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80s kids era- How much cocaine was involved in the pitch for The Rocklords toys?

Slayven

Slayven

Never read a comic in his life
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
93,150
Recently rewatched Gobots and it is bad, very bad. Despite having higher animation quaility than transformers, it can't off as much worse. But Rocklords really takes the piss, useless chunks of plastic that turn into even more usless chunks of plastic
hyR5zWk.jpg

 
Musubi

Musubi

Unshakable Resolve - Prophet of Truth
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
23,611
I'm surprised I never came across these. First time seeing them. They seem like a poorly thought out response to Transformers or something lol.
 
Tater

Tater

Member
Oct 30, 2017
2,592
I remember these, they seemed just as ridiculous then. "Look! It transformed into a rock! ... Now what?"
 
ManNR

ManNR

Member
Feb 13, 2019
2,965
My wife just found one of these while cleaning out her childhood memorabilia.

Also, why you gotta knock on these toys? Y'all are some jaded folks.

tenor.gif
 
Carn

Carn

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,921
The Netherlands
I am trying to think of something that tops the incredible 'mundane-ness' of being able to transform into a rock, because rocks are probably the most static, boring things out there (unless you're a geologist).

Transforming into a tree? A generic looking house?
 
Unicorn

Unicorn

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 29, 2017
9,557
I had the one with tiny arms on the far left - friend gave it to me because he didn't want it lol. Its arms could only move on one axis, like chicken wings. I still played with it more than I probably should have.
 

mrmoose

Member
Nov 13, 2017
21,192
Eh, they were fine for what they were.

In Japan around that era you had a lot of stuff that was similar, including a large line of stuff that all transformed into eggs. And then you had those He-man meteor characters. But the line did well enough even as Go bots were lagging.

The little shiny ones were the best ones, IMHO.
 
Goldenroad

Goldenroad

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Nov 2, 2017
9,475
I mean, as a kid in the 80's, we spent a lot of time just going out into a field and picking up/playing with rocks, and also playing with Transformers, so this doesn't not make sense as a toy line in the 80's.
 
Tfritz

Tfritz

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,280
what if it wasn't cocaine and instead just really boring dudes who grew up companies selling them pet rocks
 
bananab

bananab

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,861
Lol. I don't know how things are now but a few years back it really dawned on me how comically bizarre stuff targeted at kids can be. My go-to is the huge grossout craze in the late 80s/early 90s where you'd go to the convenience store for candy and there would be choices called like "disgusting rotten barf, and poop" and the art would have like a crazy cartoon face covered in boils or something.
 
Mindwipe

Mindwipe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,229
London
On the plus side, most of them were quite articulated for the time and kind of fun to play with.

But yes, the idea was bad and they should feel bad.
 

mclem

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,460
Carn said:
I am trying to think of something that tops the incredible 'mundane-ness' of being able to transform into a rock, because rocks are probably the most static, boring things out there (unless you're a geologist).

Transforming into a tree? A generic looking house?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Perceptor strikes me as a good one. It's a more *interesting* item than a rock, but heavily falls down when you consider about how it might be actually used in 'action figure' play:

IrSiUVn.png


Transform into a.... microscope?
 
HStallion

HStallion

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
62,262
I'm pretty sure in the 80's it was mandatory to snort a line before entering certain places like movie studios.
 
Vilifier

Vilifier

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,840
Oh wow, I had Boulder. I think I had Nuggit as well. I had no idea it wasn't a Transformer.
 
canseesea

canseesea

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,015
I had two of them as a kid from a flea market table with an assortment of "I can't believe it's not Transformers". From my memory I had Boulder and Sticks & Stone, but they were colored differently. I assume the photo in the OP is just pre-release promotion and they changed the final designs because I can't imagine they had a second run.

