If you grew up in the late 80’s and the 90’s like I did, then you propably saw a lot of cartoons. I spent countless hours watching Cartoon Network, VIVA and other channels which came quite late to our country (Czech Republic).  Yes, it was the golden age of animated TV shows like Transformers, Masters of the Universe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joe or Batman The Animated Series, just to name a few.

Each of these shows either had it’s own toyline as it got succesful, or was made to promote already existing toys which was even more common. One of the best examples is a show called M.A.S.K. which was based on a toyline of transforming vehicles and small action figures made by Kenner. These 80’s toys were such a great designs that they have a special place in many peoples’ hearts even after all those years and many collectors are willing to pay ridiculous amount of money to get them in a good condition.

Wait, what? NASA collaborated on this?

I thought I know every one of these toylines, but I was wrong. Recently I discovered something that went completely under my radar and I was blown away! I discovered Starcom: The U. S. Space Force. The show lasted only one season before it was canceled.

Suprisingly the main focus of the show (aside of selling toys) was to get kids interested in science and space exploration. The creators even collaborated with NASA on the design of the starships and you can clearly see their influence. The bad guys are called The Shadow Force and serve the evil Emperor Dark. The bad guys are a little weird and more cartoonish and use a lot of robots. If you are a fan of older LEGO Space sets, you will immediately notice that they have the same logo (three yellow triangles) as the Blacktron 1 faction. What a strange coincidence.

Clever design never gets old

The animated show is surprisingly good when compared to other similar sci-fi  80’s TV shows. But the main stars here are the toys. The designers developed the whole system which utilizes magnets (so called MAGNA-LOCK), wind up motors (POWER DEPLOY  functions without any batteries) and standardized cargo box sizes. Everything is interchangeable and perfectly fits together. I like this toyline so much, that I plan to remake most of the ships in LEGO. I already designed two smallest ships – Starwolf space fighter and its counterpart Shadow Parasite. The next one on my list is the Starmax Bomber, which is propably one of my favourite starship designs of all time.

While researching the show I also stumbled upon Orion Pax’s LEGO version of this toyline. I really like his design, but I think I can still do it my way and bring something new to it.

Would you like to see more Starcom LEGO creations from me? Let me know in the comments!