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80s >beep boop<: Playmospace bots

I randomly found out about Playmospace a while ago when browsing for retro toys content on YouTube. One of those reviews showed a little blue Robot, old-school looking, almost with a retro-futurist look. Of course I instantly fell in love.

Little I knew what rabbit hole I just stepped in.

A bit of history

I’ve been a LEGO guy for the last 30 years, and every time I’m looking at another toy brand I’m thankful of websites like Brickset, Bricklink and the various LEGO wikis. They all are goldmines of informations and almost every piece of media is documented.

Unfortunately here, Playmobil are not that documented, at all (at least from my short experience). Few sites were helpful, linked in the last part of this blogpost.

Playmospace

Playmospace is Playmobil’s space theme (who could have guessed), released in 1980 (only one year after LEGO classic space!). It portray a bunch of coloured spacemen exploring space with their Robotic friends and crazy moonbases.

The first robot I’ve come across is this little chap, who appears to have first gone on sale in 1981 in set 3591 Astronaut/Robot

This “not R2D2 with arms” is very simple to say the least, yet very charming. He will be released in multiple sets, sometimes with different labels (XY-6 or GE5P) and tools.

Playmobil being released in many places, and each one having its own factories, it’s very hard to keep track of sets, releases, dates and such.

Toys boxes artworks were really something to dream about when being a kid Impressive collection by WBOBAFETT on variantvillain.com

This little dude was in stores for three years, being replaced in 1984 by a more sophisticated counterpart, less obviously inspired by world’s most recognised Astromech droid.

Now on wheels

GE5P’s older brother, or at least Playmobil’s new standard issued Robot companion is commonly referred to as “3318”, which is in fact the set number of which it first appears.

Blue variant (3318) is the most common, released in 1984. The black and blue variant (3908) was released in 1985, while the red and yellow (30.18.01) seem to be the rarest. Released only in Brazil in 1983 according to this collector blogspot.

I’m not gonna lie, this robot triggered a wild collecting urge in me. Unfortunately, Playmospace ended somewhere around 1985 (84 or even 83 according to some sources), marking the end of those Robots. Three color variants in two to three years is not that bad.

Modern days

But that’s not it! Playmobil kept the design in their attic (maybe even the original factory molds) and decided, three decades later, that this robot was quite cool and could be reused in new sets.

As such, in 2015, our good friend came back in a huge space set, aka “6195 space rocket with launch site” under the “City Action” line.

Note: antenna is not set-accurate

Now white and silver, GEO15/16 (what a name!) the trashcan bot has not been modernised a bit. Mine even has a 1983 copyright mark, amongst new CE marking, required on toys since 1990 if wikipedia is to be trusted on that.

One year later, in 2016, a black and orange version released. To my knowledge, it was only released as a “polybag” in the “PLAYMOBIL PLUS” line. This line aims (or used to) at releasing accessories and add-ons for actual Playmobil sets. As such, with a limited run and fewer places to purchase it, set 6511 Space Robots is very expensive and hard to get.

Expensive you say?

The plastic robot factory then took a break for three years, waiting 2019 to release two new variants.

First one is very close to Geo15/16. Released in set “70110 Mars Mission Play Box”

Note: antenna is not set-accurate

Still white and silver, this new canbot has more lime green printings and features the 2019 mars mission logo on its head.

The same year, set a second set with the same name but number 70307 is released, featuring exactly the same content but trading our vintage-looking robot for a lame humanoid-looking one. Literally a “you vs the robot she told you not to worry about” situation.

2019 is also the release year of Playmobil: The Movie. And as Benny was the cool blue retro space-age character in The Lego Movie, Playmobil has Robotitron, a return of the first blue wheeled robot (3318) from 1984.

Robotitron was made widely available as part of the mystery / blind bag figures line dedicated to the movie (set 70069).

Wile not being an exact remake of the 1984 robot (silver instead of light grey face, new parts sculpts), the wide release of this figure allows for a very low price and great abundance on second hand market.

Minor differences in sculpts, like the arm length and notches spacing Robotitron’s bottom has different markings

A hard to complete collection

To sum up, we have 7 main variants of the wheeled robot. Two of which are either expensive or totally unobtainable (looking at you, red one!)

I’m pretty sure there is a lot of minor variations between factories and releases dates, but my knowledge on those is quite limited at the moment. I enjoyed collecting the ones I have, looking at second-hand lots and digging for a good deal.

I managed to get duplicates of Robotitron, so a custom painted robot is likely to arrive on this blog one day.

Sources