Transfromers 1988-You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself be made into Mister Potato Heads

Back in the 1980s we did not have Thoroughly Informative Transformers Themed Internet Entertainment Sites so excitement about a given toyline spread via the internet equivalent of my youth-the elementary school playground. I remember there were very distinct phases in the progression and decline of playground buzz surrounding The TransFormers (or any other fad or toyline or whatever else was popular amongst ten year olds). I've named these phases of buzz after the response one kid would get if he showed another kid a GoBot or Transformer or Voltron or whatever. The first phase of buzz was the "What is that? Nobody's into that!" phase, which for toy robots took place from I'd say 1982 to mid-1984. With He-Man and Star Wars being so dominant in the pop culture at that time it was unusual to see a kid talking about or bringing GoBots to school. Not all toys progressed past this first stage, as anyone who owned a Rocklord can attest to. Then there was the "That's awesome, dude! Everybody's into that!" phase from about mid-1984 through mid 1986 when The Transformers became the definitive embodiment of the toy robots trend. Note that GoBots skipped the "That's awesome dude!" phase. Then there was the, "Dude, you're still into that? Nobody's into that anymore!" phase that all popular toylines eventually succumb to. I'd say Transformers entered this phase from 1987 to 1988 when 99 percent of kids moved on to Nintendo and Ninja Turtles. Finally the toys get canceled and there comes the "You're still a virgin, huh?" phase that I was stuck in throughout all of high school.

WHEN YOU NEEDED 24 QUARTERS BUT ALL YOU HAD WAS AN AUTOBOT SIX

ToysRus 12/08/88

I added about a dozen new* ads to the Transfomrers 1988 section of the Vintage Space Toaster Palace and I realized '88 wasn't really all that bad in terms of what Transformer product was on the shelves. If you were that one guy in eighth grade choosing robots over girls there was still much robot fun to be had. Of course '88 is probably best remembered as the year Optimus Prime came back, but it was also the year of the last great combiner giftset Piranacon and Fortress Maximus the biggest Transformer ever got carried over from '87. 1988 would be the cartoon's final season and though they made no new episodes, the season five reruns featured new bumper sequences starring an animatronic Optimus Prime and some little kid. The death of the Transformers cartoon wasn't even really tied to the popularity of the franchise so much as it was a result of toymakers across the board ditching the toy tie-in cartoon concept altogether.¹ Heck, in 1988 the Transformers comic book was barely halfway through its 80 issue run. (The comic was really where it was at for me anyways, especially since the editors had impeccable taste in choosing which letters to print in the letters column.) The line may have been fading in popularity but in '88 it still had a lot of fight left in it. Unfortunately it also had a lot of Pretenders in it, too. I may have survived a lot of imaginary toy robot battles in my childhood, but I wasn't Pretending! (Or would that be Pretendering?)

Toys R Us 12/08/88	Kay Bee Toys 10/06/88

ON CYBERTRON, TOY ROBOT DRIVES YOU!

Circus World 10/09/88

Everybody has their own little subgroup of Transformers they didn't like so I'm not going to waste space elaborating on why I hated the Pretenders with their bloated, organic looking shells that split apart to reveal anemic looking, spindly little robots inside. But I give Hasbro a lot of credit for the Pretender concept because it turns the cliched fantasy of wanting to be a robot inside out. Instead of playing with little pilot figures pretending you were vicariously controlling the robots, Pretenders asked the philosophical question, hey-what if a robot is inside controlling you?! What if instead of you turning into their head, they are in your head already? What if deep inside we are all robots? It was an interesting reversal of the male power fantasy where instead of being a little kid wishing you could be that 2 story robot, you could instead as a little kid realize the potential to be something great was inside you all along. But then there comes a day when you grow up and realize life is random chaos and we're all just broken cogs in a malfunctioning runaway Zoid and nobody has robots inside them except Arnold Schwarzenegger. But at least for a little while in 1988 we were young and hopeful and we believed all that crap about freedom and sentience on Optimus Prime's tech spec and Hasbro inspired us with the hope that there was a figurative robot Volkswagen in us all. To paraphrase my Air Force recruiter, I may not be able to get you into a toy robot, but I can get a little toy robot into you. Whatever that means. And speaking of little robots...

