Vintage Transformers G1 print ad - on sale in 1984.

Newspaper article about Transformers and Gobots from 1984.

“We have our own group for picking names,” Owens [Dan Owens, Hasbro’s vice president for marketing] said. “We keep them locked up in the back and feed them raw meat.”

Vintage Transformers G1 “Autobot Commander, Decepticon Plane and Secret Commander” print ad for K-Mart from 1984.

1984 French TV commercial for Turbo Magnum by Ceji Revell. Legend has it that this was what Hasbro was keen to license from Takara at Tokyo Toy Fair in 1983, and the Microchange / Diaclone toys that would become Transformers were simply there to sweeten the deal. Evidently Hasbro quickly reassessed things. Between how successful GI Joe had been, what Tonka was doing with Gobots, the addition of the designs acquired from Knickerbocker, and Joustra/GIG introducing Diaclone to Europe, the building blocks for TF were all there. Takara managed to secure licensing deals for Turbo Magnum with Hasbro, Ceji Joustra and GiG but Hasbro never did never did produce them for cost reasons. As a means of making it up to them, Takara was given the rights to use the Transformers IP in Japan. There's a great blog post by Maz on this if you want to learn more, which helped me fill in some of the blanks (like why no Hasbro Turbo Magnums exist!) It's mind-boggling to think so much of TF as we know it has its roots in this silly little car.

One last observation based on the George Dunsay TF Archive excerpt: the reason Takara started working with Hasbro in the first place (initially on Turbo Magnum) was because Mattel "did not treat [them] well". i.e. It's kinda Mattel's fault Transformers exists. THANKS GUYS.

"They work so fast it makes you sick - let's build!" A classic Generation 1 pairing is revisited in the form of Transformers: Earthrise deluxe class Hoist and voyager class Grapple. This one might require a butter knife as we're going to need to pry apart THE PEGS OF DOOM. Next video after this will be on the Retro Headmasters reissues (formerly Titans Return / Legends figs) Weirdwolf, Highbrow and Mindwipe, so be sure to subscribe on YouTube if you want to see more!

Storyboards from the first Transformers TV advertisement, showing Starscream’s mid-air transformation sequence. 

Storyboards by George Goode. 

Starscream from G1? Either maybe with Jetfire if you're ordering in the mood for shippy stuff or just cackling maniacally because that expression is always fun on his face.

hold your gremlin properly or he will escape to do mischief

(1)

"Weirdwolf! How do you want to fight?"

"Let me tell you. Wait til you see our Buddha transformation!"

(2)

"Hey, what's that?"

"Hey I don't think it's gonna be anything so wonderful, you know?"

(3)

"It's brilliant, they're really afraid of us!"

"Of course! It's a trick I thought up on some sleepless nights..."

Transformers Reveal The Shield Solar Storm Grappel (2011)

Currently filming B-roll for a future video on Earthrise Grapple and Hoist, and along the way I found myself rediscovering a previous toy of Graps that's now a full decade old. Solar Storm "Grappel", as he was then known for trademark reasons, looks a world away from anything seen in current Transformer design in robot mode. The crane-on-the-arm is definitely cumbersome. All Grappels apparently have loose joints (very noticable on the legs on mine) and according to the Wiki some have loose plastic tags dangling off parts of the toy as well, although I can't say I've noticed that on mine. Despite having all these things working against him, he still has a sort of boxy charm.

The crane truck mode, on the other hand, is a big, beautiful chunk of cheddar, the kind of toy where if I'd owned this when I was five or six I'd have been able to have hours of fun. Even now, being considerably older, I can still appreciate the Tonka-truck-meets-TF vibe Grapple has going here.

More pics to follow in a future post, featuring some comparisons with Grapple's Earthrise toy!

The folder format of G1 storyboards, with a scanned example from Rust in Peace.

Most of the ones I’ve seen are this same lime pastel green colour, with blank document labels used to indicate production number and title on the cover.

Inside, the contents template page shows relevant episode production information such as draft date, recording date, revision date, and the names of the writer(s), board artist(s), and producer name. 

Line art of Reflector (Spectro, Spyglass and Viewfinder) from their instruction booklet.

Megatron causing his own downfall because he just had to be a petty douche to a no-name dock worker and his bubbly girlfriend is some greek-tragedy-level writing 👌

The cast of 1986's Transformers: The Movie make the jump from the silver screen to the shelves of toy stores everywhere, and although it's far from the first time any of these characters have been available in toy form, rarely if ever have they looked this good! In this video I look at Studio Series '86 Jazz, Kup and Blurr. Joining them is Cyclonus, who's technically from Kingdom but definitely feels like a Studio toy in spirit! NOTE: In my haste to try and cram everything into a single review, I neglected to mention in this video both the backdrops included with each of the Studio Series figs, and more glaringly the energon goodie accessory packaged with Kup. My bad, for future reference just know that IOU one (1) glowing energy treat. Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong.

As promised, more images of Henkei! Henkei! Red Alert, this time with Hasbro's 2008 releases of Sideswipe and Sunstreaker from the Universe series.

It's a sobering thought to realise that when these figures of Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were released, we were thirteen years removed from the tail end of Generation 2 (Go-Bots, Cyberjets and Power Masters). And now these guys are the toys of thirteen years ago. I really don't know where the time has gone.

Anyway, Sideswipe is probably my favourite of the three, but what's great is that each of them bring something different to the design. The decision to have the back of the robot become the front for Sunstreaker was an inspired one, and the optional engine supercharger intakes / rocket pack accessory goes a long way to help make the two brothers feel unique.

Transformers Henkei! Henkei! Alert (2009) This one has been a long time coming. One of my seemingly ceaseless side quests as far as TF collecting goes has been attempting to round up modern versions of all the figures I owned as a kid. But the current Siege Red just doesn't do it for me, mostly because of the alt mode.

Red Alert has special personal significance as his original toy was the first of the larger boxed Autobot cars I ever owned - one of those magical vehicles with roots in Diaclone that were so much of what drew me to Transformers in the beginning. By the time I received Red for Christmas 1986 (with Ultra Magnus) that era was drawing to a close, and it would be a few years before I'd have a chance to appreciate the die-cast automobiles of the early days again.

Henkei! Red is himself from a period in Transformers history that's long since passed, when the focus of the designers was more on creating modernised versions of characters from G1 rather than bringing the character designs from the Sunbow show to life. From the perspective of a collector in 2021 his robot mode is... inelegant, to put it mildy. The knee kibble is particularly awkward. But there's still a lot of good stuff going on here: the head popping up as you rotate the roof during conversion to robot mode remains fun, and the light piping is off the charts, somehow even better than on the Sideswipe version of this mould.

Where this toy shines is the car mode, taking the already fantastic Sunstreaker / Sideswipe vehicle form and adding new elements such as the light bar and a chromed version of the spoiler. I ended up taking a ton of photos of the Lambos as a trio because they just look so good together, but I'll save those for another post!