I LOVE TRANSFROMERS-VSTP Update (emo meltdown edition)

I HAD A MOMENT of weakness that lasted about a month as I was working on adding some more crap to the Vintage Space Toaster Palace. I let the backlog of Transformer materials build up to the point where I had over a hundred of those ads to catalog and process. I don't know why I waited-Transformers ads are my favorite ones. But getting caught up on the Transformer ads seemed like a huge chore so I put it off and the longer I waited the more I had piling up. What a drag. I guess I lost my Trans-boner.

But spending precious vacation hours in the various Bumfuck, USA's main libraries searching through old newspapers on microfilm for twenty year old toy robots ads wouldn't be my favorite hobby if it were a rational, productive and fulfilling expenditure of my time. So now there's a buttload of new ads from El Paso, Anchorage and Los Angeles over at the VSTP Transformers Page. I still got more crap but before I put up other stuff like Starriors, Robotech and Wheeled Warriors I want to go over some highlights in this Transformer themed super emo installment of VSTP UPDATE.

Whites 25 October 1984 El Paso, TX	Service Merchandise 13 December 1984 Los Angeles, CA

What kid didn't pretend to be a radio DJ back in the eighties? And what kid didn't also pretend to be a Walther P-38 carrying death squad soldier in 1943 Nazi Germany's armed forces? With Megatron microphone you could do both! Megatron microphone combines a child's fascination of AM radio with the excitement of killing stuff. Nasta Industries really did their homework on this one, creating a wireless AM radio transmitter of the robot most famous for doing radio related stuff killing. I love how third party licensees used to combine the Transformers with products that didn't readily lend themselves to the characters. Megatron microphone ranks right up there with the greats like the Skywarp soap dish and the Prowl kite. I wish they would have made a Soundwave BB gun so I could've blown my brains out with a micro cassette recorder when I was 12.

Wal-Mart 27 November 1984 El Paso, TX

This next one from Wal-Mart in my hometown of El Paso, Texas is just one of the prettiest ads I have ever seen in a newspaper. It doesn't matter though, because I never went to that Wal-Mart. We lived on the poor side of town and Wal-Mart was on the upper west side, which is where all the rich people who could afford to save money lived.

Did you know my mom used to use layaway to buy us our toys? Of course it's not possible for anyone to know that. Why am I asking? The point is she really scraped and saved so I could have Transformers. And you know what happened last Mother's Day? The flowers I ordered for her got lost but I didn't know because she was too modest to tell me they never arrived. Plus it really pisses me off when people don't transform Sunstreaker right, like how they totally fucked up his feet in this ad. If his feet aren't completely separated before they're rotated then it strips the pegs that keep the hood aligned correctly and it totally ruins the toy after about ten transforms. Barbarians! (But more importantly-Idiots!) If I had Soundwave BB gun I would go back and take out as many Sunstreaker feet molesters I could find before committing BBcide.

These next two ads for Auto-Ceptor the transforming robot watch are pretty cool because this Transformer figure straddles the line between the categories of "extremely rare merchandising tie-in" and "who gives a shit it's just a watch".

Carrs 11 December 1985 Anchorage, AK	Meijer 10 November 1985 Cincinnati, OH

Lionel Playworld 01 December 1985 El Paso, TX

This is an ad for the VHS version of the Transformers stories "Satellite of Doom" and "When Continents Collide". I've already written about how I grew up watching the Spanish dubs of the Transformer cartoon because Transformers wasn't shown over the air in El Paso and my dad wouldn't pay the cable bill so I couldn't catch it on the Los Angeles station. My only chance to see the cartoon in English was if mom bought VCR tapes of it. One day she found this abomination disguised as Transformers entertainment and I was so excited I could hardly wait to pop it in the VCR. It contained the first Transformers cartoon episodes I would ever get to watch in English! Finally I could be like all the other kids and have Transformer cartoon conversations at recess. And the next day at recess everybody laughed when I asked if Megatron really had an English accent. Then I couldn't decide which I hated more-the other kids, my dad or Transformers.

10 August 1986 Anchorage, AK

Unlike Megatron microphone, Ziploc sandwich bags from 1986 were a great tie-in to the Transformers movie. Not only did they come with iron-ons of the new 1986 Transformers, but you could use the first bag to hold your tears while you wept uncontrollably in the theater as all the 1984 Transformers die in the first ten minutes of the movie. Then you could use the second bag as you barf and barf once you realize the Autobots new leader is a Winnebego. With any leftover bags you could go home and watch season three of the cartoon where emo Rodimus runs the Autobot organization into the ground. Unless of course you were me in 1986 who did not get to see season three when it first came out in English. Am I bitter? Well right now I feel like smashing some Sunstreaker feet. Holy hell with all these bad memories it's a miracle I got through posting 100 Transformer ads without killing myself. Heck, I'm surprised I got through the eighties without killing myself.

HASBRO IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO MAKE SOUNDWAVE BB GUN