IT WAS AN ITSY BITSY TEENIE WEENIE YELLOW ROBOT LAMBORGHINI

ToysRus 10/20/88

My absolute favorite ad from 1988 is this ToysRus Micro Transformer one I found in the newspapers of both Houston and El Paso, Texas. It's pretty special for a couple reasons, one of which is that it's an ad that contradicts the conventional wisdom that Micro Transformers were first released in 1989. That's not really a big deal, though, because I've found at least two other 1988 Micro Transformer ads from Children's Palaces in various cities so it's not like these Texas Micros were some rare early trial test market in only one city. No, this ToysRus ad is unique because it has some sort of crazy mockup packaging totally different from any Micro Transformer package ever released. I'm pretty sure the card art is of the Autobot Off Road Patrol but the little drawings of the robots on the card are entirely different from any character art released on production packages. When I first noticed the card art was unusual it really tripped me out. It's as if these Micro Transformers had the power to surprise or something! You could write paragraphs about this ad and I did when I took it to the playground of today and asked men way more knowledgeable than myself in the area of tiny robot Lamborghinis to take a look at it. They confirmed my suspicions that this all was pretty weird. I think it's strange how I've never found prototype packaging in Transformer ads during all my previous searches, then of all eras it pops up in an ad from 1988. Discoveries like this are what makes me glad I've decided to collect Transfomrer ads from the years beyond just 1984 and 1985. It's rewarding. I guess I can say it's the little things (in prototype packages) that make it all worthwhile.

DUDE, THEY'RE MAKING THEM AGAIN-AS POTATOES!

For me personally my tour of duty in the Toy Robot Wars of the 1980s ended in '88 when I got my first pack of Micromaster airplanes and they were too hard for me to transform. Looking back I'm glad that these ads reminded me 1988 wasn't all that bad and I left Transfomrers on a high note of sorts. At 14 I figured it was time to let go of the whole toy robot thing regardless of how good they were and just move on. I still occasionally bought the comic but I quit with issue 75 back in late 1990. Then in the early 90s Transformers started coming back and I found out there were a lot more additional phases beyond "Dude, you still into that?" Here we are now two decades later with Optimus PotatoHead and new toy homages to those first Micromaster planes with "MM-89" tribute tattoos on them and all those other countless strange reiterations and mutations of the toys I used to feel so all alone for liking back in junior high. Dude! It's crazy, isn't it?

*21 year old

¹Toy Makers Lose Interest In Tie-Ins With Cartoons. (1988, April 28). Wall Street Journal

25 years ago in Transfomrers PART 4: IN SPANISH IT MEANS KRONDAY!

Back in 1993 I was vacationing in Denver when I went into a comic book shop and under the counter glass they had what looked like a red Transformers Sunstreaker and a black Ironhide. I had no idea what they were and the comic shop guy said they were "the rare Japanese versions". Just as goats have an innate fear and distrust of chupacabras, I fear and distrust information from comic shop employees. This was way before I had internet and pre Thoroughly Informative Transformers Themed Internet Entertainment Sites so I had no way of fact checking comic shop man's assertion. But I got the feeling he wasn't very credible because in the same display there was a Hubcap he was trying to pawn off as Bumblejumper. This "Hubblejumper" misidentification is usually indicative of either a) comic shop assholery (if they're trying to rip off people who don't know better) or b) comic shop dumbassery (as in, they are dumbasses). The latter is usually the case.

YOU GOTTA BE FIRST, BEST, OR DIAKRON

Japanese or not, twenty bucks each seemed a bit steep for the wrong colored and possibly knockoff Sunstreaker and Ironhide, but I bought them anyways. I noticed the red countach had a sticker that said "Diakron" on it and years later the internet helped me figure out just what these things were. It turned out Diakron was an attempt by Takara (the japanese creators of many toys that would eventually be sold as Transformers) to market their own line of transforming toy robots in America back in 1983. This was before Hasbro partnered up with them to create the Transformers. The Diakron line was originally made up of a robot called Multiforce 14, three pull back and go Powerdashers, and three transforming robot cars named DK-1, DK-2 and DK-3. Those last three were toys that would eventually go on to become known as Sunstreaker, Ironhide and Trailbreaker once Hasbro picked them for Transformers, except they started out in different colors from their Transformer release. Diakron is also the tenth circle of toy robot hell-after you know about it, forever does that knowledge mark you a nerd.

I'LL SEE YOUR KRON AND RAISE YOU A FORM

Despite being the first attempt at a US release of Takara's transforming robots (which would later go on to become one of the most popular toylines ever), Diakron itself has gone down in history as being unsuccessful. But is this the truth? There exists an interview with Paul Kurnit, the then executive
vice president of Griffin-Bacal during the launch of the Transformers, where Mr. Kurnit states that one problem the line had was that Diakron's name "had no meaning to anyone". I take personal offense at that. Obviously in Spanish it means "Kron Day".

TRU 14 December 1984

Mr. kurnit also goes on to say Diakron's "launch was a colossal failure because in no way, other than the fact that they were ingenious toys, did it connect to anything meaningful in kids' lives". Kurnit isn't the only former exec harsh on the 'Kron. George Dunsay, Hasbro's vice president of research and development in 84, states the line didn't do well because of a lack of marketing. So here we have a pattern of executives involved in the creation of the Transfomers repeatedly stressing the "failure" of Takara to market their robot toys successfully in the US. But I've seen ads that show Takara continued selling the Multiforce 14 well into 1985. While it's true that the Diakron name 'died' after 1984, all Takara did was change it to Kronoform and continue to sell their Multiforce 14 and other robots that were not picked up as Transformers. I also recognize Japanese marketing brilliance in "Kronoform" being a way for Takara to keep their "Kron" while capitalizing off the Trans"Form"ers name. Despite being a marketing failure to some, DiaKron(oform) remained profitable enough that it lasted at least three years. There is no denying that some of Takara's toys would not have reached the level of popularity they enjoyed had they not been reborn as Transformers, but there is also no denying the rage that swept a nation, KRONOFORM ROBOT WATCH!

MUCH OF MY SELF RESPECT DEPENDS ON THE DISTRIBUTION PATTERN OF CERTAIN TOY ROBOT LAMBORGHINIS

Circus World 28 November 1984

I personally don't remember Diakron on the toystore shelves but it was '83 and at nine years old I was all obsessed with He-Man. I used to beat myself up for not being more sentient as a child because it cost me a chance to be on the Diakron bandwagon from the beginning (and also forty bucks at that comic book store 10 years later). But then that interview with George Dunsay came along and he stated that Diakron was a Toys R Us exclusive line. Since I had a couple of friends older than me who remembered TRU being the only place they saw Diakron back in the day, I accepted that and I stopped hating on my He-Man obsessed 9 year old self. My hometown of El Paso, Texas didn't get a Toys R Us until 1987. I was at peace with myself in the same way that I can accept not being the guy who invented Star Wars because 30-years-older-than-me George Lucas beat me to it.

But then little holes began springing up in that TRU exclusive theory. First off, why have I never seen a Diakron toy with a TRU price tag? Speaking of price tag, there's a picture of a Diakron countach at Super Toy Archive where the badly mangled price tag seems to be that of KB Toys. I rationalized that by theorizing KB oftentimes acted as toy liquidators and maybe they bought up TRU's remaining Diakron stock for clearancing at their stores. I could still live with myself if that were the case because El Paso just barely got a KB in '83 and they were all about new toys, not clearance stuff. So I still never had a chance, right?

