Transformer ad from 20 years ago of the week-Special team commanders

The first thing I wanted to know when I got all my Constructicons in 1985 was who the leader was. Was it Hook? He made the chest/head of Devastator so that's what I went with as a kid. Then later I saw the cartoon and they made Scrapper the leader. Scrapper! He was the leg! How was it that he was in command? Hook's personality appealed to me way more than Scrapper. At 11 years old I secretly hoped that I could develop a "skill of 10" like Hook had. I have carefuly crafted my whole life towards that one goal.

In 1986 the combiner team concept continued but with five member robot teams and this time it was easy to figure out who the leader was. He was the biggest guy in the team and he wore the helmet head of the giant robot. (By that headwear criteria I felt I was retroactively correct about Hook being the Constructicon leader.)

My first combiner team leader was Silverbolt, who I bought at a KMart on Zaragosa street in El Paso, Texas. Then came Onslaught, who I bought in late 1987 on clearance. I completed the Arielbot team within the year but I never completed the Combaticons until the mid nineties, I think. I did get Blast Off as a kid but he and Onslaught were my only Combaticons. I got Vortex, Swindle and Brawl in the mid nineties at a comic shop in Copperas Cove, Texas once I joined the Air Force and got stationed at Fort Hood. I never got any Protectobots as a kid-they were too ghey, and I puprosely avoided the Stunticons because I thought Motormaster looked retarded. I got my first Defensor from that same comic store in Copperas Cove later on, and I imported my first set of individually packaged Takara Stunticons from a Japanese TF dealer back in 2001 or so.

But let's get back to '86. I got Onslaught at a store where Ceasar, one of my 6th grade friends, worked. Up until that point I was just considered a nerd in sixth grade and nobody knew about the toy robot addiction thing I had. But it all went to crap when I bought Onslaught at the store where Ceasar worked. From that point forward I was outed in sixth grade as not only a nerd, but a toy robot buying nerd. Fuck you, sixth graders from 1986! Is it even legal to be working retail when you're 12 years old? Oh well screw them.

So this Target ad from December 3, 1986 features the four special team leaders. And as usual those morons who made the ad totally screwed up the transform for Onslaught. For some reason Onslaught always appears with the Bruticus head attached to him. I've seen ads from Walgreens that do this, too. I can't recall if in all of the ads I've seen there has ever been a correctly transformed Onslaught. Plus they got Motormaster wrong, too. Motormaster comes packaged as the truck right out of the box. How did they manage to screw that up? Morons!

Well I'm going into town tonight to go get more ads from the library. It's become a custom every Tuesday night here in Rapid City. My wife goes to school and dumps me at the library. Spending four hours looking at microfishe reels of newspapers from 20 years ago is one of the bright spots in my week.

I'm still sick and the scar on my forehead is still raw, but hey-Halloween!