It is the year 2009... And Hasbro's Transformers are turning 25 years old. One of the longest running, continuous toylines in the world, and looks to be the longest running (non-stop) action-figure toyline in Australia.
Being in its 25th Anniversary year, the Transformers continues to grow to new heights, celebrating this milestone in toys and promotions, and expanding on the new Movie Universe with a second feature film released to theatres mid-year.
With thousands of toys, hundreds of cartoon episodes and comics, dozens of series, and a handful of movies, the Transformers is a diverse universe that has evolved to be recognised by people in just about every country and every age-group. Additionally, those who were born since the late 70s, characters and concepts like Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron, Autobots, and Decepticons, were a part of growing up. Just about every boy in the last 25 years, in western and Asian countries, had at least one Transformers toy while they were growing up, and instantly recognises the Brand even today.
Transformers is a toyline, a universe, and a fandom, that has never completely disappeared over it's 25 years. Even today, collectors, young and old, from 4 to 40, and possibly beyond, are acquiring Transformers toys, and keenly following the mystical, magical, science-fiction that has drawn in and captivated millions of kids and adults, and will continue to do so for many years to come.
Throughout these 25 years, long-time fans have seen so much evolve and change. Not only with the engineering of the actual toys, but the themes, plot concepts and target demographics of the Brand.
So let's have a brief look back over this massive 25 year history, and see how Transformers has changed before our eyes.
(this version of this article will only focus on the 5 year intervals mentioned in the section description - a more extensive year-by-year history will be posted elsewhere else later)
So how long have you been collecting Transformers for?
If you were interested in them 25 years ago, in 1984, you would have been watching the birth of Transformers, with the toys first being released in America in the middle of the year, with the 'promotional' comics starting May, and cartoon in September. For those of us in Australia, toys were out by Christmas (still unsure of a confirmed actual release yet). The cartoon might not have been released here until 1985, but the comic should have been out here within a couple months of the US release.
The toys in 1984 were all from pre-existing Japanese toys, just grouped together by the American toy company Hasbro, with character names and story concepts generated to help sell the toy product (in comics and cartoons, and bios on the packaging - a unique concept with toys at that time).
Many of these first-year character names became so iconic, they have lived on throughout the 25 year history.
Autobots -
Optimus Prime (leader, truck and trailer)
Autobot Cars -
Jazz, Hound, Ironhide, Ratchet, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Wheeljack, Mirage, Bluestreak, Prowl, Trailbreaker.
Autobot Minivehicles -
Brawn, Bumblebee (yellow or red), Cliffjumper (red or yellow), Huffer, Windcharger, Gears, 'Bumblejumper' (un-named figure).
Decepticons -
Megatron (leader, gun)
Decepticon Communications -
Soundwave with Buzzsaw.
Decepticon Jets -
Starscream, Thundercracker, Skywarp.
Cassettes -
Frenzy, Laserbeak, Rumble, Ravage.
Pre-Christmas saw some of the 1985 product line sneaking into stores, including Jetfire, Constructicons, and Skids.
Apparently, all but Megatron were available in Australia in the first year, with Megatron being limited to certain states that hadn't banned the sale of replicat/toy guns at that time.
Just about everything relating to character details and names were all created by Bob Budiansky, who also wrote many of the early US Marvel Comics.
The basic plot of the first year involved converting robotic alien, warring factions, from the planet Cybertron, crashing to Earth millions of years ago. They wake up in present day, taking on human objects as their alternative modes, and renewing their conflict.
The comic and cartoon took slightly different directions after this original premise, but both were equally popular at the time, and continue to be the benchmark long-time fans measure everything else to.
Takara, Hasbro's partner company in Japan for Transformers, only started releasing 'Transformers' branded toys the following year, after seeing how popular the toyline became in the western markets. The initial lack of interest by Takara was mostly due to these toys already existing in Japan for a number of years before Hasbro came along to obtained licenses to 'resell' them as 'Transformers'.
