The Bots Came Back!

The sound of the breaking of the 76th seal of the Roboplastic Apocalypse is the echo of a 30 years ago stampede of beeping, blooping, zipping, zapping, tape deck transforming, twin drill spinning, suction cup sucking, dinosaur stomping, Lamborghini crashing robots parading through the pages of Penny Power! Yes never before or since has a magazine ignored all the hype and marketing to bring kids the brutal truth about how much bang you got for your toy robot buck in 1984. This Consumer Reports magazine for kids took on all Tronians in an article titled "The Robots are Coming" from their Oct/Nov '84 issue before anyone even knew what a Decepticon Communicator was! Penny Power pulled no punches in its objective look at nearly every major robot line fighting it out in the early days of the Toy Robots Wars of the 1980s. It's the Starriors vs Armatron, the GoBots vs the GoDaiKins, RoboTron vs Robo Force, and Transformers vs...Magic Mike? Who will win? Who will lose? Whose transforms will leave the kids confused? Find out all this and more in this ONE WATCH TO RULE THEM ALL edition of the Podcastalypse!

Or download it directly

Read along with your own copy of the article here!



I CAUGHT A F.I.S.H.B.O.T.!!!

Waaaay back in episode 18 of the Podcastalypse I did a review of a Penny Power article from '85 where they evaluated some cool toy robots like the Zoids Giant Zrk, Starriors' Deadeye, and the Robotroid Space Station. But during the review I mentioned how there was an earlier Penny Power magazine article I remembered with tons more robot reviews in it that I didn't have. Then a couple months ago I talked to myself some more about how I'd missed out on an auction for that very most legendary issue and felt terrible about it. I felt bad because when it comes to my love of toy robots, Penny Power's "The Robots are Coming" article in their Oct/Nov 1984 issue is ground zero. I was a kid when it came out and it made a huge robot raygun blast right through my brain. In this episode I talk about the circumstances under which I saw it first come and go through my life in 1984 when I was in first grade reading it at the school library, taking it for granted and eventually seeing it nevermore. I had pretty much given up hope of ever finding it again because even on eBay issues of Penny Power are few and far between. Then last week the big penny in the sky used his power to give me another shot when I thought all my luck was spent. I was grateful and I learned that in life you can't count on second chances, but you can count on eBay's saved search alerts to let you know when somebody is selling the crap you want.

DO IT WITH BUY-IT-NOW OR DON'T BOTHER DOING IT

So the other day I got an email alert from eBay that someone was selling a stack of Penny Power magazines. I was super excited but the auction description said they ranged from '81 to '94 and although there were something like 24 issues in there, the range was wide enough that there was no guarentee that my issue would be one of the ones in there. What made it tricky to guess was that the only picture in the auction was of a pile of magazines where only the cover of the one on top was clearly visible. But thanks to the tiny little picture of the cover I saved from the last time someone was selling one, I was able to zero in on a very tiny sliver of the cover to the magazine buried at the very bottom of the stack. It took a ton of photo manipulation but I swore I could make out the hood of Jazz, the deluxe Autobot car from 1984. I was still not 100% sure so I sent the seller an email message asking if it was indeed the Oct/Nov 1984 issue. Well waiting for him to get back to me was more than I could bear. What if someone heard me talking about how legendary and great this issue was and set up their own eBay alert so they could buy one if it popped up? I couldn't stand the suspense so I just went ahead and bought the lot before the seller got back to me, which he eventually did and confirmed it was the issue I was looking for. I was elated and amazed and I felt really really lucky at having beaten my phantom competition. Then I laughed because I realized in order for it all to have played out like it did in my mind, someone would actually have to be paying attention to my show since episode 18.

First up it's GoBots, GoDaikin, RoboTron, the Radio Shack Armatron, and Robo Force!

Next it's Starriors, Magic Mike, the Kronoform Time Machine and then almost every assortment of Transformers available at the time.

With all those Ram-Mans and Robotrons it's amazing
Playworld ever went out of business!

SHOW NOTES OF THE PODCASTALYPSE

• My 4th grade Library Club aka child labor slaves of the elementary school librarian
• Penny Power was the anti Dynamite!
• A brief toy chronology of my childhood
• F.I.S.H.B.O.T. a few episodes ago WAS THIS VERY MAGAZINE!
• Buying it with style (and $36.00)
• Kids of the 90s remember Penny Power in its renamed form as Zillions.
• Old episode I did about GoBots being dominant early leaders.
• My review of the 1985 Penny Power magazine article in episode 18 of the Podcastalypse
• You don’t go full dump truck in your first robots assortment!
• Playworld commercial with Robotrons behind the kid dressed like a reindeer.
• Wikipedia article mentioning Penny Power was harsh on Starriors.
• IS IRONHIDE WORTH THE EFFORT?
• My personal list of top three robot lines from this issue
• Don’t Rocket Punch Your Friends!

