General Toy Nostalgia

canprime said:
Perusing the aisles the other day at Walmart I had a thought that wouldn't it be cool if Mattel could do some Jayce & The Wheeled Warriors Hot Wheels? I don't really need them in original scale, but a couple of the key vehicles/characters in Hot Wheels scale would be perfect for me.
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Yeah! I'd love Hot Wheels representation. That's a baller idea.
 
Supernaturals? Hell yeah. I had a few of the ghosts and Burnheart -- who basically managed to fight every other 5"-ish action figure I owned at some point or another. Even after I lost his chest cover.

GUTS? Also hell yeah. I had TONS of these guys. It was everything I liked about green army men, but better. I think there's still some of these guys buried in the back yard of my childhood home. As a surprise to exactly no one, my favorites were the black ninja-looking ones. It was a weirdly diverse line.

MEGAFORCE? You bet your ass. LOVED those things. I could spend a whole day with jets, helos, and tanks chasing each other around.

Z-Bots? Oooh yeah. I had loads and loads of these as well, including a bunch of the ones you could only get from fast food. I think it was McDonalds, but I could be wrong about that. I still remember the dude with the horns and a sword, that kind of looked like a Megazord. I loved that guy. And cannon-hand guy that came with the little tank. Great line. So creative. We don't get enough shit like this anymore.

Army Ants? Yup. Absolutely had several sets of these in blue and red. One of them had a sword, which is basically all you need to sell me on a toyline. Definitely lost most of these in the back yard.

Bone Age? Okay, I actually only had like two of these. But they were cool as fuck. I remember finding a tiny sword and giving it to one of the cavemen guys so I basically had a tiny He-Man for my undead dinosaurs to fight.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves? Yes sir. Loved the movie as a kid and immediately bought the toys because they were cool and had swords. Robin and the Sheriff had so many sword-fights across my house. I didn't own many of these, though. For whatever reason I remember them not being easy to find, and I was buying so many different toylines at the time; this line just didn't rank high enough for a 'collect them all' attitude. But I loved what I had.

Rock Lords? I had two...? Yeah, two. I did not like them.

Stone Protectors? YUP! Swords!

Food Fighters was a weird one for me because I remember having maybe four or five of them, but I don't have any distinct memories of playing with them. It was more like 'this is hilarious and neat!' so I asked for them and then didn't know what the hell to do with them because I wasn't really the kind of kid that did 'silly' play. If that makes sense.

Captain Power is something I -STILL- want modern toys for. I was really hoping when Fresh Monkey was doing all the 4" stuff that they'd do it, because I want his ship. I loved my Captain Power figure as a kid, and his ship, which I also had, was always one of my favorite spaceship designs.

I had two Spiral Zone figures and a vehicle. I remember thinking they were super weird because of all the fabric elements and stuff, so I never enjoyed using them -with- anything else. Which meant it was one good guy and one bad guy chasing each other around until I started losing parts and, consequently, interest.

When I'm home from work I gotta sit down and think about all the other weird little smaller lines I collected as a kid, because there was a LOT.
 
Damien said:
Captain Power is something I -STILL- want modern toys for. I was really hoping when Fresh Monkey was doing all the 4" stuff that they'd do it, because I want his ship. I loved my Captain Power figure as a kid, and his ship, which I also had, was always one of my favorite spaceship designs.
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Capt. Power is due for a nostalgia reboot. That show was wild for a kids program.
 
I went back on my bullshit after posting about Starcom yesterday to see which figures I actually have on my desk and how much it'd cost to get them a space ship to sit in and for real, for real, for REAL, between Starcom and GI Joe and Magnum did THAT MANY PEOPLE really have mustaches in the 80s? Like I know they were more common but like half these little helmeted astronaut dudes have soup catchers.

Also is Dash Derringer the most 80s name ever created? I feel like it's a contender.
 
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Spongyblue said:
I guess there was an attempt back in 2016, didn't succeed.
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Yeah. I still think it'd be worth trying. Heck, I rewatched the first ep again recently and it felt more or less on par for adult scifi dramas of the time. It was a little more toyetic than Star Trek, sure, but for a half hour action show, not shabby at all. Like, a kids show where a secondary character tries to kill the protagonist in the first ep because she's been locked inside a machine torture prison so long that she begs him to kill her is pretty metal.
 
JakeEkiss said:
Yeah. I still think it'd be worth trying. Heck, I rewatched the first ep again recently and it felt more or less on par for adult scifi dramas of the time. It was a little more toyetic than Star Trek, sure, but for a half hour action show, not shabby at all. Like, a kids show where a secondary character tries to kill the protagonist in the first ep because she's been locked inside a machine torture prison so long that she begs him to kill her is pretty metal.
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My recollection is that one of the major criticisms of the show in general was that it was too adult for the audience it was going for. I think that ignores tons of other factors, but take it as you will.
 
Damien said:
My recollection is that one of the major criticisms of the show in general was that it was too adult for the audience it was going for. I think that ignores tons of other factors, but take it as you will.
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Oh, I'm sure. But also kind of why I think it would be served well by a reboot. Most of the folks who remember it are our age anyway. Make it more of an all ages show now. Certainly it feels topical to do a show about being a resistance against a tyrannical AI driven fascist regime in the ashes of a formerly better society.
 
JakeEkiss said:
Oh, I'm sure. But also kind of why I think it would be served well by a reboot. Most of the folks who remember it are our age anyway. Make it more of an all ages show now. Certainly it feels topical to do a show about being a resistance against a tyrannical AI driven fascist regime in the ashes of a formerly better society.
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In fact.. Captain Power would make a stellar anime-style reboot. Like the Cyberpunk cartoon on Netflix.
 
Damien said:
In fact.. Captain Power would make a stellar anime-style reboot. Like the Cyberpunk cartoon on Netflix.
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You guys ready for some awesome shit?

How about fuckin' ARMY GEAR. I had a brief but passionate love affair with this line. I was, for a good chunk of my youth, kind of obsessed with army men and vehicles AND opening playset shit. This was all the way up my alley with no lube at all.

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Also... Lanard made a surprising amount of cool toys in the '90s. I think we all remember how amazing CORPS was for filling out the Joe/Cobra ranks with cheaper, but still awesome, figures. But did you guys know there was a 6" line of Power Rangers knock-offs? I had like... four of these and I loved them.

I give you.. lol... ATOMIC RANGER WARRIORS!

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I don't think it's digging too deep to get you to remember AIR RAIDERS with my very favorite vehicle, and another just generally beloved-by-me spaceship design. I fucking loved these guys. I only had two vehicles, but I also had all the minifigure packs. How this line hasn't had a comeback is beyond me.

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