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Mildly Interesting ’80s Print Ads!

Grab your drink, grab your junk, grab a chair and relax -- this is a nice, long one for ya. A bunch of the greatest print ads of the `80s, pulled from children's mags ranging in topic from He-Man to Andre the Giant. Over a dozen trips back in time, with ads covering WWF Ice Cream Bars, Photon, Battle Beasts and more. Some really fun stuff chucked in there; if it's received well, I may do a second chapter next week. Look, you're going to see Jimmy Hart's life-sized face if you read this. Do it.

Posted by Matt on 07/10/2005. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 182 comments

I freakin ruled at Pogo Ball. We used them in tandem on the trampoline. Extra air. A few broken ankles was a small price to pay for the fun.

Chestnuts roasted by meats @ 07/11/2005 3:30 PM

Man, I loved my Pogo Ball, never did any "wicked" tricks, but it was great to pound around on. Didn’t like it as much as my swing racer, though. Anybody else remember that one?

Chestnuts roasted by Joe @ 07/11/2005 3:40 PM

Looks like we should get a Pogo Bal article next. Anyone second that notion?

Chestnuts roasted by Kennef @ 07/11/2005 3:58 PM

Ooh, what a great article. That’s the kind of stuff that made me like XE in the first place.

Four stars!

Chestnuts roasted by JOss @ 07/11/2005 3:58 PM

I’m not really sure if people look this far down, but I’ll give it a try. Loved the ads dude. Good times. I’m holding a vote on my website as to which NES Wrestling game was the best. Check it out. Star man will be there :)

Chestnuts roasted by Czar Matthew @ 07/11/2005 4:35 PM

Oh,god I miss the Photons. And that amazingly stupid Pogo Bal. Excellent article,Matt. I hope we get more of those ads.

Chestnuts roasted by St205 @ 07/11/2005 4:46 PM

We need to combine this http://tinyurl.com/doluk and this http://tinyurl.com/bvobv together. I know there are enough geeks here to love it.

Chestnuts roasted by RAS @ 07/11/2005 4:51 PM

Joe – I had a Sit n’ Skate roller racer, is that the same as a swing racer? That thing rocked. It was like the bastard love child of a skateboard and a krazy kar.

I’m seconding the Pogo-Bal article motion.

And for the record I think Pogo-Baling on the trampoline is cheating. It’d bounce on that when it would otherwise scuff the foot platform on a sidewalk. That was the real challenge of the Pogo-Bal – bouncing without scuffing the platform when you landed because that’s what caused us all to fall and permanently scar ourselves.

Chestnuts roasted by Carri @ 07/11/2005 4:56 PM

Fuck, those wrestling bars look good, and sadly, I haven’t heard about them until I read the article.

On another note…don’t know if it’s Hasbro, but some company is bringing back the Battle Beasts things. Or something similar. In anyway, it still has the Rock, Paper, Scissors element, and it seemed like it might be a big hit, although I don’t know how much kids play with toys nowadays. Damn McDonalds and their fattening foods.

Chestnuts roasted by The Cause @ 07/11/2005 4:57 PM

klatubaradanikto, I think you mean Captain Power: http://www.captainpower.com/

Chestnuts roasted by Hellion @ 07/11/2005 5:11 PM

pogo bal article would make for a great video demonstration. . .

Chestnuts roasted by kb @ 07/11/2005 5:55 PM

I remember "Visionairies", cool figures but bad concept.

I think Hasbro wanted to make them a sort "human transformers" but they could only transform in the cartoon, the toys themselves couldent change shape and the kids didnt like that.

Transformers Pretenders: man I remember Transformers going downhill fast after that idea!.

Anyone remember "Transformers action masters?…anyone actually WANT to remember action masters?…

And Battle beasts, I loved the designs of these little guys but I never collected them, most of my money went to Transformers.

To "The Yeti"

I think the action figures you remember were called infacables, I think they were somehow linked to the Blackstar toys but I’m not sure.

Thanks Matt for this awsome website!.

Chestnuts roasted by Plumpdragon @ 07/11/2005 7:59 PM

Thanks a bunch, Plumpdragon.

On another note, I myself experienced an unfortunate "video-game-cord" incident with my Playstation during college. I was playing a tag-team marathon of "Tenchu" with a Chinese friend of mine who barely spoke any English. We were tearing ass through the game — nearly to the end — when my roommate at the time waltzed through the room, tripped over the controller wire, and sent my precious PS careening toward the uncarpeted floor. The machine didn’t break, but it did become unplugged from the wall and our game was killed on the spot. I was mad, but my Chinese friend was FURIOUS! He rose to his feet and started ineptly blurting out curse words like Samir in "Office Space". He ended up saying something like "You fuckered bitch-fuck!" It was one of the funniest displays of misplaced anger I’ve ever seen.

Chestnuts roasted by The Yeti @ 07/11/2005 8:16 PM

I remember Battle beasts…brings back a memory of my neighbours "fun room" (sounds dodjy doesnt it :D )….he was a couple years older than me and had a full set of battle beasts…until i nicked one off him mwahaha…I think it ended up in my giant tub o’ lego alongside various kinder surprise smurfs and 50c TMNT plastic figures. Damn i miss that tub.

