Matchbox Parasites
What an annoying commercial! But even though this Matchbox Parasites commercial gets on my nerves it’s worth a peek because the toy car/robots are so very neat. Watch the commercial and then visit the Virtual Toy Chest for photos and information on a short-lived toyline from 1985.
The Parasites were the creation of California R&D, mostly by the late designer Stephen Lee for Matchbox. They also designed Roadblasters and were responsible for creating the aliens and their vehicles for the Micronauts (Cal R&D and its owner Larry Jones were also responsible for licensing Microman on behalf of Takara to Mego Corporation). Stephen Lee also did a lot of work later on other toylines, particularly ExoSquad and the Kenner Aliens toys.
The Parasites toys are a mixed bag in terms of production quality, about half are pretty well made and the other half had corners cut on them, but aside from the Transformer-like car shell gimmick, as figures they are about the same size as 3 3/4 inch action figures and look great mixed with Micronauts alien toys with Lee’s color schemes, weapon-armed limbs and the use of chrome parts.
Cal R&D had a second proposed set of trailer-rig trucks where the cab housed a mini-Parasite and the trailer a giant one which they had prototyped and that I would have loved to have seen released…!
Hah, I was going to jump in and say I once collected these, but I sold my collection to microbry, so no need.
@DoctorKent – Man, I hope you took amazing photos of every toy that has passed through your hands. You could put together an incredible book.