Surveying the Gen X landscape and the origins of geek
That’s Cindy Morgan (Lora/Yori) and David Warner (Dillinger/Sark/MCP) in the first two photos. One of them looks luminous, and it ain’t the one dressed like a bum. Do you remember the monitors on top of the arcade cabs? No added pressure or anything.
According to the promotional poster below, the finals were held at Madison Square Garden on July 6th and 7th, 1982. Tron premiered on July 9th.
(Images via the Tron Forums, the Examiner, Kolonai, All in for a Quarter, and the Unfiction Forums)
Just found this brilliant, super comprehensive tour by supertechnoboy of the Atomic Buffalo Arcade and had to share. Can you guess how many light bulbs this thing uses? Let’s see if you get chills when the music starts.
Compulsive Collector (see lots more Christmas toy cheer at the link) patrols the living room on his G.I. Joe Laser Defense Patrol Power Cycle. Coleco released a number of Joe trikes and ride-on vehicles starting in 1982, some of which you can see here.
There’s an empty Tron Light Cycle box on the ground to his right. The Light Cycle (orange) is on his left. In the second photo, he’s holding the Tron action figure and the Raiders of the Lost Ark Read-Along record. You can also see The Pac-Man Album (1980), a two-sided picture disc, playing on a Smurfs record player.
As toy and game vintages go, 1982 was extraordinary.
Tomy’s TRON action figures are here. Jason makes a good case at Contra Dextra Avenue that the second cycle is orange, not red, since Tron rode an orange cycle.
The price tag on the yellow cycle looks like it’s from Best Products.
I sense a theme in these 6th grade student statements from the 1982-1983 school year, summed up nicely by Navin Joneja: “The movie Tron is a perfect example of how computers might take over the world.”
The capsule was sealed in 1983 and released in 2006. The photos are via Mike Bouchard, who was in the class that wrote the notes.
Select pages only. The Mighty Men and Monster Maker commercial is here. Note the creepy painted faces on the Tron figures, making them all look like Michael Myers. Going fully translucent was the lesser of two evils. I wanted that Tomytronic Tron game badly.
Interesting piece on the revolutionary effects of Tron, and the inevitable movement of film to a digital format. Says Richard Taylor, co-supervisor of special effects:
Computers can’t replace the uniqueness of actors. If a motion picture does not connect to your heart, it doesn’t matter how it looks. You cannot save a film by making it look good…
I don’t want people to believe that computers are a threat to society. They’re a creative tool that will allow people to express themselves more clearly, more uniquely. They are only going to make our lives easier.
I guess it’s kind of like a disc. And it looks like it will emanate from your fingers in a web of ghostlike, video energy. String is for Users!
They glowed in the dark, and so did their discs (and the Warrior’s staff). The discs could be attached to the figures’ backs as well. The line was poorly articulated and sold poorly.
The light cycles were pretty cool. The figures fit inside, and there was a ripcord you inserted into the back of the cycle and yanked. I’ll post them both (yellow and red/orange) separately.
UPDATE (10/21/14): I found another set of carded figures at various price points. See below.
From the July 9, 1982 edition of The Miami News. I thought the review was interesting because it’s basically how I feel about every sci-fi movie from the last 20 years, except for Moon, Children of Men, and a handful of others. Is it possible that gratuitously vacuous blockbusters like Avatar and Prometheus will be considered classics in 30 years? I’ll admit that TRON is far from a perfect movie, but it does have a soul.
The ad below was on the same page of the paper. What makes a geek a geek is not keeping “that precocious little imagination occupied,” but keeping it challenged. At least that used to be what made a geek a geek. Now you can just dress up in elaborate costumes and prowl your Con of choice, and I guess that’s enough.
2 Warps to Neptune 