@RetroDaze do you remember Battle Beasts and Muscle Men? Some of the first things I collected and they were both amazing. I still have a huge Muscle Men collection that I will keep forever
Anyone else remember getting the sears Christmas catolog and having to mark every toy you wanted that year from santa like it was a shopping spree and you were actually going to get them all!
Absolutely. Only for Santa to disappoint year after year. Why didn’t I get the G.I. Joe aircraft carrier and VHS camcorder I marked Santa? Huh!? Answer the question, tubby.
Ha! Yeah, Suckerman seems to have some appeal regardless of gender. We’ll make sure Jon doesn’t get TOO big for his britches now that he’s a multi-channel celebrity. 😁
That’s awesome! Unfortunately I’ve had to basically recollect most of the interesting toys I had as a kid. With a few exceptions… I am grateful I kept my Shogun Godzilla and a handful of other items.
I still have a few Starcom toys up in the attic, to be more precise: The Shadowbat, Shadow Vampire, SF/B Starhawk, Battle Crane, the Medbay and the Vehicle Repair pods.
The 1980s was a toy and cartoon tsunami that's staggering in hindsight. And that's where the, "too much of a good thing", kicks in as kids have to back away from the endless salad bar of product placement toys. I remember Starcom because one Saturday it was there, next Saturday it was gone. The cartoon ended when the toys finally hit the stores. It's a lotta fun seeing all these toys again. Looking forward to the next installment. 👍👍
Thanks Edd! Yeah, aside from StarCom and a few Wheeled Warriors, these were not in my toy box. There were just too many other products vying for attention.
Same. I was so interested in seeing the show, it was on TV for like one month and never seen around my area again - no reruns, just evaporated. Then the toys came out and disappeared nearly as quickly.
Boglins were awesome back in the day. Just like having your own Mutant Muppet Show. I don't have any Boglins nowadays but I do have a very cool Gremlins Cable Guys controller holder :-) Great video Jon!
I still have Wheeled Warriors and StarCom toys boxed up. I loved them! The Starcom ones especially were awesome. I remember the Ring Riaders and Boglins as well. The other 2 not so much.
@@RetroDaze I used to have one of the playsets and used to go outside and make hills in the dirt to see how much they could handle. I also had the ones that could go on water.
Clackers. I earned notoriety for how long I could keep them going in my neighborhood. If you recall, two Superball-sized balls on each end of a string with a tab in the center, which you held in your thumb and forefinger and began hitting the two balls together until you could make them meet again overhead. It was a simple concept. Just made a loud clacking noise. I loved ‘em.
I had several of the StarCom toys and I thought they were awesome! The figures were surprisingly well articulated for their size and the magnets in their feet let you stick them to the refrigerator or the playground jungle gym. I particularly remember playing with the star base that could either fold flat or stand up with three tiers. Also the little black triangle ship that had collapsible wings. While they weren’t as memorable as Star Wars or Transformers, they were still quality toys. Definitely the stand outs of this episode in my opinion.
Here's the thing about the Wheeled Warriors: the toys actually predate the cartoon. There was an entire set of lore and characters made for the toys, but when it came time to make the animated tie-in almost all of it was thrown out, resulting in a whole new set of characters and story with only a few of the vehicles in common.
I remember ads for pretty much all of these, but didn't have any of them. My toy collection was predominantly Star Wars until the mid-80s, and predominantly Transformers afterwards (and to this day).
I had a couple of the Wheeled Warriors vehicles! They were actually pretty cool. You could completely customize and even "Stack n' Attack!" Multiple vehicles.
Very cool and interesting video! Most of these with the exception of Baby Alive and Boglins I don't remember. Manglors looked like it could have been a good idea. It would be cool if someone could make those work today.
You would think with today’s technology we could manufacture something like the Manglors that actually live up to their ad claims. Thanks for watching Margeaux!
You have a fantastic channel! I love reminiscing about things from my childhood. I didn't remember any of these toys except for bogglins. My toy life in the 80s revolved around garbage pail kids, micro machines, and of course nintendo.
Out of all of these the only one I’ve never heard of was Sucker-man. I’ve seen or heard about everything else with Wheeled Warriors and Ring Riders being the two I came closest to seeing in stores. Though if I remember correctly Wheeled Warriors was just a mini pamphlet I encountered at a friend’s party.
I remember, had, and loved all of these. I have said growing up in the 80s, was the opposite of growing up in the Depression. We were spoiled to a level when 30 plus years later we knew it would never get better.
Star Com had great vehicles! (And lousy figures). It also taught me a valuable lesson on materialism. When I was 12, I got the space station for my birthday. I also got $60, which I used to buy a whole bunch more vehicles all in one shopping spree. When we got home from the toy store, as I was surrounded by opened boxes of Star Com toys, it was devastating how empty I felt inside. In previous years, I'd have to collect my toys just a few at a time because my family wasn't well off, and every single toy was cherished. But when I was able to buy a whole bunch at once on my 12th birthday, they didn't mean nearly as much. Ever since then I felt deeply sorry for wealthy people.
I’m guessing not all folks felt the same way when they could finally afford those prized items. But it does make sense to have that feeling. For me, the emptiness wasn’t in owning the toys, but in not having anyone to play with you using them. If a friend wasn’t over, they mostly sat unused.
@@RetroDaze That is an interesting insight (and sad... Sorry to hear about the loneliness). I was the opposite... If other kids were involved, it messed up the flow of my creative concentration, ha ha!
I still have a boglin, the orange jackolantern one. And I watched the wheeled warriors with dedication. It was amazing how many star wars parallels the show used.
I had a Sucker-Man toy. I flung that thing around all day when I first got it, until my mom got tired of me ripping it off the dining room window. Eventually, it lost the ability to stick.
