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.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves Retrospective

The English folklore character, Robin Hood, has appeared in stories, movies, and theatre for hundreds of years. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, one of the many stories featuring this sneaky heroic outlaw, came out in 1991. Along with the movie released, a video game, and toys also came out for the Prince of Thieves franchise. […]

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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 Captain Planet Toys

In 1990 the animated action environmentalist series, Captain Planet and the Planeteers, came out. This series lasted for six seasons and told the story of the Planeteers group and the superhero, Captain Planet. The story began with character Gaia sending out five powerful rings to chosen kids around the world, each representing an earthly element. […]

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Captain Planet Retrospective

The Captain Planet and the Planeteers animated action series released in 1990. The series broadcasted on TBS from September 15, 1990 to December 5, 1992. This series’ sequel, The New Adventures of Captain Planet, began airing the next year from September 11, 1993 to May 11, 1996. Since this long running popular series, toys, comics, […]

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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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Street Sharks Retrospective

This 90s animated series about four half-human half-shark teenagers aired from 1994 to 1997. Street Sharks tells the story of these four boys whose father was kidnapped and turned into a monster by the evil scientist, Dr. Paradigm. Then, when the boys try to rescue him, Dr. Paradigm turns them into anthropomorphic sharks. The story […]

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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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Lord of the Rings Retrospective

Among many fantasy films, The Lord of the Rings trilogy is the series that automatically comes to mind for people all around the world. This iconic story first began as a novel written by J.R.R. Tolkien, published in July 1954. The book series from the mid 1900s proved to be one of the best-selling book […]

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