Instruments of destruction, tools of power play

While it's fairly common knowledge G1 Megatron was originally Takara's Microman Micro Change Gun Robo MC-13 Walther P-38 Uncle Type, MC-13's origin may not be as straightforward as it may seem.

 

The Japanese Micro Change line consisted of 1:1 scale toys of household objects and in the Microman storyline, these transformed into robots which aided the Microman in their battles against the dastardly Acroyear. (Thus, Megatron was originally on the side of angels.)

 

This did raise an interesting question that's never been satisfactorily answered: what kind of Japanese household had a World War II-era German handgun complete with silencer, extended barrel, scope and shoulder stock just lying around?

 

The "Uncle" in "MC-13 Walther P-38 Uncle Type" provides a major clue. MC-13 was nearly identical to the heavily customised Walther P-38 seen on the Sixties television series, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. It's also worth noting the Japanese company MGC produced a replica of the television prop in 1966. Curiously, however, MC-13 lacked the extended magazine clip seen on the television prop and the Japanese replica.

 

There was another possible candidate for MC-13's inspiration closer to home. The Japanese television series, Seibu Keisatsu, a cop show set in a highly-combustible Eighties Japan, had merchandising tie-ins by Yonezawa and among these was an U.N.C.L.E-inspired Walther P-38 airsoft gun. Colours aside, it's a dead ringer for MC-13. The problem is the timing is awkward. The third series of the Japanese show started airing in April 1983, the Walther P-38 apparently appeared in episode 21 which aired in September and Takashi Matsuda applied for the MC-13 patent in June. Intriguingly, however, Yonezawa's 1982 toy catalog showed the Walther P-38 Uncle Type and the toy was copyrighted in 1982. It's highly likely MC-13 and the other Gun Robo in the Micro Change line were toys based on Japanese airsoft guns, which is how they fit the "toys of household objects" concept of Micro Change.

 

Toy companies are understandably wary of selling realistic-looking toy guns like MC-13/Megatron these days given kids wielding them have been accidentally shot by law-enforcement personnel. More to the point, a 1988 US law prohibited anyone "to manufacture, enter into commerce, ship, transport, or receive any toy, look-alike, or imitation firearm" without "a blaze orange plug inserted in the barrel of such toy, look-alike, or imitation firearm."

 

The Transformers toy designers have, on occasion, produced sly workarounds. The Titans Return Sixshot figure, for example, had a submarine mode which bore a striking resemblance to Sixshot's G1 gun mode when flipped upside down. As Sixshot's gun mode was, to be generous, gun-shaped rather than a realistic model of a gun, this was less a deliberate attempt to circumvent the toy gun law than a token attempt to avoid controversy.

 

There has been a surprising amount of controversy over the years. There were protests over toy guns as far back as the Thirties when mothers feared kids playing with toy guns would grow up to be gangsters. However, matters became exacerbated in the Eighties after the toy companies took full advantage of Reagan-era deregulation of television to promote their wares. Toy guns along with war-themed toys and cartoons became the frequent target of finger-wagging activists and scientists-turned-activists constantly on the lookout for simple solutions for complex societal issues.

 

''The message of toy guns is that you solve problems by pulling a trigger," proclaimed a professor of psychology, psychiatry and pediatrics. A Vietnam War vet went further and blamed war toys for conditioning kids to kill in battle as adults. A man was arrested for placing stickers on G.I. Joe figures in a store with the message: ''Warning - Think before you buy. This is a war toy. Playing with it increases anger and violence in children. Is this really what you want for your child?'' Protesters even held demonstrations against G.I. Joe at Hasbro's headquarters.

 

Others opted for a scientific approach in order to convince the public of the danger posed by toys. In 1985, Dr. Thomas Radecki conducted a study of play involving violence-themed toys and announced, "The evidence is quite strong that we are transmitting an unhealthy message encouraging children to have fun pretending to murder each other.'' The toy in question was He-Man, the study was conducted on preschoolers and the study size was 20.

 

A founding member of the National Coalition on Television Violence, Radecki had a more personal reason for taking a stance against violent entertainment. He revealed he had a violent fantasy after watching "A Clockwork Orange" and became so convinced violent entertainment could lead to real violence he warned "we are taking a serious chance of causing the end of the world."

