Had another glorious FedEx misadventure today. I got a notification they had delivered the package to my porch, but there was nothing outside. On a lark, I checked the two other condo buildings (DoorDash has made this mistake on occasion) and, yeah, they totally delivered to the right unit number, just the completely wrong building. Were I a more petty individual, I might call up FedEx and explain they never delivered my package to me (which is technically true!) and demand they reimburse me. But, I'm not so bored that I need to introduce more drama into my own life.

So, here's a fun little anecdote for you. I was in high school, lamenting the death of the G1 toy line but accepting that all good things must eventually come to an end. I kept Transformers alive in my own way, through fan art (I have pages full of drawings for Action Master versions of Sunstreaker, Hound, Perceptor, etc.) and drowning my sorrows in Ninja Turtles. Then, one day when watching the Sci-Fi Channel I saw a commercial for something called Transformers: Generation 2. I was, of course, over the moon. Transformers was back, baby! I didn't even care that they had changed the characters' colors and weapons a bit.

So my very first G2 toy, purchased in early 1993, was Ramjet. I'd acquired the G1 version second-hand some years previously, but it was missing parts.. The G2 edition was the first time I'd owned the toy new and complete, and also my first brand-new Decepticon seeker since Starscream in 1985. It was, honestly, an awesome experience. I couldn't even wait to take him home.... I opened him up in Payless or someplace while my mom was trying on shoes. Moreover, I *loved* his color scheme. The toy was *better* than G1 Ramjet. To this day, he remains one of my favorite G2 toys, and I love it when they pay homage to G2 in general. This is a great tribute to the 1993 release.

Ramjet also enjoyed the spotlight during the G2 cartoon as the sole Decepticon represented in the opening title sequence, and the one who managed to take on the great Optimus Prime himself. That's no small feat! ("Going ballistic to destroy the Autobots and conquer mankind, the evil Decepticons are more than meets the eye!")

Previously, there was a Transformers Collectors Club Exclusive version released in 2011, a redeco of the Classics Ramjet toy in G2 colors. That version included lots of paint applications intended to replicate the look of the factory- and consumer-applied stickers, and is one of the few BotCon toys I've actually tracked down on the secondary market because I absolutely had to have it. However, the toy has been made obsolete due to the new size class rejiggering (Decepticon jets are Voyager class now, and Deluxe class is simply too small to represent them in a proper neo-G1 collection) so we needed a new one.

So, the new toy (marketed as WFC-GS24; he's just called Ramjet on the box) is a redeco of Earthrise Ramjet, who was only available in a 2-pack with Dirge as an Amazon exclusive. (It's crazy that Starscream remains the only mass-marketed Earthrise jet, out of the seven or eight they've done. I think all the complaining we did during Combiner Wars about redeco toys is what led to this. It's probably the reason why they try to shunt the redeco characters into exclusive retail channels now instead of trying to sell the same toy in different colors to the unwashed Walmart crowd over and over.)

He's a beautiful shade of purple, accented with black and teal. The G2 toy had his original single-piece bombs replaced with working launchers, so this is the idea behind the two-tone weapons, intended to resemble the purple launchers and black missiles. There is some silver deco on his knees and the tops of his feet, probably meant to evoke the stickers on the G2 toy, but it's not overbearing like it was on the BotCon version. This feels more like a hypothetical G2 cartoon version of Ramjet, the character, rather than a reconstruction of G2 Ramjet the Hasbro toy.

They did include the "RAMJET" tampograph on either side of the jet nose, just below the cockpit on either side, in a cheeky tribute to the way all the early G2 toys had their names emblazoned upon them somewhere. Honestly, it was just Hasbro's way of drumming up the brand recognition a bit (the early toys also had "AUTOBOT" or "DECEPTICON" tampo-printed somewhere on their bodies). They totally nailed the stylish serif font, too, so points for that.

I actually wouldn't have complained if they'd included a big backpack to stick on him, as an homage to the original sound and light pack. Even if it didn't contain electronics and didn't do anything, I would have been fine with that. There's even a ready-made hole to plug it into. But, alas, he doesn't come with one.

This is our third iteration of this specific toy, since the end of 2020 gave us the super-obscure concept character in the form of G2 Sandstorm. But this, for me, is the more obvious reuse of the mold, and I'm glad they finally produced one.

There are probably G1 purists who see this toy as a pointless cash grab, but I embrace G2 and love it more than anybody has the right to, so a redeco toy like this is totally right up my alley. I kind of hope we get a G2 Starscream redeco one day to go along with it.

Zob (I'm throwing the box away, because it's brown and ugly and takes up too much space)

Zobovor <zmfts@aol.com> wrote:
> Had another glorious FedEx misadventure today. I got a notification they
> had delivered the package to my porch, but there was nothing outside.

I wonder if I bought this. I got a couple of FedEx texts about packages
being picked up from somewhere to be delivered to me, but I can only
remember what one of them is.

I could check, but I like the idea of a surprise package of something.

