Two from Netflix, two from Disney+. Fans of 1980s cartoons will get their fix this summer with four animated shows from some of the biggest genre franchises. Phase IV of the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues with the anthology series based on the classic comic What If…? Star Wars expands into new animated territory with the anime Star Wars: Visions. And both 1980s kid favorites Masters of the Universe and Transformerscontinue into their fourth decade with two Netflix series–Transformers: War for Cybertron already underway.
Check out trailers for each new show streaming this summer below.
In the realm of classic 1980s cartoons, is there a more iconic villain you love to hate than Skeletor from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe? Sure–he’s evil. He’s a schemer. He’s diabolical. He’s completely untrustworthy. So who better to go to to seek advice? Admit it: you’ve asked the question before: What would Skeletor do? At last you can find out, as Universe Publishing is releasing the ultimate how-to guide this summer and it’s available for pre-order now here at Amazon. What Would Skeletor Do? Diabolical Ways to Master the Universe is your excuse to throw caution to the wind, and maybe change your destiny.
Need a new mantra? Tired of being a good guy? From advice on handling Families and Frenemies to Unwanted Houseguests, this book has it all, combining images from the television series with cleverly written advice from master in-the-know Skeletor (ghost written by Robb Pearlman and designed by Lynne Yeamans). Love (and other evils), working on your career, and knowing what to do with your down time–whatever area of your life you’re having problems with, Skeletor can help.
Beginning with a disclaimer from Mr. Pearlman, followed by a harassing, heckling foreword by Skeletor himself just daring readers to emulate his magnificence, from there you’re on your own. For those more level-headed readers, you may find several laugh-out-loud moments along the way. Then again, like they say, the truth hurts and many a true word is spoken in jest. With sage (more coriander) life advice, you may just decide to follow Skeletor’s lead (or not). Start a rumor? Maybe. Cast a spell? Why not. Make overdramatic pronouncements about the quality of services provided at local businesses? Bingo. His best observation? Probably “Nobody is worth going to Jared for.” But his business wisdom is tried and true: “Always move your face as close as possible to the speaker during a conference call.”
Anyone who grew up with the original Star Wars trilogy also grew up with the Kenner line of action figures and other toys. Eagerly awaiting kids learned about each new figure and each new ship and playset via commercials during Saturday morning cartoons. They also learned about them in the Sears and JC Penney Christmas catalogs and mini-catalogs that accompanied certain ships, games and playsets–making checklists from the catalog for Santa was a key component of being a kid. Over the next two days an auction house in Valencia, California is selling off a Star Wars fan’s ultimate dream collection. At its Vintage Toys and Collectibles Live Auction, auction house Prop Store is auctioning off a spectacular collection of the Star Wars toys most kids from the era are familiar with, plus many of the rarer toys and prototypes that were known for decades to exist only through rumor and occasional obscure references. Among the collection is a high-quality collection of nearly 100 pieces from Lucasfilm executive Howard Kazanjian.
Long before the latest Star Wars trilogy, Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill mentioned in interviews that certain Lucasfilm professionals received the line of new tie-in toy products as they were rolled out. He mentioned that his kids enjoyed most of them, and he’s joked about wishing he’d saved some in the original boxes because of the sale prices some achieve today. Kazanjian was also on that distribution list, and he maintained the toys he received in the mail for 40 years, some boxes were never opened and remain in near mint condition. Prop Store’s auction catalog is incredible, a full color book of photographs and descriptive information almost as exciting as the auction itself–an extraordinary trip back through time even if you’re not able to drop $5,000–minimum–on a rare vinyl-caped Jawa or Yak Face variant action figure.
