80's comic ads

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:

In 1984 TSR Inc. released the first role playing game based upon the Marvel Comics characters. The game was designed by Jeff Grubb and contained a 16 page Battle Book illustrated by Al Milgrom and a 52 page Campaign Book illustrated by Sal Buscema. It also featured the Day of the Octopus adventure, eight character cards and twenty-five playing pieces.

The game was so successful that during a decade TSR published several supplements with new adventures.

The Gobots were transformable toys that appeared in Japan under the name of Machine Robo in 1983 after the success of Hasbro’s Transformers. In 1984 the Gobots began to be sold in the USA.

This is the TV commercial of the same year:

The A Team was one of the most successful TV series of the 1980s. The most popular character of the A Team was B.A. Baracus, played by Mr. T, actor and wrestler. This fame brought Mr. T to do lots of advertisements related to his fictional character.

The Ghostbusters had their own home video game which was developed by Activision at the same time as the movie was filmed. The programmers had a short time to end the game, so they used parts of a game called “Car Wars” which was almost finished at that time.

Fitness advertisements were very common in kids oriented publications. Ads like this one, of DP Fit for Life, showing a teenager holding weight are unthinkable nowadays.

The TV ad was more adult oriented:

During the eighties the use of 1-900 numbers became very common. The video game industry also took part of this new trend with hotlines such as the Parker Brothers one.

Montezuma’s revenge is the name given in the USA to a kind of diarrhea contracted by the Americans when visited Mexico. That name inspired this game set in the temple of the Aztec emperor Montezuma. The main character, Panama Joe, is there looking for a hidden treasure. The player has to guide him through the mazes inside the temple.

The classic Frogger video game had a sequel in 1984. The game began where the first part finished: the pond at the other side of the road. Unlike its predecessor, this game had three different levels: underwater, the surface and the sky.