To be fair, less than a decade prior the Pet Rock was a huge hit. The Toy Robot What's Also A Rock is a giant advancement in toy technology.
 

mrmoose

Member
Nov 13, 2017
21,192
Also, these were apparently Machine Robo designs that were bought/repurposed. I mean check this out:

machinerobo.fandom.com

Battle Rock

Name: Battle Rock (バトルロック) Number: MRR-1 Height: 1.92m Weight: 1.02 t Hardness: 10 Weapons: Justice Laser Gun, Psycho Fire, Burning Blocker, Cosmo Kenpō, Searcher Beam Transformation: Kimberlite Voices: Yuzuru Fujimoto (Java, ep 22), Hideyuki Umezu (ep 29), Bin Shimada (Mars, ep 32) Although...
machinerobo.fandom.com machinerobo.fandom.com
 
CJSeven

CJSeven

Member
Oct 30, 2018
779
I imagine it was like a real life version of that scene with the skyscraper robot from Big.
 
OP
OP
Slayven

Slayven

Never read a comic in his life
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
93,150
Unicorn said:
I had the one with tiny arms on the far left - friend gave it to me because he didn't want it lol. Its arms could only move on one axis, like chicken wings. I still played with it more than I probably should have.
Click to expand...
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Not like first gen Gobots were amazing, one thing they had on transformers was they were made of metal
113b80bf507b2b1fa5fe3f9b04b87107.jpg
 
Tavernade

Tavernade

Tavernade
Moderator
Sep 18, 2018
8,633
I'd probably have had a lot of fun playing with these as a kid but only if someone bought them for me as a gift. Can't imagine asking for one.
 
TheYanger

TheYanger

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,153
I had at least 2 or 3 oif these.

EDIT: maybe only 1, I probably thought it was part of he man which I had many of. That said, these were dope y'all are haters.
 
Mr. Poolman

Mr. Poolman

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
6,990
Hey! I used to own a couple of those.
The main villain I believe, a turd colored box rock.
And some kind of cristal or diamond lady.
 
Reym

Reym

Member
Jul 15, 2019
2,663
I remember the ads, but I never got one of the toys.

...I did find one that was like a weird silver ball and turned into a lion-dog thing. I kinda loved it.

EDIT: Oh hey! I found it!

file.php
 
Mindwipe

Mindwipe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,229
London
mclem said:
Perceptor strikes me as a good one. It's a more *interesting* item than a rock, but heavily falls down when you consider about how it might be actually used in 'action figure' play:

IrSiUVn.png


Transform into a.... microscope?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It's one of those bits of weirdness that comes out of Transformers being several different Japanese toylines being mushed together as Hasbro just wanted every robot design they could get their hands on when it was successful. The cars and planes were from Diaclone, but the items that turned into "life sized" items like Megatron and Perceptor were from Microchange, and were supposed to turn into tiny robots.
 

mrmoose

Member
Nov 13, 2017
21,192
TheYanger said:
I had at least 2 or 3 oif these.

EDIT: maybe only 1, I probably thought it was part of he man which I had many of. That said, these were dope y'all are haters.
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He-man had a rip-off of these in the form of Rock People: Stonedar and Rokkon.

Reym said:
I remember the ads, but I never got one of the toys.

...I did find one that was like a weird silver ball and turned into a lion-dog thing. I kinda loved it.

EDIT: Oh hey! I found it!

file.php
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This was different (and superior). This was more like the cassette robots that Soundwave came with.

I will also say this is like not even in the top 50 of stupid ideas for 80's toys (I mean they got three waves). Or even stupid ideas for robots because the transformers were so popular.

For instance, go look up Robo Force.



Though if anyone disparages Starriors they have a fight on their hands.
 
Bonejack

Bonejack

Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,654
Was this a thing before or after He-Man? Because i remember that i had a figure of Stonedar as a child, and that looks pretty similar to this.
 
OP
OP
Slayven

Slayven

Never read a comic in his life
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
93,150
bananab said:
Lol. I don't know how things are now but a few years back it really dawned on me how comically bizarre stuff targeted at kids can be. My go-to is the huge grossout craze in the late 80s/early 90s where you'd go to the convenience store for candy and there would be choices called like "disgusting rotten barf, and poop" and the art would have like a crazy cartoon face covered in boils or something.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Garbage pail kids always messed with me, that shit always seemed like bad mojo
 
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