My recollection is that this was the first Christmas that the NES was widespread. I wanted one so badly when I saw it and like most dumb kids at that time, I was convinced that R.O.B was going to be my new awesome robo best friend. I never did get R.O.B, by the time I got an NES, it was 1987 and I had seen it fail at all of my friends’ homes.
Tommy Day
December 9th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Nice!
I’ve got a couple JC Penny Christmas Catalogs from the 90s (not sure of the years), I’ll have to dig them up and see if there’s anything good in there.
The Retroist
December 9th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Oh, I am sure they will have SOMETHING good.
Surfing Pizza
December 10th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Do you look back now and thank God you didn’t get a ROB? NES didn’t enter my life until 1990, when the Power Pad and Glove were the hot periphials. Never heard of ROB til I was older. I recently bought off craigslist a mint Power Set, with the NES and Pad in the box, stryofoam and all. The woman lived a block away from me. God bless her.
Metal Misfit
December 10th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
I had my eyes on R.O.B. as well. I remember being really disappointed the NES system we got didn’t include him.
Sometimes, I wish we could just go back to the simpler 8-bit times. The new Mega Man is 8-bit but incredibly hard.
Tommy Day
December 10th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
When I was like five years old my sisters boyfriend had R.O.B. and I thought he was some kind of scientist for having a ‘real robot’.
Ricky
December 19th, 2008 at 11:12 am
What exactly did R.O.B. do? I could never figure that part out.
Loyal Atarian
February 25th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
I still dislike Nintendo to this day, especially the NES! I think Atari still had the best video game systems as far as graphics, sound and processing power. It was the marketing that lured kids to Nintendo. ROB was just a marketing ploy. Nintendo ROBbed the new Atari of its business in 1986. B*stards! Still hate u 4 this Nintendo
Matt
September 4th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Just FYI, that’s not the first christmas that nintendo was widespread. That’s the 2nd gen of R.O.B.