Chestnuts roasted by Mike NZ @ 07/11/2005 8:35 PM

Yes, Matt, I am here. I vaguely remember the Photon arena in Wildwood; my mother wasn’t crazy about the fad, so we never went in, and yes, it’s long gone. From the description you gave, I sure as hell wish we did now. Sounds like a completely awesome and, if nothing else, atmospheric place to waste a summer afternoon.

My sisters read comics and we all read kids’ magazines during the late 80s and early 90s and were quite familiar with the elaborate full-page ads, many of which I still recall today. Of the ads mentioned in the article, I remember the one for Striped Chips Ahoy best. No, I could never get the flip book to work, either, and no, I didn’t think they were as good as originals.

We were also big on Jello’s heavenly gelatin and pudding pops. Oh, the summer afternoons spent sitting on the back porch under the willow tree, sucking on Gelatin Pops and hoping Dad would get off the TV in time for tonight’s "You Can’t Do That On Television" episode. I don’t remember the lavender ones being better or worse than the others…

Unlike most kids, I was never a big fan of fruit snacks. I ate them during my childhood because my sisters and friends did, but they always seemed to pick the least opportune time to get stuck between my teeth, like when I had to give a speech or something. The Sunkist Fruit Snacks commercial with the tree and the raining snacks were classic, though.

I think we did have a Pogo Bal, though like the rest of you, I could never figure the damn thing out. I, too, was scared to death of ending up flat on my back and hearing about it for days from my sisters and their buddies.

Chestnuts roasted by starwenn @ 07/11/2005 9:33 PM

Your welcome The Yeti.

Here are 2 links on "Infaceables"(I spelled it wrong on the earlyer post)

http://www.virtualtoychest.com/infaceables/infaceables.html

And an dutch ad that brings back memories (I live in the netherlands)and Blackstar and Infaceables were marketed as one toyline over here.

http://www.barbiemuseum.nl/images/items/actionfigures/Ablackstar.jpg

Chestnuts roasted by Plumpdragon @ 07/11/2005 9:51 PM

HOLY JESUS! Thanks so much for the links, Plumpdragon! Those figures are EXACTLY what I was talking about (that "Attack Tank" looks like the most dangerous toy ever). My brother owned Iron Lion when we were younger, but I haven’t seen it or any of the other figures in years. Thanks again for the violent shove down memory lane! You rock!

Chestnuts roasted by The Yeti @ 07/11/2005 9:59 PM

Seriously, great article Matt. I remember reading magazines on the can over and over and staring at some of those very ads. Keep it up with more of these.

Chestnuts roasted by Bryan @ 07/11/2005 10:18 PM

Finally. WWF Superstars that even The Mouth-of-the-South can lick.

Took me so long to catch the play on words there. I can’t even begin to describe how weird that sounded at first.

And here’s the flipbook in gif-form:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y32/theimageofmyownbreast/cookie.gif

Chestnuts roasted by RewolfJ @ 07/11/2005 11:04 PM

HBO special: click here

Chestnuts roasted by ClOlD @ 07/12/2005 12:13 PM

Ugh. That HBO special sounds damn cool, but there’s no way I’m going to spend $100 on that. I’ve already got to figure out how to bend my meager earnings to afford the $350 cost for this years’ convention exclusive Transformers.

Chestnuts roasted by DarkPrimus @ 07/12/2005 1:51 AM

" They featured the Pogo Bal and showed how good the kids in the commercial were at hopping and doing stunts, then they would show real life footage of kids using the Pogo Bal and they could hop no more than two or three times before stumbling. "
-I thought the special looked interesting but that comment made me wonder "What if it was a guitar?"
I couldn’t do Pogoball when I was 6 (I had a small one) but when I was in high school, I found my sister’s big one and mastered it in a couple days. Couldn’t do any tricks though.

Chestnuts roasted by springsprite @ 07/12/2005 3:56 AM

I can’t believe nobody has mentioned Tuba Ruba. It was a tube made out of several small tubes you snapped together that you wrapped around your body from top to bottom–including around your neck or arms et cetera ; a marble is placed at the top and you girate your body so that the marble moves through the tube system and down to the bottom. Great Fun.

Chestnuts roasted by superwarrior @ 07/12/2005 6:33 AM

I always like it when Matt gives us "a nice, long one" :)

Chestnuts roasted by Traynor @ 07/12/2005 10:36 AM

I, uh, actually have two ActionMasters. Jazz and Rollout. What they should have done, is make ‘em into Spike, Daniel, and other humans, that would have made more sense with the "partners."
Wow, we hear from a member of WWOEC. While looking up info on Arcee once, my web-wanderings led me to a SD-style drawing of her on WWOEC. I then took a look around, and found some rather "interesting" artwork there. Including Plumpdragon’s. Not for the faint of heart, weak of bladder, or senseless of humor.

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 07/12/2005 11:57 AM

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This entry was posted on Sunday, July 10th, 2005 at 6:19 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.