Remember when they marketed R-rated movies to kids?

[Fendi]

I watched Terminator 2 Judgment day when I was 5. That was something but I love the graphic on that nuclear blast scene. Then I say to my self that we're generally undo ourselves.

[H.A.L.9000]

AHhh.. those were good times.. !!! I always wanted one of those Maxx FX Freddy dolls... a buddy of mine had the talking Freddy..SO GOOD!!

[cryanmchsi]

Do you remember they did the same with Rambo and Robocop?

Whoops forgot about those.

[HarryCanyon]

Whoops forgot about those.

Demolition man too

[cryanmchsi]

Demolition man too

Yeah Demolition Man and Commando too. Those slipped my mind. I guess you can throw Police Academy in there as well. Though by the time the cartoon series aired the movies got toned down a lot.

[urrutiap]

I still have the old Arnold doll figure of Commando.

Damn shame that whatever toy company was doing the Commando Arnold figure that they never even thought of making more doll figures of Bennet, Bill Duke and Alyssa Milano and heck even Dan Hedeya who was that goofy General or whatever he was

[Dcr4]

I still have the old Arnold doll figure of Commando.

Damn shame that whatever toy company was doing the Commando Arnold figure that they never even thought of making more doll figures of Bennet, Bill Duke and Alyssa Milano and heck even Dan Hedeya who was that goofy General or whatever he was

Eh, I guess. I kinda wished they made the supporting characters they made for the 3 3/4 line in the bigger line. They weren't movie accurate but far more toyetic and cooler looking than the movie cast.

[IceyCat]

Another thing to remember... back then kids had imagination. I had He-man fight all kinds of giant robots and scary alien monsters... I didn't NEED to know about the franchise and lore attached to a toy to enjoy it. I see a two-head dragon.. and that's good enough for me!! I WANT IT!!! And He-man will ride it... and then Team up with Voltron to fight Godzilla... who is being controlled by Mer-man.. after stealing control from Aquaman. Throw a cyborg or Alien monster in there... and I'm all for it.

Because IMAGINATION!!!!

Darn right! I refuse to allow my kids to have screens and we do very little TV time, so they have amazing imaginations. I feel bad sometimes because when I sit down to play with them I cannot keep up. I told them the key to having a happy life is to never lose that imagination when they grow older

[Dcr4]

Yeah, for me as a kid, Castlegrayskull was the major hub for all of my action figure battles and adventures..not just my MOTU figures.

[HarryCanyon]

AHhh.. those were good times.. !!! I always wanted one of those Maxx FX Freddy dolls... a buddy of mine had the talking Freddy..SO GOOD!!

Yeah Demolition Man and Commando too. Those slipped my mind. I guess you can throw Police Academy in there as well. Though by the time the cartoon series aired the movies got toned down a lot.

Let's not forget that they did lunchboxes, toys and merchandise to kids based on Terminator 2.

[clashfromjem]

ahh the 80's when kids were raised right!

when you watch Conan the barbarian aged 10 and think this tells me everything I need to know about being a man.

good times

[HarryCanyon]

[FiveOfSeven]

In the U.S.A., in theory, any person of any age can see an "R" film but to gain admission, young children need a parent or "adult guardian" with them. Here in the U.K., in 1979, Alien carried the BBFC's "X" certificate which meant that you had to be 18 or over to see it.

Yes, there were toys here too, thanks for asking. There was even a sucker dart shooting game with, I think, toy versions of the "Rexim-Favor" derived laser guns*

 

that are never fired in the movie and only barely glimpsed onscreen.

*They're lasers in Alan Dean Foster's novel and there's a story doing the rounds saying the SFX crew attempted, by incorporating a real laser, to make a "firing" version.

EDIT: Interview with Nick Allder for "Filmmakers", (Volume 12, #7) quoted here regarding the above.

[HarryCanyon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHQacdmVfGY&t=40s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3hPERQDaEs

And here's a parody commercial of what if they did The Thing toys in 1982

[Blue Jester]

ahh the 80's when kids were raised right!

when you watch Conan the barbarian aged 10 and think this tells me everything I need to know about being a man.

good times

I would have played with those figures.

[HarryCanyon]

Some of those I was never really sure were appropriate. I mean, I can see why kids liked Robocop, Rambo, and the Terminator - cool robots and action. But the over-the-top violence and language may have been a bit much. I'm not quite as prude on some of these things as others in m profession though.

Let's not forget Terminator 1 had a sex scene

[manowar]

Dragon Slayer had human sacrifice, baby dragons eating human body parts... let's not forget Legend. I seem to remember seeing a scene where people were being butchered by a giant pig demon guy.

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[HarryCanyon]

Dragon Slayer had human sacrifice, baby dragons eating human body parts... let's not forget Legend. I seem to remember seeing a scene where people were being butchered by a giant pig demon guy.

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Both were rated PG

[manowar]

PG for pretty gross

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[HarryCanyon]

Yeah Demolition Man and Commando too. Those slipped my mind. I guess you can throw Police Academy in there as well. Though by the time the cartoon series aired the movies got toned down a lot.

What about Terminator 2?

PG for pretty gross

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Mild stuff compared to Robocop which got an X rating originally! or what bout Toxic Avenger especially where a 12 year old boy is murdered on screen by his head getting crushed in detail by a car? that movie was originally x-rated for nudity, some sex and mostly extreme brutality/violence especially a man getting his skull busted by a weight machine and they did kids toys and merchandise and a cartoon based on it.

[manowar]

Its almost as if completely over the top brutality was the goal. Then they started putting MPAA ratings on music, video games, and they stopped making violent cartoons, and started making cartoons with a message.

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[HarryCanyon]

Its almost as if completely over the top brutality was the goal. Then they started putting MPAA ratings on music, video games, and they stopped making violent cartoons, and started making cartoons with a message.

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They still do make violent cartoons like Castlevania

[manowar]

Regular network cartoons were changed in the 80's to be less violent and more informative. Gi Joe and "the more you know" or even He-man's thoughtful recap at the end of the episode. When you got into cable cartoons, or even now Netflix for that matter, cartoons can be more graphic and violent than what's shown on the public networks.

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[HarryCanyon]

Regular network cartoons were changed in the 80's to be less violent and more informative. Gi Joe and "the more you know" or even He-man's thoughtful recap at the end of the episode. When you got into cable cartoons, or even now Netflix for that matter, cartoons can be more graphic and violent than what's shown on the public networks.

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Well public cartoons in the 90s did had violent ones like Batman TAS and course in the 80s and 90s you had animation aimed at the adult market like Heavy Metal, Fire and Ice, Watership Down, Lord of the Rings, The Maxx, Spawn TAS, Wizards, Ninja Scroll, Akira and more even stuff from Japan.

Now would you love to see a Hulu or Amazon prime TV-MA animated series of Robocop? that would be cool to bring him back to his r-rated roots and even use the same satire as the original movie.

[Rhanen]

I don't know if it is a little bit off topic, but new Netflix animated anthology produced by David Fincher is extremely hardcore and for mature audiences and is awesome: "Love - Death - Robots"