Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Merchants of Space Death

star force toysThe influence of Star Wars is incredibly obvious in any Christmas Catalog from 1978 to about 1982. Space Toys were pretty much in the minority prior to 1978, then all of a sudden cool, crazy stuff like these helmets and pistols started popping up. "Space Swords" were my favourite, awesome "nudge, nudge, don't sue us!" stuff like this is the best.

7 comments:

Nikademus said...

Is that a purple Cylon I see in the upper-right corner?

chunky B said...

Helmet "A" looks like it stepped out of a Micronauts set!

That does look like a purple cylon in the right hand corner.

John III said...

It sure looks like a Cylon. I would have really dug that stuff back then. I would have been anywhere from 4 to 9 years old,(1978-1982) so yeah...would have loved it.

Plaidstallions said...

No doubt that the purple one is heavily cylon inspired. I really want that green helmet but in a size that would fit my adult head.

Jamie Snell said...

I had that purple GOR helmet back in the day.

Jason M. in San Diego, CA said...

I have been looking for this for years!

I grew up in New Windsor, New York and I got the "bug force" helmet (green with red eyes) and mathing yellow pistol for Christmas, circa 1980 (I was born in 1972).

I could never recall the actual name of the helmet (other than "bug force" for some reason) nor could I the company that made it.

I've been looking on google, yahoo, and ebay for years but have always come up empty - UNTIL NOW!

Anybody have an idea as to what the actual name is or the company that made it?

The helmet was very cool. It had a microphone inside that would change your voice so that it would have a reverberation, other-worldy type of sound to it.

The pistol made 3 or 4 different types of firing sounds.

I've always remembered that the purple (which I didn't have) was called "GOR" and for some reason the green one - which I did have - comes back to me somehow as "bug force." Go figure, eh?

Anyway - what a blast from the past! Many thanks for the pictures!!

rich said...

No one makes toys like those any more.

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