Macross Isand Junkie

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

As you all know I am fan of Robotech. I have enjoyed it for many a year and it has (for me) become far beyond a cartoon with dubious animation at times. I remember it around the first time back in the 80's but I wasn't that into it at the time. I am guessing I was more into G.I. Joe and He-Man than Robotech. It really wasn't until I was a freshman in High school that I got into Robotech. I think what initially happened was that my best friend in High school (Eric) got ahold of the RPG book and I think we launched from there.

Over the next several years it was a search for anything I could lay my hands on. Robotech's hey-day had passed and there was little new product coming out. I scoped out my local comic book shops (Heroes Workshop off West Berry and Lone Star Comics near Hulen) but didn't find too much in thoes early days. I remember that Heroes Workshop had a big cardboard SDF-1 and I was always amazed by it. I did find some issues of the Canadian Robotech Fanzine Protoculture Addicts and ate them up.

I got all the RPG books I could afford and the novelizations as well. When money permitted I would go wild at one of Lone Star's sales and stock up on back issues of the comics. Most were good but there were some strange ones too. Me and Eric and some of his friends would play the RPG. This was great fun but for some reason I was almost always the GM. Once I found 2 Peter Pan - Robotech Cassette with book sets at Pic-N-Save (which is now Big Lots). I loved those pieces of shit! They were so patched together and the narrator would constantly get the names wrong and when he read it was like he was reading the story for the first time (he would get inflections all wrong). None of it matter because it was Robotech and I enjoyed them thoroughly.



Through those first few years I got ahold of the F.H.E. version of Robotech. It had six VHS tapes with six episodes mercilessly editing together. They would only show one opening and closing credits and slap six episodes all together (cutting out quite a bit as I later found out). F.H.E. also released a couple of other versions of the series (with fewer episodes on each tape) but it appears my set was the last VHS set they produced. I would take a tape deck and record audio snippets off the show and make a 'mix tape' of audio sound bites. Years later I got the F.H.E. laser disc versions of the series and it was a totally different experience. The episodes were complete and there were scenes that I had never seen before. I gripe about those crappy VHS versions but they did offer some fun years later with the missing scenes I got to see off the laser discs.


Let's take a break with this cute chick giving us one of Minmei's songs...




Through all this I got on this kick to get Robotech Perfect Collection CD (or record it didn't matter to me). I contacted the company only to find out that it was out of print. These were the days before eBay so I was SOL. One day I was browsing something (online or in a magazine, I can't remember) and I ran across something that showed that a new soundtrack called Robotech: Perfect Soundtrack was about to be released... in less and a week! I was so excited. I got my order in ASAP but the production was delayed until early 97 and once I did get it I see why it was delayed. It had 2 discs and they were marked wrong. Disc 1 was Disc 2, etc... It still didn't detract from my utter delight. I got to enjoy songs I had never heard before including the ones I simply didn't remember from the Robotech The Movie soundtrack. As it turns out it wasn't 'perfect' there was another set that came less than 10 years later with even more.



In 1999 I built a website called Robocon.org. I already had a page about Robotech on my webpage so I moved it to the new Robocon.org and added more stuff to it. Robocon was the 10th anniversary of Robotech convention that took place in 1995. It focused on my take on Robotech as well as the voice actors that had attended the convention and so on. I had a couple of phone conversations with Tom Bateman (the organizer and protoge' of Carl Macek. He got me some info and gave me blessings to use it all on the site. He had been planning a Robocon 15 in 2000 but it fell through. In 200? He contacted me again (along with Tommy Yune I believe) about giving Robocon.org to Robotech.com (the official portal for Robotech). So they could use it for the upcoming Robocon 20. I agreed and they suped up my site and integrated it into their own. I still have my site archived here. You can compare the changes they made to it here (their official version). I found it funny that they kept the front page (the one with animation that says: 'Welcome to the Future of the Human Race' from my old site. I basically took that from my existing Front Mission fan site cause it sounded cool (I just changed 'Future of Warfare' to Future of the Human Race'). I also find it cool that the site is still up and intact after all these years.



