Originally published at: These 70s Battlestar Galactica toys were awesome | Boing Boing
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The best thing about playing with the Cylon action figures was doing the robot voice. “By your command, Imperious Leader”.
[second best was doing John Colicos’ over-the-top Baltar snicker]
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one of the few toys i have from childhood. i think the missles were last seen sometime that very same christmas morning
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The Australian version of this commercial makes the toys look awful. Why?
By the end of the year these came out, a kid choked to death on one of the projectiles. The Australian commercial shows the child-proof version after the recall, where the missile isn’t a separate projectile and instead just pops out a bit.
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Sweet. My sister got me a Battlestar Galactica Cyclon Bubble Machine a few years back. I really should do an unboxing video.
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We had them, too. I’m pretty sure the missiles are in an old Kirby upright vacuum we used to own to vacuum our shag carpeting.
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This goes to show how smart George Lucas was when casting Star Wars that he had all the lead actors sign away rights to use their likeness in perpetuity. I can’t imagine how disappointing it would have been in 1978 if instead of Luke Skywalker I got an “Aspiring Jedi Farm Boy” action figure.
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Except for Carrie Fischer, of course. Famous parents means real lawyers review your contracts for you.
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I never had the toys, but I did have scale models of the Viper and the Cylon Raider, (plus TIE and X-wing)
I always thought the Raider was the cooler ship.
(not my model)
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The toys were great! Something about the plastic they used. And the scale. Unsure what exactly but they just felt different from most other toy I had.
And JW… New>Old, I’m very disappoint with BB, very disappoint!
How about Space 1999 and the Eagle space ship.
However, I never saw one of those but the metal ones were much lusted after:
A really great looking space ship design. Somewhere I have an almost complete set of cigarette cards for Space 1999 which I should really scan in.
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The semantics of “child-proof” are interesting. The Onion article isn’t far from the truth. “Child-proof” suggests the toy isn’t the problem, the problem is a child deliberately doing something to endanger itself. The manufacturer must add otherwise unnecessary features to their blameless product in order to protect idiot kids from suffering the natural consequences of their foolish actions.
On the other hand “child-safe” suggests that the manufacturer, knowing their product is potentially harmful, has taken steps to protect a child from the product.
It’s no wonder the first term is the preferred one: it’s another variation on the old “blame the victim” theme.
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He asked why the Australian versions looked lame. I added some context. I was not making a statement on the state of consumer protection or product liability, in the 1970s or today. I had the original version—it was more fun, and I did manage not to eat the missile.
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You would think, but no. That’s how I learned about all of this. Carrie Fisher had a long bit about the consequences of signing away rights to her likeness to George Lucas in her one woman show, Wishful Drinking.
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Oh memories! I remember feeling dejected after receiving the “child proof” versions of those toys as a kid. So… I took them apart, cut off the extra bit of plastic on the missiles, and BAM! Fixed!
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The Australian version of this commercial makes the toys look awful. Why?
Rupert Murdock, again?
if i recall, it was because of the Cylon Raider and Imperial Viper toys that the Boba Fett figure from the (then upcoming) “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” movie lost his actual projectile-firing missile launcher. some kid choked on a missile from the BSG toys, and Star Wars history was made.
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While I never watched the show, I have always referred to it as, “Cattlecar Galoctopus” just because it was fun to say.
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I had a Viper model. Really nice. Came with a lot of extra parts that weren’t included in the instructions. Including some missiles. It wasn’t able to be assembled by little OblivionToad, but was an interesting thing that this just caused me to remember.
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