I respect you even if you like Starroid Raiders

I still remember that day in 1985. I was 11 years old. I was in 5th grade when I was in the boys locker room getting dressed for the next class. Just as I was getting ready to walk out, another kid stopped me and in his most sincere voice asked, "Hey arn't you going to comb your hair?" I never combed my hair as a kid. I didn't see the point. So I told him no, to which he responded, "But don't you want to get chicks?" At that point my mind locked up. I was thinking, "Chicks? Like other 5th graders? What kind of sick fuck finds those attractive?" So I spent a lot of time from that day forward pondering the advantages and disadvantages of girls versus robots. Until I found a girl who smelled as good as a freshly opened Transformer I was holding out. In the meantime I guess that other boy thought I was gay.

In the sixth grade I still wasn't combing my hair but since I had the highest grade point average of my class, people didn't give me shit. I wasn't gay-I was an eccentric smart weirdo. But the girls question came up again one day when at lunch another sixth grader named Laura Uribari flat out asked me, "When are you going to start liking girls?" She seemed a bit frustrated and upset with me. WTF? I gave her the stupidest answer imaginable because of course I was a sixth grade nerd who hadn't gotten laid yet like all the other promiscuous 12 year olds. I put down the Transformer comic book I was reading (I was a little pissed off that she was bothering me with my robot studies) and I told her "Well, maybe when they start smelling better." At that point females still didn't appeal to me, but I was holding out hope that one day I would find a girl my age who smelled as good as Optimus Prime's rubber tires.

So fast forward to last night and I'm 32 and I'm looking at the library archives of newspapers from 1979. I'm still wondering if 1979 was as cool as I remember it being when I was four. After reading the horrible Shogun Warriors comic I found my faith in my memories shaken. I knew Shogun Warriors were kick ass toys as a kid, so surely the other toys from that time were equally awesome, right?

BOY WAS I WRONG. HOLY SHIT BATMAN, WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE THINGS? MY EYES ARE MELTING!!

Welcome to this Lewis Osco ad from November 27th. Welcome to the suck that was 1979, folks. Welcome to the era of the Starroid Raiders. Possibly the most bizarre line of molded plastic humanoids ever made by man. What toy company marketing executive on crack thought this was a good idea? Were they knockoffs? Did anyone buy these on purpose? And most importantly, how did they know what the demons in my head look like? As my mind locked up in terror at these horrible horrible plastic people, the first thought I had was, "What kind of sick fuck finds those attractive?"

I was mystified. Surely nobody in the history of mankind who was a kid in 1979 would remember having these. Surely nobody would admit that Santa Claus hated children enough to get them Starroid Raiders for Christmas. But guess what? Thanks to the power of the intertron I found out that these cheesy Village People from Mars were actually the coolest toys ever made.

I am envious of fans like Doctor Squid who paid attention in 1979 and who actively pursued a collection of Starroid Raiders. Doctor Squid, I salute you and your love for these crazy outer space mutant teletubby action figures. Once I got over the shock of their horrid deformity I realized that I was being as closed minded as the fifth and sixth graders who thought that heterosexual reproduction should have been the singular aim of my life as a pre-pubescent child. Rock on, you crazy Doctor! Up the Irons!

Transformer ad from 20 years ago of the week-Metroplex

Did you ever know what it was like to want something above all else, to long so deeply for something that your existence felt incomplete without it? Like you simply could not exist without that one toy robot that made your life worth living? I felt like that back in '86 when I was twelve and I first saw Metroplex in the 1986 Transformers catalog. I wanted that thing so bad! He was Autobot City! The last line of Autobot defense (even laster than Omega Supreme who was their other last line of defense in 1985)! He was a giant robot so big that even his accessories had accessories! So big that other Transformers hung out inside him! He was the giantest of the giant robots. He was the king of the toy robots parking garage dollhouses.

05 October 1986 Sears

Is that all you see me as, my fellow Autobots? Someone who folds out to form roads?

