Transformers your mates had that made you jealous.

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Tue Apr 15, 2014 7:06 pm

This is back when you were a kid I mean.

I had one mate who got all the Dinobots (minus Swoop who wasn't released in the UK). Pissed me off.

I had another who got all the Arialbots in one go. Pissed me off.

The same mate who got all the Dinobots also had Hound. He never applied the stickers and lost the fuel tank and missiles. He also had Soundwave. Two legendary toys in my eyes. Pissed... me... off.

Finally I had another friend who had Shockwave and Pointblank. He was a nice guy.

Any memories of jammy friends getting the toys you always wanted? Remember that intense burning jealousy and just barely covering it up?

Notabot · Post by **Notabot** » Tue Apr 15, 2014 7:19 pm

I actually never had friends who had Transformers as a kid.

In fact, thinking back, I never really had friends as a kid. Am sad

My brother had the Aerialbots and Protectobots, but I always thought my Technobots were way cooler. A few years ago I asked him what he ever did with his old Transformers, and he told me he had given them to a kid who lived next door to him. I was miffed for a bit, thinking he should have given them to me, but it's better that they get good loving from someone who appreciates them. (And besides, I always took better care of my TFs, so they were probably really beat up and useless anyway.)

Post by **Denyer** » Tue Apr 15, 2014 7:35 pm

A friend and her brother between them amassed a lot of TF and MOTU** stuff, although a lot of the TF stuff was movie era* and they bowed out of MOTU before the later waves. Wouldn't say jealous exactly -- a bit more so that they went through a lot of home computers of the era, although rubber-keyed machines of other friends with older Spectrums than the +2 we had were just as interesting. And I ended up jumping from 8-bit to 32-bit with the Archimedes A3000 and latterly the A3020, skipping 16-bit and consoles completely. And thence onto PCs; it just didn't make sense to steer into the dead end Acorn had created for themselves.

*I got the original Grimlock I still have out of it later on, when interest waned, and despite the slight toothmarks in the tail and chipped paint it has a lot of sentimental value.

**And Thundercats, come to think of it. Others had M.A.S.K. and Go-bots, which I never saw what the fuss was about.

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Tue Apr 15, 2014 7:40 pm

Afterburner always fascinated me. The guy was a Tron lightcycle more or less, looked great!

I had a friend a bit like your brother. He had a reasonable amount of Transformers but they would exist in a box or littered around certain bits of his room. I always tried to keep mine pristine and presentable. They felt like a cross between toys and trophies (but 70% toys).

Ryan F · Post by **Ryan F** » Tue Apr 15, 2014 7:44 pm

I had a rich kid in my class, who had a Jetfire. Man, that was a beast of a toy.

I was also envious of another kid who had a Snapdragon, another great toy.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Apr 15, 2014 7:47 pm

Auntie Slag wrote: I had another who got all the Arialbots in one go. Pissed me off.

This thread is just about telling the world your true feelings about Rack'N'Ruin isn't it?

MikeB · Post by **MikeB** » Tue Apr 15, 2014 7:49 pm

I was mildly jealous of a couple of people at school, who between them had Snarl, Ravage and Rumble, and Sunstreaker, but I didn't get too green eyed about it.

However, the son of some family friends had what felt like EVERY Transformer imaginable. Optimus Prime AND Megatron, Jazz, multiple Dinobots. Those are the ones that stick in the memory. He didn't even like them that much, they just sat in a box in the loft. Then he decided he liked Star Wars, and all of a sudden he had the Millenium Falcon AND an AT-AT AND the Ewok Village. The next year he moved onto something else. A NES I think.

My blood is boiling just thinking about it. My Transformers collection was bigger than most but that's because they were all I ever wanted. Birthdays, Christmasses, a year's worth of pocket money savings, I built it up for years, and he just decided he liked them briefly and wound up with a binful.

I wouldn't have been surprised to have seen Swoop and the Constructicons sat in there along with Shockwave and Christ only knows who else.

The saddest thing is that nearly 30 years later I'm still jealous as hell!

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Tue Apr 15, 2014 7:57 pm

I can completely feel the heat of that pain & jealousy Mike, that guy needs to die, jumping from franchise to franchise and getting all the good stuff just like that. They don't even try and they get everything!

I knew one or two people a bit like him, and similar to Denyers friend... when we as kids began to grow out of Transformers and into computers, my friend got what I considered to be the Rolls Royce of 8-bit machines; an Amstrad CPC464 WITH colour monitor.

Talk about loaded! If you got something cool, he would get something similar that would trump you. Utter bastard.

And he had a cool split-level computer desk to put it on in his room. And some really excellent games.

Ugh, when those kids get everything and the toys just sit in the loft...

Screw Syria and the Ukraine, they don't know what real pain is.

Rack 'n Ruin · Post by **Rack 'n Ruin** » Tue Apr 15, 2014 8:09 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:This thread is just about telling the world your true feelings about Rack'N'Ruin isn't it?

Ha! Must be the day for it. My family went rogue on me today. Joy.

On topic, Ryan F mentioned Snapdragon, and that reminded me that someone at my primary school had Snapdragon and Apeface. Or two people, can't remember. Anyway, those two always fascinated me. Still do, I guess. I'd probably bite at a reissue, even though I normally don't go in for the post '86 mob in toy form. Too bricky for me, albeit neon bricks.

Post by **Denyer** » Tue Apr 15, 2014 8:09 pm

I'd forgotten the Star Wars stuff... still don't really see the appeal of that scale. Was that the start of massive tie-in toylines, or was there anything similar before it?

MikeB · Post by **MikeB** » Tue Apr 15, 2014 8:44 pm

Auntie Slag wrote:I can completely feel the heat of that pain & jealousy Mike, that guy needs to die, jumping from franchise to franchise and getting all the good stuff just like that. They don't even try and they get everything!

Annoyingly - or reassuringly for those not still consumed by bitter jealousy - in spite of being an only child who was spoilt rotten he grew up to be a well adjusted and reasonable human being, so I can't even hold onto a sense of smug inner superiority about him!

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Tue Apr 15, 2014 10:35 pm

One of my friends at Primary School seemed to have a never ending supply of cool Transformers. Scorponok and the Terrorcons I remember impressing me hugely.

I was never that jealous, though. we used to hang out a lot so I got to have a go with his toys

and when he came to mine, we'd build loads of stuff out of my Lego. Happy days.

I do recall there were a couple of kids whose parents were quite well off and they got the odd holiday in Japan and the States. They came back from Japan with these massive green/ grey and red/grey robots that turned into jet planes. One of them had a Swoop too.

Sunrunner · Post by **Sunrunner** » Wed Apr 16, 2014 8:48 am

I had a friend who had family living in Canada, and he'd get TFs that were never released here in the UK - I remember being incredibly jealous over Blaster and Sky Lynx! Worse thing was, he didn't take care of his toys and they'd invariably end up broken (whereas I've still got 99% of the Transformers I had originally as a kid)

Another mate of mine had an aunt who worked at a toyshop and made good use of her staff discount. Every birthday/Xmas him and his brother would have a stack of cool toys - Transformers, Action Force, Mask etc. They got every single 87 Targetmaster release in one hit!
When he was 13 his mum made him get rid of all his toys. They sold them to a local dealer for £40. It haunts me to this day that I didn't buy them off him...

Red Dave Prime · Post by **Red Dave Prime** » Mon May 05, 2014 1:23 pm

I seem to have been quite lucky because I had a few friends into TF at the same time as me and we all got to mix and match. We even planned what each other would get as birthday presents. The peak was the Headmasters run - between us we had Snapdragon, Apeface, Scorponok (2 of them actually), Chromedome,Skullcruncher, Weirdwolf, Highbrow and Hard Head.

My one feeling of jealousy wasnt a friend but a friend of a friend. His uncle or dad (cant remember, not important) must have worked with Hasbro or something because not only did he have an insane amount of Action Force and Transformers but he also had a load of rare / unavailable stuff. Definitely a Shockwave there and I always remember an insecticon grasshoper with "sample" printed on it. Pretty certain it was one of the deluxe insectiocns. Nice guy, he didnt mind letting everyone else play/drool over his toys but I was still envious when I had to head back home to my not exactly small collection

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Mon May 05, 2014 2:17 pm

Denyer wrote:I'd forgotten the Star Wars stuff... still don't really see the appeal of that scale. Was that the start of massive tie-in toylines, or was there anything similar before it?

Collecting Joes recently the big appeal is the range of characters and general unformity - being able to get your favourite guys all able to interact with a similar design and (on paper) for a cheap set price. It gives them a certain play & display ability which isn't really avaliable in Transformers... even as a kid it bugged me that PM Op was the same size as Metroplex. Always a bit of the appeal of Gobots too, the bulk of the line were all the same size class (sixty-odd moulds) and most of the larger stuff was designed around them (Zod, Command Centre, Thruster, the combiners).

And yeh, the Star Wars line was basically the start of modern toylines. There'd been tie-in stuff before, obviously, but it had largely been along the lines of the Gerry Anderson stuff where Dinky or whoever would make a handful of vehicles to throw out just as they would with, say, a new Jaguar. Japanese lines at the time had a slightly different model - where, say, the Mazinger cartoon and the Mazinger toy would have a more symbiotic relationship - but nothing that ran to more than half a dozen toys.

Star Wars gave Hasbro the idea of reviving GI Joe at the same scale with the same 'playset' pattern of cheap carded figures acting as a gateway for vehicles and bases, but were smart enough to realise the big reason kids were buying Darth Vader figures was because it was Darth Vader, so they came up with the mythos to back the toys.