THE BEST LAID KRONS OFT GO AWRY

But there were always lingering doubts in my mind. How could Denver, a place that never had a Toys R Us until 1990, have Diakrons in comic shops? Toy robots archaeology was much simpler before eBay because where you found toy robots was usually the same geographic area where they were sold at retail. Finding a toy robot on the secondary market at a swap meet or garage sale or comic shop was strong evidence that the toy robot originated at a toystore in that area. I found the usual exception to this back in the 90s was comic shops near military bases because military people tend to come from everywhere and sell their stuff to the nearest collectibles dealer. But the bases in Colorado were all in or near Colorado Springs, 80 miles south of Denver. How could I have found roboarchaeological evidence of Diakrons in Denver in 1993 if they were Toys R Us exclusives ten years prior?

Circus World 30 November 1983

Then a bomb dropped on me during Vintage Space Toast Tour Denver this month when I was looking for Zoids ads in 1983 newspapers. Again, Denver didn't have a Toys R Us until 1990 so finding a Diakron Robot Cars ad was the last thing I ever thought would happen. But lo and behold, in the Novemeber 30th, 1983 edition of the Rocky Mountain News was a flyer from Circus World advertising Diakron Robot Cars of the Future. I was both excited and pissed off. Excited because a Diakron Robot Cars ad is one of my Vintage Space Toaster Palace holy grails, and pissed off because this proved Diakron was not Toys R Us exclusive, KB probably did have them new in El Paso in '83, and I was a nine year old dumbass.

EVERY DIA HAS ITS KRON

Circus World was a very different, very separate retail chain from Toys R Us. In the wake of this ad and the KB price tag at Super Toy Archive I can only conclude Dunsay misremembered, but I'm left wondering why he'd say Diakron was exclusive to TRU. There's got to be a nugget of truth in there somewhere. Did he really mean Diakron was exclusive to the less prominent Circus World, but he forgot the specific chain? I've never found a TRU ad for Diakron but that means little. And I certainly don't feel betrayed by George Dunsay or anything. This isn't Ben Kenobi telling me Darth Vader killed my father (and then it turns out Darth Vader is my father). It's more like Ben Kenobi telling me Darth Vader had an extensive Diakron collection, all of which he bought at Toys R Us.

A ROBOPLASTICOLOGIST'S WORK IS NEVER KRON

I was pretty happy to find the robot cars ad on this, the 25th anniversary of the Diakron line. I think I will celebrate November 30th as Kron Day in rememberance. Now that I've found a Circus World Diakron Robot Cars ad, the next step is to find one from Toys R Us and maybe even Kay Bee. Then after that, build a time machine and go back to 1983, wait in KayBee Toys in El Paso and smack my 9 year old He-Man loving self in the back of the head when I see him in the action figure aisle.

More than meets the price!

Many specific details of the period I call "The Toy Robots Wars of the 1980s" have been lost over time. This is partly because many toy robots historians of the present were mere children during that era and their half-remembered recollections are little better than speculation and conjecture. Of course the Transformers with its legion of present day fans has had a wealth of research done on its history but there is still much unknown about it and some fans can't even agree on what an Autobot car cost in 1985. It also doesn't help matters when Hasbro, the victor of the 80s Toy Robots Wars, rewrites history on their website to make it seem as if they singlehandedly invented the very concept of transforming toy robot vehicles. Why would they do this? Well mostly because a) nobody gives a shit and b) Hasbro is a bunch of fuckers.

YOU CAN SIT NEXT TO OMEGA SUPREME

Hell, Hasbro isn't the first or only player in the toy robots wars to put their spin on how things went down. I found one ad from 1984 where one store claims Bandai invented Transformers. Yeah I know I'm making it seem like this is the biggest geopolitical scandal of the 20th century and these marketing people are committing war crimes but believe me, I'm not crazy. Nor am I afraid of exposing the conspiracy to cover up the truth about what happened during the Toy Robots Wars of the 80s. God gives me secret information when I listen to my Soundwave and he says if the bad men from Hasbro come he'll send an Autobot space shuttle full of Leader-1 and the rest of the good Go-Bots to take me away to moon base two. Tell me where you live and I'll see if he can send one for you, too.



TACKLING ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT MYSTERIES THAT NOBODY CARES ABOUT

Now I can't do anything about the propaganda meted out by the corporate overlords of Optimus Prime, but I can at least shed some light on the cost of toy robot cars in 1985. A while ago I wrote about an argument two internet professors of toy robots were having about whether or not Autobot cars ever cost $15 back in the day. Basically one guy thought they were ten bucks and the other guy said Jazz cost fifteen, but nobody had any proof of either claim. I seriously doubted the $15 Jazz claim because based on my experience with toy robots ads a $15 Autobot car was unheard of. I considered the possibility but I put $15 Jazz up there with chupacabras and missile launching Boba Fetts-I know they exist but I ain't never seen one. Since that webpage's comments section has been locked by the site administrators I couldn't go back and ask each of the arguers for more details on their claims. In order to finally resolve this debate I will have to proceed on two key assumptions: a) that the debaters were talking about the price of Transformers in the United States and b) that anyone gives a crap.

MSRP-MANIPULATIVE SEARS RETAIL PRACTICES

Oftentimes when I'm collecting ads for the Vintage Space Toaster Palace I'll find that some libraries have better quality microfilm than others. If I find an ad that's too dark or blurry sometimes I can find it again in another city and they'll have a better copy of it. This was the case with one Sears ad that ran 01 December of '85. The first few times I found it in Pittsburgh and Houston I couldn't get a good copy of it. I kept trying in other cities and eventually I did get a decent enough picture. While I was collecting this same ad over and over I was also inadvertently collecting a record of the differences that Sears charged from region to region. Talk about Mighty Shifty Robot Prices!

CINCINNATI	FORT LAUDERDALE	ANCHORAGE

Cincinnati's Sears prices were the same as other Sears in cities like Houston, Pittsburgh and El Paso. The Autobot cars were in the $10 range in those places and even Fort Lauderdale stayed in line although their prices on minicars, Dinobots and Decepticon planes were $1 to $1.50 higher. But then we have Sears in Alaska going $2 over the Cincinnati prices on minicars and Dinobots and $4 higher on Decepticon planes and Autobot cars! I had finally found the elusive $15 Jazz. It kind of ticks me off because I had to go all the way to Alaska to do it when a simple bibliography at the end of that Jazz article would have worked.

I HEAR MICK ALOHA SAYS THERE ARE GALVATRON ADS FROM 1983

So after much congratulating myself on solving the greatest internet debate of our time (or at least the greatest debate of my living room in the last few months) I am free to pursue the truth behind many other untold mysteries of the Toy Robots Wars of the 1980s. Did the GoBotron Fortress playset ever get released? Was there ever a yellow Diakron DK-1? HOW MUCH ROBOTECHS CAN I BUY FOR TEN BUCKS? I am sure that the answers to these mysteries and more await me, buried in the microfilm reels of some run down library in the ghetto of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It is not easy being the seeker of such arcane knowledges of roboplasticos but I do it because it must be done (also because God in the Soundwave tells me to).

69 ways a Camaro is better than a girl

Thanks to the latest episode of GuyCast (#227) I got turned on to mechaphilia. Well I wasn't "turned on" but just made aware of it. Mechaphilia is when people are sexually attracted to and/or have sex with their cars. Although it sounds outrageous I don't think it's a joke or a prank, I totally believe that some young guys out there are fucking exhaust pipes and cup holders and gas tanks of their automobiles. There's an article about it called "I have sex with my car!" over at Closer Online featuring a twenty year old guy in an open relationship with his Volkswagen and who's simultaneously in a gay relationship with a Trans-Am named Todd. I also found the blog of a mechaphile featuring what I can only describe as autoerotic art. Maybe I should call it AutoZoneErotic?

