Before I gear up for the main theme of toy robots on record covers I thought I'd zoom in on this cover first, 'The Planets' by Holst. Besides the burlesque Flash Gordon garb along with the Star Wars positioning, the toy interest lies in the ray guns. They look so familiar. Anyone know what they are?
OK, let's get to the robots. Here's Robby grooving on the cover of K-Tel's 'Music Machine' - as advertised on TV! Wonder if Robby got any royalties? Do you think its a toy or kit Robby? Billiken?
Next up we have this classic and oft-used image of two space toys in one from the inner sleeve of the Pretender's first album of the same name from 1980. I have seen this on an old American magazine cover too I'm sure.
picture credit: REBRN
The helmet is the beautiful vintage American Banner Plastics 'Space Helmet with radar Goggles' from the 1950's. Anyone recognise the skirt robot with remote control?
Another classic toy bot, this time its Marx's Big Loo's head on the CD cover and sleeve of Los Lobos' 'Colossal Head'.
Picture credit: AIGA. You can read the designer's notes on the AIGA archive
Last but not least is the album 'Explorers of the Dreamworld' by my old musical and artistic friend Tim Rafferty as part of his electronic music band Headshock. The cover features his and our fave toy robots, the Zeroids! Yay! Can you think of any more robot record covers readers?
Appears to be a variant of the "Hook" robot made by Japanese company Waco.The toy actually has a hook on its head instead of an antenna, and has slightly different arms and body graphics .The artist may have embellished the image a little bit. I have a cd by a band called Powerman 5000 called "Tonight the stars revolt" that has a similar looking robot on the inner sleeve.Appears to also be a slightly altered artist rendition,but Im not certain.
ReplyDeleteThanks for helping ID that robot Brian. I'm beginning to think that this image, which has been used a lot, is based on an illustration rather than a photograph. But who was the original artist?
DeleteActually the robot looks very spot on to Ideal's Robert Robot. Not sure if Robert is a derivative of "Hook" or not though. http://www.ebay.com/itm/VTG-Ideal-Robert-Robot-w-Controller-1950s-Mid-Century-Sci-Fi-Outer-Space-Toy-/172080093917?hash=item2810c5dadd:g:beUAAOSwFMZWp9gm
ReplyDeleteThat's it Lance! Well spotted! Robert it is. It must be a very famous image because its used so much.
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