I love toys. I always have and always will. To this day I still love perusing the toy aisle looking at action figures and toy cars. If a toy impresses me enough, I quickly snatch it up and bring it into my collection fold. I still own several toys from my youth, and this little guy below is one I'm very fond of.
This is a little wind up robot made by the TOMY toy company in 1978. My mother bought it for me in the winter of 1978 as a reward for bringing home an impressive report card. I played with this little guy SO much, I'm surprised I didn't wear the gears out over the years.

However, as time passed.. I came to prefer the orange and blue domed bot over the other. I think it boiled down to my bot sporting orange and blue (the Denver Broncos team colors).
These little bots have been re-released many times over the years. I don't know who owns the licensing rights, but they've been getting passed around to different toy companies for years. Recent incarnations I've seen are usually cast entirely in translucent plastic, and in various bright color schemes.
Below is one I came across on Amazon recently made by California Creations..
I really do love Amazon. In fact, I'm downright addicted to it. Their selection of throwback and retro items are seemingly limitless. Sorry if I've steered you toward that same retro rabbit hole I often get stuck in. All I can say, is that it's one heckuva ride!
I have a couple of the old TOMY wind-ups too. I LOVE old robot toys, especially TOMY robots! I have a small TOMY robot collection that is slowly growing. There are so many awesome TOMY bots, check 'em out here: http://www.theoldrobots.com/tomybot.html
ReplyDeleteAwesome! You're going to get me hooked on collecting yet another line of toys. LOL
DeleteStill have my two robots and another still in its original packaging. The perfect little robots to mix up with Star Wars figures. But if I remember correctly there were many variations in colors back then. If you type "Tomy Rascal" in Google Images you'll see those variations.
ReplyDeleteThere are quite a few variants. It would be nice to army build with these guys!
DeleteEvery variant to date: http://www.theoldrobots.com/tomy2.html
Gosh.. I wish I had some in original packaging! Will have to start searching..
DeleteThere was a short film produced in the late 70s-early 80s that had these guys attacking some guy in his home. Sort of sci-fi/comedy. A bunch of these little fellows get flushed! Haha
ReplyDeleteWould love to find it, but I've had no luck finding it. I hate to think that it no longer exists
Holy Moly! That sounds awesome!! I'd love to see that flick!
ReplyDelete