Bop bags, a Luke headset radio, Give-a-Show projectors, all the ships and action figures you remember, and trading cards are just the beginning, The auction is featuring the rare Cloud City cardboard playset kids first saw in the Sears catalog–the only early playset that included four action figures (currently bidding at $400). There’s the radio-controlled Sandcrawler (currently at $2,500), rare plush toys each starting at bids in the thousands of dollars, and all but the rare IG-88 figure in the large-sized version that was created for the key characters to match up with G.I. Joe and The Six Million Dollar Man.
But the 3.75-inch action figures make up the bulk of the toys hitting the auction block today. The rare vinyl-caped Jawa even before the auction starts is already bid up to $6,000 (all bidders must pay the strike price plus more than 20% of the price for now-standard auction house fees). An original R2-D2 is at $4,000, and if you want one of the rare “Power of the Force” Yak Face figures, it’s going to cost you more than $8,000. At the end of the initial run of The Empire Strikes Back, I remember an entire wall of Yoda figures at my Target store being sold on clearance at fifty cents apiece. That action figure type in this auction has already been bid up to $1,000. In hindsight the figures on that clearance display were worth a small fortune.
If you’re a fan of action figures, Super7 delivered again with a sneak peek at a whole host of action figure cards for its ReAction line, expected to be fleshed out even more this weekend at New York Toy Fair 2019. How much fun is in this single photograph? We’re expecting Super7 will be revealing details this weekend, but until then, here’s what we can tell is coming soon from the toy company’s line of licensed, retro 3.75-inch action figures with the classic Kenner five points of articulation.
In the top row we’re seeing that Super7 is preparing three figures from John Carpenter’s They Live, a sci-fi classic fans of the ReAction line have been asking for for years. So there are cards for Roddy Piper’s JohnNada (before the fight and after? without bubblegum?), and a male and female alien (nope, no Frank or Holly).
The eight Rocky IV figures include the previously announced Rocky Balboa and Ivan Drago (both in boxing ring attire), Rocky and Drago (in final round outfits), Rocky (winter training), and Sico the Robot. Add to that a Carl Weathers Apollo Creed and a mystery figure (most likely blacked out because the likeness hasn’t been approved yet), maybe Brigitte Nielsen’s Ludmilla or Talia Shire’s Adrian? Burt Young’s Paulie? We’re hoping Super 7 may be looking back a movie to Rocky III and Mr. T’s Clubber Lang.
The Super7 Major League Baseball “Supersports” line-up has some great picks: In addition to Jackie Robinson, we see Roy Campanella, Orlando Cepeda, Willie Mays, Carl Yastrzemski, Ted Williams, Carlton Fisk, and two others under the Classic All-Stars logo, including Juan Marichal, Mickey Mantle, and Yogi Berra, plus Madison Bumgarner and at least one other under the Baseball All-Stars logo. We’re guessing there are four Mascots in the initial wave, including the Giants’ Crazy Crab, Mr. Met, and the Phillie Phanatic.
The first Aliens line has all the right figures, a new Sigourney Weaver Ellen Ripley, plus Bill Paxton’s PrivateHudson, Jenette Goldstein’s Private Vasquez, a seriously messed-up Lance Henriksen’s Bishop, and a new Xenomorph variant. Is there a Michael Biehn Corporal Hicks hiding off-camera? Maybe a Jonesy and Newt combo pack?
The Strong’s National Museum of Play has announced twelve finalists for induction into the 2018 National Toy Hall of Fame. Only a select few will take their honored places in the Hall this year when they are announced at a ceremony at The Strong in Rochester, New York on Thursday, November 8, 2018. The National Toy Hall of Fame recognizes toys “that have engaged and delighted multiple generations, inspiring them to learn, create, and discover through play.” The Hall of Fame, which began in 1998, is celebrating its 20th year. Criteria for induction include: Icon-status (the toy is widely recognized, respected, and remembered); Longevity (the toy is more than a passing fad and has enjoyed popularity over multiple generations); Discovery (the toy fosters learning, creativity, or discovery through play); and Innovation (the toy profoundly changed play or toy design). A toy may be inducted on the basis of innovation without necessarily having met all of the first three. So who are this year’s finalists? American Girl Dolls, chalk, Chutes and Ladders, the Fisher-Price Corn Popper, the Magic 8 Ball, Masters of the Universe, pinball, the sled, Tic-Tac-Toe, Tickle Me Elmo, Tudor Electric Football, and the card game Uno.
