absolutely useless trivia

[egypturnash]

Some years back, there was a game called "ZPC". It was a fairly uninspired Doom sort of affair on the Mac. The one cool feature it had was the art - the design, was by Aidan Hughes, aka "Brute!", or "the guy who does those cool KMFDM cover pictures".

Instead of collecting guns, you started out with a multi-function gun; as the game progressed you started finding ammo for more of its functions. If you were out of ammo you could always just whack people upside the head with it, too; the Johnny-7 was a useful weapon.

Why am I writing about this? Because of something I learnt yesterday at work. We're playing around with something that involves looking at a lot of old commercials, and lo and behold, in the middle of a tape of toy ads was an ad for... the Johnny-7 One Man Army. A toy rifle with seven functions, plus it probably also worked pretty good for smacking your siblings around when Mom wasn't looking, too.

The ad also pitched the "Microhelmet", which had an integrated walkie-talkie (or was it just a long cable to a handset?) and made the person wearing it look like either a total dork, a Kirby character, or both.



"Kirbyness is at dangerous levels, Control! I must prepare myself!"



"MY KIRBINESS IS MANIFEST! HOW SHALL I PROCEED?"


"I HAVE HEARD THE WORD - AND THE WORD IS BATTLE!!!"


Firing one of the many projectiles the Johnny-7 is capable of putting your sister's eye out with.

Comments

[mutleyjames.livejournal.com]

My...POWER...GROWING!!!...Atomic Energy...EXPANDING!!!

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

Tard Helmet on OVERLOAD

[hydra-velsen.livejournal.com]

I want one!!!!

Non-lethal DEATH!

[zrath.livejournal.com]

Oh my god.

I remember this thing!
I saw it in a toy catalog when I was really small!
It was a Printemps x-mas catalog (French department store) and the picture
had a big "MADE IN USA" sign on it. I wanted one so bad!!!

But I never got one.
I vowed revenge!!!

And my revenge was complete when I bought 3 of these (http://nerfcenter.com/reviews-of/UltimatorNN.htm) 8 years ago.

Yes, it's 3 feet long.
Yes, the rockets are the size of milk bottles.
Muahahahahahahaha!!!

[kamenkyote.livejournal.com]

I have that commercial on tape. There's a VERY cool cold war/spy commercial with Kurt Russel in it as well. Toys were much cooler in some ways then. Sometimes not.

-T'

[mutleyjames.livejournal.com]

Must... destroy... T'.
ASStomic Power Building...

[siddacious.livejournal.com]

i remember thinking that zpc was going to be the best video game ever. then i heard it was lame and forgot all about it. i've always been pleased to run across unexpected BRUTE! stuff, like the t-shirt that he did for Defcon 6.0 (which i'm still trying to find).

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the only cool thing about it in the end was that you ran around in a world BRUTE! drew; other than that it was pretty generic. Bad, even - first time I played it, I didn't find any ammo for the Johnny-7 until level 3 or 4 (and you start out with NO ammo), so I got to be insanely good at killing enemies by running up to them and smacking them with my gun (it dealt out more damage if you did it on the run). Then later on I started to re-play it, and lo and behold, there's a wall panel with the "I AM A SECRET DOOR" texture on it right in the first room. That had tons of ammo in it. It wasn't nearly as much fun.

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

Homicide is more fun when it's personal?