All that comes with it

[Open the door / Close the door]

Centurions

 “Man and machine, Power Xtreme!”

The Centurions were Ace McCloud, Jake Rockwell, and Max Ray; three men who specialised in Air, land, and water combat respectively.  Each had a variety of special combat suits that could be teleported directly to their body by them shouting out “Power Xtreme!” and doing a little star jump. Their sworn enemies were the evil cyborgs Doc Terror and Hacker and their robotic army of Doom Drones.
 
I was very much into Centurions as a child, although I don’t recollect ever actually owning any of the toys.  The main source of their appeal were the interchangeable combat suits with exciting names like Strato Strike, Sea Bat, and Wild Weasel. But also of great fascination was the fact that they lived on a space station with an orangutan. I mean lets face it, who wouldn’t love to live on a space station with an orangutan?
 
You can find some old Centurions cartoons here

I’m loosing enthusiasm for doing this now and it’s only day three day twelve. But I’ve made a commitment to is and so i’m going to follow it through. And you will enjoy it damnit.

[Open the door / Close the door]

The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin

“Can you and I be friends?”
 
Teddy Ruxpin was, in essence, a teddy bear with a tape recorder stuffed into its innards.  As well as the bear itself there was a range of special Teddy Ruxpin story tapes to go with it.   Instead of the normal duel stereo tracks of a cassette however only one track of the tape was dedicated to audio. The other contained data that moved Teddy’s jaw and eyes so as to appear like the toy was actually speaking.  The effect was rather unsettling and would not have looked out of place on a Dr Who villain.
 
In 1987 World of Wonder, the company behind the toy, created The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin cartoon in order to boost its appeal.  I remember very little about the show other than it was utterly wet and it bored me to tears. With the assistance of wikipedia I can tell you that Teddy, and his friends Grubby and Newton Gimick spent their time exploring  the land of Grundo in a big airship, with incompetent comedy villain Tweeg trying to spoil their fun.
 
As you know, I’m the first to indulge in a little pop culture nostalgia.  But Teddy Ruxpin was a pretty crappy toy, and the cartoon a pretty crappy show and I feel no regret at its passing.

As you will have already noticed, every day this month I have posted a new door from the All That Comes With It advent colander. If you haven’t noticed this then there’s probably something wrong with your computer. I should buy a new one immediately if I were you.

Any suggestions that I have only just thought of this idea and in truth there has been no advent door for the 1st to the 9th of December will be met with swift and aggressive legal action.

So, even though I have been doing this advent calendar thing for the past nine days, I haven’t explained the the theme behind it. Traditionally advent calendars have featured images of Christmas of yore. You know the type of thing: candy canes, bells, wooden toy trains, that sort of stuff. Nice as this may be it is hardly relevant to contemporary festive celebrations. When was the last time you actually had a gingerbread man hanging off your Christmas tree? Exactly.

So I decided to base my own advent calendar on something that sums up the real true spirit of Christmas: the cynical marketing of children’s toys by advertising executives.

But I’m not just looking at any old cynical marketing campaign, oh no. I’m focusing on a very specific form of the genre: namely the 30 minute long toy advertisements which were cunningly disguised as children’s television programs in the 1980’s and early 90s.

So without further ado:

[Open the door / Close the door]

M.A.S.K.

_{“M.A.S.K. crusaders, working all the time, fighting crime, fighting crime!”}
The Mobile Armoured Strike Kommand (M.A.S.K.) were a hi-tec special task force of crimefighters. Their arch enemies were V.E.N.O.M. (Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem) lead by the dastardly Miles Mayhem. The main gimmick of the show was that all the characters had special vehicles that somehow transformed into other vehicles, all of which were available in your friendly neighborhood toy shop naturally. Some of the transformations were quite ingenious, others were very poor indeed. Thunderhawk, a car that turned into a plane by opening it’s gullwing doors was a particularly disappointing low point.

M.A.S.K. was full to the brim of every stereotype a young child could wish for. The Russan was called “Boris”, the Indian “Bombay”, and the villain had an English accent (always my own personal favorite). All good clean fun. I don’t think I ever had any M.A.S.K. toys, but my brother had Piranha: a motorbike that’s sidecar turned into a submarine. A mint condition boxed one would cost you $80 these days, that’s about £0.23 in English money (will these exchange rate jokes ever get stale? I very much doubt it).

The TV show only lasted one and a half seasons, but there are still devotees of it out there today. Check out Matt Trakker’s Mask Domain for all your M.A.S.K. related needs.