This year’s 12 finalists for the National Toy Hall of Fame. Which would you choose?
The beauty of all these toys? We did some of our own research and they are still available for today’s generation of kids. Just click the toy name and you’ll find it available at Amazon right now. Want to spoil your kid and get them one of each of the 65 toys in the Hall (or donate a set to your local community center)? It’ll cost you about $1,390. That total is skewed a bit by the more expensive toys on the list: the current equivalent of the Atari 2600 and Nintendo Gameboy, a bicycle, a dollhouse, an Easy Bake Oven, Lincoln Logs, Lionel Trains, and roller skates. Yet eight toys in the Hall can be purchased for less than $5.00, 24 toys cost less than $10.00, and 50 of the 65 toys in the Hall cost less than $25.00–most of the classics are pretty affordable! And if you want to save your money, how about getting your kid a cardboard box, a paper airplane, a kite, and a stick for Christmas this year–they’re pretty much free.
What do you think is missing? How about Spiro-graph? The Fisher-Price telephone and See ‘n’ Say? Shrinky Dinks, Colorforms, and the Kaleidoscope? Finger paints? The sprinkler? Playskool cobbler’s bench and mailbox? Hello Kitty? Past nominees include Battleship, Care Bears, coloring books, Jenga, Lite Brite, Matchbox cars, My Little Pony, Nerf, Pez, Playmobil, pogo stick, Operation, Pac-Man, pots and pans, Risk, sand, scooter, Slip ‘n’ Slide, stilts, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, and the top.
Here are the Hall of Fame’s descriptions of each of this year’s nominees:
As we previewed here at borg.com, toymaker Super 7 featured great exclusives at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con with both an onsite presence and an offsite store featuring both a Masters of the Universe theme and a Universal Monsters theme. If you were early enough you could have even scored a pair of four different styles of limited edition Universal Monster-themed Saucony shoes. We think the best nostalgia draw from Super 7 is their multi-license classic Kenner style 3 3/4-inch ReAction figure line that we’ve covered here at borg.com since Day One. We previewed some of the latest ReAction figures in our coverage of 2018 New York Toy Fair (here), but Super 7 showcased some brand new prototypes, packaging, and exclusives this weekend.
Probably the best display featured the figures of the new Hellboy line. These two-pack sets look great in person, and will likely become only more popular as we get closer to the release of the new Hellboy movie. The Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins prototypes based on the classic arcade game were also fantastic, giving fans a look at the final pieces in the first series (back row) and the next series (front in grey) that’s underway.
Of course the next series of the original Super 7 ReAction line, Alien, looks great and the sculpts and packaging have only gotten better. We’re going to need to pick up one of those Ripley’s the Jonesy the cat at a minimum. And Kane after his attack in his spacesuit–Wow!
Below are photographs from the Super 7 booth featuring other figures from the ReAction line: the exclusive convention Universal Monsters, The Fiend and Alien exclusives, Masters of the Universe, and Robotech.
Super7 is returning to San Diego Comic-Con in two weeks with more great new products for 2018. And you can find new releases not only in the main dealer area at SDCC (Booth #4945), but at two events at the Super7 downtown store at 701 8th Avenue (a 10-minute walk from the San Diego Convention Center)–with some items only available at the store. For the first offsite sale, Hordak’s Lair from Masters of the Universe is the theme of the first event Wednesday, July 18, from 9 p.m. to Midnight and Thursday, July 19, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. It will feature the latest Super7 MOTU releases as well as exclusives and debuts created specifically for the event, like an exclusive 5.5-inch Laughing Prince Adam figure. Limited quantities will be available only at the Super7 store, with another opportunity to order for October delivery being announced at the Super7 website soon. Hordak’s Lair will also offer an exclusive site-only sale of a new She-Ra & Hordak 3.75-inch ReAction figure 2-pack with new, original card art by Jason Edmiston. Super7 will also premiere its new blind box assortment of She-Ra Keshi 1.75-inch Figures.
