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interests / alt.toys.transformers / Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?

SubjectAuthor
* (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?Travoltron
+* Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?Zobovor
|+- Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?Travoltron
|`- Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?Evil King Macrocranios
+* Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?Evil King Macrocranios
|`* Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?Codigo Postal
| `- Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?Irrellius Spamticon
+* Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?Irrellius Spamticon
|`* Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?Zobovor
| `* Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?Irrellius Spamticon
|  `- Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?Zobovor
+- Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?Codigo Postal
`* Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?Travoltron
 `* Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?Zobovor
  `* Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?Travoltron
   `- Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?Zobovor

1
(OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?

<tcjthh$1r9t$1@gioia.aioe.org>

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From: travolt...@defender.uni (Travoltron)
Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers
Subject: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2022 13:12:16 -0700
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 by: Travoltron - Fri, 5 Aug 2022 20:12 UTC

I was watching this YouTube video about Zoids and this question came to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfRzMYluBhQ

I had at least one of those very early wind-up ZOIDS as a kid. I don't
really remember much else about it. There was no media push behind it
like cartoons or comics that would have hooked me. I remember being
impressed by the large-scale toys, but I also recall them being
expensive, so it would have been impossible for me to collect all of
them, and completionism was important to me then.

VOLTRON was also too expensive for me and I was kind of confused by it
all-- the three different Bandai Voltrons and then later those
American-made toys of lesser quality. I was able to get a great deal on
the Bandai Lion and Vehicle Voltrons in the 90s, although it sucks that
the weapons were removed on the American release. Which brings me to...

GODAIKIN - Wow, American versions of Bandai's Chogokin line! I only
rarely saw these guys at actual toy stores like TRU and never at
standard retailers. Thus, they were VERY expensive. Also, the media
behind these characters were only in Japan.

Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?

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Subject: Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?
From: zmf...@aol.com (Zobovor)
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 by: Zobovor - Sat, 6 Aug 2022 01:41 UTC

On Friday, August 5, 2022 at 2:11:32 PM UTC-6, Travoltron wrote:

> VOLTRON was also too expensive for me and I was kind of confused by it
> all-- the three different Bandai Voltrons and then later those
> American-made toys of lesser quality. I was able to get a great deal on
> the Bandai Lion and Vehicle Voltrons in the 90s, although it sucks that
> the weapons were removed on the American release.

I always wanted the Matchbox lions. I remember a specific shopping trip to Kmart during which I tried to convince my mom to get me one of the sets (blue/red lion, probably) but we were shopping for my sister's birthday so she didn't want to buy anything for me that day. I did eventually end up getting the Panosh Place version, which could hold action figures, but it was of markedly lower quality (the lions were serious chonkers, and joints on the individual lion legs weren't articulated). I'm not sure what actually happened to that toy, now that I think about it.

Years later I got the Trendmasters reissue in 1998 or so, but I was dissatisfied with the way it was missing features and parts and ended up returning it to Toys "R" Us. In retrospect I should have just kept it and eaten the thirty dollars, but back then, that was a lot of money. Let it never be said I have always made the best choices.

I imagine I will probably get a set of Matchbox lions some day, but holy crap, are they ever expensive now.

I'd say Masters of the Universe was the toy line I should have gotten into as a kid, but never did. All my friends had large collections of action figures and vehicles and playsets. I was always more into the sci-fi toys, so I grew up on Star Wars and transitioned eventually to GoBots and Transformers. I loved the He-Man cartoon (I watched it religiously after school every day along with Inspector Gadget), so I don't know why that never translated to collecting the toys for me. I didn't get my first He-Man toys until probably early 1984, and I only ended up owning like four action figures, but of course by the time Transformers came along, I was devoting almost all my allowance and gift-giving occasions towards collecting them. I remember thinking how utterly lame a lot of the last-gasp He-Man toys were, and any of the bad guys who were repurposed as She-Ra villains were utterly unappealing to me, since that was marketed as a girls' cartoon and toy line. And then of course there was that godawful live-action movie. Entire endcaps of nothing but Gwildor. What a joke.

Today, though, I'm collecting MOTU Origins and it's giving me a chance to experience the characters and the toys as I might have done so in 1983, had I played my cards a bit differently. And I can even find things to enjoy about late-run characters like Leech (who has an alternate face, so you're not stuck with the suction cup mouth if you don't like it) or Snout Spout. I hope the toy line continues for a while.

