When you were a young...
When you were a young...
Were you a purist? Did you play with your Transformers, excluding all non-transformer toys from the game? Did you stick faithfully to the universes these toys inhabited, meaning Egon Spengler never teamed with Lion-o against Scorponok?
Or did you mix and match? Was there no toy, no range safe from your chaotic, meandering game play that payed no heed to, well, anything?
Today, my son insisted that PC Plod look after the Cyber Keys for his Transformers, and I was just stunned. Percy (the tank engine, noisy frikkin' toy and all) then raced Hot shot. What for, I don't know, but they did. Being from the first choice above, this was tant amount to a revelation for me: toys mixing. I just didnt get it for about a minute.
It was great
Or did you mix and match? Was there no toy, no range safe from your chaotic, meandering game play that payed no heed to, well, anything?
Today, my son insisted that PC Plod look after the Cyber Keys for his Transformers, and I was just stunned. Percy (the tank engine, noisy frikkin' toy and all) then raced Hot shot. What for, I don't know, but they did. Being from the first choice above, this was tant amount to a revelation for me: toys mixing. I just didnt get it for about a minute.
It was great
- slartibartfast
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- aww
...
err, I mean - heresy !
Pretty much anything with square limbs was a transformer for me. I never remember his name, but that gobot that is a red truck was my optimus, even though he was about waist-height to everyone else, I love the way scale is of little importance for da kiddies [insert outragous penis joke]. My nephew has all of the big thomas the tank engine trains, exept thomas, who is a miniature... If i was him now (erm, yeh, that is a bit odd) I'd moan my ass off 'till mum bought me one the right size.
but I don't think any action men or 'organic' toys were anything other than collateral damage for proper transfomers scenarii.
...
err, I mean - heresy !
Pretty much anything with square limbs was a transformer for me. I never remember his name, but that gobot that is a red truck was my optimus, even though he was about waist-height to everyone else, I love the way scale is of little importance for da kiddies [insert outragous penis joke]. My nephew has all of the big thomas the tank engine trains, exept thomas, who is a miniature... If i was him now (erm, yeh, that is a bit odd) I'd moan my ass off 'till mum bought me one the right size.
but I don't think any action men or 'organic' toys were anything other than collateral damage for proper transfomers scenarii.
Awww! This is perhaps the cutest post that I have seen around the general discussion forum for quite a awhile. It put a real big grin on my face.
It's sort of like cultural and ethnic intermingling for action figures, yeah? I recall doing similar things like this as a child, though now that I am thinking about it, when action figure intermingling did occur, it was usually within similar toy genres/type/etc. So for example, I would occasionally have GoBots/Transformer/various knock-offs periodically interact. I suppose, if you view this behavior from a sociological standpoint, a sort class/social hierarchy was occurring, Transformers, obviously, being at the pinnacle of this hierarchal pyramid. This may also be in part due, that, generally speaking, GoBots, Transformers, and other knock-off figures, are within the same size and scale from one another. Made intermingling easily adaptable, I think. The Centurions, Wheeled Warriors, and what have you, that I had were always excluded from the activities of the morphing robot "class". Needless to say, these toys were systematically demarcated, eventually ignored, and ultimately discarded.
Oh. My. God. I'm worse than ****in' Hilter!
....
I think I'm going to cry now
It's sort of like cultural and ethnic intermingling for action figures, yeah? I recall doing similar things like this as a child, though now that I am thinking about it, when action figure intermingling did occur, it was usually within similar toy genres/type/etc. So for example, I would occasionally have GoBots/Transformer/various knock-offs periodically interact. I suppose, if you view this behavior from a sociological standpoint, a sort class/social hierarchy was occurring, Transformers, obviously, being at the pinnacle of this hierarchal pyramid. This may also be in part due, that, generally speaking, GoBots, Transformers, and other knock-off figures, are within the same size and scale from one another. Made intermingling easily adaptable, I think. The Centurions, Wheeled Warriors, and what have you, that I had were always excluded from the activities of the morphing robot "class". Needless to say, these toys were systematically demarcated, eventually ignored, and ultimately discarded.
Oh. My. God. I'm worse than ****in' Hilter!
....
I think I'm going to cry now
Varied, I think. Thundercats were way out of scale with MOTU. With TFs, everything was out of scale with each other anyway, and I liked transforming robots in general, whilst finding a lot of larger Gobots quite crap... the small versions were usually quite good.
