Surveying the Gen X landscape and the origins of geek
Fascinating. The year is my best guess. Defender came out for the 2600 in 1981, and the 2600 here looks like the four-switch “woody” model, first produced in 1980. We had ON TV for a short time, a subscription service that would unscramble participating UHF channels. In September of 1982, ON TV aired Star Wars for the first time ever on national TV on a pay-per-views basis, despite very few households being wired for the service.
You have to admire how insanely politically incorrect this set is. And the play mat was “printed in the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong”? Oy.
This kid rules. It takes guts to be this smug when you’re this attached to a Snoopy doll. Besides, I think he’s building the Starship Enterprise on his Apple II.
(Via blindpig21’s Flickr)
November 4, 1982. (Ricardo Ferro/St. Petersburg Times)
(Via Arpten’s Photo Memories)
I envied the kids who had these.
October 11, 1977. (Glen Martin/Denver Post)
First of all, that’s the Eagle 1 on the shelf behind the bed.
Second, what’s up with the bowling game? I’ve never seen one quite like it, and it looks pretty lame. Trade it in for an air hockey table, kid.
Third, scan far left, click image to enlarge, and you can make out the Mission Control Center from The Six Million Dollar Man toy line, seen below via Toys You Had. I can’t tell what the boxes to the right of the Command Center are.
(First image source: Big Ole Photos)
“Don’t look at it’s eyes or you’ll sleep forever” should be an internet meme. Or rather, because I’m a grammar asshole, “Don’t look at it’s [sic] eyes or you’ll sleep forever.”
Via John Kenneth Muir’s Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic Television. Muir says the Tower was released in ’79 by Minor Industries, but I can’t find anything about the company on the Intertubes. The box says ‘Major’ with a little ‘i’ above the ‘M’, so possibly it’s Major Industries—no luck searching for that either.
I’m very curious, because this has to be the same company that released the awesome Galactic Attack Dome in 1980—
The men, the vehicles, and those space pods are exactly the same. Are there more of these kick-ass space sets out there? Where might I ogle them?
Anyone in the know should contact me immediately, lest I die of extreme nerd curiosity.
Ah, wood. Wood is good. Wood is so warm and hard, especially in the morning. The kids like to hold the wood and stroke it. The parental units like to keep the wood burning all night long.
All families should live in the woods in houses made of wood.
2 Warps to Neptune 