Zob (it's weird how excited I get about new versions of toys I only have vague childhood memories of, like Roton or Stridor)

Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?

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From: travolt...@defender.uni (Travoltron)
Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers
Subject: Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?
Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2022 10:41:13 -0700
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 by: Travoltron - Sat, 6 Aug 2022 17:41 UTC

On 8/5/2022 6:41 PM, Zobovor wrote:
> Years later I got the Trendmasters reissue in 1998 or so, but I was dissatisfied with the way it was missing features and parts and ended up returning it to Toys "R" Us.

I bought that one because it actually came with weapons that I could
give to my original. They were gold instead of silver, but I've been
leaving them in the sunny window for many summers and they've been
bleached mostly silver now.

What was it missing? I just recall it had an inferior paint job. I think
Matchbox also removed/disabled features on the originals.

Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?

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Subject: Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?
From: evil.kin...@gmail.com (Evil King Macrocranios)
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 by: Evil King Macrocrani - Tue, 9 Aug 2022 07:14 UTC

On Friday, August 5, 2022 at 1:11:32 PM UTC-7, Travoltron wrote:
> I had at least one of those very early wind-up ZOIDS as a kid. I don't
> really remember much else about it.

I had the first three that came out in like '82. I wanted the Giant Zrk so bad but never got it. I was happy with what I had and some of my later Transformers were very Zoid-like anyways. My aunt got me Sky Lynx for Christmas so I never felt like I was missing out on anything Robo Strux had to offer.. Sky Lynx was basically a Zoid plus it turned into a space shuttle. Trypticon was also another pseudo Zoid in Transformer packaging. I guess the compromise is you don't put them together like models but TFs still had the wow factor of robotic dinosaurs plus that added dimension of alternate modes. I never felt like I was missing out by not being into Zoids heavily because there were enough decent robotic animal monster parallels in TFs both motorized and not.

> There was no media push behind it
> like cartoons or comics that would have hooked me.

Even with a media push some lines still missed the mark for capturing my interest. Starriors was written at a sophistication level way over my ten year old head at the time, plus it only went four issues. I did love some of the ideas there and Runabout would have been my favorite and maybe the vulture guy, but the packages were too comic booky in their illustration style. Their packaging presentation looked half finished with a lot of dead empty space.

> expensive, so it would have been impossible for me to collect all of
> them, and completionism was important to me then.

We were poor so we didn't have much but my mom did try to focus on getting a decent sampling of whatever line was her focus at the time. So a lot of stuff I missed out on because mom was laser focused. I kind of feel like if you had at least one figure from a toyline you weren't really passing on it because even a small sample was representative enough to give a good feel for what any given line was about. Since I was at the mercy of my mom's buying habits I really had no control over what I missed out on, but I notice that even as an adult with resources enough to get into anything, there are still some pretty cool lines I avoid.

M.A.S.K. was one I never ever cared about. You know how you could mount Prowl's rocket launchers to his small rear side windows in car mode? Pop a Zoid pilot in there and it was M.A.S.K. enough for me. Zoid pilots turned almost the entire '84-'85 TF line into M.A.S.K. for me. Plus I didn't really care about watching an entire cast of human characters do human stuff with the combat featuring normal looking cars only peppered in. What a snoozefest that cartoon was. Oh and that koala episode was the worst. T-Bob is the only M.A.S.K. toy I have kept.

Wheeled Warriors was super cool but there wasn't enough synergy between the show and toyline. I did like the cartoon because it was Star Wars with monster trucks. Good on 'em for using so much chrome and making everything modular. I love the toys now. But again back in the day Sky Lynx did everything they were trying to do. Stack and Attack! Even the Duocons took that concept a step further. I remember seeing the line on clearance at Pic 'n Save and not even being remotely interested at the time.
> GODAIKIN - Wow, American versions of Bandai's Chogokin line!

Yeah that was not a line for poor kids. I do remember the Godaikin GoLion and a few others at the Sears toy section but the cost was just astronomical..

Same for Robotix. The cost of that line was way too high to even remotely think about collecting it. And again, little to no synergy with the show. But wow those packages were some of the best boxart illustrations ever.

A later toyline I never got into was The Bots Master from around the time of G2. I remember the cartoon for it airing right after the G2 cartoon. I wanted the Jungle Fiver combiner so bad but in person the toys were super Playskool looking. In retrospect I'm glad I didn't get into it. ExoSquad was a way better investment of my time and money at the time.

Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?

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Subject: Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?
From: Ob1ken...@att.net (Irrellius Spamticon)
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 by: Irrellius Spamticon - Wed, 10 Aug 2022 03:20 UTC

On Friday, August 5, 2022 at 3:11:32 PM UTC-5, Travoltron wrote:
> I was watching this YouTube video about Zoids and this question came to me.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfRzMYluBhQ
>
> I had at least one of those very early wind-up ZOIDS as a kid. I don't
> really remember much else about it. There was no media push behind it
> like cartoons or comics that would have hooked me. I remember being
> impressed by the large-scale toys, but I also recall them being
> expensive, so it would have been impossible for me to collect all of
> them, and completionism was important to me then.
>
> VOLTRON was also too expensive for me and I was kind of confused by it
> all-- the three different Bandai Voltrons and then later those
> American-made toys of lesser quality. I was able to get a great deal on
> the Bandai Lion and Vehicle Voltrons in the 90s, although it sucks that
> the weapons were removed on the American release. Which brings me to...
>
> GODAIKIN - Wow, American versions of Bandai's Chogokin line! I only
> rarely saw these guys at actual toy stores like TRU and never at
> standard retailers. Thus, they were VERY expensive. Also, the media
> behind these characters were only in Japan.

I can' t think of much the toylines I missed I did so because they didn't interest me.

I passed on Power Rangers, they had some semi cool zords, but the toyline was 80% boring rangers, 15% villains and 5% zords.
I passed on Thundercats because I had a ton of MOTU and they didn't seem as cool
Could never get into Wrestling.
I wish I had some Pirates of Dark Water, cause those sell for a ton now.
Jace and the wheeled warriors was terrible both the show and the toys and I'm glad I had no idea what they were.
Toxic Crusaders and COPS didn't interest me.
I had a lot of MOTU, I had a lot of Ghostbusters, and a lot of Turtles. I had a bunch of Gobots,
Got a few Sky Commanders, some GI Joe, smaller Dino Riders dinos, Crash Test Dummies, I kinda wanted more than the few Starcom vehicles I had,
Got a few Inhumans and a few Visionaries, a giant carrier for Hot Wheels, and a smaller carrier for Micro machines. My grandma got me some Cabbage patch Dolls, Barbie, My Little Pony, Care Bears, and Smurfs.
I only got 2 or 3 Exo Squad, and I just couldn't get in to it.
I still have a ton of Zoids and Gundams, even though I'm so bored with Zoids now, the recent shows have been terrible.
I didn't get a whole Voltron until the TRU reissue, but it's great and I still have it. Also got the "stealth Voltron"
I missed most of Star Wars, getting the 90s Kenner figures that sucked and going with more until the Clone Wars show when there was just too much to collect.
I only had 7 G1 transformers if we count Defensor as 5, most of the rest I got during or after G2, and I probably have 2500+ now.

I really wish I hadn't collected trading cards. I have so much worthless YuGiOh and Magic now.

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Subject: Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?
From: zmf...@aol.com (Zobovor)
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 by: Zobovor - Fri, 12 Aug 2022 17:32 UTC

On Tuesday, August 9, 2022 at 9:20:52 PM UTC-6, Ob1k...@att.net wrote:

<snip>

This is a really interesting topic, and I'm enjoying it. Irrellius brought up a lot of toy lines I'd forgotten about.

I also had the three original Zoids models as a youngster, and later I got Giant ZRK (but I think his neck broke). For years I kept him in the box, but I abandoned him when I moved out of my dad's house. I have no idea what happened to him, but I ended up with one of his rubbery connector caps and I stuck it in the screw hole in Fortress Maximus' large rifle for years and years. It fit perfectly.

I have spoken here at length in the past about how I used to have many Tonka GoBots, but I was brainwashed by the Hasbro advertising campaigns and deemed all non-Transformers robots as patently inferior. (Google "GoBot Tennis" for relevant horror stories.) I've rebuilt most of the old collection through eBay since that time. There are still a handful I'd like to own.

I liked the C.O.P.S. cartoon and watched it regularly, but I didn't collect the toys. My mom had strong opinions about toy guns and had raised me that way, so anything related to cap guns felt like they were off-limits to me..

