Tuesday 16 August 2016

Retro Toy Advertisments From 1982 / 1983


More scans from my collection of old Eagle comics today, and this time we're looking at old toy advertisements! All of these are from 1982/1983, and more than a few fire up all kinds of childhood memories for me. For added nostalgia, I'll throw in a few TV ads for the products too where possible!

As always, click the pics to go big....

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First up, we have a couple of old Action Man ads. Action Man was Palitoy's UK version of  G.I.Joe, and has been around just as long. These ads below are promoting competitions to win as much Action Man stuff as your arms can carry... 




When G.I. Joe A Real American Hero toys appeared, they were similarly renamed to became Action Force. The next couple of ads are for a Buy 3 Get 1 Free campaign... 




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The next ads are for one thing I never ever got into as a kid, due to them requiring too much patience and being far too fiddly! Airfix model kits...








Airfix of course, weren't the only model kit manufacturers...there were loads of others! Here's an ad for some Humbrol kits... 



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Waddingtons ran a few comic-strip-style ads to promote their board games in the early 80s, as we can see below with these ones for Cluedo (Clue in the US) and Buccaneer....



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Rough Riders 4x4 toys were ones that everyone wanted! Their ability to do side wheelies and go pretty much over any terrain was really impressive to us 5 and 6 year olds! Plus they had actual headlights! 



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I've never really like football much, so something else I never ever got into was the table-top model football game Subbuteo...this ad below must have run at the time of an Everton vs Liverpool match, and tells you that you can get the winning team free!



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Here's a competition to win a trip to America with ERTL's General Lee model....


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And here's an ad telling you how to get your very own Eagle-themed Fiz Gig, a flashing beacon you could fix to yourself to be seen on dark roads! 


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Robo Machines were the UK branding of Machine Robo initially, but later became rebranded as Gobots....


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More from Waddingtons next, with an add for the card game that still pumps out all manner of licenced variations, Top Trumps!


And then we have Pop-Aways, a series of pop up buildings that I remember getting at least a couple of as a kid and being quite excited about....no idea why though! Hehe...


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Finally we have another toy that I was really looking forward to getting my hands on! Wrist Copters from Peter Pan Playthings...

They were pretty good when they worked, but I have vague memories of yanking the bit that was supposed to set them free several times and 1: Nothing Happening, or 2: Hurting My Wrist....still, my nostalgia for these is still pretty high and I'd love to get my hands on one nowadays to see if I'm remembering them right!



So, hope you've enjoyed this little journey back to 1982/83! I'm feeling a bit peckish after spending so long putting this together.....I could really do with some ET Cola Creams or some KP Griddles, but unfortunately they no longer exist! Never mind though, I'll be remembering the taste of them in another blog post soon where I look at ads for them, and many other retro snacks! Keep an eye out! Later, stuffers!  





2 comments:

  1. Love that Airfix ad and how it makes the kid out to be utterly bad-ass for building models!

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    1. Hehe...yeah! I like the Action Force ones for the utterly bad-ass 80s metal about hovercraft! ;-)

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