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If you joined the fandom 20 years ago (1989), this is what you would have been exposed to with Transformers:
It was the second year of Pretenders, and not just ordinary Pretenders, but Mega Pretenders, Ultra Pretenders, Monster Pretenders and Classic Pretenders. 1989 also saw the full introduction (some were released just before the end of 1988) of the Micromasters, Hasbro's attempt at competing with the popular toyline of that time, 'Micro Machines'. As with most toylines Hasbro have tried to compete against in the past, their competative efforts were shortlived, and they just decided to buy the rival company instead. If you can't beat them, acquire them. They did the same with Tonka, who were releasing Gobots at the same time as Transformers.
Takara on the other hand, in Japan, were still expanding on the 'partner' concept from the last couple of years, with many of their Transformers toys being Breastmasters or Brainmasters.
The Comic, both UK and US versions, was still going, but there was no new Western cartoon this year, after the shortlived 'fifth season' in 1988, tried to re-broadcast existing episodes in a rehashed format.
Japan still had a Generation One cartoon in 1989 though, called Victory.
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Joined the fandom 15 years ago?
1994 was probably the middle of the darkest time for Transformers. The Generation 2 'relaunch' in 1993 of Transformers wasn't bring the revival Hasbro were hoping to see, as most toys were either weird redecos of classic toys, or obscenely gimmicky toys that the average kid just didn't seem to get into. The cartoon for Generation 2 was also a let down, as it was just the original series cartoon from 10 years before, with some minor computer generated affects spliced into the episodes.
The Generation 2 comic was better, as it expanded on the existing Generation 1 comic universe, but only made it to 12 issues, ending in October. The UK had an exclusive Generation 2 comic, which wasn't released here, and only lasted 7 issues.
If you were at University at this time, and your Uni was one of the lucky few to already be hooking up to the internet, you wouldn't have found much 'online' outside of the alt.toys.transformers newsgroup. It was only just created in September 1993, from an email mailing list, and aside from some simplistic resource webpages by the end of the year, it was pretty much all there was in 1994 for online Transformers Fans.
Our delay of product release (we were still part of the UK Hasbro division until 1997), meant that our Gen2 toys were up to a year late, and we were still getting many of the European exclusive toys in stores.
The new (gimmicky) toys released here in 1994 included:
Laser Rods - Electro, Volt, Jolt, Sizzle.
Rotorforce - Leadfoot, Manta Ray, Powerdive, Ransack.
Dreadwing/Smokescreen.
The redecoed Generation 1 toys:
Aerialbots (redecos, released individually)
Combaticons (redecos, released individually)
Sparkabots - Sizzle, Blaze, Flamefeather, Sparkstalker. (Euro exclusive)
While Combat Heroes Optimus and Megatron were not released here.
The new toys were actually some of the best engineered Transformers toys ever made up until that time. The Laser Rods and Rotorforce converted neatly into their vehicle froms, and Dreadwing/Smokescreen was just a nicely articulated, hugely fun toy.
The redecos sucked though... :p
The high point of this year, the 10th Anniversary of Transformers, was actually a non-Hasbro, fan-project. A pair of brothers in America, who had been trading at toy shows for a while and submitting articles about Transformers to the Toyfare magazine, wanted to hold a fan convention for Transformers, in the anniversary year. Even with a modest attendance of 125 people, it would become the first of many BotCon conventions, which still continues as an annual tradition to this day, drawing in thousands in recent years.
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For those who became a Transformers fan 10 years ago, 1999 saw...
Beast Machines. After a successful re-energizing of the Transformers Brand with Beast Wars (which was still screening in Australia at this time), Hasbro 'tweaked' the unpopular Transmetal 2 sub-line into equally unpopular Beasts Machines. Toys that were so unrecognisable to the consumer, that Hasbro actually had to start putting on the front of the packaging, what sort of animal it was.
It was also about this time, Hasbro started quoting a standard response to questions and criticisms of any new product - 'to keep the line fresh'. If something didn't turn out well, or they appeared to be turning their back on a winning formula, that was the excuse multiple people at Hasbro quoted over the next few years.
1999 was a year that saw only 24 mainline Transformers toys released in Australia. Yes, the WHOLE year! We had 17 Transmetal 2 toys and 7 Beast Machines toys. America also had 7 Store Exclusvie redecos, but even 31 in a whole year is less than some months in recent years!
