PREDAKING STICKER PARTY AT MY HOUSE!
It's Predaking! No, he's not the greatest sex offender who ever lived, he's the combined form of the Predacons, the team of five beast Decepticons from 1986 with a higher ratio of carnivores to plant-eaters than the Dinobots had. I've been trying over the past twenty years to get one, but various obstacles got in my way. They are:
1) I did not have a job in 1986 when the Predacons hit the stores and I was 12
2) In 1988 when I was at a garage sale the little scalper boy who was selling his Predaking wanted $20 for it but I only had $10 I borrowed from my grandma
3) I still did not have a job in 1989 when Lionel Playworld by my childhood home in Texas went out of business and was clearancing the Predacons for $6 each.
4) The guy I met in 1997 who traded me his complete Jetfire for a set of lenticular Star Wars pogs from Doritos bags wasn't stupid enough to give up his Predaking
5) I still still did not have a job in December 2004 when Takara reissued Predaking and I was 30.
[Tangent #2: I remember seeing the 1986 catalog for the first time and thinking how horrid looking the Stunticons were. I think they were the first Transformers I didn't want, even as presents. They're just so ugly! I still feel that way but once I decided to take Transformers seriously I had to fill that hole, I had to check that box off. Motormaster and the Menasor were examples of toys I just got to fill in the blanks. At twelve years old I hated how blocky looking Motormaster was even for a G1 toy and at 33 or however old I am now I still dislike how tiny and spindly the Menasor looks next to other combiners. But I bought the Stunticons just because they're on the 1986 checklist. I guess they marked the beginning of the era in my hobby where I started buying crap I didn't like for reasons that still don't make much sense to me today. Predaking wasn't like that, though. I really wanted a Predaking and I wanted it on purpose!]
In the interim between 1986 and now I did manage to accumulate a couple of stray Predacons here and there in lots of broken toys I got off eBay. But I never got anywhere close to assembling the set. Finally with the money I made from the big collection downsizing I'm doing currently, I just said screw it and I bought a used New Year's Predaking giftset from some Japanese guy. [Tangent #3: It may seem like stereotyping, but if you buy used toy robots, always buy them from Asians. Even as little kids they take pride in keeping their possessions in great shape. This Predaking seller guy didn't even put the stickers on or take the toys out of the plastic or nothing-he just opened the box and that was it. I guess it's an Asian thing because I bought some fantastic old toy robots from little kids in South Korea that looked like they had just rolled off the toy robot assembly line, which is probably where those little South Korean kids worked.]
I really don't understand why so many people break the tape on their toy robot packages but then don't open them all the way. Crazy! Thank you, anal Japanese guy for keeping my Predaking in great shape for me all these years while it waited for the day that I would buy it from you and take its combiner virginity away and make the Predaking. So bring your asbestos underwear, grab a flaming cow and jump the fence of the Air Force base because it's Predaking Sticker application party time at my house!
7 comments:
We like when you're happy.
I think this is a happy post.
[Tangent #3: It may seem like stereotyping, but if you buy used toy robots, always buy them from Asians. Even as little kids they take pride in keeping their possessions in great shape. This Predaking seller guy didn't even put the stickers on or take the toys out of the plastic or nothing-he just opened the box and that was it. I guess it's an Asian thing because I bought some fantastic old toy robots from little kids in South Korea that looked like they had just rolled off the toy robot assembly line, which is probably where those little South Korean kids worked.]
You may have something here. That my explain why my new Gutcruncher was so nice. (Mine came from the Philippines).
Maybe Asians took better care of their old Transformers because they never saw the G1 Hasbro commercials? Watching them now I cringe when I see those little kids smashing their Transformers into each other. That was apparently the play pattern Hasbro wanted their customers to mimic so the toys would break and we'd buy more. I don't think Takara's TF commericals had little kids in them at all.
Selling Predakings on clearance for $6 bucks a pop? God, that nauseates me and gets me high all at the same time.
No, sorry if I was unclear. They had the individual Predacons on clearance for $6 each. Same for the Dinobots. What sort of sucked was how the price tag was a huge red rectangle that covered up most of the robot art on the front of the boxes. It would have been pretty hard to peel off without hurting the box. Regardless, that $6 tag on those toys is a sight burned into my memory forever.
No, I'm an idiot because I meant "PredaCONs" and typed "PredaKINGs" anyway. Crap, an entire Combiner team for $6.00...I couldn't even wrap my mind around that concept.
Dinobots for 6 bucks, too??? There I go again, feeling sort of floaty. Stop it, willya?
For my birthday in second grade, my parents gave me the Devastator party set that came with all six Constructicons in one large box. I was very excited, but noticed two things after playing with it:
1. Blaster, an audio cassette player, was as tall as Devastator, a combination of six construction vehicles.
2. Devastator fell apart just by breathing on it.
I think I still have the poster-sized instruction manual somewhere.
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