The other reason news of the Voltron movie is good is because I have a Voltron action figure packed away in an attic. In excellent condition, and in its original packaging. Maybe now it will be worth something. Hopefully enough to pay off, oh, say, a year or two of student loans...
Sadly it's the terrain Voltron and not the lion Voltron. I much preferred the lion Voltron show, and always wished I'd gotten that toy instead. (I didn't because a friend already had that one, and it didn't seem to make sense to get the same one.) Although arguably the land one is better because you can do more things with it: either have 15 separate vehicles, form them into 3 larger vehicles, or make a giant Voltron figure. Whereas the lion one is either 5 separate lions or just one Voltron.
It's interesting in thinking about how much money it might be worth now and remembering one of the hard lessons of childhood its purchase occasioned my mom to teach me: I had saved up some birthday money to buy this toy, and it was expensive. Prices ranged from $65-$85, which, for a kid in the mid-1980s, represented a lot of money. The problem was, it was hard to find. And I really, really wanted it. And there were only so many nights after work she could take me to try to buy it. (It was only available from stores on the highway.) So when we went to a store that had it, at the inflated $85 price, I didn't care. I wanted to buy it. Right then. But my mom wouldn't let me. It was obviously overpriced, and I needed to learn that instant gratification was not always advisable. If I could hang on a little longer, perhaps just a week - which, while not a long time for a grown-up is an infinity to an 11 year old - I'd be able to get my toy and save the money. But she might as well have told me I'd never get to eat chocolate again. There was my toy, and she wouldn't let me have it! I cried, I whined, I complained that she was being *sooo* unfair!
But of course she was right. And soon we found it cheaper and all was right in the world.
(Plus given how rarely I got to play with it before I grew out of it, she was especially right. But because I'd held out, I now had the money left over to buy my very first Huey Lewis and the News album, Sports, just a few months later.)
Thanks, Mom.