Spydor vintage vehicle review thread

[Spacedust]

Some good posts on Grizzlor on last week's review thread, I never realised the hairy henchman was quite so popular.

Time to look at another vehicle this week. Often it's harder to find things to say about the vehicles (such as the Dragon Walker, for example), but hopefully we'll find a thing or two to say about this awesome piece - SPYDOR!

Released in 1985, Spydor is, in my opinion, the most impressive of the original line's vehicles. A giant black spider, with bright orange legs, and spring-loaded pincers on the front to grab victims with.
But the best thing - this sucker walked. Walked proper spider like. It was awesome!!

I never had as many vehicles, usually instead going for the more affordable figures. But out shopping in the High Street one Saturday morning, my Mum and I spotted a Spydor in a sale. I think it was near my birthday, and she bought it for me. The only other "big" piece I had had in my original collection was Castle Grayskull, so this thing towered over just about everything else in my collection.
It was so impressive to look at.

I always wanted Webstor to ride aloft the might spider's back (I was going with the whole spider themed thing) but didn't have him. So instead, being so grand in size, it was only fitting that the Evil Lord of Destruction himself rode around on Spydor.

Underneath Spydor was a red perspex panel that allowed you to see inside the creature to view its workings. Some early publicity shots show Spydor to be without this panel, instead being completely black underneath, but unless I'm very much mistaken, it was always released with the perspex panel.

I've heard tales from other collectors of how Spydor's legs eventually broke off in play; I always treasured my MOTU toys and took good care of them, so never had this happened to me. A few years later, after MOTU had wound down, the two guns on top snapped off in storage, but these were fixed and made better than new.

Spydor did not appear in the Filmation cartoon series, which is a shame, as it would have been great to see it stalking across the land and scaling the walls of Grayskull. The most similar we got was in the first season's "House of Shokoti" Part 1, when we saw a horde of large robotic spiders belonging to Trap Jaw, in cohorts with Lord Masque.

And Spydor didn't feature in that much other MOTU material either, but that didn't matter, as it was just such a great toy.

Likewise, Spydor did not appear in either the 200x revamped toy-line or the accompanying Mike Young Productions cartoon. One can only wonder of how Spydor would have been adapted for the new incarnation. I think it would have made an excellent update, but as long as it was in the style of the original, and not completely changed like 200x Dragon Walker, which resembled the original version in name only.

All-in-all... Spydor is such an awesome, impressive beast, and so much fun to play with, that I have to give it a solid 10 out of 10.

Those are my ramblings on Spydor. Now it's your turn - I'd really like to hear your thoughts, comments, memories, criticisms... anything Spydor related. And as always, whether you post or not, don't forget to rate the toy in the poll!

[braxsis364]

My memories of Spydor are yea it was a great toy. but boy could it drain bateries. it semed to work good for little while with fresh bateries. but then would quikly lose its walking abillty. when this happened it wassint fun to play with. and wass put aside, I dont know if this has been the experiance of others. I remember realy likeing Spydor, but couldint aford the batteries for it. have to give it a 7, would have been better if it had some kind of lever handle grip. or something that you could sqeeze to perform the walking moition.

[Mrmotu]

when i first saw him as a kid, my friend had almost the whole collection of motu and i always wanted 1 but yep was to expensive for me, so never had it and thought the walking movement was cool, so a 10 for me

[Arkangel]

When you mean figure review you mean the figure only? Cuz i collect most of the motu things for it's box art, that is why i mainly collect vehicles or "special featured" mocs, and by that i mean, toys that needed diferent molds/materials to be made, like the furry grizzlor or hairy moss man, even the huge leech. AS for Spydor I'd give a 10 to the box art and an 8 to the figure itself (yeah i'm the only one who voted 8 hehe), these MOTU box arts are something amazing.

[The Horrorist]

I have some fond memories of Spydor. I asked him for Christmas but got a Spikor figure instead. My mother told me she accidentally switched names. I didn't believe her because I described what Spydor looked like and told her this wasn't a regular figure. Than all of a sudden my older sister came with a big package that she 'found' outside with my name on it. And there was Spydor.

The next day I took it to school and everybody was amazed when I let the creature walk through the classroom.

The batteries still work untill this day, only not as fast as it used to be. Also 3 of his legs are broke and both cannons broke off and are lost, so I need a new one. Will get a complete one of of ebay when my figure collection is complete.

Spydor is my most favourite motu toy to date and gets a 10/10.

[NARC]

him and that giant mantis used to ruin everyone's lives in my little eternia. i think towards the end a leg did break off like you said though. and i was very anal about taking care of my toys. a friend that came over probably did it and didn't tell me. now i'm upset. ~~>

[Vahn]

Well I loved the SPYDOR. And I can't believe no one's mentioned this yet:



That's right, someone built a giant spider to ride around in, and it wasn't even someone who was trying to take over the world! For $15,000 I'd have to say that's one of the coolest toys ever. The only problem it seems to have is it's less-than-graceful turning, but I'd still love to have one.

[Arkangel]

Well I loved the SPYDOR. And I can't believe no one's mentioned this yet:



That's right, someone built a giant spider to ride around in, and it wasn't even someone who was trying to take over the world! For $15,000 I'd have to say that's one of the coolest toys ever. The only problem it seems to have is it's less-than-graceful turning, but I'd still love to have one.

that was in fact mentinoned before, and its awsome

[Vahn]

that was in fact mentinoned before, and its awsome

I meant in this thread.

[Orko's Magic Hat]

lol that's so cool, I'd love to see a Spidor in the new movie!

[Relayer35]

Spydor is one of the few vehicles that has screws and you can actually fix. I got one that a couple of the plastic legs snapped inside the vehicle and I was able to take it apart and replace them from parts from another Spydor. The other problem is the red/orange legs seem to slip out of the snaps over time. I fixed a few of my legs by using some duct tape around the part that snaps in the socket, thus making it a little big thicker so they wouldn't fall out. After that, it worked great!

Now if I could only take apart the Attak Trak!

[bcrduke]

AH!!

I LOVED SPYDOR!!

My aunt got it for me for my birthday when it came out and i hadn't seen it or heard of it, so it was a TOTAL shock!!!

I think it was the first motorized vehicle for the bad guys, right?
Or maybe the only motorized one for the baddies...

It was amazing

Just SO huge, but it walked a bit too fast for me, as I would always try to make skeletor spout off some evil threat as it was walking towards He-Man or one of the others, but by the time i was mid-way through, he had already run into the wall LOL!!

10 out of 10 - just decadent 1980s toy madness!!!

[davidlogan]

AH!!
I think it was the first motorized vehicle for the bad guys, right?
Or maybe the only motorized one for the baddies...

Its the only one I can think of. The baddies tended to get one vehicle to every 3 good ones it seems.

[Evil_Horde]

Is very cool and very original! Voted 8!

[PaoloKr]

I loved Spydor.
Very cool.
8