Ooooh that's a nice nostalgia hit, thanks! I think Manglers and Suckerman were just barely before my time (born at the start of the 80s) but I remember Ring Raiders (and thinking they looked really stupid to kid me, Micro Machines FTW!!!), and I THINK I owned a Wheeled Warrior as they look incredibly familiar but none of the sets look exactly like anything I owned so perhaps it was just a friend who had one. My brother and I definitely had a lot of StarCom though, I am looking over the product line now on Transformerland's website and holy crap we owned several of these. If memory serves me we owned the F-1400, H.A.R.V., M-6 Railgunner, Shadow Invader, and Shadow Raider, but I think we possibly owned a few more of them as well as they definitely look familiar, though that could just be from looking at the back of the box/JC Penny catalogs. Fun toy, good use of magnets and wind up motors. The Shadow Raider in particular was a really cool set with the way you could rotate the tank treads 90 degrees to switch to a stilted mode, or 180 degrees for a wide reach. The Boglins ad with it breaking through the tile to scare the cat is giving me flashbacks, but I can't recall if I ever actually played with these. However, they do remind me of Madballs, which I thought were really cool, as well as these small plastic balls that were popular around the same time that would play back audio clips of monster sounds when you touched your finger across a couple of metal contacts on the back of them.
Awesome! Thank you for sharing all those fond memories. Someone else mentioned those balls with the contacts on them a while back. The whole “gross out” fad produced so many products it’s hard to keep them all straight!
I don’t think I ever saw one of those toys, and certainly didn’t own them, and I was a child of the 70’s. I was into TSMDM, Starblazers, electronic toys, legos, Shogun warriors, BB guns, and matchbox cars.
I remember all of them probably because I started work for a toy think tank in 1980, my first job out of college. Eight of us worked on toy concepts. On our first day, our boss took us to Toys-r-Us and he took a Suckerman out of the package and threw up onto a skylight yelling "SUCKERMAN!' The boss also said that Suckerman would stay up there until sometime in the middle of the night when it would fall and set off the store alarms. What a guy.
@@RetroDaze It was a lot of fun, but it was also a lot of pressure. Toys are a fashion industry, needing to get to market quickly. I spent two years there, two years at Kidco, and under two years at Hasbro, increasing my salary substantially.
Starcom toys were badass! And though the toys weren't well remembered, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors was one of the best cartoons to come out of the 80s. That theme song to this day is pure 🔥!
It is funny how some toy lines that didn't resonate with the majority of kids, hold such a special place in the hearts of those for whom they did. I personally thought Starriors was a cool line, but it failed pretty hard and fast.
@@RetroDaze I think you nailed it, there was just an over saturation of so many toys that were amazing. 80s really was a toy renaissance and the fact that so many lines are still around today or are remembered so fondly today proves it. Happy I grew up in such an era for sure. My bank account isn't, lol.
Thank you I just had a full on flashback and my mind just flooded with forgot toys I had or wanted. Penny Racers Key Cars Stomper trucks Madballs And Spinjas!!!
I loved my Stompers collection. I had a nice set of track that I could run them on to see which one could finish without crashing or running off course.
Great list! I remember Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors from an insert in the He-Man magazine. I don't recall ever seeing the cartoon, but a buddy of mine had some of the toys. I think they ended up being cannon fodder in his G.I. Joe wars. Fun memories.
Ha! Yeah I had a few myself, and they typically ended up being incorporated into stories of other toy lines I played with. My main toy line was indeed MOTU, but they didn’t work well in that line.
@@RetroDaze True, they weren't sized for MOTU. My younger brother had Power Lords (also a forgotten toy line), and we ended up incorporating those in our MOTU battles.
My Brother got a bunch of the Ring Raiders one year for Christmas. We just ran across them again a few months ago. Great memories. I also had a Boglin; I basically put them in the same camp as Mad Balls, if you happen to remember them.
I had Ring Raiders. I think about them from time to time. I even remeber the poster they show at the end of that segment. My 10 y/o son has my brother's Mad Ball football.
StarCom was awesome, it felt so 'Mature'. I saw it in 1990 when in was aired on 'Veronica' in The Netherlands and our toy stores were flooded with awesome spaceships. I distinctly remember buying a Col. Paul "Crowbar" Corbin action figure while on Spring holiday in the south-west of The Netherlands. Good times.
Starcom was awsome, the figures and toys were so detailed for the small scale, I was very into them, and that magnetic feeling when you put figs on stand spots was just as satisfying as clicking a lego brick together lol
@ absolutely I’d say superior lol something about the weight cause of the magnets in feet just made them feel premium, and they definitely had longevity, they outlasted lot of other bigger toy lines with my kid wear n tear lol
Great vid, just one thing. Starcom didn't didn't actually die in 1990, the toys were on sale right up until 1994 here in the UK and Japan :D they are REALLY easy to find here because ofit, but the toys were expensive at the time.
@@RetroDaze Agreed man.... I can't prove it, and please don't think I'm 100% saying this as gospel but ther MAYBE reasons for its cancelation and then toy destruction :S. There is an episode that deals with the Starcom team finding humanity's creators ON MARS lol I can't help but think someone raised their eyebrow and just axed it for that lol
That’s awesome! Thank you. But yeah, most of these weren’t actually “bad”, they just couldn’t catch on with so many other choices out there. Except for Manglors… they sucked. 😆
They had varying degrees of success, but they were all overshadowed by much more popular toy lines. So it isn’t unusual for these to have flown under the radar of both you and your son. I appreciate you watching!
Manglors, knew of them but never had any. Suckerman, don't remember even knowing of him at the time. Wheeled Warriors, didn't have the toys or watch the show, but I did have some books which I still have. Ring Raiders, still have a few and I enjoyed the cartoon. And then there's Starcom. This remains one of my favorite toy lines and shows of the 80's. I still have all of my toys, my VHS tapes of the show, the complete series on DVD and the coloring book as well as a few pieces from the official fan club. Great video I'm glad I subcribed and I look forward to more.
