Glad this is a thread! I have quite a few tin robots. Some vintage, some not, a lot of the schylling re-makes. Also own a lot of tin in general. My favorite being tin ray-guns and weird japanese tin games. Any one ever own one of the gang of 5? The Morphy tin stuff really killed me as I just didn't have the funds to go for any of it at the time. It all started for me as kid when I got this sucker. I've own several versions as an adult.
I wish! Where's Fraser? He hobnobs with the Alpha Dromers...I presume some of them have one or two at least... Man, tin is so sexy...but the number of zeroes involved in their prices keeps me moving right along!
not really sure what this, other than than its a headless robot. it looks like a prototype that may have been idea for a toy that was never made.
finally got the one that was like the robot i was drooling over at the morphy auction. Big thanks to my friend Corey for fixing it.
Yeah I love the Robocon I was just checking him out in Super #1 Robot (I found the book at a bargain bookstore for a dollar.) Why didn't the U.S. ever get into the robot toy scene, all we really had were robot hands from TRU, and the verbot talking robot, Japanese kids got Godakin I'm mean when your robots name has the word God in the title you know it's going to kick ass . Oh the injustice of it all.
What? Super #1 Robot was written because we got Japanese robot toys. A metric fuckton of them, in fact. Japanese kids didn't "get" Godaikin; that was Bandai America's made-up word for the Popy DX chogokin released in the US. Then, of course, there was Mattel's repackaging of the Popy ST chogokin and Jumbo Machinders in the legendary Shogun Warriors line...some of the most prolific and iconic American toys of the early 80's, next to Star Wars toys (in the pre-He-Man era). And besides these repackaged Popy toys, we obviously also got Takara Microman and Diaclone in the form of the Micronauts, Kronoform, and Diakron lines...not to mention a little known property called Transformers. But even before, we got Revell-repackaged Dougram and Macross model kits from Takara and Bandai rebranded as "Robotech" (before the show). And speaking of Robotech, we got Gakken's mighty Legioss and other Mospeada rebranded toys because of the popularity of the show. On top of these officially distributed toys, we got plenty of imports in various mom-n-pop stores on both coasts that sold TONS of Clover, Grip, Bullmark, Imai, Takemi, Ark, Nakajima, and Takatoku (especially the 1/55 scale Macross Valkyrie...again, made recognizable by Robotech and Transformers' "Jetfire"), and numerous other robot toy manufacturers' wares here in the US. Totally untranslated. Totally inscrutable. Totally awesome. You wanna talk cartoons? Grandizer, Starvengers, Gaiking, Danguard Ace, Spaceketeers, Tranzor Z, Saber Rider, Robotech, Voltron, Macron 1, and probably a whole shitload more I'm forgetting that aired on the west coast. But, hey...who needs to know what they're talking about?
oh shit, Sanjeev dropping heavy knowledge over here. Slipstar, its worth reading the intro to the book...it goes into a lot of what was just said.
Jim, does he have any sound gimmicks? I think if he shouted at you in Robocon's little kid voice, I'd squeal like a lil girl!
Errrr, you are right about the tons of stuff coming to the U.S. But it was always in the margins. I got into this stuff mainly because I’d find tons of them for cheap at discount stores or on sale at main stores. Very few of my childhood friends were into them. They were more into Mego “World’s Greatest Super Heros”, G.I. Joes and such. And because they toys were shoved in the margins we got a lot of stuff out of context. I took me years to realize the Microman/Transformers connection, but I have a very clear memory of looking at a Taiwan knock-off “Jaguar” Transformer at some sidewalk vendor in Brooklyn back in the day and not connecting one to the other despite seeing the Microman references on the box. So yeah, the U.S. got stuff. But the marketing was disjointed. And much of it was fueled by the Yen being insanely weak compared to the U.S. dollar back then. It was between 270 to 300 Yen to the dollar back then; no wonder so many things were imported to the U.S. back then! So I’d cut some folks some slack.
Sure, but no one said Japanese toys somehow outsold domestic toys back then! In fact, a BIG part of the enduring popularity of these toys in the States is the mystique that surrounded them back then. Today, *every* damn thing is available at your fingertips via the internets...but back then, all you had was this crazy-looking gem of a toy with Japanese writing all over it. The connections among the toylines just added spice to the mix! For example, this bootleg Diaclone Tyrannosaurus had me baffled as a kid. Where did it come from? Why was it similar to Grimlock...but NOT a Transformer? But that mystery was part of the allure back then... With no overbearing context provided by a cartoon or comic--or even English name!--your imagination was free to come up with your own narratives and play patterns. Those were the days!
Ha! I really wanted to pick up that Robot from Doctor Who when it came out! But man...that dino-robot...best thrift store find ever???
Yep, pretty much exactly how it was for us guys in Pittsburgh, even less really. My old band would tour the east coast & out west once. My main goal was to track down the weird indie toy shops and hope for a stash of Japanese stuff.
Heh...yup! Alas, eBay has mostly killed the antique shop finds...but some are still out there! Jeff, what Japanese cartoons were broadcast in Pittsburgh in the 80's? I'm always curious to hear about what kids were exposed to in different parts of the country. On TBDX, there's a bunch of us heads from the Massachusetts area, as well as tons of folks from the west coast...and it's always fun to compare what shows we grew up with!
Ha! I really wanted to pick up that Robot from Doctor Who when it came out! But man...that dino-robot...best thrift store find ever??? Sanjeev, that Doctor Who robot came out in 1979. How old were you then?
Ahhh.... you know I don't recall too much from when I lived in Pittsburgh being on TV (moved there at 17 to go to college). From my youth in nearby Ohio we had Starblazers and Speed Racer. That was about it. Luckily there was an indie station that showed Ultraman everyday after school, Godzilla movies on weekends, along with a fuzzy Pittsburgh station that showed Gamera movies. I used to get my stuff from a couple places- I worked at an indie comic/record store that would get stuff in from LA/west coast. There was another comic shop that sold a lot of the Japanese model kits, and of course the chain toy stores sold Dougram, Robotech, Voltron ( by Matchbox!!) and Godaiken toys. Down in the Strip District we could find all the bootleg stuff, or repackaged stuff trying to cash in on the robot craze. It was always fun, we'd buy whatever we could get our hands on.
Whoops! Well, I was 1...LOL...but I grew up on Who, which was repeated on PBS in Boston throughout the 80's. Anyway, I totally mistook your Denys Fisher for the recent-ish Character Options one! Ah, Ohio--got it, Jeff. Cool...sounds like you definitely got a good amount of Japanese weirdness in your youth diet! For me and my buddies, we "outgrew" cartoons, toys, and whatnot as we got older, but the we got into comics. And via local comic conventions, we "rediscovered" Japanese cartoons and toys. And like you, we bought up whatever robot toys we could find!
