1. Power Lords – Released by a toy model company called Revell in 1983, the Power Lords was a line of sci-fi action figures that look pretty awesome. While it was obviously an attempt to cash in/compete with He-Man’s success, the Power Lords carried their own lore and had a pretty cool look. Here’s an ad featuring the main guy who, rather un-creatively, is called Lord Power:
The Power Lords effort spread into comic books, video games, board games, and even puzzles with fantastic box art:
I don’t know how these guys never made it onto my radar. I was pretty obsessed with He-Man and action figures in 1983, but I’ve never heard of this line of toys until now!
2. Q-bert cartoon – As mentioned before, the Saturday Supercade block featured a Q-bert cartoon. Here’s a closer look at that cartoon. I know that the premise of the game leaves a little bit to be desired in terms of logic and sense, but I’m not sure how the idea to frame it in a 1950’s greaser format was sold as a way to put it into perspective.
3. Atari art – This fantastic collection of modern games given the old Atari box-art treatment has been making the rounds on the internet this week. Take a look at all of StarRoivas’s work over at deviantART. Here are a couple of my favorites:
4. Far Out Space Nuts – It’s not quite the sophisticated elegance of Lidsville, Land of the Lost, or Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, Far Out Space Nuts is still worth taking a look at. A brief look. Created by the Kroffts in 1975, this show aired for one season on CBS (16 episodes) and was dunzo. The premise is kind of Space Camp-y in the sense that people are launched into space accidentally – but these guys did it to themselves.
Who knew that spaceships had “Lunch” buttons on the central console, dangerously near the “Launch” button? Who knew all that you had to do to launch a spaceship was to press a “Launch” button?
Not one of the Kroffts’ finer moments.
5. Galaxy – I love this. Worth the watch.
-ds