 

(Depending on your familiarity with the history of moral entrepreneurs, you may or may not be surprised to learn Radecki was later imprisoned for illegal prescriptions of drugs under his somewhat unsuccessful "Doctors and Lawyers for a Drug-Free Youth" programme.)

 

The toy companies did push back by claiming they were only supplying what the consumers wanted. "If the consumer doesn't want to buy, trust me, the consumer doesn't buy," said a spokeswoman for the Toy Manufacturers of America. The G.I. Joe brand, which went out of fashion after the Vietnam War and returned to popularity during the Reagan era, was cited as an example.

 

Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, then-president of Axlon, the makers of Techforce toys, made the not unreasonable point kids would engage in aggressive play even without war toys and toy guns. "Take away their toy guns and they still have (the finger gun gesture): bang, bang," Bushnell said.

 

(Bushnell would undoubtedly be nonplussed to learn a 10-year-old boy was suspended from school for three days for doing just that in 2014. Zero tolerance policies in schools have resulted in even more absurd examples: an 8-year-old was suspended for three days for brandishing a breaded chicken finger at a teacher and going, "Pow, pow, pow" and another 8-year-old was suspended a day for using a 2-inch-long G.I. Joe gun "in a threatening manner.")

 

Bushnell also rightly noted toys and cartoons are not the only source of violent imagery. He asked, "Can we require our kids not to read the front page when we bomb Khaddafi?" Some forms of real-world violence are clearly culturally approved, encouraged and celebrated. (Go Patriots!)

 

Tara Woodyer raised another interesting point, "War scenarios are often passionate expressions of detailed knowledge about particular characters and fantasy worlds depicted in books, TV and films. As play is an important means through which children learn to deal with uncertainty, assess risk and develop resilience, is it right to seek to restrict forms of play that we, as adults, might on the surface see as more troublesome?"

 

Dr. Helen Boehm, a psychologist, admitted she simply didn't like toy guns but conceded "children don't learn values from toy guns and G.I. Joe. It's parents and other role models who have the most important influence on a child's behavior."

 

Despite all the handwringing over them over the years, toy guns are still being sold in the millions these days. It's just that they are neon-coloured and futuristic rather than realistic, shoot foam darts instead of BB pellets, and are called "blasters" instead of toy guns. Hasbro's Nerf brand dominates the blasters market and is expected to make over half a billion dollars in wholesale sales this year.

 

If there's been a distinct paucity of outrage over toy guns, violence-themed toys or violence on television in recent years, it's because the moral entrepreneurs have predictably moved on. As Kirsten Drotner pointed out in her 1999 study of media panics, "The intense preoccupation with the latest media fad, immediately relegates older media to the shadows of acceptance."

 

Patrick Markey and Christopher Ferguson wrote, "Over the past four decades, American pundits and politicians have blamed violent games for just about every societal ill: school shootings, racism, obesity, narcissism, rickets (a skeletal disease), self-control problems, and drunk driving. Violent games have been held responsible for homicides, carjackings, and rapes, for causing limbs to fall off (seriously), for learning disabilities, and even for the terrorist attacks on September 11th."

 

Things did improve over time. "The fact that most scientists discount the notion that violent media causes real-world violence is a relatively new phenomenon. Surveys of media scholars conducted thirty years ago revealed that 90 percent of psychologists felt that media violence was among the primary causes of behavioural aggression," they wrote.

 

"Although society's mistrust of video games seems to be ebbing, people will undoubtedly find something new to fear. Perhaps it will be the dangers of virtual reality, the rise of YouTube stars, or maybe it will be a technology we have yet to imagine," Markey and Ferguson cautioned. "We're already seeing the beginning of a new panic around social media, with concerns that it is isolating and 'brain draining.' People have even tied these fears to those of gun violence …"

 

As Drotner wrote, "All panics are united by a firm belief in rational argumentation: if people only know about the dangers of the media, if only their tastes are elevated, or if the media mechanisms are properly revealed, then they will change their cultural preferences. But this belief is facilitated by, indeed founded on, an intrinsic amnesia. Every new panic develops as if it was the first time such issues were debated in public, and yet the debates are strikingly similar."

 

Done