Christmas Morning, 1981: Opening the AT-AT

Damn you, Benjamin Oderwald and Shuffle/Repeat!

(Note big brother’s Hulk socks in the second photo. What’s on his pajamas? It’s driving me nuts.)

14 Responses to “Christmas Morning, 1981: Opening the AT-AT”

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1 Fractalbat December 13, 2013 at 4:12 pm

Man, I wanted an AT-AT so much. But I couldn’t complain because I had the Death Star playset, and that was pretty epic.

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- 2 2W2N December 13, 2013 at 4:39 pm
  
  Same here. My best friend got it. My parents and his parents would discuss what playsets to get each of us so that we could share. Totally brilliant of them. We got our own figures, though, and painted the bottoms of the feet with different color nail polish to identify them.
  
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  - 3 leftylimbo December 13, 2013 at 8:02 pm
    
    Man, that’s so cool. Dood, that’s crazy…I had friends whose parents did the same thing with the nail polish on the bottom of the feet. Was that prevalent?
    
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    - 4 2W2N December 13, 2013 at 9:55 pm
      
      Interesting. It is an easy, good solution. Markers would rub right off.
      
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5 leftylimbo December 13, 2013 at 8:07 pm

Got a close-up of that outfit. I’m making out “The Terrible Troll” but haven’t found a match in images yet.

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6 contradextraavenue December 13, 2013 at 8:15 pm

Given Shuffle/Repeat’s flickr account info, as well as the wording on the AT-AT, I’d bet those pajamas are in French. I’m seeing a red dinosaur in some sort of fur loincloth, and the logo seems to read *MROL*, with the star parts being cut off. On the other hand, could the top lettering read “The Terrible”..?

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- 7 leftylimbo December 13, 2013 at 9:11 pm
  
  Good call, didn’t notice the French. I’ll keep looking, but I’m convinced it does say “The Terrible…” on top.
  
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  - 8 2W2N December 13, 2013 at 9:53 pm
    
    I didn’t notice the French either. We’re going to need some Canadian help. O Canada?
    
    It does look like “The” and “Troll”. Can’t make out the second word.
    
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    - 9 contradextraavenue December 14, 2013 at 3:20 pm
      
      I’m still seeing MROL instead of TROL. The lower left part of that letter just looks too wide to be a T to me. I spent nearly an hour googling likely keywords yesterday (permutations of 1980s, 1970s, red dinosaur, pajamas, terrible, troll, mrol, canadian…) and still got nothin’.
      
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      - 10 2W2N December 14, 2013 at 4:13 pm
        
        Could very well be M. Argh!
        
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11 fadedearth December 20, 2013 at 4:53 pm

The PJ image really looks like a Mercer Mayer from his “Little Monster” days.

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- 12 2W2N December 20, 2013 at 6:36 pm
  
  Mayer did write a book called Terrible Troll:
  
  http://www.vintagechildrensbooksmykidloves.com/2012/03/meet-mercer-mayers-biggest-fan-terrible.html
  
  Very interesting!
  
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13 Will E. November 11, 2014 at 5:39 pm

I remember that AT-AT ’81 Xmas morning well!

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