Bumble got back

I love this stuff because mechaphilia is the logical conclusion to a certain train of thought I'd been developing about toy robots and puberty and how one influences the other. In the normal course of growing up I was thinking that masturbation fantasies involving other human beings were much more powerful entertainment than any prepubescent obsessions like toys or cartoons. But maybe it was possible that some teenagers whacked off to thoughts of Transformer cartoons or used Hot Wheels as visual aids in their masturbation sessions. It was so obvious and inevitable that mechaphiles existed seeing how American society fetishizes automobiles, starting early with toy cars (and worse-toy cars robots). The mechaphile blog I found contains a slideshow of Flickr pictures the blogger has titled titled "My Porn Show" and wouldn't you know it-there's pictures of Ultimate Bumblebee amongst the real life sports cars and toy cars in suggestive poses! What I love about mechaphilia is how the average Thoroughly Informative Transformers Themed Internet Entertainment Site would take a couple dozen pictures of Bumblebee's car mode, but the mechaphile only has one-of the tailpipes. It is the only angle he needs.

ROBOT CAMARO IS SEX WITH SUPERMODELS
I think a young man's sexual awakening plays a big role in their attraction to robots that turn into sports cars. I think sports cars are designed to outwardly mimic the female form with their curves and roundedness and racing stripes. Racing stripes have always reminded me of labia. I think this sexy car design appeals to young men on a primal level and then you have giant robots which appeal to adolescent power fantasies and on top of all that, cartoons that turn them into celebrity superstars. So transforming toy robot cars are a perfect storm of subconscious sexual attraction, idolatry and male power fantasy. They're irresistible. And that's why some guys stay attracted to toy robots long after most other kids have outgrown them. Because Tracks is sexy, damnit.

HOT ROD IS THE GREATEST MAGAZINE NAME EVER
Just as an aside, imagine being sexually attracted to automobiles-the most mundane aspects of daily existence like driving down the highway or getting gas or reading car magazines become cum in your pants exciting. I would love to live in that world. Even the most boring normal guy lives like Hugh Hefner if you think about how much time we spend washing our cars. Plus renting a car is legal in all 50 states. Lucky bastards!

I have no interest in taking toy robots pictures that lose their novelty once a new semi truck pulls up to the back of the nearest Wal-Mart

I made it back from Botcon and instead of writing some long boring report about what I ate with my friends while I was in Cincinnati*, I have been catching up on podcasts, eating Froot Loops and watching Ninja Warrior. But I did update Flickr Macrocrania with my pictures of Botcon and I wrapped up the CSF-11 in-progress photo set. So check my Flickr stuff out, unless you want full reports on what Optimus Prime was wearing or who Megatron's new boyfriend is or why Bumblebee checked into rehab, in which case the Thoroughly Informative Transformer Themed Internet Entertainment Sites got you covered. Otherwise check out the couple dozen pictures of me standing around trying to look cool while wearing t-shirts of 25 year old cartoon robots.

*Fear not! Full details on what toppings I ordered on all the pizza I ate are coming soon!

My life is (Jet)fire and ice

Today I woke up to a South Dakotan snowstorm. I waited until we had about 1/4 mile visibility before going out to check the mail because I wanted to feel like I was back in Antarctica again, if even just for a moment. But holy crap the blowing snow and hellacious wind here was more intense than ten Antarcticas. The forty meters between my house and the mailbox were so hellaciously windy and cold that all my thermal underwear and jackets didn't even make a difference. I may as well have been out there in my bathrobe. Plus I was having post traumatic stress flashbacks of my time on the ice when I got chased by penguins. In Antarctica, not all the ice is stable so when you're walking on it you have to stay between the bamboo flagposts that have been setup or else you'll fall into crevasses and die. I had become so accustomed to the Antarctic way of using flags to guide me that I got disoriented. Crazy thoughts entered my head and for half a second it seemed totally possible that I may be the first guy in South Dakota to fall into a crevasse on the way to check his mail. I disregarded this notion as ridiculous, but I could not totally eliminate the possibility of a Wampa attack.

