Every time I think of Christmas, I think of Rocket Tubes.
Back in 1979, Rocket Tubes were the toy to have. Part of the Micronaut line of interchangeable figurines, space stations, spacecraft, and robots, Rocket Tubes were… Well… I’ll let an archived clipping from a Sears catalog of the era explain:
“This is it… the automatic transportation system of the year 2000, and the Micronauts have it now! The completely enclosed transparent tubes swiftly glide the Micronaut vehicles and personnel from the central power station to the transfer point, their speed and direction controlled by a lever… silently and dramatically propelled on a cushion of air!”
A loin-tingling description if there ever was one, especially for a pale stripling of nine, and when coupled with the picture of the whole kit and kaboodle glowing in the dark… Well, I don’t have to tell you. I simply had to have this thing. But at $19.95, it was one of my more costly requests.
“Twenty effing dollars?! Are you out of your damn mind?” That would be my Dad, who was always feigning shock at the rising cost of things — and always rounding up, which I found unfair. The fact was that it was Christmas, and as it was all I asked for, I knew he’d come through. Still though, we played the game for a few weeks leading up to Christmas.
“Um, Dad…”
“If I hear one more damn thing about those damn Robot Tubes, I’ll throw you AND your damn brother in the damn river!” (It was a four-foot wide creek that ran behind our house, and there was no reason to bring my brother into this.)
To make an incredibly long story short and far less interesting, I did get the Rocket Tubes, and after spending the better part of Christmas day affixing the glow-in-the-dark decals and putting it together, Dad and I flicked off the lights and went to fire it up.
“Aright, let’s see how she goes,” said Dad, and turned on the compressor. The capsule inside quivered a bit and hovered hesitantly just shy of the first tube connection. We smelled smoke. I was inconsolable. “Dammit! I knew this damn thing was garbage!” he offered. But Dad was really just busting my chops. He felt as let down as I did.
We wrote to Mego (both to the American headquarters and the Japanese manufacturer) and Dad pretended to gripe about the postage. Another compressor arrived in February, but that didn’t work either. By April, a third replacement was sent. Nothing doing. “Screw it,” grumbled Dad, and fetched my sister’s Con Air “Lil’ Lady” hairdryer.
On “LO,” the capsule tootled out of the gate, but got hung up in the first bend of the circuit. “MED” moved him past it at a pretty good clip, but not nearly as fast as the blur on the box promised. “HI,” however, did the trick, rattling one of the last connections out of joint to send the capsule shooting through the breach and into my Mother’s potted fern.
But it was no use. By that time, I’d sort of grown tired of Rocket Tubes. I played with them more out of duty than boyish pleasure. Watching the capsule go round and round in circles quickly became a metaphor for my relationship with toys in general. After all, I was almost ten. Plus, the thing looked a little uncool with my sister’s pink hairdryer taped to the housing.
Just out of curiosity, I recently checked online to see how much Rocket Tubes would fetch today. Someone was selling a set on eBay for four times the original amount.
And that was without the “Lil’ Lady.”
The Editor.