PAINT ME LIKE YOUR HASBRO ROBOTS

Or maybe I was just in love with the idea of Metroplex. The back of Metroplex's box had a furious battle scene painting showing him in city mode making Transformers like Ultra Magnus look tiny. There were explosions everywhere as the Decepticons attacked and Metroplex looked too huge to fit on the small planetoid he was resting on. He was so huge that other robots like Hot Rod and Springer were driving down his enormous ramps. Yet in reality he was only a little taller than Ultra Magnus in robot mode and only the smallest Transformers could roll down his ramps. But the disconnect between product and package art didn't bother me much. I think as kids we knew the Hasbro's toy robots couldn't live up to the impossible fantasies they were portrayed as on their boxes. I know the art pissed off consumer advocacy groups and disappointed parents, who viewed it as nothing short of false advertising. But as a kid this false advertising was a big part of my fun! I knew those transforming plastic robot bricks couldn't really be made to stand in the furious action poses shown on their boxes, just like I knew they didn't really say those things on their tech specs. Complaining about Transformers not living up to their packaging was like being upset that these little plastic robots didn't actually have all those mental disorders.

07 December 1986 Lionel Playworld	06 December 1986 Toys R Us

BEING DUMB JUST MEANS EVERYTHING ELSE IS THAT MUCH MORE AWESOME

These ads show what I fell in love with in the parking lot of the Bag 'n' Save grocery store as I looked longingly at my Transformer catalog while my mom went inside to buy groceries. I remember looking at those toy catalogs as if I were Bob Lazar trying to reverse engineer a UFO. Metroplex's transformation in particular blew my mind. Of course now as an adult it's easy to realize that all you do to transform him is sit him in a jumping jacks pose and press his head down. But as a kid I was totally confused and amazed. I remember looking at pictures of his city mode and thinking that black block looking thing in the middle couldn't be his head, because when he was a robot his antennae were vertical, yet in city mode those antennae are horizontal! How did they do that? What unholy secrets of space and time manipulation did these Hasbronian wizards conjure up in their experimental toy engineering laboratories? And how did his chest unfold into that helipad? Holy hell, forget magnets, fuckin' hinges-how do they work?

12 October 1986 Zayre


09 November 1986 Zayre


07 December 1986 Zayre


AN ARM AND A LEG? WHAT A BARGAIN!

I wanted a Metroplex so bad. My twelve year old brain thought that if only I could have Metroplex I would never want for anything ever again. I meant it, too. I would be willing to give up food, shelter, sleep and clothing if it meant I could have that friggin' toy. Unfortunately my mom had an anti-shoplifting rule so thievery was not an option for me like it was for my peers. So instead of getting a job I always daydreamed about God coming down and making me deals where I would give up one necessity of life in exchange for the toy I wanted that week. I contemplated various disabilities like losing the sight in one eye or not being able to smell anymore if I could just get God to fork over that one robot I wanted. With Metroplex I upped the ante and figured I would be willing to give up both parents and be forced to live in a dumpster behind Bag 'n Save. I really thought this out. If I'd gotten my way, at twelve years old I would've been a deaf mute blind quadriplegic with a collection of four Transformers. Unfortunately my secret toy trades with God failed and I kept my sight and family and I never got Metroplex. It was left to me as an adult to find one, which I did ten years later in a trade with someone who was not God and had more reasonable terms.

20 November 1986 Toy Wizard	29 October 1986 Toys R Us

METROPERPLEXING ART

Of course no obsessive rumination on Metroplex of mine would be complete without observations on what old newspaper ad line art from 80s grocery stores tells us about life and the universe. One thing that trips me out about Metroplex is that two different robot modes exist in his ad line art. The first is an arms raised in the air pose (above right), and the second is a 3/4 view of the robot standing looking off to the right (above left). Usually the line art from ads is based off of Toy Fair catalog photography. This is the case with the arms in the air pose-it comes straight out of Metroplex's pages in the Hasbro's 1986 Toy Fair catalog. But the original photography for the 3/4 view isn't so easy to track down. It isn't based on the '86 Toy Fair catalog or the '86 pre-Toy Fair catalog (Metroplex isn't even in that one). I guess Hasbro did a shoot with the prototype for line art purposes and then for whatever reasons never used the photos. And how do I know it was a prototype the line art is based on? Well it has something to do with the city mode as depicted in these old ads...

