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I love hearing all these memories guys. Really dig hearing peoples first introductions to the franchise, the interacting that members had with the classic toys, all the little details and experiences from long ago that have remained quite vibrant and defining for us.
Brilliant
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I was one who was a little late to the party. I didn't get my first one until the end of 1985, a year and a half after this "birth date", and only averaged about four toys per year during the whole of Generation One.
I remember during 1985 other kids at school having some, but never really got hooked until I got my first, which was the mini-bot Beachcomber.
Ultimately, it was probably because of how well articulated and designed Beachcomber was over the other Mini-bots that year (to have four separate, moving limbs), I couldn't stop playing with it. If it had been any of the other four (Seaspray, Cosmos, Powerglide, Warpath), I probably wouldn't have had as much fun, as flawed limbs would have bugged me.
Christmas came a month later and Transformers was all I wanted... so I ended up with two more - Seaspray and Blitzwing.
I think if the momentum wasn't reinforced with the magic of a triplechanger that had two military alt-modes, the obsession may have hit a brick wall there, because I didn't have money to buy my own toys, and there were no more "gift" occasions for another 11 months. Those three Transformers toys had to keep me going.
But in reality they weren't the only thing.
Those darn catalogues were such a tease, drooling over them for hours and memorising all the names, alt-modes and colours. (I still remember seeing a Jetfire toy in a clearance bin for $20 during 1986, and wishing I had pocket money, or spoiling parents to get it)
And then there was the cartoon most Saturday mornings.
The hypnosis was able to keep me going, until the end of 1986, which saw a Dinobot, an Insecticon, a couple more Minibots, and a Movie car added to the collection.
And when I thought this was all there was to Transformers... it reached a new level of intensity in December of that year.
I met my first Transformers friend at a Motel we were staying at, and he told me about the Transformers Movie at the Theatres. I never knew there was a movie, and I thank the universe that we crossed paths at the right time to be able to see the original Movie on the big screen during its original run, and have that on my "Transformers Resume" (once referred to as a "Transformers Geek Code" during the 90s when the Internet fandom was new).
This friend also introduced me to the comics, which I was unaware of at that time as well. He collected both the US and UK comics, the later of which had only just started their release in Australia (around the issue #80 mark).
I would spend hours reading his comics, and playing battles with him with his much larger collection (at this point I only had 8 toys, while he had just about every one released in Australia).
You are probably thinking, it was all one-sided... what did I have to bring to this Transformers friendship.
Well, the result of a recently single parent trying to buy his children's affections, had me being told the week before Christmas (86) to "pick what you want from these store catalogues". A quick flick to the toy section, and only being young I pointed at the biggest Transformers toy I could find.... Metroplex.
That one toy... the biggest Transformers toy at that point (and possibly the largest one released in Australia for many years to come, as I don't recall any proof of Fortress Maximus being released here), had him wanting to play with it, as much as I wanted to play with his.
And you can imagine the play value from that one toy. It kept me hooked, at least long enough until I could start buying my own Transformers toys in 1992 just before Generation Two started here in 1993.
I could go on for days talking about my interest in the hobby since then, but to keep it "brief", some of the more significant things that I can remember off the top of my head...
1995 - found the internet while at University, and pretty much one of the first things I did was look for Transformers information... and found the online community that was just a text-based newsgroup and a handful of websites, all linked to an index site set up by a Scandanavian fan called Iggy Drougge.
Through that interaction I started finding and talking with other Australians, including the one who was online before me, and still goes by the name dirge here. He was pretty much known as "the" Australian Fan before a handful of us other Aussies showed up during that year, so he was the one who knew more about Transformers and the online fandom than I did (as I was still finding "new" info and learning about the previous 11 years of Transformers).
1996 - The Australian fanclub that became known as Ozformers was started, with permission from Hasbro. It started off with 16 people, most of whom I chased up from the internet, but we only have 2 left who are still active fans in the fandom.
This was also the first time I met another fan who wasn't in Brisbane - dirge in Sydney - and since this was before photos on the internet, to find each other I had to be holding onto the new Beast Wars Ultra Optimus Primal at a Sydney train platform. (it was yet to be released in Australia, so the odds of another person holding onto a plastic gorilla Transformers toy at this Sydney train station should have been quite remote)
1999 - My first BotCon. It was unplanned, and a last minute thing, as I had wanted to go to a BotCon since I first found out about it in 1995, but never had a job to pay for it, until now. Being so last minute, I didn't have much to spend at the event, and didn't even have any money left to get back to the Airport the day after the event. (the hotel ended up paying for it, for over-charging me on my room)
2000 - Returning to BotCon, with some Australians that I knew. This would also be forever remembered by me as the BotCon that I slept in, and missed the Gen1 voice actor for Blurr... who hasn't returned as a guest since.