Very nice StarCom collection! My brother had a few StarCom pieces, including the large shuttle. I remember we tied a string to it and filmed it against a black sheet with white dots (as stars) to give the impression of space flight to a crappy home movie we were making. 😆
Wondering why Starcom wasn't rebooted at some point ? Own all the sets of the first wave, my daugther plays with them still today. But hell it's fragile : Some of these rewind motors just don't work anymore and some plastic ends can easily break... and not talking about the small visors getting lost 😅. But the modularity : transporting small cubes transforming into base or vehicule is just awesome.
Had the VHS of ring raisers came with one ring plane. Loved it. Had ads in the VHS for all the toys, bed sets, lunch boxes. Wanted everything. Never saw any of it in the stores. Never saw a single other episode of the show until youtube.
I used to skirt-chase a pretty cheerleader named Robin (who didn’t like me). Then I got the Garbage Pail Kid card - Basking Robin.😅😅😅. She criticized me for how immature it was.
I love starcom... I still have my Starmax in the loft 😂 I even rewatched the series a few months back as they're all on TH-cam. My parents loved it though as it took no batteries, they were all clockworks or spring loaded
I used to have a battery powered toy called a "whacky walker". It came with different legs to put on it. Also an air powered "moon jumper" i think. I have never found any pics of them. I was born in 1980.
@@RetroDaze thanks for replying! The air powered one looked like a spider kinda. It had a main body that was black and a big bulb. It got air pumped in to power the toy. I hope to see one some day on your channel. You're my only hope. 💚
I stand by Wheeled Warriors! I didn't even know the cartoon was a thing - I just saw those Monster Minds vehicles and I had to own them! I had 3 good guys and 3 bad guys and the Mobile Base. Now I only have my fave three toys from the line: Saw Boss, K.O. Kruiser, and Gun Grinner! Love the video!
Hey, at least you held on to a few of them! It’s probably a common thing to not recall the cartoon. It didn’t seem to be on much, at least it seemed that way.
On my 7th birthday (1985) i got a yellow radioshack dash 4x4 moster truck which works still and is emaculate now i chase my 5 year old son with it. I burn through 4 C batteries and carry a spare set when we go to the park its a eye catcher sometimes not as fast or fancy. But she still has it! I remember also a article in popular science where they had instructions for adapting the truck into the automated robot from "Flight of the Navigator"
As a toy, Wheeled Warriors were honestly kind of brilliant. They were _incredibly_ modular. Ports and pegs were standard across the line, so you could dissassemble and reconfigure vehicles in tons of weird ways, and mix 'n match to create your own. I'm honestly still sad that they didn't catch on.
Wheeled warriors was a rare instance where the toy came out before the cartoon. That is why they were not packaged with the main characters from the cartoon.
That Joe aisle looks so good. Even got a little taste of Cops N crooks there by a nice MASK section. I can just picture myself picking out a Cobra Wolf and Pogo or a Stiletto and Destro. Looks like a strong 87/88 line up. Great years to be a kid.
Well, the likelihood that any of us had much exposure to these is pretty minimal. Some didn't last very long, or did better overseas. Plus the market was just so full of choices. So don't feel to disappointed.😉
I had loads of Starcom toys as a kid and had no idea there was even a cartoon of it. On the flipside I absolutely loved Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors and remember being really annoyed there wasn't any toys for it like all the other cartoons (at least here in the UK)
@@RetroDazeIt aired on Sky (maybe the DJ Cat show) as well as channel 4. Fairly significant channels. So it’s unusual. Had no idea there were toys though. If they were on sale, I’d have probably found them.
I LOVED my ring raiders... i had each and every one. Kinda wish i still had them. They would make a great addition to any desk or collectors shelf who appreciates aviation.
I'm always blown away by the production value of this channel
Thanks man. It’s been a great collaboration. Splitting up the duties three ways really helps!
@RetroDaze do you remember Battle Beasts and Muscle Men? Some of the first things I collected and they were both amazing. I still have a huge Muscle Men collection that I will keep forever
@@gregordawgbin5227 Those M.U.S.C.L.E. guys were everywhere and cheap. You could get a nice collection going for a reasonable price, which was great!
These are rich kid toys,I had rocks and dirt,and sticks ,mud,and water!!!!
The Wishbook
Anyone else remember getting the sears Christmas catolog and having to mark every toy you wanted that year from santa like it was a shopping spree and you were actually going to get them all!
Absolutely. Only for Santa to disappoint year after year. Why didn’t I get the G.I. Joe aircraft carrier and VHS camcorder I marked Santa? Huh!? Answer the question, tubby.
@RetroDaze lmao! I'm still waiting on that baby alive and the tape recorder with duel sides! I had to make my mixed tapes using the RADIO......
Instead we ended up with real babies (and real poop) and Spotify.
@RetroDaze lmao. Yes that is exactly what we did!!!! And than it was our turn to deny the little poop monsters the items on their Amazon lists!
@@angelafisher5726I think you mean SANTA denied them. We are entirely innocent. 🤨
DinoRiders,StarCom,Mask,HeMan,Construx,Lego,etc.... was a great "age" to have been a kid!
@@mho... We were so lucky to have been young during that time. Such an amazing era.
Yaaaaay, Jon!
Kudos to all involved in the video production. 😁
I don’t recall, and didn’t have, any of these toys. Favorite one, though: Suckerman! 😹
Ha! Yeah, Suckerman seems to have some appeal regardless of gender.
We’ll make sure Jon doesn’t get TOO big for his britches now that he’s a multi-channel celebrity. 😁
@@RetroDaze Ha!
