Swords and Spaceships

Family Unsure What To Do With Dead Hipster's Possessions Yeah, I could totally see my mom looking at all my Star Wars toys here in my apartment and saying "how can you even buy 43 Luke Skywalker action figures?"

Artist Pays Tribute to His Action-Figure Collection Robert Burden Toy Box

Snake Eyes from the upcoming GI Joe live-action movie. I have to say, I'm impressed. But my expectations are pretty low, really. If most of the characters adhere to what they looked line in the ARAH incarnation, I think most people will enjoy this movie and you won't have that nonsense you had when the movie Transformers first showed up.

I soaked in Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton this week. It was phenomenal, but I wrote about that over at the GBEW. I did pick up some souvenirs from this place, however. Instead of tacky combadges with my name on them, I decided to buy a set of these "retro cloth" figures. I got the Kirk/Klingon set, and I think they're awesome. Mego figures were before my time. Here's a brief history: Mego dominated the toy market in the 1970s, making 7.5", 8", and 12" toys of most (if not all) toyetic properties. Marvel and DC superheroes, Planet of the Apes, and Star Trek are a few. Then along came Star Wars. Mego passed on the license, and it would prove to be their downfall. The SW license went to Kenner, and with their toys, they had enormous success. Mego tried to regain ground with 3.75" toys of their own, for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the Marvel superheroes, and even unreleased toys for The Greatest American Hero before folding. They...

Sy Snootles and the Rebo Band. Weird muppets from the (possibly) chemically-altered minds at Lucasfilm. These are their action figures from 1984, and I can tell you're already lusting after them. This will be the last update for about a week. Had a pretty good 36-day streak there, so I'm quite proud of that. I'll see how I feel about this feature after I get back from Las Vegas.

Omega Supreme, and a little tag for Transformers: The Movie. It's a good one.

A friend of mine was kind enough to pick this up for me. For those of you non-nerds that come here, it's the newest version of Cobra Commander from the GI Joe 25th Anniversary line, currently flying out of fine and not-so-fine retail establishments nationwide. (Seriously, I dare you to find one now.) I remember poring over those cardbacks back in the day, and seeing this little picture of Cobra Commander on the back of the 1987 and '88 cards. (Also explains why my eyes are so bad.) This was a surprise to me, since I was pretty sure the Commander turned into a weird snake thing at the end of the GI Joe movie the previous year. (I didn't read the Larry Hama-scripted comic, so I went with the cartoon. I was six. Bite me.) But here he was, in this new battle armor! Awesome! Never did find this guy. I was content with my hooded Cobra Commander that I mailed in for. Sure, I eventually got one a few years ago, but it's not the same, especially since I bought it on ebay. So whe...

Criminy, I can't get enough of these GI Joe commercials. This is for what was probably my most lusted-after of all vehicles, the Moray Hydrofoil. A friend of mine had it, and I always thought it was the coolest thing in the world. He rarely touched it, because he was afraid of breaking it. All I had for boats from the Joe line were the Devil Fish and its Tiger Force repaint, the (wait for it) Tiger Fish. So, yeah, boat envy was present even among seven year olds. Hasbro rereleased the Hydrofoil in 2005 for the Valor vs Venom line, and made it a Joe vehicle instead of a Cobra one. I happily forked over the $40 for that, and displayed it proudly on my desk, full of all my SEAL Joes. Then I moved last summer, and now it's covered in dust in a box somewhere. Irony, no? It's a shame these 25th Anniversary guys have an extra quarter inch on the rest of my Joes. Otherwise, they'd look good on the old vehicles.

I couldn't find any toy commercials for this line, so we'll go with the cartoon's opening. I always lusted after these toys. They were very expensive back then, with them being (I think) 6" tall across the board. I thought about picking some up on ebay, but with modern toys sucking up my fun budget, they're just part of my memory at the Toys R Us in Cedar Rapids in 1988.