HEAVY METO UNIVERSE!

The nineteenth seal of the Roboplastic Apocalypse meets its repulsively delicious end at the hands of an alien lobster with his brain falling out of his mouth! Yes it's another fifty minute barrage of me talking to myself about aliens, Micronauts, Micronaut aliens, Interchangeables, Micronautical Interchangeables and Interchangeable Micronauticals and other nauts and bots with swappable parts and maybe even a Spaceknight or two gets mentioned. Are you a Slithery Skinned Invader from the Remote World of Visceros or are you just happy to see me? Find out in this WHERE DO MICRONAUTS GET RECOLORED WHEN THEY DIE edition of the Podcastalypse!


Or download it directly

HEY ANYONE GOT AN EXTRA $250,000? I REALLY LIKE THAT ALIEN ELEPHANT ROCKET TANK PAINTING

Service Merchandise 09/07/86	Best 12/19/85

NO GOOD ROBOID GOES UNRECOLORED

The great Bill Mantlo once wrote that "An idea has to evolve or it begins to repeat itself" and ironically this was proven true by the very toyline he helped popularize in the late 70s-the Micronauts. The Mego Micronauts line died after its parent company went bankrupt but that would not be the end of the toys. Various rehashings of the Micronauts molds have been popping up on the shelves ever since the 1980s and surprisingly there have been as many relaunches and redecos as there have been companies that owned the toys, but never any new additions to the line! Perhaps the most notorious of all were the strangely colored line of Micronaut figures and vehicles released under The Interchangeables banner in 1984. The Interchangeables lasted for two series with the second series consisting of the exact same toys as the first, just in different colors! Even stranger was how the packaging shows each series was released by a different company. What was going on here? Has there ever been another toy robot line that has bounced from company to company and been reissued and recolored as many times as the Micronauts have? I DO NAUT KNOW!

TRU 22 November 1984	TRU 05 December 1984

200 BUCKS FOR ONE STILL IN THE BOX? YOU CAN'T BE C.I.R.E.S.!

Service Merchandise 03 November 1985	Service Merchandise 06 December 1984

SHOW NOTES OF THE PODCASTALYPSE

TRU 12/11/85 crappy ad of the month

Zayre 11/03/85

• Absolutely no old toy robots gnus
• Rom artbook in the works from IDW
• Spacenite 2 tribute to Bill Mantlo
• Spacenite artworks
• Original Ken Kelley Micronaut package paintings up for sale on ebay
• Know your Micronaut aliens!
• Ken Kelley interview at Innerspace Online
• Michael Golden coming to Wizard World Miami
• Michael Golden interview at Comic Zone Radio (Ctr+F search for "Golden")
• Michael Golden interview at Innerspace
• The continuing saga of the Starrior Thing
• More than anyone would ever want to know about Starrior Runabout knockoffs
• Run about at play time with the Playtime Runabout
• The story of a family (that turned into laser guns) divided by war (between Tonka and Hasbro)
• The Skywarp bop bag ad that's hard to catch as Skywarp is
• Raksha's Transformer artifacts list
• Break-The Interchangeables!
• Takara toy robots history will be your grandkids' bedtime stories
• Early attempts at resurrecting the Micronauts
• PAC Toys' Lords of Light
• Interview with Joe Ruzzi, founder of PAC Toys
• End the light, start the bright (recolors)
• The mystery of the companies behind The Interchangeables
• Metallion is the greatest robot horse name ever
• Interchangeables auctions on eBay

TRIBUTE TO TRON! (also -bot, -roid and other great 80's toy robot name suffixes)

The eighteenth seal of the Roboplastic Apocalypse disintegrates in a blinding flash like a high speed virtual rocket sled being driven by Santa Claus into a giant glowing wall of 1982 special effects in this TRIBUTE TO TRON (but not that one). Listen in horrific excitement as the Nostrodomatron extols the virtues of the greatest technological suffix of all time! Yes it's twenty minutes of talking about -TRON, the special combination of four little letters that made it possible for prefixes like mega-, robo-, power-, charger- and Nostrodoma- to have careers during the Toy Robots Wars of the 1980s. Plus a José Delbo update, new developments in the StarriorThing contoversy and I review some toy robot appearances in magazines from 1984 and '85. All this and more in a very special non-denominational TRONSFORM and ROLL OUT edition of the podcastalypse!


