I was recently inspired by Tim over at Flashlights Are Something to Eat and Johnny at Freddy in Space to finally get off my butt and write about a topic I’ve been meaning to get to for what seems like forever, namely, taking an awesome 80s film and finding cool stuff in the background that makes said film even more awesome. Specifically I wanted to take a closer look at some of the kid’s bedrooms that I kind of obsess over. Not sure if I’m going to make this a reoccurring column just yet, but either way I wanted to focus on just one room today. Probably my favorite kid’s bedroom in an 80s flick, let’s take a closer look at Sara’s room from 1987’s Adventures in Babysitting!
So, Matt at Dinosaur Dracula recently wrote about this room, mainly to point out the inclusion of a certain plush toy that I’ll get to in a minute, and pretty much anyone who has seen this flick knows that Sara is mildly obsessed with a nordic Marvel character that goes by the name Thor (ever heard of him?), but there is a metric ton of other cool stuff in this room…
So, let’s take a look at what I was able to spy in the room. In the screen shot above we of course have a ton of Thor references (which I haven’t numbers because that was just going to get out of hand) including the large cut-out standee on the wall to the right, the wicked awesome Thor bedspread, the Thor Halloween mask hanging from the right bedpost, and the super cool drawing of Thor on the rainbow bridge to the upper left of the bed. So, what else is hiding in this image…
1). A Wrinkles Puppy puppet plush made by Ganz in the early 80s.
2). A Geoffrey the Giraffe Toys ‘R Us plush
3). A Cabbage Patch Kids plush.
4). Transformers Walkie Talkie (the 2nd handset in in another shot)
5). Giant Donald Duck coloring book.
Here’s a closer look at that Transformers Walkie Talkie and the Wrinkles plush…
There’s some sort of big action figure behind the walkie talkie that I can’t place (purple, yellow and red with a silver head), any guesses?
*UPDATE #1* You guys are quick! Huge thanks go out to Jaime of Shezcrafti.com and Matt of Geektarded for solving a couple of the toy mysteries! As Ms. Hood points out in the comments, the large plush on the bed is none other than one of the Pillow People, in particular Punky Pillow!
Dr. Geektarded identified the toy behind the Transformers Walkie Talkie as an Inter-Changeables Cosmobot, a re-colored Micronauts Biotron figure.
This sequence moves pretty fast as the camera pans across the room, so most of these shots are kind of blurry, but let’s take a look at another shot a few frames past the first…
The Thor reference count now jumps from 4 to 7 as there are two more drawings on the art desk and a third on the floor next to the dresser. But what else is there to spy in the room?
6). AMToy Super Pickle Hot Dog Plush hanging from the ceiling…
7). A Rainbow Brite plush, the Sprite known as Sparks (and this is the second series Hatful Sparks – ’cause he has an Indian headdress…)
8). A super rad poster of Jelly Beans that I felt I had to point to…
*UPDATE #2* I don’t know where that Hot Dog is from (Thanks to Jack Frost for solving the Hot Dog mystery!), but I managed to find a clearer picture, as well as a better one of Sparks…
Moving right along, here’s out next screen shot…
Okay, I’m officially going to give up counting Thor references because there are like a billion on the floor by Sara. I will say that it’s rad how often she can be seen sporting the Thor helmet. More importantly, this shot has two more awesome background elements…
9). A Lots-a-Lots-a-Legggggs plush toy.
10). Probably my favorite background spotting, a 1985 Transformers Soundwave Cassette Player by Durham Industries that actually plays full size tapes (many thanks go to Steve at the Roboplastic Apocalypse for helping me identify this rad piece)! I had never heard of this tape player existing before I spotted the over-sized Soundwave in the background. So cool!
**UPDATE** I missed a couple of toys when I initially wrote this post back in 2013. In the screen shot above and below you can clearly see two Madballs on top of Sarah’s dresser to the left of the Lotsaleggs, namely Wolf Breath and Lock Lips. Can’t believe I missed these!
There was one straggler that I couldn’t get into the same screen shot with the last two, another favorite spotting in this room…
11). A Darth Vader “The Force” Light Saber from 1983! I had Luke’s green one form Return of the Jedi. For those that don’t remember, these had hollow plastic blades that were designed to catch the air to make some pretty wicker saber noises. Reis at the Dork Horde has a great write up about his Vader Saber…
Next up we have three more Thor sitings with another large standee, the light switch cover above it (not on the actual light switch as it’s one of those weird paddle switches) an another drawing above that. And on the shelf to the right…
12). Transformers Dinobots Snarl wall clock from Concept Clocks (which happens to have a reversible image plate with the Insecticon Bombshell on the other side!) It’s so damn rad that Sara is also a major Transformers fan…
In the above shot you can get a better look at that Thor drawing on the wall (and there’s another off to the right.) But let’s take a look at the bookshelves shall we…
13). A Disney Fluppy Puppy plush.
14). A 2nd set of Transformers Walkie Talkies, this one shaped like Optimus Prime
*UPDATE #3* I have no idea what that red plush is next to the Transformers clock. It looks like it has a ton of sharp teeth though. *Thanks to Newton G. of Infinite Hollywood for identifying the red toothy plush as LB the Bounder from Teddy Ruxpin!
And for the last screenshot, a much more recognizable background item…
15). A My Pet Monster plush. Always wanted one. Never got one.
So there you have it. Sara from Adventures in Babysitting has a pretty darn awesome bedroom filled with all kinds of rad toys, a lot of which I wished I had as a kid. Did you spot anything that I missed?
*UPDATE #4* Can anyone identify the grey and red robot by Sara’s feet? Thanks to Jason Brown for identifying the robot at Sara’s feet as none other than a Radio Shack Robie the Robot remote control robot!
Other Awesome Bedrooms I’ve covered…
Eugene’s Room from The Monster Squad
David’s room from Flight of the Navigator
Robbie’s room from Poltergeist
Pee Wee’s room from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure