TAtTF: The Centurions
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.
June 30th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
I had Max Ray and my brother had Ace McCloud and one of the villains. I thought they were awesome, though they didn’t last very long.
I think a Joe figure would be awesome!!
June 30th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
My brother and I connected two of the guys together (face-to-face) using their modular system. It was a little difficult but worthwhile in the end. We even took a picture of it, but who knows where that went.
June 30th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
I had Ace McCloud too back then. My brother had Max Ray. They were very cool.
June 30th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
I know my friend and I had some of these. Not sure which, exactly, but I think between us we had all of the figures and their basic accessories.
July 1st, 2009 at 2:47 am
Centurions were only about 7 inches; Sigma 6 figures tower over them.
July 1st, 2009 at 4:47 am
I was also for saying they were around 7″ high, I remeber right Bravestarr figures are taller.
July 1st, 2009 at 8:08 am
The cartoon was pretty cool. The opening with William “Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice” Woodson’s dramatic narration and that cool theme music drew me in every time.
July 9th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Hy! I had a flashback memory: When I had 8 or 9 years old, I saw a TV cartoon preview (this during the 80’s), where a group of 3 men where recruited by a sexy girl who appeared behind a tree in a park, she conviced them to join her. After that they fight in what looks like a huge cave: One of the men was wearing a battle suit similar to the Centurions, and he was hanging from a rope, the other emerge from lava (with a batlle suit too) and started runing, the thirt one I don´t remember very good, but the three star to run togheter against somebody or something. I always ask me ¿who were this group?, ¿the show was related with the Centurions?, because the suit where very similars, but the animation were much more detailed.