As a kid in the 1980s, my weekends revolved around Saturday morning cartoons, and some of the television commercials that have stuck with me for decades promoted Micro Machines.

Originally produced by Galoob from 1987 through about 2000, the miniature cars came in 1:150 scale and could be accompanied by intricate playsets. I still have a few Micro Machines in my collection today. At this point, some of them may be a little bit rare or collectible. Many were extremely detailed for their size, even including opening doors, hoods, and trunk lids (or rumble seats, as shown below).

The cultural impact of Micro Machines extended to the big screen, where they were famously featured in the movie “Home Alone” when Kevin McAllister was setting taps for two bungling burglars.

I put a lot of (scaled-down) miles on these two back in the day.

The star of the Micro Machines commercials was John Moschitta Jr. (now age 71), who ended each ad with the words, “If it doesn’t say Micro Machines, it’s not the real thing.”

Moschitta became known for being a record-setting fast-talker. In the 1980s, he was recognized by Guinness World Records as the World’s Fastest Talker for his ability to articulate 586 words per minute. Here is an example of one of the memorable Micro Machines commercials:

As it turns out, the Micro Machines name was revived in 2020 by Hasbro, and there are new vehicle designs available at major retailers such as Walmart. So, if you don’t want to scavenge eBay for vintage Micro Machines, you can acquire new ones. I doubt you’ll find any as cool as my blue school bus, though! Back in the day, it even had working interior illumination, but the battery died decades ago.

Check out our story archives about diecast cars if you’re into scale model collecting. You might also want to check out the videos in our Collectible Corner YouTube series. And by the way, in case you couldn’t already tell, I’m having just as much fun playing with toy cars at age 44 as I was at age 10.