Microman Retro TV Commercials Are A Trip

Microman — better known here in the States as Micronauts — was an awesome toy line back in the day. I posted about Micronauts and the potential for a Micronauts movie a couple of weeks ago so click that one if you'd like. Yes indeed, it has been a dream of mine for quite some time, if you want to read more.

So I just tripped on some Japanese TV commercials and I thought you might get a kick out of them too.

"Me-curro-MAHHN!"

Holy Christ! A Micronauts Movie May Actually Be In The Works

Well, looks like I'm getting getting closer to my dream... I posted about this earlier in the year... and now supposedly there are talks going on regarding a possible Micronauts movie — with JJ Abrams involved, no less. I knew it was only a matter of time before the suits in "Hollywood: Land of Unoriginality" dipped their grubby paws into this toy well.

As a kid, Micronauts were my favorite line of toys, second only to Mego's World's Greatest Superheroes (nothing could ever, ever be better than those cloth-costumed dolls action figures.) One reason I loved Micronauts so much was because most of the figures and accessories had holes and pegs in them, and you could get really creative by adding or subtracting pieces and parts to make unique weapons, vehicles and characters. Plus, they had orange, rubber-tipped missiles that actually fired from missile launcher thingies! Well, until some asshole parenting group laid the law down and forced toy companies to stop making toys with dangerous, rubber-tipped missiles. You could really poke an eye out with those things.

In any case, yeah, AICN is reporting the story and that JJ Abrams may become involved. Click and read if you'd like.

What do you think? A Micronauts movie? JJ Abrams in charge? Would you like to see this go down? Comments!

Where's My Friggin' Micronauts Movie?!

I'm serious. The Micronauts, one of my favorite action figure/toy lines as a kid, needs to be a movie. No, not the cheap animated one they released straight-to-DVD; I'm talking big-budget, Michael Bay lovin' Transformers stuff here. I am telling you, if they did it right, it would blow minds.

Micronauts Issue #1 by Marvel Comics, 1979

And what's to stop Hollywood from doing it? They've been making movies based on crummy properties for years. We're getting The Land of the Lost and GI Joe this summer, and rumor has it that Stretch Armstrong ain't far behind. There you go.

They made a legitimate film with a serious tone out of toy cars and trucks that turn into robots, for god's sake. If they can do that, imagine what they could do with Micronauts. It is true that back in the day when Micronauts toys and comics were hot (late seventies), they got out of control with some questionable characters (i.e; Baron Karza was pretty much a dollar store rip-off of Darth Vader), but for the most part, Micronauts kicked ass!

Micronauts by Mego

The 3 and 1/2 inch action figures were based on a Japanese toy line called Microman. American toy company Mego imported them from Takara Japan and repackaged them as Micronauts. The figures and play sets really caught on in the U.S. -- for the first time ever, you didn't have to live in Japan to have cool, bizarre action figures!

Many of the toy parts had little holes in various places where you could insert little plastic pegs which connected to attachments and whatnot. This gave a kid all sorts of creative freedom. Kind of like Lego meets action figures, I suppose. I remember having a blast building backpack rocket launchers and crazy armed assault vehicles for my little Micronauts.

So if you're by some chance a studio suit looking for an untapped, kick-ass license to rape... er, turn into a motion picture and you are reading this, go after Micronauts, I say. You could do worse (cough, He-Man, cough...)