My First Robot

 

Circa 1968 (I was 8 y.o.) my sister snapped this Christmas Morning photo
of me with my prized gift robot toy from Santa!

Robot toys were big in the late 60s. The one I received in Christmas of ‘68 was part of a series of robot toys from IDEAL.

Here's a vintage TV ad for the group:

From the Old Robots Website here's an excerpt description:

The Zeroids Robots were battery operated, and had wheels with rubber treads to propel themselves across the floor. There was a bottom mounted reversing switch that would allow the robot to reverse when it touched a special plastic plate, or turn the robot off, when in backed up into its display case.

My robot was the “Zintar” model:

“Zintar, the silver "explorer", could use his storage case as a sled-like vehicle, which was propelled by his own treads. Zintar had a throwing arm and special hands with spring-loaded opposable thumbs. Zintar was cast in both a silver sparkled plastic and also in plain light gray plastic.”

Funny thing is that I don't really have any clear memories of me playing with the toy. But it was fun to find that photo and research more details about it. Nostalgia is a pleasant thing.

Another Robot-related blog post