looking things littered all around the house when I was a kid and I’m sure my parents just loved it.
#2 M.A.S.K.
In the mid 80s, I was in love with the toys and cartoon for M.A.S.K. (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand) and their fight against V.E.N.O.M. (Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem). It featured mask-wearing men driving vehicles that could turn into… different vehicles. Kinda. The Thunderhawk, for example, was a car (looked like a red Camaro) that had doors, which lifted up to make it some kind of jet. Aerodynamics aside, it was a cool toy concept and I loved them. Who didn’t want a motorcycle that turned into a helicopter? It sure beats robots that change into rocks. The masks were unfortunately easy to lose and were probably choking hazards. Besides the toys, there was an animated series and comics as well. 80’s shows really seemed to dig the secret organizations with acronym names.
#1 Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future
So yeah, best freaking toy and show tie-in ever. Captain Power featured a series of toys that were basically jet-shaped laser tag guns. These toys were able to interact (with varying degrees of success) with the show itself and create an interactive experience that could very easily be described as visionary. Of course, they were also able to shoot at other toys from the series so kids could duel one another. There were a couple different jets (roughly jet shaped laser guns, really) as well as a throne for Lord Dread that were able to fire beams at one another and cause the ejection of the loser’s action figure. There was also a full line of G.I. Joe sized action figures for those times when the batteries were dead and the parents were happy. The best part of the show was that it was live action and full of stories set in a dystopian future with adult themes that were atypical for the time. Sadly, because the show’s second season was never produced, the whole thing ends on such a down note that it made The Empire Strikes Back seem pretty cheery by comparison. At least Han wasn’t actually dead. The toy and show interaction wasn’t the greatest, but it was singularly ambitious. Of everything here, I’d most want to see this rebooted with modern technology and a good budget. (Better actors wouldn’t hurt either.)
Of course, that’s only a handful of the more obscure toys to come out of my experience growing up in the 1980s. It was a good time to be a kid and I had some of the coolest shit being marketed to me. The cartoons I watch these days aren’t really trying to sell me toys (though I damn sure will buy Archer and Venture Bros. merch like crazy) and I don’t know if modern kids have similarly awesome things to play with. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some video games, but there was just something satisfying about hanging out in my backyard with friends and having imagination time with action figures. If there’s anything you think I’ve overlooked that should be mentioned, we’d love to hear about it in the comments below.
Cover image “the pile” copyright 2007 by Bart Spainhour. Used under Creative Commons license.
