Nasta’s Reactors Toys – The Power is in your Hands

We have all been disappointed before, but one crazy bit of disappointment that hit me in the late 1980s had to do with Nasta’s Reactor line of toys. These were vehicles that you plugged a glowing and I assumed radioactive power source, into, which would send it charging off over the horizon.

I was not sure how the power source worked, so when I got the thing home, I was surprised to find that it took batteries. How can that be? Well, I will tell you how the power rod was a sham!

All the power rod did was look interesting and act as a stick to hit the “on” switch. It’s as if your TV required a coat hanger to be inserted down a long narrow chute to turn it on. Actually, it was worse than that, because it is easy to replace a coat hanger, but if your “power rod” (great name) went under the couch or your dog ate it, you had a battery-powered paperweight. This is exactly what happened after about a week of owning my Reactors. To be fair if they were cooler toys, I might have kept track of their pieces better.

I was very disappointed which probably explains why I do not still have the two Reactor vehicles I bought. Still, I got to admit, when I look at the commercial for them, I am still sort of interested in buying them, despite those kids who look like they would play for Iceland in Mighty Ducks II (or maybe because of it).