Toy Wizard 11/20/86	Cut Rate Toys 12/07/86

TANK TOWER POWER

Metroplexes came with a little tank named Slammer who split in two. The bottom treaded Slammer half then unfolded to make a spire that got used as a tower in city mode. The other Slammer half (its turret) also resembled a tower, except it didn't have a peg to plug into anywhere. So in the vast majority of production Metroplexes, only one tower is made using Slammer parts. Yet the city mode line art in Metroplex ads shows the two Slammer spires used as towers. Now in Remy the Reminator's review of Metroplex at reminator.com, there are reports of some early 80s Metroplexes coming with a pegged Slammer turret for use as the second tower. And an owner of an original prototype 80s Metroplex has stated that the proto had the pegged turret as well. But for whatever reason, only city mode Metroplex line art shows this dual tower configuration. It doesn't show up in the Transformers pack in catalogs, the '86 Toy Fair pages, the '86 battle scene, or the toy's box. UPDATE: When Metroplex was reissued by Takara in 2008, the reissues came with the two pegged Slammer.



BIG PITY NIGHTS

Back when I was a kid I didn't know where Metroplexes went once they disappeared off the retail shelves. As I saw them gradually disappearing I wondered what was happening and I assumed audacious people were buying them. Metroplex was a gift to me from Hasbro-how could lesser mortals assume it was for them to buy? I was a connoisseur, an appreciator of the finer things in life like $30 robots. No one else but I could possibly appreciate his black and grey plastic with chrome highlights and mysterious transformation. How could anyone but me meet the criteria of a) wanting Metroplex so badly and b) having thirty dollars? But I never found myself in the range of 26 to 35 bucks, which was the ticket price to robot parking garage heaven. The cost of Metroplex was an astronomical figure for me to contemplate as a kid without a job (and who was bad at math). I couldn't figure how all that money could be in one place at the same time. Surely El Paso's economy was not large enough to support multiple families who could afford a thirty dollar toy. All I knew was that my mom was mean and wouldn't get me a Metroplex. Consequently my Autobots would remain homeless.

Children's Palace 11/26/86	Carrs 11/30/86

IT IS BETTER TO HAVE NEVER LOVED THAN TO HAVE LOVED AND LOST THE ACCESSORIES

I guess you never get over not having that toy you always wanted during your childhood. Getting it decades later doesn't feel the same. As an adult I appreciate things more so the Metroplex I have now will always be in great shape. In some ways that's a shame. I imagine that if I got one as a kid I would have destroyed it just like all my other toys. In a way it is for the best that I didn't get a chance to destroy the mighty Autobot city. I would rather live with the feeling of missing out than with the regret of owning a mutilated Metroplex I mangled as a kid. But did this mean that other kids just ended up doing the mangling? Was it the tragic ultimate destiny of all Metroplexes to be crushed and crumpled on the floor by the day after Christmas? Or are certain toys fated to be owned by certain kids and when they never meet, the toys never get opened? If that's how it works then somewhere out there is an unopened king of the toy robots parking garage dollhouses that I never had as a kid, still waiting for me to come along. Maybe some kid will eventually own him. If I die before we meet I hope some day he gets taken out of his box long after I've been put in mine.

Target 30 November 1986

Rocket fistfull of suck

Remember that comic book about the big robots where there was that bad guy named Megatron and he could transform and the good guy transforming robots had to stop him? Yeah, I do to. Too bad it got totally ripped off years later by the Transformers.

Robot cartoons in the late 70's and early 80's kicked lots of butt. One of my biggest regrets was not being born a little hawaiian boy about 5 years earlier so that I could really understand all the bastardized english dubbed anime cartoons from Japan that aired on TV when I was five years old. If only I was just a few years older I would have really been able to comprehend how mind blowingly awesome this crap was. I got to watch Tranzor Z, Starblazers and the Force Five block of robot shows as a kid so I guess I can't complain, but watching a show at 4 years old doesn't have the same effect as watching a show at 10. It's like the difference between being a fan of Tranzor Z and having a doctorate in Tranzor Z.

