Hehe this is way too addictive. I can’t stop reading through this site linked to by BoingBoing (I feel guilty not given credit to those who found it even though my blog is riddled with credit to BoingBoing and PopGadget) that has listed and commented on the top 100 toys of the 70s and 80s. An excerpt:
The Americans sure knew how to name toys. We, to be honest, didn’t. So, while this boxing automaton chestnut went under one of the best names for any game, or indeed any thing, ever, in the States, the rather rarer British version was renamed… Raving Bonkers Fighting Robots. Quite. This Un-American activity came courtesy, appropriately enough, of Marx Toys Ltd., who, aside from seemingly employing the cast of Whack-o! in their marketing division, did actually do a neat enough job of making the toy over here. Within a sturdy boxing ring, two square-jawed robots (named, in the English version, Biffer Bonker and Basher Bonker, but let’s not dwell on it) rounded on each other by means of an initially hard-to-master combination of two under-ring levers, and laid into their opponents with button-fired punching action. A successful knockout was signalled by the losing robot’s head flying up on a spring and, allegedly in some editions, a bit of crude, “sampled” surrender dialogue. Presumably the British version went “By Jingo, sir! You’ve bally well got me in the seven-and-nines and no mistake! Care for a bun?”
So it’s done by some english dudes so there are some unfamiliar toys but their witty british humour makes it all the better. What I am reminescing on now: Perfection, Guess Who, and what has not yet been mentioned, He-Man.