Happy New Year! This month, Rob talks Transformers fun he's looking forward to. How to make a french bread pizza, did you know? Now you do! Then, the bootleg Robotech models from gumball machines are discussed. It maybe a new year, but... what's even going on with this show?
I intend to put some extra attention towards Robotech in the not too distant future. It's been forever since I've watched more than an episode at a time. I've got a few DVD sets and the whole series is on Netflix, I just need to set aside the time to do so... which is the challenge. For the record, I'm specifically talking about Robotech, not regular Macross or anything. Never been that concerned with the Harmony Gold situation either to be honest. I just want to re-watch Robotech at some point, I like it.
Thinking I want to stock up on some of the Robotech keshi Super 7 has been making. They've done a great job as usual. They've done some ReAction figures as well, but I'd rather just keep it small. I have some older stuff and anything new I buy wouldn't be... Look, I have a mini figure addiction.
Binging the newest season of Voltron earlier today, and without going into spoiler territory, I couldn't help but to think about Robotech. Which lead to thinking about the later Mospeada based season. Which in turn lead to a commercial rabbit hole.
Blockman was one of those lines that passed me right on by until I was in college. One of Takara's cool robot lines of the 80's, Blockman did see life in the US as part of the Robotech toy line and even bootlegs of the figures did appear in gumball machines. While I vaguely recall seeing the Robotech versions at Kaybee, I did have some of the gumball machine bootlegs. I don't know the specifics of distribution (the machine owner probably just ordered machine robot toys from a catalog), but I very strongly remember the Kroger we'd get groceries at had an awesome selection of gumball machine toys for awhile. Including one with a generic space robots art taped to the front and random robot toys inside.
Mostly I'd get various Mospeada (which I knew as the third season of Robotech) figure kits (probably were bootlegs of some candy kit) in a variety of colors from it. Occasionally I'd get some of these neat square robot dudes in that machine without any clue to who they were other than a neat robot. That machine rocked, though eventually it gave way to little rubber figures of various bootlegged characters, which too was awesome, just for different reasons.
