JoeDeclassified.com

Check out the Sgt. Slaughter & his Triple T commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUbgVzMboKs&NR=1

Note 2 things, 1) in the animation Cobra is using the Thunder Machine as a standard "army built" vehicle. 2) Sgt. Slaughter and at least the BAT appear to be prototypes.

Now compare it to this UK version. It's the 2nd of 4 in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU5Z857d ... re=related

Same basic commercial, but it's totally redone. No obvious prototypes used this time around. But check out the animation. It's completely redrawn, and much simpler. This time around the Cobra BATs are mostly in Viper colors. Can't imagine what was wrong with the first animation that they felt they needed to redo it? Wonder how often other International commercials that seem to be identical at a glance are actually re shot?

While your at it, take a look at the last group shot of figures in the Zanzibar commercial. That last Zanzibar appears to have a T-crotch, while the single figure just a few moments earlier is perfectly normal. The group shot also show's prototype BATS that look much earlier than the ones in the Slaughter commercial, and what appears to be a prototype Viper with a completely different chest.

Roger

As far as I can tell, the international commercials are actually from Australia. As to why they'd redo the animation I can only speculate.

So here's my best guess: The music was probably redone so Australian children could better understand the accent. Maybe they discovered that when the new music was added the old animation it was out of sync, so they had to redo it...

And it's actually pretty amazing how often prototypes and mock-ups were used for the commercials. If you look at the ad for the Demon from 1988, you'll see that made the driver figure, Ferret, out of random parts - including an 87 Cobra Commander head!

Oh absolutely. That wasn't so much as unexpected as "might as well point it out while I'm here." What really caught my eye were the Viper colored BATS, and the standardized Thunder Machine.

I can buy that they could be Australian. UK was just my guess. I can't really see them doing new animation just to fit the song though. Seem's like a slight re-edit would take care of that issue. Not like they don't do it all the time with translated Anime. 10 seconds with a fairly unspecific voice over just doesn't seem to be a problem in that case.

Though the T-Crotch was a surpise. That one makes you wonder if they were playing with cutting articulation even back then?

Roger