Don't really remember that clearly, but generally it'd involve toys being assimilated into the fictional universe that was prevalent.
Don't really remember that clearly, but generally it'd involve toys being assimilated into the fictional universe that was prevalent.
I was a strict little sumbitch. There was no intermingling at all. If I was playing with Transformers there were no Gobots or He-Man or Centurions or any of that. There was only Transformers.
Same went for any other toyline. I was a toy Nazi!
I'm not sure if I ought to be extremely ashamed of that or not...
Same went for any other toyline. I was a toy Nazi!
I'm not sure if I ought to be extremely ashamed of that or not...
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I'm another sort-of... transforming robots all clubbed together fine (with most Gobots and the like padding out the Decepticons, because let's face it, most Decepticon toys were bloody dreadful things), but nothing else really joined in. Sometimes plastic soldiers would get roped in for "getting eaten by Zod" duty (I really, really miss my old Zod ), but that was about it... It just seemed silly having Mumm-Ra battling Smokescreen when Smokescreen came up to his chest...
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Originally posted by TFVanguard
You know, I figured that, after the Diaclone figs ran out, the Decepticons were the one to get the better toys on average...
Suppose it's down to personal preference - with a couple of exceptions (e.g Hun-Grr, the Monsterbots for some odd reason, the Dino-tapes because they're so bizarre... and Casmodon) I really don't like random(ish) monsters, and that's a lot of the Decepticons, especially post-movie - the Pretenders (not that the Autobot ones were much cop either), the Seacons, the Terrorcons, the Firecons, both sets of Headmasters, the Horrorcons etc. I don't even have much time for Scorponok's toy (though it's a bit of a shame Double Punch is too ludicrously expensive to buy and recolour). As well as that there's the Stunticons, most of the Combaticons, the 'Con movie toys (IMO, the only movie toy worth a damn was Hot Rod, and he's not brilliant), the Duocons, Octane...
Whereas the Autobots got the Minibot remoulds, a couple of decent Headmasters (Nightbeat's toy, for instance, isn't as shocking as people make out), respectable Big Targetmasters, the three 'Scramble' teams (far from faultless, but considering the massive limitations the combining but on the figures, there are a few relative triumphs here - Afterburner, Hotspot, Blades, Lightspeed, Air Raid), the aforementioned Hot Rod and Monsterbots, Sandstorm, and funner "cheap and cheerful" pocket money toys like the Throttlebots and Sparkabots, which tended to be the ones you ended up with as a kid.
Plus, of course, the Decepticons get a slaughtering on the Diaclone/Microchange moulds... good ones they got were Soundwave & the tapes, Kickback, Shrapnel, Blitzwing, the Constructicons, Shockwave (yeh, not D/MM, but pre-existing )... the Autobots got, what, ~15 of the cars all-up, most of which aren't bad (if outdated now), the Dinobots, the Minibots, Perceptor, the Omnibots...
Things level out a bit come the Micromasters, and there are a couple of really strong post-Diaclone Decepticon assortments (both sets of Targetmasters and the Triggercons - who were oddly miles ahead of the Triggerbots), and the Cons really get the best of G2. Mind, by about '87 I was gravitating away from playing with the fairly meagre amount of TFs I had as a kid - parents preferred Lego, and they had the money - and there can't have been many subsets I had more than one figure from.
- Sociopathic Autobot
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_racket
"A protection racket is an extortion scheme whereby a powerful organization, most often a criminal organization or gang, coerces individuals or businesses to pay protection money which allegedly serves to purchase the organization's "protection" services against various external threats. Those who do not buy into the protection plan are often targeted by criminals existing outside of the organization. These crimes are typically thought to originate from the organization itself. When a business refuses to pay for protection, word is put out that they are outside of the local organization's protection (these organizations often exist in the absence of a trusted police force) and that the business in question is therefore free game for freelance criminals or the organization itself."
"A protection racket is an extortion scheme whereby a powerful organization, most often a criminal organization or gang, coerces individuals or businesses to pay protection money which allegedly serves to purchase the organization's "protection" services against various external threats. Those who do not buy into the protection plan are often targeted by criminals existing outside of the organization. These crimes are typically thought to originate from the organization itself. When a business refuses to pay for protection, word is put out that they are outside of the local organization's protection (these organizations often exist in the absence of a trusted police force) and that the business in question is therefore free game for freelance criminals or the organization itself."