Surveying the Gen X landscape and the origins of geek
Yes, I’m going to collect and post large scans (click to enlarge) of as many Micronauts toy boxes as I can find. It’ll be like browsing a toy aisle in the late ’70s. You’ll love it.
For a comprehensive description of the 1976 Stratastation play set, check out the excellent entry at Innerspace Online.
The Eagle 1 has landed yet again. It was the space toy to have pre-Star Wars, clearly, and it’s still one of the coolest spaceships ever. I suspect many of the Eagle kids didn’t even watch Space: 1999, a frigid British series that moved about as fast as an ice shelf, but we dug anything that happened in space, and if we had some imagery and a prop or two, well, that was all we needed to riff on—for days, months, years.
The more I see the Micronauts line, the more I realize how influential and exceptional it was. I’ve talked before about the lack of a back story making them more exotic and attractive. In fact, they’re downright strange, as translucent beings from “the endless frontier” should be. The catalog describes them as “fanciful galactic travelers… fully jointed so they can cope with situations in any dimension.” I love it.
I had the Astro Station. These missiles, and Micronauts missiles in general, were the best (i.e. fastest, truest, heaviest) in the toy universe, and the launchers were detachable, so you could mix and match with other toys.
The Shogun Warriors never did much for me, but they were tall and their fists shot off. I guess that’s something.
(Catalog images via WishbookWeb)
First of all, the Rocket Tubes. Remember when our parents went to the bank and put their deposits in those plastic cylinder things, which were then deposited into a mailbox-looking thing and sucked (literally) through a pneumatic system into the bank? Well, that’s what these rocket tubes do. The commercial I found (via FuzzyMemoriesTV) is gnarly, but apparently it’s for an earlier version without the launching spaceships.
I love all the Micronauts stuff. It was a quirky, imaginative line. I remember having only one or two of the diecast metal figures, really heavy—they’re not here, but you can peruse them at BugEyedMonster.
I said in another post that I didn’t remember the Buck Rogers toys, but I instantly recognized the Star Fortress. It was made of incredibly flimsy cardboard, and the buildings folded and stuck clumsily into the base with tabs.
How do I love thee, WishbookWeb? Let me count the ways…
2 Warps to Neptune 