Then the Super7 switches gears for a Universal Monsters “Boodega Corner Monstore” Friday, July 20, from 9 p.m. to Midnight, Saturday, July 21, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday, July 22, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. That will be the only place to score four Universal Monsters on these new cardbacks:
Other exclusives at the Boodega only include four Universal Monsters 7″ x 21″ felt pennants and enamel pins. So what’s available at the actual convention?
Netflix is now carrying a new documentary television series that delves into the creators behind some of our favorite toys from the recent, and not so recent past. The Toys That Made Us features four episodes in its first season of streaming, each focused on a toy line that should bring in a good cross-section of fandom. The choices for the first shows include Kenner’s vintage Star Wars action figures and playsets, Hasbro’s G.I. Joe, with an emphasis on the 3 3/4″ line of action figures, Mattel’s Barbie, and the Mattel’s Masters of the Universe. No doubt Barbie and G.I. Joe should pull in the older crowd, while the latter half of G.I. Joe and Star Wars will pull in the kids of the 1970s and early 1980s, and Masters of the Universe the kids of the 1980s.
Not a show for kids and not another show about toy collectors, the series devotes plenty of each hour to interviews with designers, marketing, other businessmen discussing the nuts and bolts of negotiating deals, like the lawyer for Kenner discussing the greatest toy deal negotiation ever, and the later not-so-great negotiation because of a loose-lipped CEO. The Barbie episode features a Barbie expert continually bashing the character as a “hooker” as if she has some sort of love-hate relationship with the doll. But the politics of toymaking is interesting fodder for the right audience. Should it be a surprise that toymakers have the same ugly corporate politics, the downsizing, the layoffs, and the takeovers, like every other company? Prepare yourself for several CEOs and designers as they tiptoe, or not, around decisions and employers they wrestled with in the past as toys and brands came and went. The creators look back both with nostalgia and anger at the former toy companies that eventually terminated their employment. So look for an unusual take on these toys and these companies.
The next four episodes will be launched on Netflix later this year, and include Hello Kitty, Transformers, Star Trek, and LEGO. Sometimes what the show chooses to tell is as interesting as how the show tells it. The eight toy lines chosen no doubt came from the producer’s own focus groups, like the ideas behind some of the toys they discuss. If The Toys That Made Us really is a one-time thing, someone else should come along and continue the idea with all the other major brands and influences.
We want to see an episode on Marx toys, including little toy soldiers and the 12-inch action figure series. We also want to see a history of the broad Mego line of figures, Hot Wheels, Stretch Armstrong, and Big Jim. How about companies like Fisher Price, Playskool, Playmobil, and Radio Flyer? A series like this needs to cover more “recent” but still classic toy lines, too, like My Little Pony, Cabbage Patch Kids, Strawberry Shortcake, and figure out a way to capture famous classic toys like Spirograph, Tinker Toys, Play-Doh, Etch-A-Sketch, Erector Sets, Lincoln Logs, and the ultimate multi-license toy, Viewmaster. How about a tour of the Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers factories of the past? Who put out more great board games than these companies? It’s easy to imagine entire episodes on the history of games like Clue/Cluedo and Monopoly. And how about featuring a current game company that’s been around for decades, like Wizards of the Coast?
