Things you never realised about Transformers (toys etc)

[M-bot]

You mean that you didn't watch TFTM a million times as a kid and memorised the entire thing off by heart?! </cheek>

Blurr is a futuristic hover car in canonical appearances, but of course the toy does have small wheels to help it roll. But no visible wheels. He's easily the weakest toy of the 1986 Autobot Cars. Hot Rod's my favourite (I actually prefer him over Rodimus Prime).

I think the tiny wheels on the Blurr toy is what threw me. Also, I've always associated Blurr with Arcee (in that they have similarish alt modes) and even Kup to a lesser extent, and Arcee and Kup have wheels.

Strangely enough, I DID have TFTM pretty much memorised after practically wearing the video out when I was a boy. Actually, I never owned a copy - I insisted my dad hire it from the local video shop virtually every time I was with him for the weekend. I reckon we hired that video more than everyone else who hired the film from that shop put together. I even taped it onto cassette tape by holding the recorder up to the TV speakers so I could listen to it between hiring occasions.

Despite seeing the movie more times than I've seen any other movie, I've missed Blurr floating! Feeling quite silly about it now.

Time to watch the movie again I think. Clearly it's been too long...

[CHILENO20]

Time to watch the movie again I think. Clearly it's been too long...

Sit down with the kids dude I did that with my niece & nephew a few years back, lots of fun and very retro for them, hahahahaha

[Megatran]

Doing a bit of research on the JP 2002 reissue 'New Year Special' Alert (Red Alert) & Lambor (Sideswipe). Found out they are cosmetically slightly different to the standard G1 reissues.

Courtesy of tfwiki:

Lambor (Sideswipe) and Alert (Red Alert) were once again re-released together in January 2002 as an e-HOBBY exclusive "New Year Special" set, with several factory-applied decals replaced with paint operations, the "CAR MACHINE" plate-decal now blank, plus an additional recolored alternate sticker sheet for each one and bio cards with new art by Hidetsugu Yoshioka.

Again, courtesy of tfwiki:

For 2002, Alert was again released with Lambor, this time as "New Year Special" editions available through Takara's e-HOBBY online shop. This latter version featured yellow instead of blue stickers for his shins and feet.

Image of 2002 New Year Special Red Alert courtesy of TFU.INFO

[GoktimusPrime]

Doing a bit of research on the JP 2002 reissue 'New Year Special' Alert (Red Alert) & Lambor (Sideswipe). Found out they are cosmetically slightly different to the standard G1 reissues.

Courtesy of tfwiki:


Again, courtesy of tfwiki:


Image of 2002 New Year Special Red Alert courtesy of TFU.INFO

I've seen both of these toys in hand and I wrote up comparative reviews for them back in 2002... but I've long lost them. I've been trying to find my old reviews, but alas I think my G1 reviews have been lost.

[Metallikato]

An odd little factoid I just ran across. Was reading the wikipedia page for the movie American Graffiti and noticed Terry McGovern (G1 Wildrider) was part of the cast so I read his page too. Apparently it was him who coined the term "Wookiee".

[GoktimusPrime]

^I did not know that, that's awesome!

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Just noticed that Titans Return Weirdwolf will be called Wolfwire. Two questions come to mind:

1/ Does this means that Hasbro were unable to register a closer approximation to the name, like "Decepticon Weirdwolf"? I take it that names like "Strangewolf" or "Oddwolf" are also undoable. What about "Weirwolf"? I know that it doesn't make much sense (a wolf who lives by a weir?), but Hasbro have certainly given us far more ridiculous names like that in the past (e.g. Wind Sheer ).

2/ This means that somewhere out there, someone else is holding the trademark for "Weirdwolf." I must say that I didn't see that coming.

And what's up with Wolfwire coming with "Monxo," but there's a separate Titan Master called "Monzo"?

[Handsprime]

1/ Does this means that Hasbro were unable to register a closer approximation to the name, like "Decepticon Weirdwolf"?

I read that as Doctor Werewolf, which most of you probably have no idea who or what that is, unless you like Dubstep

[Zommael]

^I did not know that, that's awesome!

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Just noticed that Titans Return Weirdwolf will be called Wolfwire. Two questions come to mind:

1/ Does this means that Hasbro were unable to register a closer approximation to the name, like "Decepticon Weirdwolf"? I take it that names like "Strangewolf" or "Oddwolf" are also undoable. What about "Weirwolf"? I know that it doesn't make much sense (a wolf who lives by a weir?), but Hasbro have certainly given us far more ridiculous names like that in the past (e.g. Wind Sheer ).

2/ This means that somewhere out there, someone else is holding the trademark for "Weirdwolf." I must say that I didn't see that coming.

And what's up with Wolfwire coming with "Monxo," but there's a separate Titan Master called "Monzo"?

It's possible that someone else isn't holding the trademark for Weirdwolf, but that it's felt by the trademark office to be too close to a generic term which would not be trademarkable (i.e werewolf) or too similarly to a term which another company has trademarked. In this latter case, what immediately springs to mind is "warg wolf" from Lord of the Rings, which might well be held by whoever the licensee for that franchise is. Trademark law is complex and nuanced, and just because one trademark can't be used by one company doesn't mean another is using it.

[griffin]

And what's up with Wolfwire coming with "Monxo," but there's a separate Titan Master called "Monzo"?

There is???