Or download it directly

THE FIRST RULE OF TRON NAME IS YOU DO NOT USE TRON IN YOUR NAME

There's a scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden says sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken. I'm reminded of that a lot when I come across ad after ad of 80s robot toylines with names that end in -tron. Tron is like pepper-it should only be sparsely used to add flavor to your 1980s toy robot pizza. The Transformers and GoBots only had a handful of -tron names for they knew the power of the tron suffix. To give an entire product line the -tron suffix is to abuse the power of -tron. Without a Tyler Durden in 1984, these third rate robots marketers did not understand that sticking -tron on the butt of your robot name does not make you Bob Budiansky. I like my version better than Tyler Durden's because I never could figure out why anyone would want to be a chicken.

Family Mart 11/5/84	Fishers 12/05/84	TG&Y 11/10/85

ToysRUs 12/15/1985	Toys&Gifts Outlet 12/15/85

IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED, TRON, TRON AGAIN

American toy company Buddy L didn't have the greatest track record when it came to naming toy robots lines (or making them, either). They're the company behind the most obvious and cliched robot fad cash-in name ever-"Robo Tron". Just when I thought I'd never hear a worse name I found this one ad for a Buddy-L robot line named Robotor. Holy crap is that awful. The ad appeared in late '84 around the time the first Robo Tron ads started popping up. What's really great is the Robotor robots look exactly like the designs used for the Robo Trons. It's possible that instead of actually making better robots, Buddly-L figured the key to success was changing their product name from Robotor to Robo Tron. Although Robo Tron is pretty lame I must admit it was a good move because Robotor makes RoGun sound like divine inspired marketing advice from whoever came up with "Optimus Prime". Still I am thankful for this ad and the 1984 Buddy L marketing team because without them the world would never know how close it came to a toyline named "Robotard".

Lucky 12/13/84	Consumers 11/10/85

Time 10/01/84

Penny Power Apr/May '85

SHOW NOTES OF THE PODCASTALYPSE

• Non-specific multi-denominational 80s toy robot christmas commercial
• Opening poem-"The Roboplastic Podcastalypse" (Non-denominational X-Mas version)
• Without -tron there would be no -tronians
• I get all my word origins from Bob Budiansky interviews
• Zeroids issue 2 came out
• The StarriorThing mystery deepens
• José Delbo's upcoming con appearances and his binder of old Transformer paperwork
• Mark Texiera will be at Wizard World Miami
• Another internet presence I will never maintain-The RoboFacial Bookocalypse
• Kilby has summoned me here for a purpose
• Zeroids break
• Ripping out pages from magazines at the dentist office in 1984
• Hot Toys with a Special Twist from TIME Ocotber 1, 1984
• Penny Power's legendary toy robots article from late '84
• Penny Power's not so legendary toy robots article from early '85
• I review Penny Power's reviews of Verbot, Varton, Starriors Deadeye, the Zoids Giant Zrk and other great unpopular toy robots that weren't -Trons
• Fulfilling your sub teen prehistoric robot tyrannosaurs fantasies
• If you can't say something good about robots, then write for Penny Power
• The only rant about Robotroid instruction sheets in the history of the universe
• Mysterious C.I.T.S. of Old

THE HOLIDAY CRUSH!

The seventeenth seal of the Roboplastic Apocalypse snaps like so many people's limbs on the day after Thanksgiving as they get trampled by rabid mobs of toy robots seeking shoppers! Thrill to the adventures of the Nostrodomatron as I travel back in time to black Friday 198X in my insatiable quest to expose shopping season mysteries like why advertising Transformers in December of '84 was a recipe for broken bones and whether or not GoBots controlled the media. Plus a trip to a local comic book store to look at old toy robots (but not buy them) and discussion of the two greatest toy robots newspaper ads ever. It's DARK OF THE SATURDAY in the Kingdom Roboplastico and you're invited! (All you have to do is wake up early 26 years ago.)


Or download it directly

Circus World 28 November-The best ad of '84...	...because of the back page!

SHOW NOTES OF THE PODCASTALYPSE

Toys R Us 06 November 1985-The best ad ever!