JC Penney 14 December 1984

I don't think people take me seriously when I tell them that Dakota del Sur can be just as bad or even worse than Antarctica. It's just one of those things that I know from experience and can't expect anyone else to understand. It's funny how people are so sold on their own preconceived notions of what the truth must be that it's pointless trying to change their minds. It's exactly like how I know for a fact that the Transformers Jetfire and Shockwave came out in 1984, but the toy robots historians on the Wikipedia will tell you those toys came out in '85. Although there's tons of evidence beyond just old newspaper ads, nobody's quite put two and two together. I feel like I am the sole keeper of this one arcane truth about toy robots. This is the Transformers Roswell and I am its Fox Mulder, except a selfish Fox Mulder that doesn't want anyone to know what he found out so he kind of keeps that X-File way in the back, like in the Z's.

Should I even try to edit Wikipedia with the knowledge of 1984 Jetfires? Hell no. Excuse me for being an ignorant old man but I think it is important to safeguard this information from the computers because it may very well all that's keeping Wikipedia from achieving full blown sentience. Beyond Wikipedia, is it worth trying to correct every other Thoroughly Informative Transformers Themed Internet Entertainment Site out there? Hell no again. I can't imagine how much of a struggle it would be trying to do battle with the Transfan Illuminati who run those sites. I say the internet deserves whatever version of the past it sloppily writes for itself and I can live knowing I'm right. Screw the modern open source history that's written not by those who know the truth, but by those with the most HTML skills and highest Google page rank.

So when I finally got to the mailbox in the snow I was thinking that my relationship with the wiki Transformers historians mirrors the time when Luke Skywalker was telling R2-D2 that Dagobah existed but R2 didn't believe him. Luke is all, "Yes, Artoo, I know the Dagobah system doesn't appear on any of our navigational charts. But don't worry. It's there." You'd think the droid would have instant access to all the most up to date information in the galaxy, much like Wikipedia. But even a droid doesn't have all the Star Charts and that's where I'll be, right at the limits of R2-D2's knowledge, dancing on the tip of that vibrator looking thing that he's constantly sticking into the Millenium Falcon. And the day may come when I will need Wikipedia to hold my lightsaber for me as I attack the Jabba Sail Barge with my knowledge of 20 year old newspaper ads, but until then Wikipedia can just serve the internet drinks with that stupid looking tray on its head as the C-3P0 wiki article contributors bump into him awkwardly. If you know what I mean.

WERE IS TEH OUTRAGE? or: Four star and twenty years ago

After exposing the scandalously bad reporting of one particular Thoroughly Informative Transformers Themed Internet Entertainment site, I was expecting the national news media to pounce all over this. Where is the Smoking Gun with an expose on the toy robots reporters? Where is Oprah Winfrey crying about putting TFormers in her favorites? Where is the revised Wikipedia article on United States journalism scandals? Where is the PleaseSaveMeRobots movie based on my life starring Rob Thomas as me? WTF, people? I can only conclude that there is a mainstream media conspiracy to cover up the truth that Autobot Cars cost like 10 bucks back in '84. Why? Who gives a shit?! Obviously this is what's happening.

Circus World 04 Dec 1985

As my disappointment over not having won a Pulitzer Prize subsided, I started listening to The Greatest Movie Ever Podcast review of the animated TF:TM and the 25 year old host said Optimus Prime cost 60 bucks back in the eighties! Holy crap is that wrong. And it really sucks because when I hear stuff like that, a part of me dies-that part of me being thousands of sperms dying in my testes.