And then a couple of years later when that was going down well they tried the same with a few weird robot toys a two-bit Japanese operation was having trouble shifting. Add one Bob Budiansky and a bit of Peter Cullen and hey presto, Last Stand of the Wreckers and a billion dollar film franchise.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon May 05, 2014 7:54 pm

It's easy to forget because the Prequels gave him far too much free reign in areas that weren't his strong suit (scripting and directing) that George Lucas is a bit of a genius, especially, if you want to be cynical, when it comes to ways of making money.

The entire, careful, way he coordinated all the merchandise was just as ground-breaking in its own way as the first film was.

Post by **Warcry** » Mon May 05, 2014 9:14 pm

Red Dave Prime wrote:I seem to have been quite lucky because I had a few friends into TF at the same time as me and we all got to mix and match. We even planned what each other would get as birthday presents. The peak was the Headmasters run - between us we had Snapdragon, Apeface, Scorponok (2 of them actually), Chromedome,Skullcruncher, Weirdwolf, Highbrow and Hard Head.

I had the same experience with some of my cousins. I'd inherited a few early TFs from older relatives but mostly had Targetmasters, Pretenders and the like. They had some more 84-86 stuff, as well as a few later toys that I didn't have, but nothing I was hugely jealous of. They had Galvatron and I had Powermaster Prime, though, so our (increasingly battered as time went on) leader toys usually battled when we got together. I think we might have had the full team of Constructicons between us too, though they were all second-hand so Devastator was never a possibility.

I was jealous of a different friend of mine in the G2 era though, because he had a lot of older toys I'd never even seen up until then (stuff like Rodimus Prime, Monstructor, Octopunch, etc...) and because his parents seemed to spend an unlimited amount of money buying whatever he wanted -- while I had to scrape together six months of allowance to get the Aerialbots, his parents went out and bought him them, the Combaticons, Dreadwing, Starscream and Megatron.

It wasn't until I was older that I realized his parents were able to buy him so much stuff because they were both always working, and now I wonder if they bought their kids so much stuff because they felt bad for not being able to spend any time with them. If so, there really wasn't much to be jealous of after all.

Cliffjumper wrote: Star Wars gave Hasbro the idea of reviving GI Joe at the same scale with the same 'playset' pattern of cheap carded figures acting as a gateway for vehicles and bases, but were smart enough to realise the big reason kids were buying Darth Vader figures was because it was Darth Vader, so they came up with the mythos to back the toys.

You know, I never really "got" G.I. Joe, and I think this is why. I had a few of the individual figures but the vehicles never really held any appeal to me. I had one that I got for a birthday, but never had much interest in getting any others. Unlike Transformers (where the big toys were characters in their own right) or Star Trek (where the big toys I got were usually starships that were treated practically like characters on the show), the big G.I. Joe (or TMNT or Batman or...) toys were things and always seemed to be of secondary importance to child-me. I certainly enjoyed them when I got them as gifts but I never minded if I got something else instead.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Tue May 06, 2014 1:36 am

I think most people prefer the figures... the vehicles and playsets are kind of too much without being enough for kids. You can imagine Cobra have hundreds of invisible planes but someone gives you a Rattler and suddenly they've only got one very visible plane with room for two people and everyone else following on foot. It's the sort of line that'd be incredible to collect if you were stinking rich, could buy 10-15 of everything and have a massive dedicated room.

As it was, I vaguely resented having to put together even a trio of Stingers. From an adult collector point of view the vehicles really are a nightmare - lots of small parts (and not something like a figure's pistol where any one will do), poor compatibility with new figures, relatively expensive to ship and harder to display nicely than, say, a dozen identical Crimson Guards.

On-topic, there were a couple of spoilt pricks at my school who got basically everything as it came out. And they treated them like shit - you could set your watch by how long it was going to take them to break stuff.

Plus side is we're talking 87 onwards, so not only was it nasty crap like Scorponok and Quickmix getting broken but - as their parents were too snobbish to go car booting - I had a ton of early stuff they were always craving.

Lent one once overnight (Royal-T the Gobot, actually), came back with a broken arm after the little **** had done the whole 'promise you won't be angry when I tell you this' shit, a real Catch-22 when you're 7. Someone probably snapped both his matchstick, eczema-pocked arms in secondary school and I raise my glass to them.

Aero Blade · Post by **Aero Blade** » Tue May 06, 2014 4:59 am

I've got some jealousy going right now on my sister's boyfriend. Apparently he has (or had) an original G1 Soundwave figure that more or may not be in storage someplace. He's promised to sell it to me if he can find it, but he's not sure if his sister may have gotten rid of it. Still crossing my fingers right now.

Tetsuro · Post by **Tetsuro** » Fri May 16, 2014 12:37 am

I'm still pretty sure that, despite only a handful of TFs to begin with, I still had more than all the kids I knew. I kind of got into Transformers back when it's popularity was waning and everyone else was getting into TMNT, which I didn't think was so hot.