As a child of America in the 80’s, I witnessed life as being a shameful and obnoxious kegger… Lots of terrible ideas gone wrong, some of the worst music ever made, the US and Soviet Union on the brink of war and as if that wasn’t bad enough we were confronted by pastel colored clothes at every turn…
I’m talking about jams.
But to distract us from the horrors that lay outside the TV, we had the most aggressive toy/cartoon marketing experiments ever made.
It may have begun with GI Joe, which was a comic book by Marvel Comics, a toy line by Hasbro AND a daily cartoon.
Each portion of the GI Joe franchise had its own following, and the toyline continues to be highly desired by collectors.
Hasbro had the number of ever little boy in the world… and they were calling… collect!
As if they didn’t have enough of a hold on the kids, they enlisted professional wrestler Sargent Slaughter.
It was like the Devil and Hitler starting a dotcom.
But that was just the beginning! With the success of toy/cartoon projects ingeniously set forth by the shadow government such as the GI Joe Initiative, the March of the Transformers and the Thundercats Control Scheme… all boys had become toys in the hands of the toy makers.
Witness a small sampling of the cartoons from 1984-1987.
M.A.S.K., Centurions, the most over the top themetune ever- Defenders of the Earth, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Visionaries, Transformers, The ‘Real’ Ghost Busters, Danger Mouse, Dungeons and Dragons, Inspector Gadget, (the most serious sounding absurd cartoon from the UK) Bananaman, and the most annoying cartoon ever… Captain Planet
But it was Transformers who ruled over them all. With an ever expanding toy line that including robots that linked together to make… bigger robots PLUS a daily cartoon and occasional Sunday special, boys lived in fear of ever missing an episode… then in 1986, the unthinkable happened.
Transformers the Movie
Almost every boy who saw the movie can freely admit as a grown man that he wept like a little girl at the death of Optimus Prime. It was… a special time.
The casting of Orson Welles as the planet-sized villain Unicron is shocking enough… but the fact that he did it from beyond the grave is even more surprising. In fact, the stellar cast (Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Idle and Don Johnson) in a cartoon film predated all of the current blockbuster animated movies. Including a Weird Al song as part of the story at a time when he was at his peak of popularity is almost as brilliant as releasing a new live action movie based on the Transformers at a time when all the boys who watched it now have families of their own.
I feel that I should mention the art of using media as a social distraction for the masses.
With unemployment rising, the price of gas skyrocketing, an ever escalating war in the Middle East, threats of nuclear attack from Iran and Russia and the public support of the US government at an all time low, Americans are expected to seek escape by gobbling popcorn in front of the tube or screen of their choice in a way that would make even the most self aware sci-fi author balk.
Sounds a lot like the 80’s, huh?
It’s funny how little things change, isn’t it?
