While never as popular as He-Man's "Castle Grayskull," and not as grandiose or talked about as the immense G.I. Joe Aircraft Carrier, Ideal's "Robo Force" series provided its own little (big) playset, and it went just as far in letting kids host crossover parties where all of their action figures got down with their bad selves. Everything having to do with Robo Force has been mostly neglected during the whole retro revival and nostalgia craze in recent years, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Compared to the kiddie franchises that ended up in today's card stores and hip teen clothing boutiques, Robo Force items remain comparatively cheap for the same kind of audience who enjoyed them all those years ago: people who just love their toys.
The collection of toys wasn't exactly vast, but what we got was of far higher quality than most of the competing playthings. "The Fortress of Steele" was probably the highest card in Robo Force's hand -- an absolutely huge playset chock full of action features, bonus accessories, weapons and enough stickers to carry a kid through a full elementary school run of decorated marble notebooks. As you'd imagine, it was pretty expensive in its day. I first picked the playset up on clearance at a Lionel store well over ten years ago, for something in the realm of ten bucks. I hadn't quite crossed the bridge that kept me from destroying everything I owned, so the playset only took up temporary residence before enough of its meatier parts were lost. Last week, at some oddball closeout store nobody searching for anything more than a pencil would ever bother entering...there is was. For twenty bucks, it would've been a steal even if the Fortress was unboxed and missing a few pieces. This version was still completely sealed, with all of its 8,000 parts protected in their original baggies. After a conversation with the store owner about why I'd want such a thing droned on much longer than I would've preferred, I happily headed home with my find. Now all I had to do was located my old Robo Force robots -- buried deep in a chest, even deeper in our closet, surrounded by a horde of half-broken toys and magazines scarred from the many coffee spills of yesteryear.
Finally, I found 'em. If you're unfamiliar with Robo Force figures, put on your best happy-to-meet-you face and prepare to shake hands with things that don't really have hands.
I'll never understand why these haven't caught on better with collectors -- there's really been nothing quite like them. Aside from the general android look, each figure is enhanced by Popoid-like stretchy arms and a suction-cupped posterior that lets them defy gravity and stand on any flat, hard surface. And, while all ten of the available figures shared those traits, they still managed to look completely different from one another otherwise. Seriously, if you're a robot kinda guy, you'd really appreciate the imagination that went into these characters. There was a team of six hero figures, led by "Maxx Steele," more famous for his erector sets and holy freakin huge electronic robots than anything having to do with action figures. In fact, while many toy enthusiasts know Maxx Steele very well, only a percentage of 'em have any idea about Robo Force. We're dealing with the bastard children of Toys 'R' Us. Give them some love.
With only four warriors, the villains of the line were outnumbered, but generally looked way cooler. Shown above are two of these bad guys -- "Hun-Dred" is the kickass black-and-gray dude, while "Cruel" is the purple mess with the assortment of cigar-shaped bubble gum sticks all over his chest. Hun-Dred is listed as the "Conqueror Robot," while Cruel nails more of a creative license with his "Detonator Robot" title. I understand this to mean that Hun-Dred can walk onto an island resort and claim it as his own. Cruel might have it better -- he can just blow the place up.
While the Fortress of Steele was really intended to be the heroes' stronghold, I'm giving the keys to Cruel and Hun-Dred. I think I smell a reality series. Vinegar too, for some reason.
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Okay, admittedly, it doesn't photograph all that well. Either does the process of eating lobster, and that never stopped you. It's a three-tiered beast of plastic, with enough nooks and crannies to make the English Muffin people feel totally inadequate. In putting the castle together again, I was reminded of its one downside: it's almost impossible to assemble all the way. The big parts fit into their spots well enough, but once you hit "Odd Shaped Plastic Piece #6-C Green," you become far more interested in playing video games instead. What's shown above are the basics, stripped of a bunch of very small parts that either have no noted spots to appear, or that are supposed to go in spots too small to fit 'em into. Then again, every large playset of this kind seems to have a few of those pieces. Maybe Ideal chucked 'em in there because they'd already printed choking warnings on the boxes.
The true coup of the Fortress of Steele was only apparent to those who used it with their other action figures. You could fit a good number of Robo Force warriors in there (all of them, actually), but think of the amount of G.I. Joes, Star Wars figures, and other four-inch characters that could storm this place. Playing host only to the grandest of action figure galas, the Fortress of Steele would've been positively perfect if it had only arrived with tiny plastic glassware and hors d'oeuvres trays. A playset as large and spacious as this was kinda wasted on a bunch of clunky robot figures. I'm confident that the picture above was taken from a safe enough distance for me to say this without causing Hun-Dred to kill me with his....well, I'm not sure what he'd kill me with, but something on the guy must shoot lasers. Here's a closer look at the Fortress' many amenities...
Here we have the throne area, where your chosen Robo Force leader can sit his sticky ass in style. The leader should be protected, so the throne has two swiveling guns attached. It's only a big coup if you overlook the fact that everything in the fortress has as many guns stuck to it, if not more. Seems like the robots were anticipating some in-house fire, as many of the weapons can only be aimed at the Fortress' own dirty parts. You'd expect better planning from computer-brains, but these were the same guys who thought it'd be better to have ass-stickability than a clear method of walking around. Check the "Robo Farce" article in the March 1987 issue of the New Yorker for more info. It's right alongside an ad for Charlie's Bean Soup. Not sure if it was a play or a yummy. Hey now.