I had friends who had a lot of Real Ghostbusters toys but I thought they were super silly. Football ghosts and grandma ghosts and toilet ghosts. So dorky. I wish there had been more synergy between the cartoon show and the toy line. Today I have reissues of the four Ghostbusters and Slimer and the ECTO-1, which is all I would have been interested in as a kid. (I also have originals of the four Ghostbusters, because I spent too much for them on eBay about a month before they announced the reissues! Sigh.)

> My grandma got me some Cabbage patch Dolls, Barbie, My Little Pony, Care Bears, and Smurfs.

Was your grandmother unclear as to whether you were a little boy or a little girl?

> I missed most of Star Wars, getting the 90s Kenner figures that sucked

Them's fightin' words, pardner. I feel like I should challenge you to a shootout or something now.

> I only had 7 G1 transformers if we count Defensor as 5, most of the rest I got during or after G2, and I probably have 2500+ now.

Wait, wait, wait, hold up. Two thousand five hundred? Are we talking G1 toys specifically, or just Transformers as a whole? Because there were nowhere near 2500 toys released during G1, so you must have many, many, many duplicates. Why so many?

Zob (has two G1 Runabouts but no Runamuck and I don't know how this happened)

Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?

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Subject: Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?
From: Ob1ken...@att.net (Irrellius Spamticon)
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 by: Irrellius Spamticon - Sat, 13 Aug 2022 00:25 UTC

On Friday, August 12, 2022 at 12:32:22 PM UTC-5, Zobovor wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 9, 2022 at 9:20:52 PM UTC-6, Ob1k...@att.net wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> This is a really interesting topic, and I'm enjoying it. Irrellius brought up a lot of toy lines I'd forgotten about.
>
> I also had the three original Zoids models as a youngster, and later I got Giant ZRK (but I think his neck broke). For years I kept him in the box, but I abandoned him when I moved out of my dad's house. I have no idea what happened to him, but I ended up with one of his rubbery connector caps and I stuck it in the screw hole in Fortress Maximus' large rifle for years and years. It fit perfectly.
>
> I have spoken here at length in the past about how I used to have many Tonka GoBots, but I was brainwashed by the Hasbro advertising campaigns and deemed all non-Transformers robots as patently inferior. (Google "GoBot Tennis" for relevant horror stories.) I've rebuilt most of the old collection through eBay since that time. There are still a handful I'd like to own.
>
> I liked the C.O.P.S. cartoon and watched it regularly, but I didn't collect the toys. My mom had strong opinions about toy guns and had raised me that way, so anything related to cap guns felt like they were off-limits to me.
>
> I had friends who had a lot of Real Ghostbusters toys but I thought they were super silly. Football ghosts and grandma ghosts and toilet ghosts. So dorky. I wish there had been more synergy between the cartoon show and the toy line. Today I have reissues of the four Ghostbusters and Slimer and the ECTO-1, which is all I would have been interested in as a kid. (I also have originals of the four Ghostbusters, because I spent too much for them on eBay about a month before they announced the reissues! Sigh.)
> > My grandma got me some Cabbage patch Dolls, Barbie, My Little Pony, Care Bears, and Smurfs.
> Was your grandmother unclear as to whether you were a little boy or a little girl?

She wanted a granddaughter so she pretended, either that or the senility hit 30 years early and she faked it

> > I missed most of Star Wars, getting the 90s Kenner figures that sucked
> Them's fightin' words, pardner. I feel like I should challenge you to a shootout or something now.

I mean the POTF mega-pecs look-like-wrestlers before they started getting proportions right around Phantom Menace.

> > I only had 7 G1 transformers if we count Defensor as 5, most of the rest I got during or after G2, and I probably have 2500+ now.
> Wait, wait, wait, hold up. Two thousand five hundred? Are we talking G1 toys specifically, or just Transformers as a whole? Because there were nowhere near 2500 toys released during G1, so you must have many, many, many duplicates. Why so many?
>
>
> Zob (has two G1 Runabouts but no Runamuck and I don't know how this happened)
2500Transformer toys as a whole, I have a lot of Generations and movies as well as Alternators, Masterpiece, Micromasters, Minicons,

We're not counting those various transforming turtles. Those aren't Transformers. My parents wold not get those for me.

Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?

