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MARVEL COMICS IN THE MEDIA

ROM FIGURE

Rom the Space Knight Parker Bros figure

MARVEL COMICS: ROM THE SPACE KNIGHT

IDW COMICS: ROM THE SPACEKNIGHT


1979 ACTION FIGURE:[]

Parker_Brothers_-_ROM_The_Space_Knight_(Commercial,_1979)

Parker Brothers - ROM The Space Knight (Commercial, 1979)

ROM_Spaceknight-0

ROM Spaceknight-0


"Rom The Space Knight" was a toy co-created by Scott Dankman, Richard C. Levy, and Bryan L. McCoy (US Patent #4,267,551). It was sold to Parker Brothers, and was the inspiration for the comic book series. The toy was originally named COBOL after the programming language but was later changed to "Rom" after ROM (read-only memory) by Parker Brothers executives.

The toy set a precedent for the game publishing company, which up until that time had only ever produced board games. As this was a new venture for the company and given that electronic toys were still very new, a decision was made to produce the figure as cheaply as possible. As a result, the final product had very few points of articulation, and twin red LEDs served as Rom's eyes instead of the originally envisioned green, which were more expensive to produce.

Not long after its debut, Rom appeared in the corner box of the cover of Time magazine's December 10, 1979, issue. It was featured in the interior article, "Those Beeping, Thinking Toys," which decried Rom's lack of articulation and predicted it would "end up among the dust balls under the playroom sofa."

Rom toy in box. ROM is trademark and copyright Parker Brothers (brand of Hasbro) 1979.ROM was licensed to Palitoy in the United Kingdom to extend the "Space Adventurer" line of Action Man, appearing in their 1980 catalog.




Sculpted by Clayburn Moore to be included in a 6 inch scale of Silver Surfer live called Marvel's Weirdest Aliens, the line-up was cancelled and the Dire Wraith was boxed away.  Some time during the move of Marvel and Toybiz the prototype was found and has been making his way around the net.

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