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Mikey remembers...
This was an action figure I acquired from my cousin a long time ago. He had the action figures and ...  More »
Posted on 01/23/08

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Tron
Posted by Mikey on 01/23/08

Manufacturer:

Tomy

Post Star Wars, movie-making meant merchandising.  Just ask any Gen X-er.  With Tron, it was inevitable; after all, this is a movie about a video game, where the programmer gets sucked in and has to fight his way out in a hot mess of live-action and animation.  Of course, there was a video game and a stack of action figures to go along with it!  Between the film, the games and the toys, Tron has stood the test of time and remains at the top of many a list of favorite childhood movies.  Heck, it was probably a favorite for a few non-kids, too, and the toys have remained popular with those who actually got their hands on them.

In 1982, Tomy issued Tron action figures.  In blue were Tron and Flynn (the good guys) and red for Sark and the warriors (err… the bad guys).  Tron, Flynn and Sark came with discs as weapons and the warriors came with staves like the ones they used in the movie.  Circuitry was painted onto the bodies of the action figures in bright colors making them look computer-y and technological, which was most definitely all the rage. 

Even better were the accessories themselves: Light Cycles.  Light Cycles were souped-up futuristic-looking motorcycles made of plastic.  Available in red and yellow, they had rip cords that could be pulled for the bikes to race across any flat surface (and a few that were a little less than flat!)  The action figures could go inside of a light cycle for the ride of his toy life.  The Light Cycles were so popular that knock-offs started showing up on toy store shelves.  In Canada, a company by the name of Toy City began producing “unofficial” toys made to look like Light Cycles.  They came in blue, green, silver and orange and were attractive for toy-hungry kid eyes.  Once the packages were ripped open the problem became clear.  These “fakes” were 25% smaller and the action figures just wouldn’t fit – but that didn’t stop kids from having fun with them anyway.

As popular as the toy line was, the toy line never expanded with new characters, new generations, new anything – so it seemed doomed to be a short-lived time in toy history.  Gen X-ers around the globe haven’t forgotten the Light Cycles and they’ve been extremely popular in Japan, where they were never produced.  That should be no surprise; it was a part of the collective imagination.  Baby Boomers had jet packs, Gen X had Light Cycles.  Tron lived up to its movie poster promise, taking us into “a world inside the computer where man has never been.”