MB Electronic Starbird!
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Perhaps the key toy of my childhood. This was a fairly long, fairly intricate white plasic spaceship, with the merest hint of Y-Wing in its design. It had a plug-in R2D2... whoops, sorry, plug-in little rear-gunner droid thing, and little black fighter things that formed the tailfins. Of course, being a kid, you lost all the above in seconds, leaving you with a stripped-out looking ship that could transform (hooray!) into three different ships by swapping bits around. So far so humdrum, but the Starbird had an ace in its sleeve... IT WAS ELECTRONIC!!!
Yeah, and it was actually a really clever toy, ahead of its time in one significant way which we'll get to. When switched on, tilting the Starbird made its engine tone ("WUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUR") change; Tilting it up made the sound higher ("WUUUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIR!"), while tilting it down made it go down a few octaves ("WUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR...."). And what's more, after changing the engine noise, the Starbird would keep the noise at the same pitch when held horizontally until you tipped it up or down again. Wow! This was really big news in Sedgley circa 1983, I can tell you.
Pressing the little button submerged in the ship's spine fired the ship's guns. They made a naff "BOOP BOOP BOOP" noise to be honest. The weakest link in the Starbird chain.
But the killer feature of the Starbird was... you could fight with other Starbirds via each ship's Infra-Red beam and sensor! Yep, years before Laser TAG and Photon, kids were zapping each other with their toys! Possession of a Starbird thereby granted even the most unpopular child near-godlike status with his peers.
To provide kids with something to fight against (and something else to wheedle out of Mum and Dad), MB released a red "baddie" version of Starbird and Starbird Avenger, a reissue of Starbird but with cooler decals. They also released the best cardboard toy ever, the Starbird Command Base. This was a massive, oil-rig shaped base that was bigger than most of the kids who bought it. Pure class.
Yeah, and it was actually a really clever toy, ahead of its time in one significant way which we'll get to. When switched on, tilting the Starbird made its engine tone ("WUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUR") change; Tilting it up made the sound higher ("WUUUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIR!"), while tilting it down made it go down a few octaves ("WUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR...."). And what's more, after changing the engine noise, the Starbird would keep the noise at the same pitch when held horizontally until you tipped it up or down again. Wow! This was really big news in Sedgley circa 1983, I can tell you.
Pressing the little button submerged in the ship's spine fired the ship's guns. They made a naff "BOOP BOOP BOOP" noise to be honest. The weakest link in the Starbird chain.
But the killer feature of the Starbird was... you could fight with other Starbirds via each ship's Infra-Red beam and sensor! Yep, years before Laser TAG and Photon, kids were zapping each other with their toys! Possession of a Starbird thereby granted even the most unpopular child near-godlike status with his peers.
To provide kids with something to fight against (and something else to wheedle out of Mum and Dad), MB released a red "baddie" version of Starbird and Starbird Avenger, a reissue of Starbird but with cooler decals. They also released the best cardboard toy ever, the Starbird Command Base. This was a massive, oil-rig shaped base that was bigger than most of the kids who bought it. Pure class.
