Robot rock

When I was a kid I remember wanting an Omnibot more than anything else.

This was entirely due to Tomy's 30 second TV ad, which tapped directly into every aspiration a kid like me could have - if I had this little guy on my side, I thought, the rest of my life would be pretty damn sweet.

Sadly it never happened and I faced up to the brutal reality of a life where you have to carry orange juice and croissants around for yourself and find different ways to win friends (I'm still working on that bit).

Then, last week my Dad was clearing out a load of junk for his boss and there sat a still boxed, pretty much unplayed, Omnibot.
Turns out that someone else had the toy that I wanted and didn't even bother playing with him. And in the cold light of 2009 it was pretty underwhelming to finally pick Omnibot up, although the idea of having a robot servant that plays cassettes is still way up there as a concept.

If you've never seen the TV advert here it is - Tomy really pulled out all the stops on this one, you can see why I was hooked (and maybe why I ended up in marketing):