I really started paying attention to these crazy syndicated robot cartoons in El Paso when I was going through a weird time in my life, also known as 1983. It was a transition period for me. My old likes were no longer fresh and new. I had to find new likes. My Star Wars was old and busted and my mom stopped buying He-Man because she thought it was satanic. Transformers hadn't hit yet. I thought GI Joe was lame because it had people in it. I wanted to watch robots. And sure enough, thanks to KCIK, the UHF station channel 14 in El Paso, there were robots to be watched. Channel 14 was my favorite as a kid growing up. They have since sold out and are now whores of the Fox corporation, buck back when I was a kid they were the ass kickingest, Japanese robot showingest channel in El Paso.

The thing about the Force Five robos was they weren't commercially available as toys this late into the 80's. They were sold as Shogun Warriors in the late 70's. I was able to watch the shows in the early 80's, but I had missed the boat as far as toys. I don't think Starblazers ever had toys. So here I am at 8 or 9 years old and the only Shogun Warriors stuff I had was a small 3 inch Dragun (who I broke a face spike off of when I was 4) and that legendary two foot tall Godzilla, who I still have. I got that for Christmas in the late late seventies when I was four or five. So by the time I was 9 and thought this stuff was cool, it was all over and the weird robo lull of 1983 settled in. As a kid I didn't have the resources to really commit my life to Shogun Warriors and try to hunt down their merchandise. The next best thing was the fights I would get into in the 3rd grade pretending to be Mazinga or Dangard Ace and then getting my ass kicked by little girls smaller than me.

So fast forward to 2006 and I'm going to Kmart last Saturday and I find a new little bookstore in the seedy little shopping center where KMart is here in Rapid City. Amongst the piles of sports memorabilia, records, paperback books and other assorted crap are three boxes of comics. I love Rapid City because almost every mom and pop antique shop and bookstore will have comics. And holy hell, this guy had a buttload of Shogun Warriors comics. Here at last was my chance for redemption! My 8 year old self may have been too lazy to get a job and track down old comics, but now at 32 I had $20 in my pocket and I was ready to roll!

So I bought the last six issues of the book just to see what it was like if I knew how to read in 1979. I was learning letters back then. I was just in kindergarten. I don't even think I was housebroken by then. I had a lot of trouble with that. Thankfully, after reading these books I realized that the Shogun Warriors comic had a lot in common with my kindergarten pants-they were both steaming piles of crap.

I thought this book was supposed to be the American equivalent of the Japanese manga for these robots. Maybe a loose translation of some wacky zany adventures these guys were going on in Japan. But nope, Doug Moench the writer just made crap up that had nothing to do at all with anything that these robots were doing in Japanese fiction. It's kind of like when I'd take my He-Man figures and pair them up with my Maxx Steele Robo Force and call them Prehistoric Robot Dinosaur Humpers Force. So although the toy companies invested millions of dollars establishing elaborate mythologies for the characters these toys represent, in my house they'd go on adventures humping plastic dinosaurs I got from the swap meet. In a fantasy setting represented by my toilet. I was a four year old Doug Moench.

Shogun Warriors the comic book is also some of the most racist offensive stuff ever. There's a black guy robot pilot in the book whose first name is unpronounceable so they call him by his last name all the time, which just happens to be Savage. So they call the black guy "Savage" all the time. Plus there's a story where a rat accidentally gets teleported into one of the robots. Then a little while later, the same accident occurs except this time a little mexican boy gets teleported into the robot. I understand the literary device of foreshadowing, but I also sensed a bit of racism here. Does this mean the writer was trying to equate Mexican boys with rats? I think so. What's up with that.