• Opening poem-"The Roboplastic Podcastalypse" (Fort Lauderdaliens version)
• Toy Planet is the coolest store IN THE UNIVEEEEEERSE
• Some guys go to Tate's
• Somewhere a Snarf fan wonders why nobody's buying Grendizers
• The seven pound Luchadoratron
• Some guys talk about Shogun Warriors
• Mr. Big's Toyland
• Salute to Katherine Van Hart
• No toystores for old robots
• OH GOD IT WAS A PLAYWORLD ROBOTRONS COMMERCIAL (pause it at 1:47 and look under the He-Mans)
• Plus the greatest toy robots newspaper ads runners up ever...
• Honorable mention #1-Robinsons 30 November 1984
• Honorable mention #2-Zayre 14 October 1984

RETURN OF THE GOBACKATRONS

The 12th seal of the Roboplastic Apocalypse severs and snaps like several zombie necks under the steady rumble of 40 year old robot tank treads in this "catching up with the Tronians" edition of the Roboplastic Podcastalypse! Listen in horror as the Nostrodomatron talks for over an hour about Yo Gabba Gabba (a new children's show about robots and monsters), Transformers G1 (an old children's cartoon about robots and monsters) and Zeroids (a new old comic definitely not for children, but still about robots and monsters). Plus old newspaper articles take me back to early 1984 when there was no Transformers bandwagon, everyone was jumping on the GoBots bandwagon, some people were jumping on the Robo Force bandwagon, and nobody even knew there was a Starriors bandwagon. Do you remember the Roboplastic Apocalypse? YES I DO AND IT WAS REALLY FUN.


Or download it directly

Radio Shack 12/01/85	Venture 12/03/84

I haven't figured out what these pictures mean yet but by showing you them I am hoping you will think I am some kind of an authority.

SHOW NOTES OF THE PODCASTALYPSE

• Opening Poem-"We All Just Wanna be the Heroes of Our Own Flint Dille Novels"
• The Radio Free Delbocalypse
• Next year's robotastic Supercon guest lineup
• Destroy All Podcastalypses Part 2!
• I can talk about toy robots but my area of expertise is actually grocery store ads from 1985
• The Shackalactic Starrior mystery
• Radioshackcatalogs.com
• Another Ad That Should Not Be-Jetfire prototype from 1984
• Gay for Zeroids (or gay because of them)
• MHC preview of original Star Team comic
• Transformers and Zeroids-Comics about reanimated soulless monsters and the zombies who fight them
• 2010 is the August of 1986 I always wanted
• Sins I have committed in the name of Robotroids
• Chinese hackers + American newspaper websites = infinite knowledge of GoBots
• Gaining infinite knowledge of GoBots is a dumb reason to go to jail
• The $21,000 password hack
• A New Hope for toy robot newspaper journalism in 1978
• TOY ROBOTS : TAKE US TO YOUR KIDS and other old newspaper articles I read when I should have been studying for midterms
• Repeatedly saying "Machine Robo" when I meant "Machine Men" around the 42:43 mark
• Moday Morning Mecha Pilot: analyzing GoBots television marketing
• RoboForce at ToyFair 1984-Now there's $400,000 I'll never get back
• Hating 500 hour long podcasts and how to make one
• Don't play with your TechspecTesticles (unless it's really fun)

I'm Not O.K., I'm ELEGANTLY WASTOR'D

This guy named Gerard who sings and writes songs in a band I like just happens to be a big comic book fan. Back in January he did a guest stint on an internet comic book review show and he recommended an obscure 1994 comic called "The Biologic Show". I was getting ready to order some Starriors comics because I had to do background research before I added a couple dozen new* ads to the Starriors section of the Vintage Space Toaster Palace, so I figured okay, Gerard, I'll order an issue of "The Biologic Show" but it better be goood. (And then I thought, FUKC YEAH! I'm having imaginary conversations with rock stars who are giving me comic book recommendations and I'm not even smashed or anything!)

DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME ALWAYS SEARCHING FOR THOSE WASTOR'D YEARS

Children's Palace 10/28/84

Starriors and "The Biologic Show" were two comics I missed out on when they debuted because I was so consumed with my primary obsessions (The Transformers in the 80s and and Iron Maiden in the 90s) that I simply did not have any time, money or energy to spend on anything else. And as I cracked open each Starriors comic I was dreading not that they'd be terrible but that they'd be totally fantastic and my blind devotion to more commercially successful toy robots and European metal bands cost me the enjoyment of being in on these more obscure recreations when they first came out. I'm a total sheep for mainstream entertainment but I'm a wishy-washy one, so much so that at any given moment I am always wondering if I've missed out on something that would connect with me deeper than the adventures of Hasbro's 25 year old toy robot Volkswagens and their transforming dinosaur cohorts. Although I never paid any attention to them, Starriors had toys and commercials and comic books in 1984. What if Starriors was really great and because of millions of 10 year old Transfridiots like me it died through lack of support? Before I read the comics I wondered if I would regret that I hadn't Wastor-ed my childhood.

