Wednesday, May 9, 2012

The Return of the Tomy Rascal Robots!

You all may remember a while back when I posted about one of my favorite toys in the entire universe, the Tomy Rascal Robots. You can see those original posts HERE and HERE.


And since that last post, in which I discovered that there was another rare gray version from back in the day, I have actually made several scores of Rascal Robots that I believe (unless some even rarer neon version pops up or something) that makes my Rascal Robot collection complete.

First up come these two shining metallic beauties, which are actually brad new Rascal Robots. The smaller one on the left, which is the same size as the originals, was found in a display of wind up toys at Toys-R-Us, near the cash registers. The second, larger, one on the right, was found in one of those educational toy stores that usually carry lots of Playmobil stuff and "games" where you dig up plastic dinosaur bones or collect insects or whatever.

I was stunned to find them, and even more stunned to find that when the bigger one is wound up, and as he walks forward, his little arms slowly rotate!

Also, check out their little chest emblems, like they are superhero robots or something.


And even though I worried that the vintage gray version of the original Rascal Robot would be hard to find, I simply punched in a saved search for "vintage tomy robot" on eBay and it was only about 3 or 4 weeks before one popped up. I probably paid a little too much for this one, but you all know how it is when you're this close to finishing off a collection of something and you just gotta have it, right?

I really dig his little chest emblem, which is different than the white version.


So now my Tomy Rascal Robot collection is complete! (I think.) Just look at this army of marching droids, reaching out to you with their little clamp hands.

I have to honestly say that this is probably one of my all-time favorite examples of how such a simple toy can be so endearing and brilliant.


Anyway, that's it for today, kids. I'm off to go find that neon version.