@@RetroDaze 😆😉
Ok,
I’m 62 and still think the toys from the 60’s and early to mid 70’s are the best…
Very cool. What were some of your favorites growing up?
I do remember most of them, and happen to still own my original bogglin. Nice list.
That’s awesome! Unfortunately I’ve had to basically recollect most of the interesting toys I had as a kid. With a few exceptions… I am grateful I kept my Shogun Godzilla and a handful of other items.
I still have a few Starcom toys up in the attic, to be more precise: The Shadowbat, Shadow Vampire, SF/B Starhawk, Battle Crane, the Medbay and the Vehicle Repair pods.
Nice! The line was actually pretty well done. Just couldn't take off like some of the others at the time.
The 1980s was a toy and cartoon tsunami that's staggering in hindsight. And that's where the, "too much of a good thing", kicks in as kids have to back away from the endless salad bar of product placement toys. I remember Starcom because one Saturday it was there, next Saturday it was gone. The cartoon ended when the toys finally hit the stores. It's a lotta fun seeing all these toys again. Looking forward to the next installment. 👍👍
Thanks Edd! Yeah, aside from StarCom and a few Wheeled Warriors, these were not in my toy box. There were just too many other products vying for attention.
Same. I was so interested in seeing the show, it was on TV for like one month and never seen around my area again - no reruns, just evaporated. Then the toys came out and disappeared nearly as quickly.
Boglins were awesome back in the day. Just like having your own Mutant Muppet Show. I don't have any Boglins nowadays but I do have a very cool Gremlins Cable Guys controller holder :-) Great video Jon!
Now the image of Kermit fighting off a horde of Boglins is swirling around in my head. 😆
Great video brother! Keep them coming! I love this kind of content! Stay Retro! 😃
More to come!
Dude, Starcom was badass.
Agreed. I loved mine
Yes! A well-made toy line with a fun cartoon attached. Just couldn’t catch on like some others unfortunately.
@@RetroDaze It's unfortunate, the cartoon was actually pretty good
I still have Wheeled Warriors and StarCom toys boxed up. I loved them! The Starcom ones especially were awesome. I remember the Ring Riaders and Boglins as well. The other 2 not so much.
All were pretty good in different ways… well, not Manglors. 😆
80's kid here (born in '76), my favorite thing was Masters of the Universe. I would watch the cartoon religiously and had most of the action figures.
Mine as well (Producer Tony)! I was a MOTU super fan. We cover it in our “Toys That Defined The ‘80s” video.
I loved my Boglins! I tried to keep one for years and it just melted away. Great video!
Thank you! Yeah, unfortunately the materials did not hold up well over the years.
Best show and toys on this list is easily Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors!!!!
It was definitely a great show and some fun toys.
I recognized my playset in the thumbnail! They were such awesome toys even if I never saw the cartoon!
Although very awesome, I personally feel Starcom was the better show.
Just discovered your channel today. It's awesome, keep up the great work!
Thank you! Very glad you found us and are enjoying the videos. We greatly appreciate it!
One of my favorite 80's toys that I don't hear much about anymore are the Stomper 4X4's. I loved those trucks and soft wheels
Stompers were awesome! Especially if you got some of the terrain and obstacles to go over, or just made some yourself.
@@RetroDaze I used to have one of the playsets and used to go outside and make hills in the dirt to see how much they could handle. I also had the ones that could go on water.
Then you could also race them. There were always some that were faster. You wanted to make sure they both had fresh batteries though.
Clackers. I earned notoriety for how long I could keep them going in my neighborhood. If you recall, two Superball-sized balls on each end of a string with a tab in the center, which you held in your thumb and forefinger and began hitting the two balls together until you could make them meet again overhead. It was a simple concept. Just made a loud clacking noise. I loved ‘em.
Long before there were fidget spinners, there were clackers! 😆 Though fidget spinners can’t really double as a weapon like clackers could.
I had several of the StarCom toys and I thought they were awesome! The figures were surprisingly well articulated for their size and the magnets in their feet let you stick them to the refrigerator or the playground jungle gym. I particularly remember playing with the star base that could either fold flat or stand up with three tiers. Also the little black triangle ship that had collapsible wings. While they weren’t as memorable as Star Wars or Transformers, they were still quality toys. Definitely the stand outs of this episode in my opinion.
They were definitely quality toys. My brother had a few of them, and the shuttle made its way into a homemade movie we filmed once. 😆
Stompers, matchbox cars, and legos were fun for me. Then one 1980 year, I got a Criss Cross Crash for Christmas. It was awesome!
That’s a kind of forgotten one!
The Tonka and Nylint metal toy trucks. They were my favorite toys as a child.
Loved my Tonka truck collection as well. Great stuff.
Here's the thing about the Wheeled Warriors: the toys actually predate the cartoon. There was an entire set of lore and characters made for the toys, but when it came time to make the animated tie-in almost all of it was thrown out, resulting in a whole new set of characters and story with only a few of the vehicles in common.
Much like Masters of the Universe. Ditching the mini-comic lore for the Filmation version of events.
I had a load of Starcom toys bought for me when I was six for Christmas. They were brilliant and it was a shame that they got lost in the shuffle
Absolutely agree. We just had so much great stuff to choose from, it was easy for toy lines to struggle to get a foothold.
I had a few StarCom things and I loved the Wheeled Warriors cartoon. I had no taste back in the day 😂
I had some Wheeled Warriors and my brother had some StarCom stuff, so apparently there were quite a few of us out there lacking taste. 😆
I remember ads for pretty much all of these, but didn't have any of them. My toy collection was predominantly Star Wars until the mid-80s, and predominantly Transformers afterwards (and to this day).
Neither is a bad choice for being the predominant line of toys in a collection!