On Tuesday, August 24, 2021 at 8:43:57 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
> Had another glorious FedEx misadventure today. I got a notification they had delivered the package to my porch, but there was nothing outside. On a lark, I checked the two other condo buildings (DoorDash has made this mistake on occasion) and, yeah, they totally delivered to the right unit number, just the completely wrong building. Were I a more petty individual, I might call up FedEx and explain they never delivered my package to me (which is technically true!) and demand they reimburse me. But, I'm not so bored that I need to introduce more drama into my own life.
>
> So, here's a fun little anecdote for you. I was in high school, lamenting the death of the G1 toy line but accepting that all good things must eventually come to an end. I kept Transformers alive in my own way, through fan art (I have pages full of drawings for Action Master versions of Sunstreaker, Hound, Perceptor, etc.) and drowning my sorrows in Ninja Turtles. Then, one day when watching the Sci-Fi Channel I saw a commercial for something called Transformers: Generation 2. I was, of course, over the moon. Transformers was back, baby! I didn't even care that they had changed the characters' colors and weapons a bit.
>
> So my very first G2 toy, purchased in early 1993, was Ramjet. I'd acquired the G1 version second-hand some years previously, but it was missing parts. The G2 edition was the first time I'd owned the toy new and complete, and also my first brand-new Decepticon seeker since Starscream in 1985. It was, honestly, an awesome experience. I couldn't even wait to take him home.... I opened him up in Payless or someplace while my mom was trying on shoes. Moreover, I *loved* his color scheme. The toy was *better* than G1 Ramjet. To this day, he remains one of my favorite G2 toys, and I love it when they pay homage to G2 in general. This is a great tribute to the 1993 release.
>
> Ramjet also enjoyed the spotlight during the G2 cartoon as the sole Decepticon represented in the opening title sequence, and the one who managed to take on the great Optimus Prime himself. That's no small feat! ("Going ballistic to destroy the Autobots and conquer mankind, the evil Decepticons are more than meets the eye!")
>
> Previously, there was a Transformers Collectors Club Exclusive version released in 2011, a redeco of the Classics Ramjet toy in G2 colors. That version included lots of paint applications intended to replicate the look of the factory- and consumer-applied stickers, and is one of the few BotCon toys I've actually tracked down on the secondary market because I absolutely had to have it. However, the toy has been made obsolete due to the new size class rejiggering (Decepticon jets are Voyager class now, and Deluxe class is simply too small to represent them in a proper neo-G1 collection) so we needed a new one.
>
> So, the new toy (marketed as WFC-GS24; he's just called Ramjet on the box) is a redeco of Earthrise Ramjet, who was only available in a 2-pack with Dirge as an Amazon exclusive. (It's crazy that Starscream remains the only mass-marketed Earthrise jet, out of the seven or eight they've done. I think all the complaining we did during Combiner Wars about redeco toys is what led to this. It's probably the reason why they try to shunt the redeco characters into exclusive retail channels now instead of trying to sell the same toy in different colors to the unwashed Walmart crowd over and over.)
>
> He's a beautiful shade of purple, accented with black and teal. The G2 toy had his original single-piece bombs replaced with working launchers, so this is the idea behind the two-tone weapons, intended to resemble the purple launchers and black missiles. There is some silver deco on his knees and the tops of his feet, probably meant to evoke the stickers on the G2 toy, but it's not overbearing like it was on the BotCon version. This feels more like a hypothetical G2 cartoon version of Ramjet, the character, rather than a reconstruction of G2 Ramjet the Hasbro toy.
>
> They did include the "RAMJET" tampograph on either side of the jet nose, just below the cockpit on either side, in a cheeky tribute to the way all the early G2 toys had their names emblazoned upon them somewhere. Honestly, it was just Hasbro's way of drumming up the brand recognition a bit (the early toys also had "AUTOBOT" or "DECEPTICON" tampo-printed somewhere on their bodies). They totally nailed the stylish serif font, too, so points for that.
>
> I actually wouldn't have complained if they'd included a big backpack to stick on him, as an homage to the original sound and light pack. Even if it didn't contain electronics and didn't do anything, I would have been fine with that. There's even a ready-made hole to plug it into. But, alas, he doesn't come with one.
>
> This is our third iteration of this specific toy, since the end of 2020 gave us the super-obscure concept character in the form of G2 Sandstorm. But this, for me, is the more obvious reuse of the mold, and I'm glad they finally produced one.
>
> There are probably G1 purists who see this toy as a pointless cash grab, but I embrace G2 and love it more than anybody has the right to, so a redeco toy like this is totally right up my alley. I kind of hope we get a G2 Starscream redeco one day to go along with it.
>
>
> Zob (I'm throwing the box away, because it's brown and ugly and takes up too much space)

I want this solely so he can recreate the opening credits of the G2 series, along with Netflix Prime.

(Who knows when we will get such faithful homages again - when we've moved to our retirement homes?)