Okay this challenge will delve deep into my childhood and pull out two of my most favorite things: Battle of the Planets and helmets.
Long before the lame Mighty Morphing Power Rangers and even before the well liked Voltron there was Battle of the Planets. G-Force was the original 5 person team with all the familiar archetypes : Leader Guy, Jerk Guy, Fat Guy, Hot Chick and Little Kid. I was really young when the show was on, but loved every minute of it. The best part was the fact they they dressed as bird people with... you guessed it Helmets!!!
I loved loved helmets as a kid. They were the ultimate accessory for any character to go from being okay to truly awesome. I'm fairly certain my love of helmets stems from G-Force. I wanted so bad to have a bird shaped visor. The closest I came was a C.H.I.P.S. motorcycle helmet.
The other problem with BotP was they didn't have any toys when I was young. My stand ins were a couple of Tonka Play People who were motorcycle guys. The other issue is that their helmets didn't come off. This was true of most toys at the time. It wasn't until GI Joe came along that toys finally got removable helmets.
So your probably asking yourself about now, if they didn't have toys for them when you were a kid, what is this weeks challenge going to be? Or you might just be saying to yourself, "Get to the point man!"
As I said the show was on when I was really young and as I grew up few people I encountered in Grade School or High School had ever heard of the show. Then the 90's came along and I went to art school and met tons of my fellow nerds. One such friend told me to look up Gatchaman on the new fangled world wide webs. Boom, all the memories came flooding back, plus I learned a great deal more about the show and it's popularity in it's home, Japan.
Then a mutual friend of both myself and Kir mentioned he was going to Japan for vacation and would we like him to pick anything up. Hells yeah! I told him anything Gatchaman that he could find. I had no idea what was available, but he certainly came through.
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| With Bird Boomerang |
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| So Heroic |
After years of pinning I finally had a Ken action figure. The little child in me beamed in happiness. Sadly the figures helmet doesn't come off, which I learned the hard way. He has a weird square shaped half head underneath. Other toy companies later came out with Battle of the Planets figures in the early 2000s, but the thrill of the hunt was over for me so I never purchased any of them.
So for this weeks challenge I'll expand it to include any of the characters because I know Kir's got a real soft spot for Keyop and 7 Zark 7.
