Wheeljack’s Lab – Vintage Toy Blog

Follow this blog for the new, the unusual, the rare and cool Generation 1 G1 Transformers toys. Reviews, news, toy resources, galleries, unboxing, opinions and personal reflections on vintage toys.

Captain Power Retrospective

Travel through time with us to the 22nd century through this Retrospective of Captain Power. The franchise first began in 1987 through the television series, Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. This series starred Tim Dunigan, Peter Macneill, and Sven-Ole Thorsen and featured 22 episodes of 20 minutes each. The story begins in […]

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Top 10 BraveStarr Toys

The epic space western franchise, BraveStarr, debuted through a toy line by Mattel in 1986. Following the toy line, a movie, video game, comics, and books released to expand the franchise. Read our BraveStarr Retrospective to learn more about the franchise and the epic characters. Mattel released over 15 million dollars worth of action figures, […]

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BraveStarr Retrospective

Travel through time with us to the 24th century in this Retrospective of the BraveStarr franchise. The space western franchise, BraveStarr, released through many forms of media from the mid to late 1980s. The franchise includes toys, comics, books, a television series, movie, and video game. BraveStarr stands to be unique in genre, mixing both […]

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The Difference Between Zorro and The Lone Ranger

In 1919, the superhero western character, Zorro, made an appearance. First, in a folktale and later in many movies, series, toys, and comics. Then, in 1933, The Lone Ranger first aired as a radio program but is most widely known for the television series with the same name. The Lone Ranger also told the story […]

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Computer Warriors Retrospective

In 1989, Mattel toy company released a transforming toy line representing the storyline of the Computer Warriors. These toys released from 1989 to 1990 when an animated pilot episode of the characters also released. The pilot episode unfortunately never picked up but later came out as just one 22 minute film on VHS. These toys […]

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Top 10 Most Expensive Computer Warriors Toys

With the trend of transforming toys in the 1980s and 90s, Mattel toy company released these Computer Warrior action figures and playsets. From 1989 to 1990, Mattel’s transforming virus and anti-virus toys hit store shelves. These toys preceded an animated pilot episode titled Computer Warriors: The Adventure Begins. Since the toys only released for 2 […]

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Top 10 Most Expensive Crystar Toys

Crystar, Crystal Warrior, a fantasy-based comic book series published by Marvel in the early 1980s began the inspiration for Crystar toys. These toys first debuted throughout stores in 1982 and captivated fans all over the world. The toys’ multiple crystal transformations and posable possibilities took the interest of many fans. The toy company, Remco, created […]

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Top 10 Most Expensive Tron Collectibles

Jump into this Top 10 Expensive Tron Collectibles list with us. We will dive into the expansive technological world of Tron and look into the collectibles’ valuable history. The epic story of Tron first came out as a movie on July 9, 1982 distributed by Walt Disney. It sparked popularity being one of the first […]

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All About Diaclone

The Diaclone toy line first released in 1980 and is the series that started the widely popular Transformers toys. Although toy companies released changing robots previously, Diaclone made this feature it’s central purpose. This line of toys, released by Takara Toys in Japan, include robots and vehicles that transform. The Hasbro toy company then licensed […]

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Top 10 Musician Toys

For many of us, music has been a throughline throughout our youth, adolescence, and into adulthood. We’ve experienced many flavors of music, likely ranging from the 1960s and beyond! Considering this, we wanted to explore the toys of many of our beloved musicians, with a focus on those from the ‘70s to the ‘90s. Join […]

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