In the end, Shogun Warriors the comic sucked total ass and I guess I'm a bit better off for not knowing how to read or poop yet in 1979. My ignorance saved me. But sometimes when you're a kid, crazy crap like big gold racist robots named Megatron that want to stomp little Mexican boys have a strange appeal. Who am I kidding. It was robots. I would probably have loved reading it back then no matter how much it was calling me a rat boy.

plastic robot shark hookers

One day back in 2002 I decided I wanted to take up resin casting, which is a hobby where I make little figures out of plastic. Usually my subjects are little plastic futuristic jets, little plastic robots, little plastic sharks, and little plastic robot sharks piloting little plastic futuristic jets. Unfortunately I knew that I was about as skilled at sculpting as a Jawa who wants some hot Jawa on Ewok porn but doesn't know how to use the intertron because that invention is still a long, long, time away from being invented in a galaxy far, far away from him. Sculpting all these little figures in plastic can't be done with normal household items like sandpaper and sharp rocks. You need a personal rotary tool.

One company has come to define the industry standard in personal rotary tools with their name-"Dremel". Even I as a young naive 28 year old at the time knew you don't just go to the store and say, "I need a personal rotary tool". That would be confusing to the employees and they'd think you want a vibrator or something. You say, "I need a Dremel". Dremel is the awesome hand job from that smokin' hot hooker who you couldn't believe was only charging $20 and she kind of looks like the japanese cartoon girl you really like. Dremel is what every plastic shark making guy needs.

So I bought my Dremel at a Wal Mart in Tucson, Arizona one night in 2002. It wasn't the top of the line model. I didn't even know if it was what someone at my pathetic skill level needed. But I chose it and in the thousands of hours since then, the little plastic robots I made have delighted toy robot nerds like myself worldwide. That Dremel has been with me in Tucson, in crappy hell world (aka Turkey), at every Botcon and Transformer convention from Los Angeles to Kentucky and I'm even thinking of taking it with me to Antarctica when I go back to work this month. We've been through a lot together. I think that sometimes my Dremel is the only one who really understands how much hard work it was to make all those plastic robot shark hookers.

Now four years later my Dremel is dying. The motor sputters and doesn't run at full RPM and it's just a matter of time before it can no longer be used. I still have a few projects to finish and I'm sure they'll be the last ones for my Dremel. I'm getting a little sad about this. It's like seeing your old dog suffering from that condition where they hack and cough a lot because their lungs are slowly filling with blood and there's nothing you can do about it, but you still go to the park every weekend and pretend that everything's okay.

I can't believe I'm so worked up over an inanimate object that has a part on top that goes around and around really fast. I searched through my thoughts for a parallel in all of the television shows I used to watch as a kid. Did the Dukes of Hazzard ever drive so recklessly that they got in a fiery wreck and Roscoe P. Coltrane used the jaws of life to retrieve their mangled bodies, destroying the General Lee in the process? No. The General Lee was always there for them, even during that one season when they had the funny looking brothers that I swear I saw making out in one episode.

But you know who did have to lose his favorite inanimate object that had parts that turned around real fast? K.I.T.T., the little robot that lived in Michaels Knight's car. I remember there was an episode of Knights Riders where K.I.T.T. got all smashed by that Goliath 18 wheeler robot and they had to take his brain out of his body. They had to make him a new body. His old one was gone like the lawn. K.I.T.T. is my spiritual robo-brother in these trying times.

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!

sUCCESS OR SOMETHING NOT LIKE IT

Ever since I hit 30 I wake up everyday to a constant state of midlife crisis, but what makes me different is that I'm so incredibly apathetic about what a colossal waste of time my life is that I don't let it get to me. I just accept that I will never amount to anything and I'm okay with it most of the time. But that doesn't stop the crazy thinkings in my head. What is up with the midlife crisis anyway. Why is it that everyone with a 30 year old brain is automatically signed up for a barrage of heaping doses of dissapointment and depression that will never go away as long as you're awake? Why must we wake up to daily self inflicted anal rapings of our minds courtesy of our double crossing brains? I thought my head was supposed to be on my side.

Today I woke up sick and when I went to take the trash out, a gust of wind blew the garbage lid up and it smacked me right in my face. Right on my forehead and nose. I thought my nose was broken it hurt so bad. The blood and swelling didn't bother me until I realized I'd have to be seen by other humans. Luckily I can decrease my exposure to them by organizing my day in such a way that I eliminate all contact with other human beings except for my wife. So I would only have to tell the incredibly stupid story of my messed up face to her. As I was wiping the blood clots from my forehead I thought about this. I also wondered if such moronic stupidity ever happens to George Lucas.

