I'll agree that the toys were some of the best parts of the 80s. Granted, I was a kid back then so I may be biased, but they were much cooler than the crap kids play with today, even if they were just as blatantly designed to push products. Obviously everyone remembers G.I. Joe and Transformers, and the accompanying media, and somebody beat me to Dino Riders (Holy crap! Dinosaurs with guns attached to them, and little space frog and sting ray men who control them! Who cares about backstory, that's everything kids love smushed into a single package! Too bad they never go around to doing the Ice Age ones...)
Well here's one nobody remembers:
Rocks & Bugs & Things...
They were little plastic rocks and bugs except, much like Transformers, they would change into monsters when you hit a switch. They also came with little goblin like creatures they would "eat" called Mordles. And yes, I feel like a dork remembering what they were called. I feel like an even bigger dork for buying a plastic baggie full of Mordles at a local comic convention a while back.
Or how about Battle Beasts? They were little plastic guys, like Muscle Men... except they were various anthropomorphic animals, with weird cybernetics and body armor. Part fantasy, part sci-fi... and no, not furry because we didn't have furfags screwing up our fandom back then. The cool thing was they had holographic elements on their chests, so you'd know whose team they were on (Fire, Water or Wood iirc).
Super Naturals. They were these ghost dudes who had holograms on their chest. There were also bigger ones. The ones here are just the little versions.
Sectaurs. They were... some sort of weird fantasy warriors ala He-Man, except more insect themed... and they came with weird giant insect/arachnid mounts that they rode. All sorts of fuzzy goodness right there.
Inhumanoids. They were yet another series of giant monsters, though with some interesting designs. I especially love the fact that the skeleton guy's ribcage cracks open to capture his victims, even if the toys look a little cheesy by today's standards.
Boglins. They were these rubber monster puppets, and fairly big too iirc. I mean like full sized so even adults could use them. They were kind of cute actually.
Well, technically the
culture of the 80s didn't end until 1993, just as the
culture of the 80s didn't really begin until 1983/1984.
I know what I'm talking about here
Yes I do! I was born in the early 80s, but had older siblings who had lived through the late 70s and early 80s, and I grew up in a kind of ghetto area where 80s trends lingered a little longer. So I would agree that "the 80s" as a cultural phenomena spans about 1982 to maybe 1992 or 1993.
the noid, california raisins, max headroom, wheres the beef...
Speaking of Max Headroom, those of us who lived in Chicago at the time may remember this...