I had a couple of the Wheeled Warriors vehicles! They were actually pretty cool. You could completely customize and even "Stack n' Attack!" Multiple vehicles.
So much potential. Too bad, really. They should have lasted far longer on the market.
Wacky Wall Walkers. Got those in cereal boxes, drove the cats nuts and left oil spots on the wall🤣.
Ah yes. The infamous "wet" spots got me in trouble a few times. Best to keep them contained to the wood paneling. LOL
Very cool and interesting video! Most of these with the exception of Baby Alive and Boglins I don't remember. Manglors looked like it could have been a good idea. It would be cool if someone could make those work today.
You would think with today’s technology we could manufacture something like the Manglors that actually live up to their ad claims. Thanks for watching Margeaux!
Thanks for watching, M!
Good title! ...I don't remember ANY of those! 😉👌
Ha! Mission accomplished then.
@@RetroDaze Totally!
You have a fantastic channel! I love reminiscing about things from my childhood. I didn't remember any of these toys except for bogglins. My toy life in the 80s revolved around garbage pail kids, micro machines, and of course nintendo.
Then it was a stellar toy life indeed! All three of those are ‘80s kid staples. And thank you for the kind words. It means a lot!
Out of all of these the only one I’ve never heard of was Sucker-man. I’ve seen or heard about everything else with Wheeled Warriors and Ring Riders being the two I came closest to seeing in stores. Though if I remember correctly Wheeled Warriors was just a mini pamphlet I encountered at a friend’s party.
I remember, had, and loved all of these.
I have said growing up in the 80s, was the opposite of growing up in the Depression. We were spoiled to a level when 30 plus years later we knew it would never get better.
You’re not wrong. Sometimes it felt like everything everywhere revolved around us!
Star Com had great vehicles! (And lousy figures). It also taught me a valuable lesson on materialism. When I was 12, I got the space station for my birthday. I also got $60, which I used to buy a whole bunch more vehicles all in one shopping spree. When we got home from the toy store, as I was surrounded by opened boxes of Star Com toys, it was devastating how empty I felt inside. In previous years, I'd have to collect my toys just a few at a time because my family wasn't well off, and every single toy was cherished. But when I was able to buy a whole bunch at once on my 12th birthday, they didn't mean nearly as much. Ever since then I felt deeply sorry for wealthy people.
I’m guessing not all folks felt the same way when they could finally afford those prized items. But it does make sense to have that feeling. For me, the emptiness wasn’t in owning the toys, but in not having anyone to play with you using them. If a friend wasn’t over, they mostly sat unused.
@@RetroDaze That is an interesting insight (and sad... Sorry to hear about the loneliness). I was the opposite... If other kids were involved, it messed up the flow of my creative concentration, ha ha!
Ha! Yeah there were always those kids that played in ways unlike you.
as a kid of the 80's. i do remember my mom & dad did buy me the manglor mountain for Christmas.
Did you have issues with reattaching the body parts after a short time?
yes. but i tried using soap & water but that didn't help.
It seems to be the consensus online that the claims made about reattaching parts was outright false advertising.
I had both StarCom sets and ships friends too. Definitely had bogglins too.
Awesome. Do you still own any?
I still have a boglin, the orange jackolantern one. And I watched the wheeled warriors with dedication. It was amazing how many star wars parallels the show used.
Huh. We never made that connection. But, now that you’ve mentioned it, it’s definitely there.
Starcom was awesome, I knew a few kids who had the toys and they were really nice. I had a Boglin, it was pretty cool.
StarCom was a lot of fun. Well made toy line.
I had a Manglor. Played with it once and in the garbage it went!!! I might have had a Suckerman. Keep up the good work!!!
That sounds about like most folks experience with the Manglors.
Starcom had absolutely amazing toys 😊 I had the small vehicle that had an automatic turret. Loved it.
They were stellar! Great line with fun features.
I had a Sucker-Man toy. I flung that thing around all day when I first got it, until my mom got tired of me ripping it off the dining room window. Eventually, it lost the ability to stick.
Oops. 😆 It didn’t take much to make them lose stickiness. One or two drops on the carpet. Doh!
@@RetroDaze Yeah, I remember mine started to lose its stickiness from cat hair. 😂
Years ago, I bought (and still have) Dwork the Bogglin lol. I remember Sucker Man, but never had one of those.
That’s very cool that you still have your Boglin. Did you happen to buy any of the rerelease versions?
Lol no, I didn't even know about the rerelease versions until I saw your video
Jayce and the wheeled warriors has excellent intro and outro.
@@randywatson8347 The middle is pretty good too most of the episodes. 😆
I have a StarCom figure standing on my refrigerator right now!
Perfect! Such a great, underrated toy line.
I have one on the metal strip of my window blinds.
StarComm, Starriors, Air Raiders, Sectaurs, Wheeled Warriors, Robotix, Dragon Riders of the Styx were amongst my faves.
@@JamesJLaRue We’ve covered most of these, and the others are on our list!
I absolutely loved my Starcom toys and wish I still had them.
There were some great vehicles in that line.
Ooooh that's a nice nostalgia hit, thanks! I think Manglers and Suckerman were just barely before my time (born at the start of the 80s) but I remember Ring Raiders (and thinking they looked really stupid to kid me, Micro Machines FTW!!!), and I THINK I owned a Wheeled Warrior as they look incredibly familiar but none of the sets look exactly like anything I owned so perhaps it was just a friend who had one. My brother and I definitely had a lot of StarCom though, I am looking over the product line now on Transformerland's website and holy crap we owned several of these. If memory serves me we owned the F-1400, H.A.R.V., M-6 Railgunner, Shadow Invader, and Shadow Raider, but I think we possibly owned a few more of them as well as they definitely look familiar, though that could just be from looking at the back of the box/JC Penny catalogs. Fun toy, good use of magnets and wind up motors. The Shadow Raider in particular was a really cool set with the way you could rotate the tank treads 90 degrees to switch to a stilted mode, or 180 degrees for a wide reach.