George Lucas didn't start the whole Star Wars thing until he was in his early thirties. When I was in my twenties I figured that everything was cool because I hadn't gotten to the age that George was when he started being successful. But now that I'm that old and nothing has happened I realize the extent of my fucked up life. Sometimes I'm a little pissed at how I won't ever be anywhere near successful as George Lucas, but then I realize I would probably have sucked if I tried. When I was little I wanted to be Mark Hamil anyways. I figured I'd do one great thing that only makes me rich and famous for a little while then I'd fade into obscurity. From my pre-teens to my early twenties he was my loser hero. Unfortunately thanks to voiceover work, Mark Hamil's career is booming again and I need to idolize someone less successful to feel better about my pointless existence. As I get older I find I am running out of Star Wars based burnt out slacker role models. At this point I'll settle for achieving the life equivalent of being some uncredited guy who played an ewok.

I can live with my current state of colossal failure because I never shot for any career that would have ever gotten me anywher near George Lucas stature. I never tried to be any kind of film student, successful or otherwise. What would be most depressing to me is actually going after a dream and not amounting to anything after years and years of trying. All my life I've been bombarded by cheesy songs and feel good Disney bullshit that preaches I could be anything I wanted to be if I tried hard enough. Yeah, well I know what I'm capable of and success ain't it. I would rather be fully aware of my limitations and live under no delusions than be mister aspiring film student who suicided at 32, destitute and alone after trying to make movies about flying space bears.

In the end my life was just as big a waste of time as a failed filmmaker who made terribly unsuccesful movies or worse, never even got a movie made at all. But the difference is that I expended less energy being a failure so that's got to count for something. I can sleep comfortably knowing that I don't let my constant state of dissapointment in myself and near suicidal depression affect my happiness. Or maybe not comfortably considering I have a huge garbage can lid shaped welt on my head and I'm so sick my eyeballs feel like popping out of their sockets.

Transformer ad from 20 years ago of the week-Omega Supreme and friends

I'm on a real high from the trip I took to Motive Parts & Supply the other day, so this week's old toy robot ad would be from there. This one came out either the week of November 24, 1985 or December 1st, 1985. It was one of those two. I'll have to look it up.

You can see Omega Supreme here alongside Trailbreaker, Sunstreaker, Hound, Mirage, and Skywarp. At the time Omega Supreme was the largest Transformer ever. I remember visiting a Winn's store and seeing Omega Supreme for the first time. I didn't have any toys with the 1985 catalogs yet and he was a total shock to me.

The box was huge. I remember holding it in my arms when I was 11 and thinking how enormous he must be. The box's size was deceptive, though. It was only that big because he's made of something like 24 seperate pieces, the majority of which are big bulky armor. I knew we could never afford a $40 Transformer so I wrote off the possibility of having one because I wasn't about to get a job at 11 years old and work for it. Even then I was perfectly happy going without if it meant I could maintain my standard of laziness.

I remember Sunstreaker being my first Autobot car and Mirage was my sister's first. We got them on the same trip to Sears. My mom bought my sister and I all three Decepticon jets for Christmas of '84 or '85. So Skywarp was mine and my sister got Starscream. My sister also got Hound.

I remember seeing an empty Hound box as late as 1986 at one Winn's store in El Paso. It was so weird to see the empty box on the shelves. I wanted to ask if I could buy it but I was sure they wouldn't let me. I figured they would think I was the guy who stole the toy in the first place and I was trying to get the packaging, too.

I never had Trailbreaker, but I think my cousin Paul did. Eventually in the mid nineties I did complete my collection of '84-'85 Transformers with the help of eBay. I do remember picking up a Trailbreaker and a prerub Bluestreak in 2003 at a garage sale in Tucson, Arizona for $1 each. Both of them were in great shape but they were missing all accessories and stickers. It was still pretty sweet!