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Subject: Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?
From: zmf...@aol.com (Zobovor)
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 by: Zobovor - Sat, 13 Aug 2022 19:36 UTC

On Friday, August 12, 2022 at 6:25:03 PM UTC-6, Ob1k...@att.net wrote:

> I mean the POTF mega-pecs look-like-wrestlers before they started getting proportions right around Phantom Menace.

I don't hate the sculpts the way so many people hate the sculpts. The only thing we had to compare them with was the 1970's Kenner versions, and every POTF2 release was superior to those. I mean, they made Luke Skywalker look buff and muscular even in the first theatrical movie poster. When they finally got his action figure "right," probably during the CommTech days, he was this scrawny, unimpressive man-boy.

This is an unpopular opinion, but the strong focus on screen accuracy in Star Wars also coincided with the addition of a lot of unneccessary articulation. It's so hard to incorporate working elbow joints and wrist swivels and ankle tilts into a 3.75" scale sculpt. Every new moving part they added just meant there was something else that could break off or fall off or be misassembled at the factory. I never had quality control issues with Star Wars until they started trying to cram in 20+ points of articulation. I was fine with five. Just make sure they can sit in a vehicle and they can hold their weapons, and I'm pretty happy. Maybe add knees if it's C-3PO in his Ewok throne or something like that.

Of course, the 1990's Star Wars revival also came at a time when I could finally collect all the characters I never got as a kid. I was pretty forgiving of their flaws. The only one I really disliked were R5-D4 because they incorporated that ridiclous rocket launcher into his design.

> We're not counting those various transforming turtles. Those aren't Transformers. My parents wold not get those for me.

They ran the gamut from simple (swap the head, swap the hands) to incredibly complex and clever (Splinter turns inside-out to become the Turtle Van, despite not knowing how to drive). As a fan of both brands, I kind of loved them. None of the tired tricks Hasbro had been using for years—all-new innovation and design. Honestly quite underrated.

Zob (Road Ready Donatello is honestly a work of pure genius)

Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?

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Subject: Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?
From: codigopo...@gmail.com (Codigo Postal)
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 by: Codigo Postal - Sun, 14 Aug 2022 02:19 UTC

On Friday, August 5, 2022 at 4:11:32 PM UTC-4, Travoltron wrote:
> I was watching this YouTube video about Zoids and this question came to me.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfRzMYluBhQ
>
> I had at least one of those very early wind-up ZOIDS as a kid. I don't
> really remember much else about it. There was no media push behind it
> like cartoons or comics that would have hooked me. I remember being
> impressed by the large-scale toys, but I also recall them being
> expensive, so it would have been impossible for me to collect all of
> them, and completionism was important to me then.
>
> VOLTRON was also too expensive for me and I was kind of confused by it
> all-- the three different Bandai Voltrons and then later those
> American-made toys of lesser quality. I was able to get a great deal on
> the Bandai Lion and Vehicle Voltrons in the 90s, although it sucks that
> the weapons were removed on the American release. Which brings me to...
>
> GODAIKIN - Wow, American versions of Bandai's Chogokin line! I only
> rarely saw these guys at actual toy stores like TRU and never at
> standard retailers. Thus, they were VERY expensive. Also, the media
> behind these characters were only in Japan.

For me, the answer is...Transformers.

Loved the mythos, never had that much in the way of toys, mostly because I came in at the tail end, when the TV was filled with Sci-Fi Channel reruns and G2 reduxes, but the shelves had little in the way of the signature product. Later, life got in the way.

Other than a few scattered pieces here and there, I mostly confined my appreciation of the product to the shows, the comics, and the fanfiction. And the message boards, of course.

Come the pandemic, like many people, I was stuck at home alone, and finally had a chance to catch up on these past few decades of TFs, and it's been glorious. I got to experience Armada, Machine Wars, Prime Wars, WfC, and 3P. It's been a blast, but I can't help but regret those wasted years, when an Armada Megatron was cheaper than a current deluxe.

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Subject: Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?
From: codigopo...@gmail.com (Codigo Postal)
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 by: Codigo Postal - Sun, 14 Aug 2022 02:24 UTC

On Tuesday, August 9, 2022 at 3:14:05 AM UTC-4, evil.king.m...@gmail.com wrote:

>
> A later toyline I never got into was The Bots Master from around the time of G2. I remember the cartoon for it airing right after the G2 cartoon. I wanted the Jungle Fiver combiner so bad but in person the toys were super Playskool looking. In retrospect I'm glad I didn't get into it. ExoSquad was a way better investment of my time and money at the time.