I CAN HANDLE ROBOTS IN LOVE BUT BLIND ROBOT POET TYRANNOSAURUSES IS PUSHING IT A LITTLE

Wal-Mart 11/27/84

I read one issue of Starriors each night just before I went to bed and just after working on the ads for the site so I was really Starrior'd this week. The comics had a lot of the basic elements I demand of great entertainment-a bleak post apocalyptic setting, conflicted machines going against their programming in a race to revive or destroy mankind, and giant talking robot Tyrannosauruses. In an interesting character quirk, the Starriors Tyrannosaurus was blind and he depended on his robot pterodactyl friend to tell him where to go. (Why is it that robot Tyrannosauruses in the 80s always had speech impediments or other handicaps?) This is actually an ingenious incorporation/characterization of the toy's relationship with its radio control remote. Deadeye the blind Tyrannosaurus robot was also quite eloquent and had a great vocabulary, and oftentimes was described as a poet. But Tomy misjudged the market here because what kids really wanted in the 80s was RETARDED robot tyrannosauruses. The newspaper ads for Deadeye are my favorite in the Starriors line and I can't believe a radio controlled, plastic disc shooting robot Tyrannosaurus retailed for only 20 bucks. I think Deadeye is the best figure in the whole Starriors line but unfortunately he goes down like a total bitch in the opening animation of his commercial. There's this other Starrior half his size that just pushes Deadeye right off the screen. Physically assaulting a blind robot cartoon Tyrannosaurus is very rude but I guess that's how they roll in Starrior World. After seeing that commercial I got the feeling that other Starriors probably don't respect handicapped Tyrannosaurus parking spaces.

Toys R Us 11/22/84	Lionel Playworld 12/06/84

"-OR" IS THE NEW "-TICON"

Shillito-Rikes 11/11/84

Deadeye's commercial highlights a lot of things I felt were confusing about the way the Starriors line was marketed. The biggest problem I have understanding any of Starrior world is that names of the individual robots are rarely ever used in the newspaper ads or TV commercials. Instead they call them by a different sort of designation each robot has depending on their size (I think). Starriors can be Wastors, Strazors, Vultors, Stalkors, Cosmittors or a lot of other things that end in "or". Then on top of that you have the good guy and bad guy designations, "Protectors" and "Destructors". So while Wastors and Strazors could be Protectors or Destructors there couldn't be a Wastor Protector that was also a Strazor, but Strazors could be Protectors. I think. Some newspaper ads would just forgo the Starrio-logical technobabble and just call them robots. Maybe I'm too old for all of this and when I was younger I could sort it all out, but right now Starrior designations seem like quantum mechanical string theory. But ask me to explain the relationship between a Megatron, Constructicon and Decepticon and I'm all over that.

Lionel Playworld 12/01/85	Revco 12/18/86

IN THE POST APOCALYPSE TWO OUT OF THREE IS ACTUALLY BETTER

After reading the whole four issue Starriors comic miniseries I slept soundly at night, knowing that if I couldn't understand these toys at 34 I probably wouldn't have as a ten year old, mostly because I am dumb. A lot of other kids probably figured that out, too because by 1985 the Starriors were hitting the clearance shelves. '85 saw Tomy abandon the Starrior concept in favor of the more traditionally Zoidy approach with their RoboStrux line of model dinosaurs (that could presumably see but not write poems). I think Starriors proved that sometimes complicated mythical backstories and angsty conflicted personalities could hurt the marketing of a toy robots line more than help them. Although Starriors didn't click with me, Tomy has done a lot of other robot stuff I liked. I kept that in mind when I ended up not liking The Biologic Show that Gerard recommended. After thinking about Starriors I figured that The Biologic Show's author might be the Tomy of alternative comics so I dug around a little and sure enough I found a different story by him that I absolutely loved and consider greatly entertaining. It is a bleak story in an apocalyptic setting about the destruction of mankind. It doesn't have giant talking robot Tyrannosauruses, but I think after all of this I'll just let that go.

*25 years old