[QUOTE=mazinger_z]
Didn’t you guys have cool toys growing up? Let me guess, you guys had Intellivision, too. I place Micronauts (and Go-Bots for that matter) slightly above Lincoln Logs in terms of enjoyment and cool factor. The market agrees with me. My G1 1985 Optimus Prime (complete except for box – completely mangled and water logged) as well as my complete Jet Fire is going for a pretty penny on ebay. I don’t see that happening for either Go-Bots or Micronauts.
[/QUOTE]
You were the kid who insisted that the toys could only be played with in strict accordance with the information on the box, weren’t you? You couldn’t have Joes and Dreadnoks fighting on the same side, because that’s not how it was in the cartoon! I know your kind.
Oh yes, I had EXTREMELY cool toys growing up. Moreover, I didn’t need anybody else to tell me how cool they were. I MADE THEM COOL. Even that one little red GoBot became cool. Aaron from down the street, he had the whole damn line of GI Joes-- he even had the Aircraft Carrier! All the He-Man figures, too-- his parents were richer than all ass. And yet he still showed up to mess around with my lowly Micronauts and Sectaurs. He couldn’t handle the idea of mixing “good guys” with “bad guys” either, at first-- he couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that the Snake Eyes figure could ever represent anyone other than Snake Eyes. Couldn’t be a robot; couldn’t be one of the other characters in a different costume. But I broke him of that.
I had the Lincoln Logs. And you know what? They were COOL Lincoln Logs. You know why? Because it’s impossible for Lincoln Logs to NOT be cool when they’re the only thing between your Micronauts and the MIGHTY, GREAT-EMANCIPATOR’S-BIRTHPLACE-SHATTERING FISTS OF A GIANT RADIOACTIVE STEVE AUSTIN!
Had the Legos too-- COOL Legos. Today’s Legos, alas, are markedly less cool than those of old. They’re all custom molded for only one role, one fixed position on that particular Harry Potter diorama or whatever. You can’t truly claim to have played with Legos until you’ve built a submersible rocket car for your Black Hole action figures using only plain bricks and no wheels.
The all-time coolest toy set I can recall owning offhand was a completely generic Undersea Adventure diorama, probably manufactured in the wake of Jaws: it featured a boat with a shark cage, and three divers that would fall apart when you pulled their heads off, and a rubber shark, and a rubber giant octopus, and a couple of plastic rock formations, and a shipwreck with a treasure chest, and a little green rubber lobster and crab.
This set was intended to be assembled into a single large vignette, but it was so poorly manufactured that it could not even be put together in the way the directions specified-- the parts just wouldn’t line up properly. But it didn’t matter! I just laid out the separate parts any which way. So the boat couldn’t be properly affixed over the shipwreck? Who cares? Top of bed = ocean surface. Floor = seabed. Problem solved.
Those three nameless yellow-suited divers (and their pet lobster and crab) had the coolest adventures that could possibly be imagined. They duked it out with Micronauts; they awakened the long-lost Giant Steve Austin Colossus from his Lego tomb; they fought back invasions of tiny green homunculi from the mightily armed Guns of Navarone fortress. They even discovered the ancient civilization of Atlantis, ruled over by the stern yet wise King Squid Head, and populated by random Star Wars figures, NONE OF WHICH had the same name or identity as their character in the movies. Yes, you read that right: these Star Wars figures were played with in a context that had nothing to do with Star Wars. Does this not blow your mind?! I can tell that it does.
I would be genuinely astonished if an example of the Generic Crappily Manufactured Undersea Adventure Playset ever turned up on eBay. If it did, it would surely command a price far less than even the lowliest Transformer. That does not in the slightest alter the fact that it was The. Coolest. Toy. Set. EVER.
EVER.
I’m not even going to ask how you knew I had an Intellivision. But now I’ve got the goddamn theme to Burgertime stuck in my head for the first time in decades. I hope you’re happy.