I used to love Bots Master the show. The fact it had tie-in toys never really impressed itself on my consciousness. I'm surprised it's been forgotten - seems like the type of show that would be prime for a reboot.

What kind of parents name their kids Ziv and Blitzy?

They were Zulander before Zoolander.
Huge megacorporations controlling our electronic and internet infrastructure for nefarious purposes? That could never happen here.

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Subject: Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?
From: Ob1ken...@att.net (Irrellius Spamticon)
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 by: Irrellius Spamticon - Sun, 14 Aug 2022 03:44 UTC

On Saturday, August 13, 2022 at 9:24:51 PM UTC-5, Codigo Postal wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 9, 2022 at 3:14:05 AM UTC-4, evil.king.m...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> >
> > A later toyline I never got into was The Bots Master from around the time of G2. I remember the cartoon for it airing right after the G2 cartoon. I wanted the Jungle Fiver combiner so bad but in person the toys were super Playskool looking. In retrospect I'm glad I didn't get into it. ExoSquad was a way better investment of my time and money at the time.
> I used to love Bots Master the show. The fact it had tie-in toys never really impressed itself on my consciousness. I'm surprised it's been forgotten - seems like the type of show that would be prime for a reboot.
>
> What kind of parents name their kids Ziv and Blitzy?
>
> They were Zulander before Zoolander.
>
> Huge megacorporations controlling our electronic and internet infrastructure for nefarious purposes? That could never happen here.

I'd completely forgotten about the toys even though we have Bats sitting at the shop for a year now.

I still don't think I ever found the show.

I do remember Reboot and kinda wish that was more toyetic. They tried to reboot Reboot a few years ago with live action kids and it was dumb.

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Subject: Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?
From: evil.kin...@gmail.com (Evil King Macrocranios)
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 by: Evil King Macrocrani - Mon, 5 Sep 2022 04:13 UTC

On Friday, August 5, 2022 at 6:41:10 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:

> I always wanted the Matchbox lions. I remember a specific shopping trip to Kmart during which I tried to convince my mom to get me one of the sets (blue/red lion, probably) but we were shopping for my sister's birthday so she didn't want to buy anything for me that day. I did eventually end up getting the Panosh Place version, which could hold action figures, but it was of markedly lower quality (the lions were serious chonkers, and joints on the individual lion legs weren't articulated). I'm not sure what actually happened to that toy, now that I think about it.

I'd take the Panosh lions over the Matchbox ones simply because of the synergy with the cartoon. Having action figures of the pilots who could fit in the lions? That's awesome and what every fan wanted. What a huge accomplishment it was for WEP to recognize that the toyline needed to work with the cartoon to put out product that was inspired by the show as much as the show was inspired by the original product. Mattel understood this and made figures of Orko and Adam from the Filmation cartoon. They were going to do figures of the on screen Wheeled Warriors cast, too, before that line got cancelled. Hasbro just didn't get this show/toyline synergy concept figured out during G1 until maybe the very end. They had time to do it. Why they never did traditional or even micro figures of the show and comic humans during G1 is beyond me.

It's weird because Star Wars proved that mining the ideas that came from the fiction to make action figures was the way to go. Sure, if you have Diaclone/Microman then use the existing toys to inform and inspire the initial media, but once the creatives start dreaming up new characters then Hasbro should have run with that. Why do I still not have a Doctor Arkeville action figure somewhere in the 3 inch range after 40 years?

Voltron was being run exactly as a popular cartoon based toy line should have been. When the lions proved popular, they made more episodes with the lions even though the original anime had ended. They introduced pilot figures and compatible lions in along with a Castle playset, none of which were part of the original Japanese line. They were even going to expand on ideas from the cartoon and do transforming robeast coffin monsters. But I think the lead paint recall ruined the property. I tell you, though, had WEP continued to adapt anime toylines into the late 80s and expanded to sentai shows like Power Rangers, Transformers may have stayed dead after G1. Power Rangers so completely rebooted and redefined toy robots that Transformers had to scurry away and reinvent itself as rats and lizards because it couldn't compete with what toy robots had become. WEP working with Bandai could have positioned themselves as a synergistic cartoon/toy powerhouse expanding the North American exposure of multiple Japanese toy robot lines. Oh well.

