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Post by StarRunn on Nov 12, 2015 7:21:00 GMT -6
This is a new thread showcasing toy ads from magazines, notably toy and hobby industry trade publications. The ads in these magazines were aimed at toy wholesalers and retailers to boost sales, and even additional manufacturers in hopes of generating more licensing. These were never intended to be seen by the general public. The artwork for some of these presentations is pretty spectacular and copy is very informative, giving dates of introduction of new TV and movie properties, starts of new toy lines and lists of manufactures producing licensed products. There were many toy and hobby and licensing trade magazines published in the 1970s and ‘80s, and all had extra thick issues covering all the new announcements being made at the annual International Toy Fair held in New York City every February. I’ll be pulling material from titles such as these: While the main thrust of this thread will be trade advertisements, I’ll also include ads from regular consumer magazines, newspapers and even catalogs. What you won’t see here are ads from comic books, as a thread for these was started some years ago. You can check it out here: actionfiguresca.proboards.com/thread/10856/action-figure-ads-old-comics?page=1So, let’s get started. There is no particular theme by subject, manufacturer or period this time, just (I hope) a lot of “Gosh, Wow!” advertising. Many toy companies run 2-page ads that have art, photos and copy continue across the seam in the middle. Differing types of binding can cause loss of image in the middle of the ad or prevent the magazine from opening completely flat. Some ads allow for this loss of image by putting unnatural spacing in the copy between words or even splitting the words themselves, such as in this Thundercats ad! Advertising in Toy Fair editions can get pretty elaborate; four page brochures are quite common. Multi pages can result in multi products being shown, some of which would be of little interest here. So, I’ll be doing some editing and trimming to save space. I’ve eliminated Annette Funicello and the Mickey Mouse Club toys from this string of Hasbro pages.
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Post by figurecollector on Nov 12, 2015 20:10:32 GMT -6
These are really great. Was the strongman in the GI Joe ad made?
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Post by rihia2k on Nov 13, 2015 2:24:22 GMT -6
Pure class as always, Starrunn. Say, did Bron ever "muscle his way to the top"? Never actually heard of that Galoob robot before...
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Post by StarRunn on Nov 13, 2015 20:13:40 GMT -6
One of the things that I forgot to mention in my introduction to this thread is that some of these manufacturers’ advertisements show product that never reach production or the retail shelves. When I was sorting through my collection of ads, I picked out Galoob’s Bron as it was a fantastic looking figure and an outstanding ad. But, the toy struck me as unfamiliar, and I too wondered if it actually existed. Has anyone out there actually owned or seen one of these robots? On the other hand, I can state with 100% certainty that the Super Joe Intruder Strongman was made, but with some changes to the original design.
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Post by figurecollector on Nov 13, 2015 20:16:29 GMT -6
Good to know. Thanks.
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Post by waywardmonk on Nov 16, 2015 7:46:50 GMT -6
Yeah, two of the coolest toys I inherited from my older brother were his Big Trapper vehicle and that Intruder figure. Loved playing with those! That Power lords ad is hilarious. "This year if you don't buy Powerlords two of them will shoot you." The Remco ad is awesome. Too bad they didn't make that green Snakeman, it's much better than the purple. Someone, somewhere must have that prototype in their collection I'm sure. The Ramar repaint of Gecko looks to be painted similarly. Great stuff Starrunn!
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Post by waywardmonk on Nov 16, 2015 7:49:59 GMT -6
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Post by StarRunn on Nov 17, 2015 17:30:35 GMT -6
Yes, another great thing about these trade magazine ads is seeing early color schemes and detail variations applied to hand crafted prototypes. I’ll try to point out this sort of thing in future postings if I’m aware of it.
Waywardmonk, thanks for tracking down Bron and confirming its existence. This brings up another point, the possibility that even though announced toys are manufactured, they don’t get released in the United States and get dumped overseas. That guy doing the Bron video review sure seems to have a French accent.
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Post by alfi on Nov 19, 2015 9:20:22 GMT -6
I collect toy ads from all kinds of toy brands and these ads are amazing.
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Post by rihia2k on Nov 19, 2015 23:09:31 GMT -6
Something else I find... interesting with these retailer aimed promo ads, is that they still carry the pizzazz (visually) which appeals to children but the puns and body text are adult/business oriented. I mean, I've never seen this stuff for action figures, but the same thing happened many years ago when I first started checking out the sales flyers for all of my favourite arcade game machines. It sorta' opens things up to see things from "the other side of the counter" so to speak.