Robotech has been good to me over the years and I feel I have been good to it. It's a nice relationship, eh?

Licensing in the Robotech Universe

by Nathan Stout (of According To Whim.com)

Robotech seems to be the victim of cheesy licensing. I guess back in the 80's it wasn't too much of a big deal who you gave your license to. As long as the money came in, you were good. I think George Lucas changed that with his Star Wars lines in the late 80's through today. Perhaps it was just inevitable that rights holders would pick and choose and have final say over what their creations showed up on. Back to George, apparently Lucas chose to take (as part of his pay on Star Wars) the rights to the merchandising. THAT was a master stroke. He raked in the money with everything from the toys to party supplies. Over the years I have heard that Lucasfilm has been very picky about who they grant licensing to and what products come out (and the quality of those products).

Robotech (as a brand) was and is held by Harmony Gold. Harmony Gold sold Robotech out like a cheap pimp back in the day. There was the usual products sporting the Robotech theme such as party goods, toys, and the like but they didn't seem to care who bought those right or how well (or poorly) those products were.

This blog is about some of the items that Harmony Gold let their Robotech brand get slapped on. First I will pick the biggest chunk of the licensing... the toys. Matchbox bought the rights to the line and boy o boy did they do a job on that! Robotech figures were... how shall I say it... poorly executed. Sure, this was the early 80's but there were plenty of examples of how to do an action figure RIGHT. It looks like Matchbox chose to pick the G.I. Joe line as the basis for their figures. The construciton looks very similar but the end result is hideous...

The seem to have been built alright but the oversized heads and the short torsos made them look like circus freaks. The other toys in the line like the ships all appear to be re-releases from their Japanese counterparts which means the look pretty badass.

So the action figures and vehicles were alright (not great but not too bad). Where Harmony Gold really dropped the ball was pretty much everywhere else. I am not including the Comico comics in this since they seemed to be about par for comic books at the time.

Here is some examples of what I am talking about. First up is an old favorite... Have you ever seen those stoybooks that came with tapes or records, a read-along book?

The Robotech read-along was made by Peter Pan and it is quickly apparent that whoever produced this item did not know anything about Robotech. I won't even mention the art work inside. If you are interested in checking out the inside of the book, read it here at the 'Let's Anime' Blog. Thanks to them for the image above.

My next item is a 'Press and Stick' Robotech set. Look at this thing...

Most notibly the SDF-1 is upside down, you are seeing the bottom of it. No biggie but it is apparent that the producers of this set didn't realize the art was a bottom up view of the ship. Did I mention that an Alpha fighter is marked as a Veritech. It's just another example of a company that knows nothing about Robotech putting out a Robotech product. Oh yeah, and why the hell is Henry Gloval in there? He is a captian, not an action-type charcter. I guess smoking a pipe is action enough.

Oh crap! That would scare me to death on Halloween.

Next on my list is are not even poorly made items, just stuff that has NOTHING to do with Robotech at all! This stuff just seems to be random toys that Harmony Gold said 'sure, go ahead, slap the Robtech name on it'.

What the heck are these???

Huh?

 

What the???

Aqua-what?

Uh, cool but what the heck?

So I figure you get the picture here. Harmony Gold was out for the quick cash and knew that they better get while the gettin' was good. As a fan and sometimes collector I find all this fun but dissapointing at the same time. By the way the gun shown in this last picture has a bit of a history to itself. The white part was modified and used to make the guns the aliens used in the 80's TV series 'V'.

 ♪The Women of Robotech ♪

Do yourself a favor and click on the link above. These are classic commercials! I particuarly enjoy the last one on the video. Dana Sterling kicks ass during the day killing so many of the Master's troops then spend the afternoon working out. Also, notice how Rick Hunter is such a man-whore.