Talk:Starcom: The U.S. Space Force

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I remember working at Coleco when Starcom came out. The line was very, very cool indeed but the promotion aspect of our products did seem to be hampered by, uh, its hard to put it npov, so lets just say there were issues. Still, I'm glad to see the toy line documented here. rewinn 06:14, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I was the copywriter for StarCom at Coleco

I wrote all the package, instruction and catalog copy and came up with the product names. I’m familiar with the whole story of the creation of the toy line. I’m hesitant to edit the article, since I’ve never edited on Wikipedia and I don’t want to negate the generous efforts of prior contributors or mess anything up, but there are inaccuracies.

For example, the article says “the Starcom line was developed as part of the merchandising for a cartoon,” when actually it was developed as a standalone toy line and was shopped to animation studios during development. The cartoon was based on the toy line.

I would also disagree with the assertion that “Starcom toys never caught on in the U.S. due to poor promotion.” I’ve been in the toy industry for 25 years and the certain knowledge of why toy lines fail is an elusive and endlessly debated grail in this painfully hit-or-miss industry, with its notoriously fickle consumers. Certainly Coleco was a marketing juggernaut at the time, riding the crest of the phenomenal success of Cabbage Patch Kids and trying frantically to come up with The Next Big Thing. Desperate to manufacture a hit, they poured millions of dollars into promoting StarCom, so the line’s failure to catch on with kids was not due to lack of trying. The best reason I ever heard for the failure of StarCom was from an old-timer in the toy inventing community, who said (admiringly) that it was “too clean,” meaning, I think, that it was too technical, too realistic, and lacking more childish styling and characters.

A couple of other bits:

The original working name for the toy line was “Stickies,” referring to the magnetic-foot feature of the figures. After a long and agonizing naming process (typical of StarCom and Coleco in general) the feature was dubbed “Magna Lock.”

The line was designed, developed and engineered in cooperation with Tomy Toys of Japan, with whom Coleco had a partnership at the time. The miniature wind-up motors behind the “Power Deploy” feature were known in the trade as “Tomy motors.”

The Young Astronauts Council assisted in the development of the toy line by holding a briefing for Coleco’s creative team (marketing directors, design director, art director and copywriter) in its Washington, DC offices. (Coleco was a YAC licensee for its Cabbage Patch Kids "Young Astronauts" dolls.) Scientists talked to the team about plausible developments in space technology in a hundred years’ time; the result was the inclusion of “railguns” and other futuristic technologies in the “schtick” on the packages.

Trivia: In what major motion picture did a StarCom toy appear (and the instruction sheet get read aloud by one of the stars, who exclaimed “Who writes this?”)?

Dave Tilbor Belmont, CA

fine, we're waiting. what's the answer?!

btw, was the adversary named "shadow" in homage to UFO?

u just don't go recycling names like this, "spectre" or "chaos" etc. w/o people recognizing them! 2601:19C:5280:5BA7:A58D:A9B9:8013:6F85 (talk) 03:19, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

STARCOM : INCEPTION

STARCOM IS IN THE PROCESS OF BEING RE-REGISTERED BY AN UNKNOWN COMPANY AT THIS TIME.

STARCOM WILL BE REJUVENATED AND MODERNISED FOR TODAY'S SOCIETY WITH A NEW SEASONAL CELL SHADED CARTOON SERIES AND NEW PRODUCT LINES. —Preceding unsigned comment added by IAN99000310 (talk • contribs) 15:39, 26 July 2009 (UTC)