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Post by spockoda on Nov 20, 2015 20:19:09 GMT -6
It is interesting to see these toy ads that were more "insider" oriented than anything seen by the general public. The buyers were the ones responsible for every toy line people enjoyed back then. That probably means some horrible ideas for toy lines got made and some great ideas got canned, further back in the selling process. More in the development area you could say I suppose.
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Post by StarRunn on Nov 22, 2015 18:25:19 GMT -6
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Post by spockoda on Nov 22, 2015 20:26:34 GMT -6
Ah, who didn't own the Close Encounters bendy alien back then?
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Post by drbo on Nov 24, 2015 12:51:04 GMT -6
Wow, that Hasbro one about the k-o pack quite a pounch, pun intended!
Those are not only beautiful but very interesting to see mate!
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Post by StarRunn on Nov 30, 2015 7:13:52 GMT -6
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Post by alfi on Nov 30, 2015 12:41:21 GMT -6
Hehe fun fact. The kid that was advertising the My Pet Monster in Germany is a guy I know. I think I can post a pic of that ad if anyone wants to see it.
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Post by StarRunn on Dec 2, 2015 12:27:41 GMT -6
Alfi, I'd love to see the German ad for My Pet Monster.
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Post by alfi on Dec 3, 2015 3:22:56 GMT -6
Alfi, I'd love to see the German ad for My Pet Monster. Here we go: Source: Planeteternia.de (couldnt find my own ad to take a photo) I was acutally thinking of making a thread with European ads but I don't have a scanner and photos would have to do it.
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Post by StarRunn on Dec 9, 2015 3:58:51 GMT -6
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Post by alfi on Dec 10, 2015 3:00:44 GMT -6
Well ads here are mostly from comics and magazines and yeah the differences are huge. American ads are inspired by super heroes and comics where here the toy itself is the most importan part of an ad. We just don't have that insane comic culture in Europe like Americans do. Like in the 70's and 80's there were serie like Spiderman, Batman, Hulk etc. but more present were Disney themes like Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck. Everybody loved and still loves those. The comics here released on a weekly basis whereas Super Heroes came out in monthly magazines and mostly only for a short time of period (like couple of years).
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Post by StarRunn on Jan 12, 2016 13:43:01 GMT -6
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Post by BoogDoc7 on Jan 15, 2016 9:37:35 GMT -6
Just saw this one...
a REMCO THUNDARR was planned!!! I might shoot a guy for one.
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Post by StarRunn on Jan 18, 2016 9:05:56 GMT -6
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Post by spockoda on Jan 18, 2016 17:24:48 GMT -6
You hit on one of my weak spots this time out with the Trek ads, starrunn. I have heard the licensing fees for the first Trek movie were pretty high and the merchandise didn't perform as expected that is why further Trek movies didn't see much in that sense. I'm pretty sure I had the r/c Batmobile from AHI when I was pretty young as well.
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Post by lobsterjohnson on Jan 19, 2016 2:22:34 GMT -6
These are all amazing. Some of them have really great artwork which most companies would never do nowadays.
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Post by StarRunn on Jan 19, 2016 9:48:43 GMT -6
Spockoda, I knew that the Star Trek ads would get you! That's all of the loose ones that I have in my file folders. The stuff that I cut out of the magazines was pretty easy to scan. I must have more Trek stuff in the complete mags that I decided to save, but it will be a while before I get to searching through them for more ads. I still have plenty of other loose ads scanned and ready to post.
Lobsterjohnson, you are absolutely correct about the great artwork. That's the reason that I started this thread in the first place!
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Post by lobsterjohnson on Jan 21, 2016 11:12:51 GMT -6
I especially loved The Inhumanoids and The MOTU Eternia. They totally blew my mind. Also HG showroom used some sweet Frank Frazetta artwork for the background.
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Post by kylefromdirtnapp on Jan 24, 2016 12:41:42 GMT -6
Must have Remco Thudarr!
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Post by justrygt on Jan 24, 2016 21:23:35 GMT -6
That is a lot of cool ads. Thanks for taking the time to upload them all.
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Post by StarRunn on Jan 25, 2016 9:19:20 GMT -6
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