Monday Memorygasm – Tomy Pocket Bots and Strolling Bowling

Thanks to Retro Con for posting this pic on their Facebook page, jogging memories of tiny Tomy goodness from days of yore.

If you aren’t familiar with Retro Con, it’s probably right up your alley. Some friends/contributors of ours (you know them as LamarRevenger, Brian “Hail Mary” Morin & Meister Shake) recorded a podcast from the first Retro Con last year, where they scored the best sound drop in USF history- play the first 20 seconds of the ep to hear it!

This year’s Retro Con looks like it will be a blast, and you can win a custom A-Team Van Transformer! The event is September 14th, we hope to see you there. Make sure to like the Retro Con Facebook page to stay updated on special guests and events.

There’s a whole site dedicated to Tomy Pocket Bots, along with the Rascal Robots and Acrobots. I had forgotten all about these little guys until I saw that picture on Facebook.

I’m not sure if I even had any of them, or just saw them on TV or at a friends’ house, but they were rad as hell.

Looks like they can be found on eBay or in some eCrater shops if you’re looking to score some vintage Pocket Bots. And who could discuss Tomy wind-up toys without mentioning Zoids? Those guys are certainly destined for their own Memorygasm feature.

Tomy was the king of wind-up toys (remember Mighty Motor Boats?). Strolling Bowling was one of my favorite games as a kid, and it featured a wind-up bowling ball with two orange feet. You would wind it up, set it at the end of the lane (which the game carrier folded out into) and let it hop toward the pins.

Here’s the Strolling Bowling TV commercial from 1981:

The girl in the ad is a little too “Emily Schulman-y” for my taste.

Just like with Torpedo Run and the Floor Wars Series (which is a Memorygasm for another day), I perpetually waited for Tomy to release more games in this line. I know there was Goof Around Golf, but I never had it. Not even sure if it came out before or after Strolling Bowling.

Looks like there was a football wind-up game too. Wasn’t there a boxing themed one? If anyone knows the name of that game and any others in this series, hit the comments and let me know!