The Boglins ad with it breaking through the tile to scare the cat is giving me flashbacks, but I can't recall if I ever actually played with these. However, they do remind me of Madballs, which I thought were really cool, as well as these small plastic balls that were popular around the same time that would play back audio clips of monster sounds when you touched your finger across a couple of metal contacts on the back of them.
Awesome! Thank you for sharing all those fond memories.
Someone else mentioned those balls with the contacts on them a while back. The whole “gross out” fad produced so many products it’s hard to keep them all straight!
I don’t think I ever saw one of those toys, and certainly didn’t own them, and I was a child of the 70’s. I was into TSMDM, Starblazers, electronic toys, legos, Shogun warriors, BB guns, and matchbox cars.
I still have my Shogun Warriors Godzilla, and then bought another on EBay a few years back that was in better condition.
@@RetroDaze I had great mazinger and a friend had Godzilla as well. So much fun shooting rockets from its hand.
I remember all of them probably because I started work for a toy think tank in 1980, my first job out of college. Eight of us worked on toy concepts. On our first day, our boss took us to Toys-r-Us and he took a Suckerman out of the package and threw up onto a skylight yelling "SUCKERMAN!' The boss also said that Suckerman would stay up there until sometime in the middle of the night when it would fall and set off the store alarms. What a guy.
😂😂 That sounds like an excellent place to work! Designing toy concepts for a boss with a good sense of humor. Nice.
@@RetroDaze It was a lot of fun, but it was also a lot of pressure. Toys are a fashion industry, needing to get to market quickly.
I spent two years there, two years at Kidco, and under two years at Hasbro, increasing my salary substantially.
@@gregrogers6886That’s very cool. But I can see how the pressure to be on top of the latest trends and IP could be exhausting.
I remember Wheeled Warriors cartoons and toys being cool in the 80s. I remember the Booglins as well.
@@jettjedi73 Wheeled Warriors had some great vehicles and the often mentioned stacking feature.
Starcom toys were badass! And though the toys weren't well remembered, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors was one of the best cartoons to come out of the 80s. That theme song to this day is pure 🔥!
Agreed on both counts. Hard to get that theme out of your head!
My favorite toys from the 1984-1989 era were LEGO, Tinker Toys, ERECTOR SETS, and Micro Machine vehicles!
3 building toy lines and a line of vehicles to use on them. 😆
StarCom to this day remains one of my absolute favorite toy lines. I still have one of the little loader vehicles on my nostalgia shelf.
It is funny how some toy lines that didn't resonate with the majority of kids, hold such a special place in the hearts of those for whom they did. I personally thought Starriors was a cool line, but it failed pretty hard and fast.
@@RetroDaze I think you nailed it, there was just an over saturation of so many toys that were amazing. 80s really was a toy renaissance and the fact that so many lines are still around today or are remembered so fondly today proves it. Happy I grew up in such an era for sure. My bank account isn't, lol.
@@andrewthielmann5342 😆😆Yeah, neither is my bank account. But when I walk into the old "retro cave", my eyes and my heart sure are.
@@RetroDaze Totes. *Fist bump*
I adored Starcom. It was so cool
@@martinjrgensen8234 It definitely had the potential to be huge. Just didn’t work out.
Thank you I just had a full on flashback and my mind just flooded with forgot toys I had or wanted.
Penny Racers
Key Cars
Stomper trucks
Madballs
And
Spinjas!!!
I loved my Stompers collection. I had a nice set of track that I could run them on to see which one could finish without crashing or running off course.
I'm just there for the free cake and ice cream TBH.
😆 You’re the butthead!
That was pretty much every kid back then 🤣 🤣 🤣
Great list! I remember Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors from an insert in the He-Man magazine. I don't recall ever seeing the cartoon, but a buddy of mine had some of the toys. I think they ended up being cannon fodder in his G.I. Joe wars. Fun memories.
Ha! Yeah I had a few myself, and they typically ended up being incorporated into stories of other toy lines I played with. My main toy line was indeed MOTU, but they didn’t work well in that line.
@@RetroDaze True, they weren't sized for MOTU. My younger brother had Power Lords (also a forgotten toy line), and we ended up incorporating those in our MOTU battles.
I had one or two of the Warlord figures that I mixed in with MOTU now and then.
I was one of those kids who would show up at a birthday party just for the free food
It was you! You’re the culprit! Time for a game of “Smear The…“ uh… “Smear The Kid Who Came To Eat Cake”.
I totally forgot about Sucker Man! Nice hosting Jon!
Thanks for check out the video! Always happy to make a forgotten memory surface again.
Jayce and the wheeled warriors was amazing.
Yes they were!
My Brother got a bunch of the Ring Raiders one year for Christmas. We just ran across them again a few months ago. Great memories. I also had a Boglin; I basically put them in the same camp as Mad Balls, if you happen to remember them.
@@ValagEvermore Mad Balls were great! Even enjoyed some of the copycat/knockoff ones.
I had Ring Raiders. I think about them from time to time. I even remeber the poster they show at the end of that segment.
My 10 y/o son has my brother's Mad Ball football.
I remember Wheeled Warriors. I had a couple of the vehicle toys. Decent show to. Too bad it could not have lasted longer.
Agreed. Wish it had caught on.
StarCom was awesome, it felt so 'Mature'. I saw it in 1990 when in was aired on 'Veronica' in The Netherlands and our toy stores were flooded with awesome spaceships. I distinctly remember buying a Col. Paul "Crowbar" Corbin action figure while on Spring holiday in the south-west of The Netherlands. Good times.