Oh, see that blue window wall thingy behind Cruel? It slides open, assuming you've got Galactus-level strength and fingers that never hurt. And why is Hun-Dred dressed to wave a plane down for landing? Evil robots wouldn't give a shit about that.
There's also some kind of elevator/transport thing...I dunno, something with a door. Maybe it's the control room? We're on the second floor now, and for my money, that's the best floor. When I originally had this thing, Jabba the Hutt and Mumm-Ra shared space in the spot shown above, gleefully constructing invite lists that seemed to be intended more to irk those who didn't get invited. I also recall some sort of embarrassing tryst where Jabba and Mumm-Ra fought for Princess Leia's affections, only to lose out to "Louie the Plumber" from "C.O.P.S." If you've never heard of Louie, that be the irony.
Come to think of it, the Fortress of Steele was the absolute center of my toy-time universe. It was already quite comfy in the clearance section by the time I picked it up, and this was well after an era of Grayskulls, Snake Mountains and Ewok Villages to supply settings for my inane little figure adventures. In fact, no actual Robo Force figures ever went to the parties -- the only one I had left was mostly demolished and banished to our backyard soil by that point. Instead, the Fortress became a cultural center where characters from all different movies, toons and whatnot gathered together and tried not to notice the severe differences in scale. I didn't think about it at the time, but a Mumm-Ra and Princess Leia romance? That shit had to hurt realll bad.
One of the back walls had an opening hatch to allow for a quick defensive attack, or simply to get some fresh air in the joint. Yes, even the hatch has a gun. These Robo Force dudes took their wars very seriously. The hatch is sturdy enough, but as I found out years ago, isn't really structured to handle anything heavier than hollowed-out plastic robots with featherweight suction cup asses. When the hatch broke, so did my heart. I would've been okay with it if my heart had a gun.
Ah frig. Nothing better to have stuck in your head on a Monday afternoon than visions of Mumm-Ra and Leia Organa trying to copulate. And now I'm picturing SS-Slithe and Vultureman gossiping about it, while Ma-Mutt runs around that stupid bloody pool with Leia's panties hanging from his jaws. I better clear this crap out before Grandma gets involved.
I know what you're thinking. You think the Fortress of Steele needs a claw. A big claw that holds and transports robots. Wow, are you intooweetive...
It has a claw! How about that? The device works really, really poorly, but it's still a claw. Any Robo Force robot will fit snugly in the claw's claw, while the crane's crane lifts the robot's robot to the sky's sky. Only it won't get very far up in the sky, because the device sucks and can't carry any weight without morphing into a crying little three-year-old who wants immediate naptime. Adding to the crap factor is the crane/claw's color scheme -- an out-of-nowhere, no-reason-for-being assault of blue and orange plastic provides the Fortress of Steele with its least inconspicuous line of defense. Perhaps the crane was merely a red herring -- who needs it when you've got 45,000 guns?
"Egon, there's all sorts of purple slime down here! Make Lady Liberty step-dance with a Nintendo controller, quick!"
The top and final floor doesn't have too much going on, save for this weird bubble thingy that flips over to reveal -- you guessed it -- another gun. I'm not sure what those black logs inside the bubble are meant to represent, but I always considered them as part of an entire alien society the Robo Force kids kept as pets. Now that I've had a chance to see it again, I'm not ruling out the possibility of a licorice stockpile. After all, Cruel and Hun-Dred absolutely cannot eat licorice. Doesn't mean they should just throw it away, though. Hooray for ingenuity in robotivity!
By the way, see all those stickers? According to the guidesheet, I placed them in the incorrect spots. How can I go on living knowing that sticker #32 isn't atop vague plastic panel #47? I'm having trouble with that one. Thank God my heart doesn't have a gun.
Bonus schtuff! The Fortress also comes with that wall o' weapons shown on the left, complete with more weapons than are needed to plug in each of the holes. Not that I'm complaining. Most of the weps are what you'd expect (guns, guns and guns), but others are weirder. There's some kind of mace ball attached to what looks like a carrot, and a few other things that look like carrots without mace balls attached. Still, it's good to know that in the event of the Fortress' million laser guns failing, they've still got the carrot card up their sleeve.
Finally, there's some kind of small flight vehicle for short reconnaissance missions. Not sure what reconnaissance means, but I think that's what the fat guy was doing in Empire Strikes Back right before he found Han and Luke shoved up a dead Taun-Taun's ass. To give you an idea of how many stickers the Fortress came with, even the tiny vehicle has six or seven. Ideal was so obviously dating Lisa Frank in the 80's.
Capping things off, the entire playset can fold together and seal up, sort of like He-Man's old stomping grounds. There's even a handle in case you want to break kayfabe and carry around your buddies' immense living complex with your entirely too huge hands. It looks like Hun-Dred's giving the whole shebang two thumbs up -- but those aren't thumbs, they're...what I'd say? Carrots I think?
Overall: The Robo Force collection is vastly underrated, and the "Fortress of Steele" is a perfect example. Big, beautiful, plastic pile of shit that provided countless hours of playtime for a comparatively cheap price -- and it had lots of guns! The figures themselves were unbelievably unique, and while there's better "castle playsets" that arrived in the era, only the Fortress of Steele had a bubble full of faux licorice. A+. Very tough to find these days in good condition, but if you're lucky enough to stumble onto it, the price should be affordable. Nobody wants Robo Force stuff. It ain't right, but it's the truth. Be the first on your block. Start your own little legacy. Follow Hun-Dred's lead. Put hyphens in-between the syllables of your first name.
