12 Electronic Toy Robots of the 1980s

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It was a fruitful time for robotic buddies and the toys that imitated them.

The decade of the 1980s witnessed a rare explosion in American robot mania. It led to the creation of personal home robots, such as the HERO, and a cavalcade of toy robots that were both functional and fanciful. You can thank George Lucas for that.

The wild popularity of sentient Star Wars droids like R2-D2 and C-3PO, when combined with the personal computer revolution, made the 1980s a fruitful time for robotic buddies and the toys that imitated them. People wanted to make real R2-D2s for themselves, and boy did they try.

By the end of the 1980s, Star Wars fever had died down and most people realized that sentient robot slaves were nowhere near possible with the technology of the time. Those factors led to much furrier robots in the 1990s that pretended to be household pets or mogwai...but we'll save that story for another time.

In the following slideshow, we'll take a look at 12 electronic robot toys—miniature cousins of the bigger home robots—that didn't just sit there looking pretty like a Transformer (ok, some of them sat there), but actually did stuff in an electronic, robotic way. When you're done reading, I'd love to hear about your favorite vintage robots in the comments.

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Ideal Maxx Steele
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Ideal Maxx Steele

Ideal Maxx Steele
Retailing for $349.99 in 1984 (that's a whopping $761.16 in 2011 dollars), Maxx Steele is clearly the least toy-like robot in this slideshow. In fact, Steele was a fully-programmable robot that just happened to be tied into a children's toy line. That line, called Robo Force, featured smaller, non-electronic robots with suction cups for feet.

(Photos: Montgomery Ward, Ideal)
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