We’re kind of jealous that StarCom was far more successful in parts of Europe unlike here in the states. It was so underrated here.
Starcom was awsome, the figures and toys were so detailed for the small scale, I was very into them, and that magnetic feeling when you put figs on stand spots was just as satisfying as clicking a lego brick together lol
The figure sculpts were comparable, if not superior to, the MASK and Dino Riders figures.
@ absolutely I’d say superior lol something about the weight cause of the magnets in feet just made them feel premium, and they definitely had longevity, they outlasted lot of other bigger toy lines with my kid wear n tear lol
Watched Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors and StarCom. Had a lot of StarCom toys and still have most of them. Also remember Boglins quite well.
That’s awesome that you still have a bunch of your StarCom stuff. Such a great toy line, despite it being short-lived.
Great vid, just one thing. Starcom didn't didn't actually die in 1990, the toys were on sale right up until 1994 here in the UK and Japan :D they are REALLY easy to find here because ofit, but the toys were expensive at the time.
It’s a shame they weren’t more successful here in the States. It really was a good quality toy line.
@@RetroDaze Agreed man.... I can't prove it, and please don't think I'm 100% saying this as gospel but ther MAYBE reasons for its cancelation and then toy destruction :S. There is an episode that deals with the Starcom team finding humanity's creators ON MARS lol I can't help but think someone raised their eyebrow and just axed it for that lol
Suckerman would've been right up my alley with its weirdness 😂great video as always, Vapor!
Thanks Ben! Glad you enjoyed it.
I would give a lot to visit 80s toy stores again
Absolutely! The only problem would be trying to figure out how to transport all the toys to bring back. 😆
Wow! I gratefully missed all but one of these toys- and that was sucker man! Loved your video- so I’m a new subscriber!
That’s awesome! Thank you. But yeah, most of these weren’t actually “bad”, they just couldn’t catch on with so many other choices out there. Except for Manglors… they sucked. 😆
I was born in 65, my son in 85. I never seen any of these.
They had varying degrees of success, but they were all overshadowed by much more popular toy lines. So it isn’t unusual for these to have flown under the radar of both you and your son. I appreciate you watching!
Lol that's why they're on here
@@kimhawxhurst2707Indeed.
Manglors, knew of them but never had any. Suckerman, don't remember even knowing of him at the time. Wheeled Warriors, didn't have the toys or watch the show, but I did have some books which I still have. Ring Raiders, still have a few and I enjoyed the cartoon. And then there's Starcom. This remains one of my favorite toy lines and shows of the 80's. I still have all of my toys, my VHS tapes of the show, the complete series on DVD and the coloring book as well as a few pieces from the official fan club.
Great video I'm glad I subcribed and I look forward to more.
Very nice StarCom collection! My brother had a few StarCom pieces, including the large shuttle. I remember we tied a string to it and filmed it against a black sheet with white dots (as stars) to give the impression of space flight to a crappy home movie we were making. 😆
Very cool. If I'd had a camera I'd had enjoyed trying to do that myself. That shuttle, the Starmax Bomber was one of my favorites.
Starmax Bomber… that just sounds cool.
Yes, the vehicles had some cool names.
I never had any of the toys mentioned in the video but I do miss yoyos, marbles, nintendo Game and Watch and Lego most of all.
@@deondewit3175 At least for yo-yos and marbles you can still go out and buy them. A little harder to find perhaps.
Never had a Game and Watch but some kids at school did. I remember it was a Zelda themed one. It thought it was really cool.
Starcom was the BEST! I loved it as one of my favorites, and I still have all mine in a box upstairs!
@@antaine1916 That’s excellent! Hold onto those beauties!
Wondering why Starcom wasn't rebooted at some point ? Own all the sets of the first wave, my daugther plays with them still today. But hell it's fragile : Some of these rewind motors just don't work anymore and some plastic ends can easily break... and not talking about the small visors getting lost 😅. But the modularity : transporting small cubes transforming into base or vehicule is just awesome.
There were a lot of fun features in the line. Too bad it didn’t stick around longer.
Had the VHS of ring raisers came with one ring plane. Loved it. Had ads in the VHS for all the toys, bed sets, lunch boxes. Wanted everything. Never saw any of it in the stores. Never saw a single other episode of the show until youtube.
Oh wow. Betting that VHS video is uploaded somewhere on TH-cam as well.
@@RetroDaze Yeah. It was the pilot and second episode. Had the Dino Riders one as well. Sad those never took off on TV.
I remember garbage pail kids .. those cards were hilarious
Some of them are worth quite a bit of money now!
I used to skirt-chase a pretty cheerleader named Robin (who didn’t like me). Then I got the Garbage Pail Kid card - Basking Robin.😅😅😅. She criticized me for how immature it was.
I love starcom... I still have my Starmax in the loft 😂 I even rewatched the series a few months back as they're all on TH-cam.
My parents loved it though as it took no batteries, they were all clockworks or spring loaded
@@ptwrmakes1849 Any time a toy did not require batteries was a huge win as a parent, and is even more so now! 😆
I used to have a battery powered toy called a "whacky walker". It came with different legs to put on it. Also an air powered "moon jumper" i think. I have never found any pics of them. I was born in 1980.
Hmm. I don’t recall those. They sound interesting though.
@@RetroDaze thanks for replying! The air powered one looked like a spider kinda. It had a main body that was black and a big bulb. It got air pumped in to power the toy. I hope to see one some day on your channel. You're my only hope. 💚
Oh no! That’s a lot of pressure! 😆 But we’ll keep an eye out for something fitting that description.
@@RetroDaze I subbed, so I will watch for it in a video.....? Lol maybe? God Bless you. Thank you for making my week!
Our pleasure!
I still have a Starcom toy. It’s in a cabinet next to my bed! Still works perfectly.
Nice! Hold onto that puppy.
Starcom was really cool, a buddy had almost all the toys.
Very nice! He had quite the collection then.
@@RetroDaze Mask, Star Wars, Master of the Universe, Starcom, Marshall Bravestar, all the good things you could imagine but not afford as a child.
I stand by Wheeled Warriors! I didn't even know the cartoon was a thing - I just saw those Monster Minds vehicles and I had to own them! I had 3 good guys and 3 bad guys and the Mobile Base. Now I only have my fave three toys from the line: Saw Boss, K.O. Kruiser, and Gun Grinner!
Love the video!
Hey, at least you held on to a few of them! It’s probably a common thing to not recall the cartoon. It didn’t seem to be on much, at least it seemed that way.
On my 7th birthday (1985) i got a yellow radioshack dash 4x4 moster truck which works still and is emaculate now i chase my 5 year old son with it. I burn through 4 C batteries and carry a spare set when we go to the park its a eye catcher sometimes not as fast or fancy. But she still has it!
I remember also a article in popular science where they had instructions for adapting the truck into the automated robot from "Flight of the Navigator"
That’s awesome! Especially with it still working and being a part of your son’s childhood. Love that so much.
Wow!! Great trip down memory lane. I had 2 of the Suckermen (green & glow in the dark). Just subscribed….looking forward to more great content.
Thank you Jimbo!!! You’re our new favorite person today! 😉
As a toy, Wheeled Warriors were honestly kind of brilliant. They were _incredibly_ modular. Ports and pegs were standard across the line, so you could dissassemble and reconfigure vehicles in tons of weird ways, and mix 'n match to create your own. I'm honestly still sad that they didn't catch on.
Indeed. We often wonder if they had done a better job connecting the cartoon to the toys, if it would have made a difference.
Wow, I don't recall any of these toys. I guess there wasn't anything to forget.
Aside from Boglins, they were mostly drowned out by all the competition.
I loved Wheeled Warriors!
Such a great toy line!
@RetroDaze show wasn't to bad and the theme song rocked
@@Whosfatandhappyi got up at 6 am to wach jace and the wheeled warriors
@@torquetheprisoner awesome
Laughed so hard on the Boglins. There were 3 holes in the back for your fingers. Great stuff man!
😆 Nice. Glad you enjoyed it! Yeah, Boglins were almost too well known for this list, but we just had to throw them in there.
@@RetroDaze glad you did and thank you for the reply. 👍
Had a glow in the dark Sucker Man! ...learned the hard way that sticking him directly to a 100W lightbulb and walking away was a bad idea... !
Yikes! Poor Suckerman! We cover a similar incident in our Cereal Prizes video. 😆
Wheeled warriors was a rare instance where the toy came out before the cartoon. That is why they were not packaged with the main characters from the cartoon.
Unfortunately it hurt the brand pretty badly.
Starcomm. Loved those
StarCom was such a great line. Sucks that it didn’t catch on better.
I had the StarCom toys!! they were pretty cool!!
StarCom was a high quality toy series that just couldn’t find its footing in the crowded marketplace.
My favorite toys from the 80's were: G1 Transformers; Lego; Zoids and Majorette cars.
Not a bad list of toys there!
This is great. Trip to childhood
Very glad it got those nostalgia juices flowing! There is more where that came from.
I had a boglin. I still have me Starcom bomber as I loved it. Lots of he men but they have long gone.
@@pickle4474 Likewise. I greatly regret the garage sale in which I sold most of my MOTU guys.
That Joe aisle looks so good. Even got a little taste of Cops N crooks there by a nice MASK section. I can just picture myself picking out a Cobra Wolf and Pogo or a Stiletto and Destro. Looks like a strong 87/88 line up. Great years to be a kid.
How amazing would it be to travel back in time there and just load up carts full of those things! 😆
My kids are grown n. Up now I still have there toys from from the 80 ,
I would say that if they aren’t looking to keep them, and you need the space/cash, you could probably get some good money from them.
I did have Jase and the wheeled warriors. I had his vehicle and one other. Wish I still had them. The 80s were great.
Yes they were. I had a few Wheeled Warriors myself.
I am so disappointed in myself. I don’t remember any of these 🙈
Well, the likelihood that any of us had much exposure to these is pretty minimal. Some didn't last very long, or did better overseas. Plus the market was just so full of choices. So don't feel to disappointed.😉
@@RetroDaze I’m sure I saw commercials for them, but just don’t remember.
And I was old enough. Born in ‘73.
@@johnrossi6212’74 here. Most of these I knew only because other kids in my circle of friends had some.
@@RetroDaze love your videos. Great seeing old memories and stuff like this that I don’t remember at all.
Agreed! I wish there were more channels out there doing it. Some good ones are Recollection Road and Rhetty for History.
I had loads of Starcom toys as a kid and had no idea there was even a cartoon of it.
On the flipside I absolutely loved Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors and remember being really annoyed there wasn't any toys for it like all the other cartoons (at least here in the UK)
@@Acelif Ahh… so Wheeled Warriors didn’t make it to the UK?
@@RetroDaze If they did I never saw any as a kid
@@RetroDazeIt aired on Sky (maybe the DJ Cat show) as well as channel 4. Fairly significant channels. So it’s unusual. Had no idea there were toys though. If they were on sale, I’d have probably found them.
There were some European only He-Man figures and magazines that we missed out on so… call it even. 😆
I still have my Wheeled Warriors.
Hold on to those puppies!
That's awesome! Stack and Attack!
I LOVED my ring raiders... i had each and every one. Kinda wish i still had them. They would make a great addition to any desk or collectors shelf who appreciates aviation.
Cool. Good to see a little love for Ring Raiders.