In my advanced age I have lost not just countless sperms, but also the motivation to internet argue with the youngsters who are infinitely more witty (and wrong) than me because I would rather use my time to do more productive things like watch Galaxy Rangers music videos on YouTube and read about how Darth Vader is gay. I'm starting to not give a crap what the kids think they remember their mom paid for their Optimus Prime bubble bath. I started the VSTP long before I started getting annoyed by the internet twentysomethings with false memory syndrome talking authoritatively about toy robots released when they were three years old. I do it not for them, but because I am the Indiana Jones of toy robots ads, going on adventures braving crabby librarians as I search for of the holy grail of twenty year old toy robots ads. Also because I secretly hope that reading all of those old newspapers will magically transport me back in time to 1975 so I can audition for the part of Luke Skywalker.

Yet somehow despite my aged decrepitude I found the strength to put up 62 new ads at the Vintage Space Toaster Palace this weekend. In addition to adding 16 new ads to Transformers 1984, I was able to make small sections for GoBots, Starriors and Four Star Transistor robots. There's also one new Galactic Man ad, three new Kronoform robot watch ads and 14 new Voltron ads. You can find the new stuff by heading over to the VSTP and Ctrl+F yourself for "Houston" or "Fort Lauderdale". Coming in the next VSTP update will be sections for Max Steele's RoboForce and a buttload of miscellaneous robots, including a blurry Zoids ad from 1983. I've also got about three dozen more ads for Transformers 1985 and 1986 to put up, too. I hope the next time some kid decides to make up these bizarre price estimates on 20 year old toy robots they'll try to do some research first, lest I become completely sterile.

TFormers: Where the "T" is for "Truthiness"

Jefferson Ward 24 Oct 1984

Uh-oh, the kiddies who run the Thoroughly Informative Transformer Themed Internet Entertainment Sites are at it again. One of them found time between Pokemon matches to write a fairly informative article about the history of the Transformer toy Jazz. There are a couple of mistakes in there amongst the pictures stolen from other sites, but hey, doing writeups like this is not easy especially when your Naruto headband is on too tight. Like they say, nobody's perfect, but I've found the kids who write the blog entries at Tformers are my favoritest least perfect people.

Target 05 Dec 1984

I enjoy the TFormers campaign of misinformation blog entries for the times like when they write that Sky Lynx was a Dinobot and Sideswipe was the first Alternator. Of course they correct the entries after they're pointed out, but not after a bit of robocock oneupmanship with the readers who point out the mistakes. To their credit they do leave up the comments by the people reporting the error in the first place. So I'm not too bothered by the statement in the Jazz article about how "When Jazz was released in 1984, he was originally retailed at $15." I thought to myself that someone will point out this obviously made up bullshit eventually. I was only ten in '84 but I don't remember anywhere near $15 being the price and I've never found a single ad for Autobot cars over $12 when I'm doing research for the Vintage Space Toaster Palace. But after some contemplation I'm sure it's possible that during the 80's, somewhere in some backwoods crackhouse, somebody may have paid $15 for a Jazz. The 80's were a crazy time. Also, awesome and scary.

Children's Palace 01 Dec 1985

So I let it slide and I figured the last person they want pointing out yet another error in their articles is some 33 year old scary guy like me. Although I am a bit disappointed because you'd think with the writer's strike going on, the TFormers guys could free up some time to do actual research since there won't be any new episodes of Dora The Explorer or Sesame Street for a while. Lucky for me, one reader has tried pointing out the misinformation and he did it just the way I would have. He could have been a total asshole but instead he asked what the source for the $15 price was and pointed out that at most stores Autobot cars ran in the neighborhood of $9.99 back in the day. But instead of graciously accepting the input, it's business as usual and the $15 Jazz guy took a break from watching Baby Einstein videos enough to respond with the lone sentence, "And at which store were yours $9.99?" LET THE ROBOCOCK PISSING CONTEST BEGIN!