At New York Toy Fair 2017 Super 7–formerly partnered with Funko–proved yet again that no other toy company compares when it comes down to sheer volume of licenses it holds, and the company continues to venture into the obscure and retro as shown in its line of ReAction, classic 3 3/4-inch Kenner-inspired action figures we have covered here at borg.com since day one. We’ve seen Alien, Arrow, Back to the Future, Big Trouble in Little China, Breaking Bad, The Bride of Frankenstein, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Crow, The Dark Crystal, Dracula, E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial, Escape from New York, The Fifth Element, Fight Club, Firefly, The Flash, Frankenstein, Friday the 13th, The Golden Girls, The Goonies, Gremlins, Halloween, Hellraiser III, The Invisible Man, Jaws, The Karate Kid, Masters of the Universe, The Mummy, The Nightmare Before Christmas, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Phantom of the Opera, Predator, Pulp Fiction, The Rocketeer, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Scarface, Scream, Star Trek, Suicide Squad, Taxi Driver, The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Tomorrowland, Trick or Treat, and The Wolfman.
With Planet of the Apes you’ll see Cornelius, Zira, Taylor, an Ape Soldier, and General Ursus. With Robotech, at least six VF series robots, six Shogun figures, Batman, Robin, Batgirl, and several villains from Batman ’66, as well as the classic Batmobile. Hellboy features Hellboy, Abe Sapien, Liz, and Lobster Johnson.
Masters of the Universe. Red Dwarf. Mortal Kombat. And we revisit Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek.
Let’s start this year’s borg.com Hall of Fame ceremony by talking a little about who is NOT in the Hall of Fame who might come close if borgs were more loosely defined. We still haven’t included the non-organic: like automatons, androids, or robots. Think Lt. Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation before he met the queen in Star Trek: First Contact–despite his perfectly life-like appearance. For the bulk of the series Data was always an android, not a cyborg. He’s just a highly advanced C-3PO–until First Contact.
Droids from Star Wars,Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still,Robot B-9 from Lost in Space or Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet, the Autobots and Decepticons of Transformers, the police force of THX-1138, Box in Logan’s Run, the perfectly human appearing kid-like star of D.A.R.Y.L., the several automatons of episode after episode of The Twilight Zone,Beta in The Last Starfighter,Tron and Flynn and the other microscopic, human-like bits of data in Tron, Hellboy II’sGolden Army, the future Iowa Highway Patrolman in Star Trek 2009 (we assume he’s just wearing some police safety mask), Rosie the maid in The Jetsons,Hogey the Roguey from Red Dwarf,Marvin the Android in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, X-Men’s Sentinels, Lal and Juliana Tainer from Star Trek: The Next Generation, the title character of CHAPPiE, or Iron Giant, despite their human-like or bipedal nature, none are actual borgs because they lack biological matter, living cells, or the like.
The same applies for the robotic hosts in Westworld–Michael Crichton’s original was clear these were merely automaton robots and we’ve seen nothing from 2016’s HBO series to show that has changed (even the NY Timesgot it wrong). Which explains why The Stepford Wives aren’t on the list, or Fembots, either from The Bionic Woman or the Austin Powers series, or the Buffybot in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
So who’s in?
Here is Round 4, the twenty-eight 2016borg.com Hall of Fame honorees, in no particular order, some from 2016 and others from the past, bringing the roster count to 134 individuals and groups:
First up is Time, yep… Time itself. From Alice Through the Looking Glass, a powerful Father Time-esque human/clockwork hybrid who rules over Underland–
From George Lucas’s original Force-wielding character as envisioned by Mike Mayhew: Kane Starkiller from Marvel Comics’ alternate universe story, The Star Wars:
The Major, from 2017’s Ghost in the Shell:
Max Steel got his own movie in 2016:
Steel hails from the Mattel action figure who received multiple super powers due to an accidental infusion of nanobots:
Cave Carson from the update of the classic DC Comics comic book series spelunker, the new series Cave Carson has a Cybernetic Eye:
Although he was a charter member of the borg.com Hall of Fame, Darth Vader returned in Rogue One, providing some new images of the classic borg:
