Weird 70s TOYS!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Rustites!

Mattyman here to discuss a few esoteric 70s Xmas Gifts.

First off is Mattel’s knock-off of Kenner’s Six Million Dollar Man…

Pulsar!

Measuring 14”, Pulsar had a transparent torso with flowing blood, a pop-up face which allowed you to insert some type of data disk, and of course, enormous white high tops.

I’m not exactly sure how Pulsar’s technology equated to Steve Austin’s bionics, but if you were a kid in 1977 you didn’t care!  You were there to press the button on his back and see the swirling blood.

What was Pulsar’s back story?  Was he purely an android or a cyborg? Is he sporting a Coppertone tan?  No clue.

Unlike other toy lines in the day, there was no comic tie-in akin to The Micronauts, Shogun Warriors, or Six Million Dollar Man, so it was left to your noggin to fish something out.

One thing he did have in common with every other action figure was a villain, Hypnos, who wouldn’t you know it, also had a transparent chest.

Hypnos

Whereas Pulsar’s chest had somewhat realistic organs, Hypnos had a spinning disk to hypnotize his victims. That’s my assumption at best.  Once again, we have no back story.

Who made him in-universe, what were his motivations, and did he ever buy a shirt?

I think we had Pulsar for all of five minutes.  Kinda lame outside the gimmicks.

Jeff, any clues what happened to ole Pulse? (editor's note: I don't want Jeff to explain what happened to his "ole pulse", if you know what I mean.)

Next is the abomination...

Suckerman

Another “interesting'' choice from Mattel, Suckerman came in several colors, but I think we only had the basic black one.

The green may have been glow-in-the-dark.

You basically threw him at windows because he only really stuck to glass, or some wood, but pretty much useless on sheetrock.  I guess you stuck him in the shower as well, but really, what kind of action was Suckerman going to get?  Are you going to call Suckerman to save the day?  

Suckerman’s name really applies here.

The last one for today may stay with you forever…

HUGO, MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES!

I didn’t have this set but MAN I wish I had!  I could’ve had nightmares every night at least a year before the movie MAGIC came out.

You can see some of the many faces right there on the box.

Does it add up to 1,000 unique faces?  Probably more like 50, but hell, at that age you were going to lose all the pieces before next Easter ever came around.

If you don’t know MAGIC from 1978 starring Anthony Hopkins and the ventriloquist dummy Fats…take a gander.

Fats scared me in the TV commercial but now I’m thinking Anthony creeps me out just as much.

I’ll leave you for now with sugar plums (aka murderous puppets) dancing in your heads.

Merry Xmas!