Name that 80's toy!

Jimmy King · November 2012

What I'm thinking of may actually be Capsela, but I'm remembering some differences that lead me to believe it was a different, similar product. So, mid-80's robotics/engineering oriented toy. The kit I specifically remember was kind of bug-like with 6 or 8 legs, mostly black with some clear parts, and I specifically remember it being air powered and you had to physically pump up some deal first and then the air would run the motors and make it walk.

Capsela, as far as I can see, is all battery powered and I see nothing that has legs except the Bug Builder. This kit was more robot-looking than the Capsela Bug Builder kit, though.

Anyone know what it was?

bowen · November 2012

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

Something like that?

bowen · November 2012

Also this might interest you : http://www.owirobot.com/

Jimmy King · November 2012

Hmm, no weapons and definitely more in the Capsela style look. If I didn't so definitely remember some part of it being air powered I'd just say it's Capsela with 20 years of memory degradation since I last saw the thing.

After some more digging, it may have been Zoids. Garantula is almost exactly what I remember and the little gold dude that rides in it is very familiar. It's not air powered and seems a little more simplistic (no putting it together, modifying it, etc) than I would have guessed my dad would have bought to play with, but the look is correct.

I wonder if I'm combining the memory of a couple different toys.

bowen · November 2012

Zoids looks familiar, I remember those.

Count Funkula · November 2012

I think you might be talking about Tomy's Space Pets. I actually have two of these, the High Hopping Hoomdorm and the Stretch Legged Stoomdorm. Still work after all these years.

http://www.oocities.org/sunsetstrip/8410/hoomdorm.html

WaterfallSandSun · December 2012

I used to have this/these (forget if it was one or a set) TMNT action-figures(s) where you select from a small collection of some sort of plastic(?) strips and you'd slip the strips in a little hole just big enough for the strips to go through on the shell part, and then you would hear them say things like "COWABUNGA". The sound/voice matched how ever fast or slow you pulled the strip through. They were goddamn awesome. Might be early-90's.

If anyone knows the exact name/model/type of this toy or have pictures(!) of them, that would be nostalgia-explosion.

see317 · December 2012

WaterfallSandSun wrote: »

I used to have this/these (forget if it was one or a set) TMNT action-figures(s) where you select from a small collection of some sort of plastic(?) strips and you'd slip the strips in a little hole just big enough for the strips to go through on the shell part, and then you would hear them say things like "COWABUNGA". The sound/voice matched how ever fast or slow you pulled the strip through. They were goddamn awesome. Might be early-90's.

If anyone knows the exact name/model/type of this toy or have pictures(!) of them, that would be nostalgia-explosion.

This one, I think I can help with.
http://www.tmnttoys.com/91figures/talking/talking.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDQYtFC_wL8

Jimmy King · December 2012

Count Funkula wrote: »

I think you might be talking about Tomy's Space Pets. I actually have two of these, the High Hopping Hoomdorm and the Stretch Legged Stoomdorm. Still work after all these years.

http://www.oocities.org/sunsetstrip/8410/hoomdorm.html

Ah hah, you're awesome. My memory had merged the Zoids Garantula and the Space Pets Fleet-Footed Floomdorm into a single toy.

Now I wonder where both of these toys went. These were actually some of the very few things I had left from my dad after he died when I was pretty young. I kept track of them for years, then apparently forgot about them for a good 15 years or so, and then remembered them when a friend was showing me an arduino controlled robot he wanted to build.

WaterfallSandSun · December 2012

see317 wrote: »

WaterfallSandSun wrote: »

I used to have this/these (forget if it was one or a set) TMNT action-figures(s) where you select from a small collection of some sort of plastic(?) strips and you'd slip the strips in a little hole just big enough for the strips to go through on the shell part, and then you would hear them say things like "COWABUNGA". The sound/voice matched how ever fast or slow you pulled the strip through. They were goddamn awesome. Might be early-90's.

If anyone knows the exact name/model/type of this toy or have pictures(!) of them, that would be nostalgia-explosion.

This one, I think I can help with.
http://www.tmnttoys.com/91figures/talking/talking.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDQYtFC_wL8

omg.

THEPAIN73 · December 2012

WOW I haven't seen that toy in forever!

Brings me back.

jamesra · December 2012

Not a reply, but damn I loved my capcella. Too expensive, really. But it was so cool as a legos graduate.

Zoku Gojira · December 2012

The only thing I remember about capsela was hooking up gigantic batteries to it in place of the usual 9V or AA or whatever it took. The kind with the coils that you had to hook leads up to. The same electric motors that once purred contentedly instead howled like banshees. You could get the same effect by stacking a bunch of capsules with increasing gear ratios and cranking a wheel at one end by hand, but it wasn't the continual push you got from a big freaking battery.

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Name that 80's toy!

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