80's comic ads

If you fill out this enlistment form you could be the next Joe, and get your own personalized file card, an action figure and an official patch!

You can get your awesome headphone radio for free with the Nabisco candies!

“Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future” was a TV series aired between 1987 and 1988 and set in the 22nd century. In that apocalyptic future the humankind is slave of the robots and the Soldiers of Future are their only hope.

The program was not very successful, but during its short run some toys were released, such as this aircraft which beams interacted with some images of the TV show and with videotapes.

This is the shocking commercial in which Captain Power interrupted the regular broadcast:

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai movie was released in 1984. This ad is from Marvel Comics, which published the comic adaptation the same year, drawn by Mark Texeira.

This is the movie trailer, with the music and images of the end titles:

Pitfall! was one of the most successful Atari video games of all time (only Pac-Mac sold more copies). This is the ad of its sequel, Pitfall II: Lost Caverns, released in 1984. Both games were developed by David Crane and starred by the jungle explorer Pitfall Harry. This game became very popular too.

The original game TV commercial featured a very young Jack Black:

Amidar was a video game developed for arcade by Konami in 1981. This is the 1982 home version ad, released by Parker Brothers. The gameplay is very similar to Pac-Man, alternating stages where the player is a gorilla chased by wild warriors and stages where the player is a paint roller chased by pigs. The name of the game and the structure of the stages are inspired in an oriental kind of lottery called Amidakuji.

If this is not strange enough, have a look at the TV commercial:

Behold the ultimate joke, a candy that looks like chalk. Your friends will think that you are nuts when you eat it in front of them. Lots of tasty fun!

1987 ad of the RC model plane Stealth Bomber SB-X by Cox Hobbies Inc.

The Young Astronaut Program began by the Reagan Administration licensed many products, like these Monogram kits. Buying them you could win a trip to Orlando and see a Space Shuttle launch.

In 1982 Parker Brothers released for the Atari 2600 one of the first Spider-Man video games. In the game, Spider-Man is climbing a building defusing the Green Goblin’s bombs and avoiding to get killed by the Goblin’s gangs in the windows. When Spider-Man reaches the top of the building fights against the Green Goblin himself.

Don’t miss the TV commercial with the same script in action: