Toy Ads That Time Forgot Tuesday: 02-13-07
This week’s high calorie, no fat serving of toy Ads That Time Forgot visits a small section of the 80s toy universe:
Starting with the basic scientific concept that dinosaurs rule, toy maker Tyco decided to build upon that foundation the only way that they knew how, by taking wicked cool dinosaurs and outfitting them with missiles and laser bazookas. This then created the wet dream of many a twelve year old boy in the form of Dino-Riders. Even before Dino-riders came out, I was up-armoring my plastic molded dinosaur toys with spring loaded missile launchers (otherwise known as pens). I’m guessing that this is some sort of stepping stone in nerd evolution.
If I was in the board room the day this concept was brought up, my head would have exploded. The only words the design team would have to say would be, “Dinosaurs with lasers” and I’d have had a heart attack and died a happy man. My friends would say, “He died doing what he loved, thinking about armored thunder lizards.”
Dino-Riders. I ask you, what can be a better concept of that? In the cartoon (according to my zero research and my fuzzy memory) space travelers crash land on a dinosaur loaded planet and end up fighting other bad guys that have chased them. If my space ship crash landed on a planet full of dinosaurs, my first move would to be to mount the indigenous reptiles before I worked on building a shelter, getting food, or even tending to the injured.
If you want to learn more about the Dino-Riders universe check out: This Dino-Riders fan site and the Wikipedia entry for Dino-Riders.
Toys, toy collecting, Dino-Riders, action figure, Tyco, cartoon, advertisement
February 13th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
One day, when I look fondly back at all the toys I’ve seen in my life, Dino-Riders will still bring back great memories! They were great!