I’m not here to mock Playmates oddly shaped Star Trek movie toys (today); I’m here to tell you that Playmates has made a TV commercial for the toys, and it’s like traveling back through time. I find it hard to believe that this video wasn’t made in 1986, despite the Sylar/Spock figure and the brand-new “transporter technology” in the playsets (which is actually pretty cool, if it looks as good in real life as it does in the commercial). I mean, I watch a decent amount of Cartoon Network each week, so I know companies are still making toy commercials. But I think they stopped making toy commercials like this about 15 years ago.
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.