Rocky Robot
Review by NekroDave
I'm not sure I even remember where I got this toy. I think it came in a lot with some carnival machinders, but it certainly wasn't the main thing I was buying at the time. But I don't recall seeing another one since and now I'm really glad I ended up with it. It seems to come from a series of rather uncommon Italian (but of course, made in Hong Kong) junior machinders called "Rocky Robot". There are 4 different Rocky Robots. This one and 3 others with the heads of Daikengo, Baratak and Combattler V. Each came in the same box and are pictured on the front. I don't have a picture of the sides of the box, but I assume it probably had a box that was checked with the robot inside, as is often the way with these things.
This particular Rocky Robot is has this unique head that can be seen on a variety of other toys (such as the Bandai Red Fighter), but as far as I can tell, it doesn't come from any one particular robot.
As I type this, I don't know who exactly made these toys (I am trying to find out), but it does share the same arms as the Viking and Goodrock toys made by Il Giocattolo. Maybe that means these were too, but not necessarily, since it also has the same fists as just about every other junior machinder ever made, regardless of company. I've also seen plenty of other juniors that share parts with other toys made by other companies so who knows. I am currently trying to dig into this stuff and figure out all that is out there, but that's another article for another day.
At 12" tall, Rocky Robot here is two inches bigger than the the two toys I just mentioned, but at least two inches shorter than most other junior machinders. It's articulated at the neck, shoulders and hips. Both fists shoot and the left can hold a sword (the same sword seen with Goodrock, both Space Heroes and Robot From Outer Space). There is a single missile launcher in the stomach and each leg holds 3 missiles. The missiles seen on this specimen were actually taken from other toys. I believe this would have come with 6 white tipped missiles.
Not much more to say about this guy, but hopefully one day I can bring you a review of the others in the series, as they are pretty interesting and colorful little toys.
Comments
5 comments postedI recognize that head!
Nice Argtalian toy. Very colorful.
I can only laugh, as I picture Dave in the "Holy Grail", seeking info across the globe, as he clops along out of the fog, with 2 coconut halves, and arrives at various old, musty, has-been factories, demanding old toy information!
..sorry, couldn't help it Dave, but you're as close as this audience gets to watching a serialized, toy-hunter epic.LOL ..."Tune IN Next Month!"
Considering there's things we don't even know about something as mainstream as American released Masters of the Universe toys,I'm pretty sure a lot of the particular details of Italian bootlegs of bootlegs from the 70's are going to be lost to time.
To the people churning these out back then,it was a job. It wasn't like today,where you read interviews with the four horsemen about how sculpting DC heroes is their childhood dream. None of these people were interested in keeping long term records,just waiting out the clock till they could go back to smoking dime cigars in their one room efficiancy while trying to get one more pot out of yesterday's coffee grinds.
Absolutely. But I'm not trying to figure out things like why every junior machinder has the same hands, even though they were made by a variety of different companies, or anything like that. I basically am just trying to compile a checklist of what was made and by whom. So far, I've accounted for about 55 different junior machinders (including variations,, but not including the cheap soft poly knockoffs) and only need to know the makers of a couple of them. I'm sure new things will still turn up as we move forward, but it'll be nice to have a list I can look at and say "I need this..and this..." etc.
"This must be settled the way nature intended....with a vicious, bloody fight!"
Onyx Blackman
Principal, Flatpoint High
Ceppi Ratti, fwiw.
"This must be settled the way nature intended....with a vicious, bloody fight!"
Onyx Blackman
Principal, Flatpoint High