With this holographic technology, the Visionaries will surely rule the toy aisles for decades to come. Yeah, these guys were gimmicky and deserved their short life on retail shelves. But, it does show the lengths to which toymakers were willing to go to find the next big thing. Hasbro made these, but they could and would never match the greatness of their own GI Joe line.

Yes, another GI Joe one. But they had the best advertising. This is for the Cobra Night Raven, the biggest vehicle I had as a kid and an all-around badass toy. I lost most of the pieces, including the uber-badass Strato-Viper that was included with it, but I do have the biggest pieces. I should piece it back together someday.

Couldn't find anything today. So I'll put up a vid of an Inside Edition segment from 1988 focusing on Nintendo addiction. Check out the end of the vid for a pre-dickhead Bill O'Reilly.

He's Batman. Seriously though, these toys are hard as hell to find now. I was checking them out when Batman Begins was in theaters, and they're expensive as hell when and if you can find them. Of course, there have been thousands of Batman toys made since then, so it's no big deal.

A plug for the three toys from the Masters of the Universe movie in 1987. These guys were out during the waning days of the line, so I never did see them. I'd like to own them, but these guys all seem to be awfully expensive. If I had to choose one, it'd be Gwildor. He's unintentionally awesome.

If this didn't sell you on a Super Nintendo, then you were either home-schooled or had a Genesis. (Depending on who you ask, there isn't a difference...)

Clicky. All we can do is wait, now. After the massive success Hasbro has been enjoying with the retro-influenced Transformers Classics and GI Joe 25th Anniversary lines, I have little doubt that Mattel wants a piece of the nostalgia pie. Hopefully, they wise up like the big H did and instead of trying to bring in a new generation, Mattel just goes with the old look with modern design sensibilities. Hell, it's working like gangbusters for the GI Joe line.

Man, this one takes me back. This came to mind because things are slow at work, so my ancient Game Boy Pocket has been following me everywhere I go, with Tetris in back.

Yup. The GI Joe WHALE and Cobra Rattler- two classic vehicles deserving all the priase lauded on them by those who own them. I chose this commercial because I was at Wal-Mart tonight after Matt alerted me to an endcap of GI Joe 25th Anniversary toys. I was there, ogling the greatness that I haven't seen since the 1980s and will likely never see again in my lifetime. While I was picking through the dozens of figures there, a young boy of about six years and his mother walked by, and on the other side of the aisle was a display of Hannah Montana posters. The boy says to his mother "Look mom, Hannah!" Some space to let that sink in. Yeah. I knew it'd hit you too. Shit, when I was six, I'd have gone batshit insane to have seen an endcap full of Joes that included Storm Shadow, Duke, Destro, and Roadblock. What's wrong with kids these days? How is it OK for boys to be interested in Hannah Montana? (Why do people my age even know who she is?) Is it not PC for boys t...

but don't if you're avoiding spoilers. Two-Face from The Dark Knight revealed! At least, and image of the toy. But you get the general idea. As big of a fan as I am of Face's appearances in the 90s animated series and Batman Forever, I have to admit the split suit was kind of a dumb idea, as was a clean divide on his face. This looks to remedy that, plus he's played by Aaron Eckhart. That's like 100% win. This image has been disappearing from the webs at an alarming pace, so get there whilst you can. I'd worry about the traffic from this site alerting the Mattel authorities, but then I remember only like five people come here anyway.

There is a disturbing lack of Transformers commercials in this feature, so I'll attempt to rectify that error with this little piece on Sixshot, another one of those G1 guys that was way cooler when you were a kid. Sixshot was reissued earlier this decade when Takara first started their reissues. It's one of the most expensive reissues still, second only to Predaking and New Years Convoy depending on when you look on ebay. With the randomness that TakaraTomy has shown with the Encore line of reissues, I bet a shiny Washington that it's only a matter of time until we see Sixshot again.