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From: travolt...@defender.uni (Travoltron)
Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers
Subject: Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2022 22:06:17 -0800
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 by: Travoltron - Thu, 17 Nov 2022 06:06 UTC

I can't believe I forgot this.

the TOMY Robots.
http://www.theoldrobots.com/tomybot.html

They were "real" robots. They were VERY cool. They were also VERY
expensive. The centerpiece of the line was the Omnibot 2000. It was $600
in 1980s money.
My mom got Hootbot on clearance. Later found a couple of the little ones
at Goodwill, although some of them were missing parts or didn't work right.
I was in Seattle a few years ago and I saw a bunch of old Tomy robots in
a pile in some pawn shop. I wanted to get them, but I was riding the bus
that day and it would have been impossible to get them all home that
way. And also, I don't know if they even worked. They looked a little rough.

Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?

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Subject: Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?
From: zmf...@aol.com (Zobovor)
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 by: Zobovor - Fri, 18 Nov 2022 22:23 UTC

On Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 11:06:53 PM UTC-7, Travoltron wrote:
> They were "real" robots. They were VERY cool. They were also VERY
> expensive. The centerpiece of the line was the Omnibot 2000. It was $600
> in 1980s money.

I had a few of those. Dingbot and Hootbot and Flipbot, which were arguably novelty toys. I also had Verbot, which you could actually program in limited ways. It had eight buttons, each one corresponding to a specific action (stop, go, speak, etc.) and you could teach it a short voice command so that it would (unreliably) do the thing when you spoke into the wireless microphone. It honestly didn't work very well. He made a little rhythmic clicking sound that was like a bird call.

I also got Omnibot for the Christmas of 1985. He was my best buddy for a couple of years. He was arguably just a bunch of different types of toys all mashed into one (he was part R/C car, part tape player, part walkie talkie) but he was a lot of fun. I loved being able to speak into the remote and have my voice come through the robot's speakers, and his eyes would light up in time with my words. I was disappointed that his arms weren't motorized, but I'm sure that would have significantly added to the price. Never owned Omnibot 2000. I'm not clear on what that one did that the regular Omnibot could not.

(I also really wanted HERO-1 as a kid, that programmable kit robot that you could order and build. It looked to be a "real" robot in a way that the Tomy robots were not.)

I left Omnibot behind when I moved out of my dad's house, but I still have his remote control and serving tray around here somewhere. I probably need to find one on eBay. I have no idea where I would put him.

Zob (Omnibot did not, sadly, transform into a car with wings and pop-out guns)

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From: travolt...@defender.uni (Travoltron)
Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers
Subject: Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2022 16:21:33 -0800
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 by: Travoltron - Sat, 19 Nov 2022 00:21 UTC

The other one I coveted was the real Maxx Steele robot.
http://www.theoldrobots.com/maxx.html
I never really understood if the Robo Force toy line was created to sell
the big robot or vice-versa.
http://www.theoldrobots.com/maxxacc.html

The fantasy of having a robot buddy like the Star Wars droids or the
Transformers was super appealing to a kid. As an adult, the limitations
of these gizmos are kind of obvious. And as a person living in the 21st
century, I am really sick to death of tech. I have friends that work in
tech and can't talk about anything else anymore. Computers and gadgets
are omnipresent and have been completely demystified.

It would be fun to test drive these expensive robots someday, but I
don't really have the desire to own them anymore.

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Subject: Re: (OT) Cool toyline you passed on, and why?
From: zmf...@aol.com (Zobovor)
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 by: Zobovor - Sat, 19 Nov 2022 00:56 UTC

On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 5:21:56 PM UTC-7, Travoltron wrote:

> I never really understood if the Robo Force toy line was created to sell
> the big robot or vice-versa.

I tend to think the big robot was just superficially designed to look like Maxx Steele to capitalize off whatever popularity Robo Force had. I mean, except for the robot head design, the big one doesn't really strongly resemble the Maxx Steele character that strongly. There are a lot of design differences. (If the little robot had been based on the big one, I think there would have been a stronger resemblance.)

Back in the 1980's they were always promising that the robot revolution was right around the corner, and that by the 21st century, we'd have household robots in every home doing our chores for us. And now we have Roomba that struggles to make it from room to room, and Alexa who says "sorry, I don't understand" more often than not. The reality of The Future™ is somewhat lackluster.

Zob (I mean, I wasn't expecting a spaceship that can fold up into a briefcase or anything, but c'mon)

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