Toy Bender

Today, I present to you a commercial for the little known 1980s toy property known as Centurions by Kenner. I recently became reacquainted with the Centurions when I found their cartoon airing on the Boomerang network:

I had Ace McCloud and my cousins had a couple of the other guys. The Centurions were each themed by a particular environment. You had your sea guy, your air guy, and your land guy. You know, all the dudes needed to get the job done. The Centurions were cool mainly because they were modular, meaning you could switch their weapons and armor bits around via the plugs on their suits or you could even swap weapons and armor with the other characters. You could even buy weapons packs that were sort of like their vehicles for the line. It was kind of like having different Barbie outfits to put on Barbie dolls, but for dudes.

The bad guys were pretty boss on their own, because they were evil cyborgs. Both of the ones my cousins had could be basically split in half, one half was their human side and the other was their robot. It was gross and cool at the same time, so it kind of fit into our whole boyhood worldview at that time.

Sadly, the Centurions never caught on. I’d imagine that their size alone didn’t help. In a world where 3 3/4″ scale figures were king, the Centurions were 12″ giants. It certainly made it hard to integrate them into my play world with Captain Power, Star Wars, and my G.I. Joes. Speaking of Joes, it would be neat to see a Centurion inspired Joe like they did with MASK, but that will probably never happen. Still, with all the tech that the Centurions had, it certainly fit in the world of the Joeverse. What do you say, Hasbro?

By the way, if anyone reading this has some Centurions stuff they’d like to get rid of, let me know. I’d like to fix up my old Ace McCloud as well as get my hands on some of the other cool weapons and figures.

If you want to check out an episode of the Centurions series, I posted an entire one on Robot’s Pajamas.

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It’s Friday and I’m super lazy! In order to do the least amount of work possible, I figured we could watch some YouTube videos or something and call it a post. How’s about it?

Since everyone has got MASK on the mind, I figure we should check out the cartoon’s opening:

Everything about that show was awesome, except for that stupid scooter robot. Did anyone like that guy?

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One toy line I hadn’t really thought about in a long time is the Robocop line. For a very short while in the early 90s Kenner had a line of 3 and 3/4ths (about) scale figures and vehicles based on a ridiculous Robocop cartoon for kids. Here’s the opening to the show. You can’t tell me that this isn’t all kinds of fucked up:

The show only lasted 13 episodes. I really don’t think you have to ask why.

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The title pretty much explains the reason for this post, I’m out of interesting things so I’m trying my best here with some videos. I find these interesting, but I’m not sure how much anyone else will care. The first is a very short glimpse into the past. It’s part of a news clip talking about Star Wars toys and it shows people hard at work building toys in Kenner’s factory during the reign of Return of the Jedi.

Why is this only 8 seconds? I’d kill for more footage like this because I’m the kind of weirdo who could sit and watch factory workers in the 80s making Star Wars toys all day long. It’s beautiful, like a sunrise or a lap dance.

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Indiana Jones has never gotten the toy success like other movie hits like Star Wars. While Hasbro is making up for lost ground with its Indiana Jones toy line, but way back in the 80s Kenner had a short lived Jones line followed by an even shorter lived line from LJN. Here’s an amazingly well preserved television commercial for the old 3 3/4″ figures from Kenner:

Click on the more link to see the ad for the Kenner 12 inch figure!

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Okay, I’ll admit this really isn’t “madness”, but I figured like I’d put it in an eBay Madness because it, much like Richard Gere in an Officer and a Gentleman, has no place to go. I’ve been a little more interested in Super Powers figures recently, mainly because of the announcement of a new 3.75″ DC Superhero line from Mattel. I have a soft spot in my heart for the Super Powers line because it gave me my first opportunity to have Batman and Superman figures. I specifically remember being in love with their Metallo. This metal guy with a brain held a lot of mystery for my developing mind.

In addition to the above named characters I’m also interested in is Dr. Fate, because I just love his yellow helmet. It’s while taking a gander for Dr. Fate figures that I found this guy:

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