Animorphs... The toys fans loved to hate. Hasbro acquired the license to produce action figures for the popular kids' book and TV show series, but to help market their convertion ability (the main characters could morph into animals, thanks to an alien device), Hasbro decided to slap the 'Transformers' logo on the packaging. They were never tied into the existing Transformers universe in any way (officially), but are classed as Transformers Animorphs, like the current era Star Wars and Marvel crossovers. There were only 13 toys released before the line was axed, and some didn't make it to Australia.
In Japan during this year, Takara were going back to what proved successful in Beast Wars - realist animal modes. Beast Wars Neo saw the release of some very nice, but often complex, toys, including a giraffe, horse, mammoth, ammonite, rabbit, penguin, more dinosaurs, and the very popular Jaguar toy (based on Ravage in the original Beast Wars cartoon).
Ozformers (this Australian collector Club) was in its 3rd year, and grown to have about 70 members.
And the sixth BotCon was held this year, featuring a sneak peak of the Beast Machines cartoon. It was the third BotCon to have an Australian attending.
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And of the newer fans, if you became a fan 5 years ago, 2004 would have had the following highlights:
Entire year was Energon, and the Energon Powerlinx Battles. The series started late 2003, and ended early 2005.
The more signifant toys for the year included, Megatron, Arcee, Omega Supreme, and the first 'standard' 5-team Combiners from Hasbro since 1987!
The Energon cartoon was meant to be 52 episodes, but only 51 episodes ended up being dubbed, with no explination on the missing one (episode 33).
Dreamwave still held the comic license they acquired in 2002, but 2004 would be their final year, as they file for bankruptcy. In 2004 though, we saw an Energon comic, Volume 3 of a Generation 1 comic, and volume 3 of War Within.
Universe continued from the year before, releasing more (mere) redecos that were actually priced higher than matching size classes in Energon, which were mostly new toys.
Hasbro were also re-issueing Generation 1 toys in their Commemorative Series line, but restricted supply to Toys R Us, who charged up to 3 times their value to take advantage of their monopoly. In the end, TRU killed off the line, due to lack of sales, thanks to their own over-pricing policy.
Alternators continued throughout 2004, and older collectors were continually amazed at the engineering of this sporadic sub-line. These were truly aimed at the older demographic, and we loved them.
And the big one for Hasbro fans - 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime. A western release of Takara's Masterpiece Convoy, but still just as impressive. This was one toy that symbolised Transformers as both iconic and fun.
After the HUGE success of Armada, Hasbro was flooded with requests for store exclusives, and 2004 saw a big increase in that side of the toyline.
Takara had a huge year in 2004 as well, with Superlink (Energon), World's Smallest Transformers (pushing the boundaries of TFs engineering), their own Reissue series, Binaltech (Alternators with diecast parts), Robotmasters, and heaps of Micron (Minicon) recolours.
It was this year that that Hasbro revealed it had signed up Paramount and Dreamworks, to produce a Live Action Transformers Movie, for 2007.
As for the convention side of things, there wasn't one major Transformers convention this year in America, but two! BotCon was held in Los Angeles, while the Official Convention was held in Chicago. The trio who organised several BotCons, split, and as part of the 10th anniversary of BotCon, and 20th anniversary of Transformers, the Officially licensed convention organiser allowed for the 'unnofficial' BotCon to go ahead. BotCon ended up being the better of the two, and the Official Convention organiser was bankrupt by the end of the year.
And for the Australian fans, Goktimus organised and hosted a fan convention in Sydney to commemorate the 20th anniversary.
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And today? Well... we have the 25th Anniversary line giving us a random sampling of toys and characters throughout the history of Transformers. We also have a second Live Action Movie to be released middle of this year. And we have a heap of other goodies across many sublines and two source countries - America and Japan.
Here's to the next 25 years... and beyond.
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Info for this article acquired from:
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Transformers_timeline
http://www.cliffbee.com/aussietf.htm
http://www.otca.com.au/collection/collection1.html
http://www.otca.com.au/checklist.html
