My First Ratbat Toy

1986. Summer. I was 14 and working a couple of part-time jobs during the summer. One job, picking produce for a small farm, required me to spend something like three hours each day bending over and then standing up. The other job, at the local school, required me to paint, sweep, mop, move furniture . . . pretty average summer job work, in fact.

At that age I didn’t have any responsibilities at all so any money that I earned (minimum wage was $3.35/hour) was mine to spend in any way I wanted to. So I bought comics. And I bought toys. Sure, at the age of 14 I was probably too old for toys, but what the hell did I care? I got out and played games, rode my bike — I remember riding along and the bike splitting in two, the joint coming right apart on me — and did other kid things. But, despite my age, I still bought toys.

We were living in Aneta, ND at the time. A town so small that my class had four students. There was an arcade, a gas station, a junk shop, a little grocery store, a park . . . small town America. Basically, nowhere for a kid to buy toys or comics. So, once every week or two, my family would either go to Grand Forks or to the Air Force base where my parents would buy garbage I didn’t need — who needs food? — and I would buy the good stuff.

I picked up several toys and comics that summer, which isn’t exactly a surprise to anyone, but one of the toys I think about the most is Ratbat. A cassette that turned into a bat is pretty goofy — and making him purple didn’t help any — but he actually looks pretty cool in bat mode. The way the wings flip out, making the piece much larger in bat mode than cassette mode, had me pretty excited. Even today I think the design looks great.

As a cassette, because someone at Hasbro decided all cassettes would be sold in two-packs, he came with Frenzy. That kinda sucked, since Frenzy originally came with Laserbeak. I guess someone at Hasbro decided it was better to sell kids the same toy again rather than something new. Jerks.

For more on Ratbat don’t miss my Ratbat review that was posted in 2009.

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