This year also saw the last issue of the printed edition of our Club newsletter, at issue #47 (I don't think I ended up doing #48, which was just going to look back over our first four years). The newsletter had been transitioning to a webpage and email format for a couple years, and from this point on, it was purely digital due to time and cost reasons.
2002 - A drop in my interest in Transformers almost had me giving it up, so when a toy-dealer came here from America to set up a business with a major interactive messageboard, I had actually decided to give it all up. I felt that I didn't need to keep doing the newsletter for the local fans to have something "local" anymore as they now had another local fan community to go to.
But it wasn't to be... I got sucked back in, and in April, I set up our first Ozformers messageboard.
August then saw the last "issue" of our Club newsletter (#91), as news was being posted to the messageboard, so a news summary email started.
2003 - I attended an Ozformers stall at a Sydney Supanova convention (back when Supanova was just an annual Sydney event).
2004 - Attended the Australian Transformers convention in Sydney, hosted by Goktimus Prime, to celebrate the 20th anniversary.
This was also the end of an era for BotCon, as it marked the end of the Hartmans running it. The following year it was run by a business called Fun Publications.
2006 - A I sacrificed going to BotCon, which was the only year since 1999 that I didn't attend, to spend my savings on hosting a Transformers Convention in Sydney. The resulting convention failed to deliver what I had planned, mostly due to distance from where I was located, which meant the sacrifice was in vain... but some still enjoyed the chance to see my entire collection at that time (a friend and I packed it all in a rental van and drove it to Sydney), plus a number of other toys I didn't have that were brought in by other fans.
At the end of the year I managed to get the holy grail of Transformers - Fortress Maximus.
2007 - After a depressing previous 12 months, I was once again looking to quit Transformers (getting Fort Max was awesome, but I was only buying it just in case I did decide to quit and then regret never having one), but the middle of the year saw a resurgence of excitement, caught up in the hype and promotional events of the new Movie and one of my better BotCons thanks in part to Demonac. Being personally invited to the premiere of the Movie and the follow-up Media event in Sydney in June, was quickly followed by a BotCon that included my first visit to New York... I was hooked once again.
2008 - My first Australian Toyfair in Melbourne, which I would attend each year afterwards, building up our relationship with the local Hasbro branch.
2009 - Second Movie... meh.
2011 - Third Movie... double meh.
I do manage to score a BigW store display of a 2 metre long Optimus Truck.
2012/2013 - Went on all three Transformers Rides at Universal Studios LA, Singapore & Florida... which could make me the first fan to do all three.
2013 also saw a record number of Transformers toys added to my collection in one year, somehow managing to get to a massive 519,which didn't even include things like figurines or Micron partners.
2014 - The last few months have been spent on re-organising my collection and cataloguing it, to update my collection page, and publicly release the collection photos in a series that highlights the evolution of the Toyline over 30 years. I still have about 20% left to finish (it's a big project), so I missed the "official" Anniversary, but will still get it out there during this Anniversary year. But all this recent relocating and cleaning of my toys has refreshed my memory of many of those near-5000 toys... and my obsession since that first toy in late 1985.
As for the future... I cant really visualise myself as someone old and grey still collecting Toys, but at the rate I'm going, I probably will. I would never have thought that I'd still be collecting toys at this age, so who knows.
That amount of time though (28.5 years for me) is both sad, for outlasting people who end up drifting apart when they drop out of Transformers, and fun, for all the new people I keep befriending... and am sure to keep making friends with in the future.
The near future?
I'm looking to make it to my own 30th Anniversary of collecting in 2016, which is also the Ozformers 20th anniversary... so I'll be aiming to do something significant for that, since we as Australian fans are more attached to things significant to the local fandom.
Australia was late with everything, like the toys, the comics, the cartoon, and even the first significant event - the 1986 Movie (shown here December 26th, but released in America on August 8th)... but each of us here can be proud at helping make our Australian Community one of the longest-running online Transformers Fan community or club... in the world (longer than TFW2005, TFormers and Seibertron). That's almost two-thirds of the entire Transformers History, thanks to all of you guys contributing and interacting, making this one of the most inviting fansites (based on the feedback of new members).
(damn... I started that about 4 hours ago, and it was only meant to be short too)
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
Originally Posted by griffin
Thanks goes to you Griffin, and your crack team of setion mods, for providing all of us such a great, informative, inviting and fun site to interact on and indulge in our shared joy of our giant, transforming objects of affection
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
I didn’t hear about Transformers until early 1985 (when I was 9). I’m not sure if it was because Australia was late to get the cartoon and toys or because I lived in a small country town. We only had one small Toyworld and a combined newsagent/toy outlet and that was pretty much it for getting toys there. For TV we had a combine channel 10/9 commercial station and the ABC and that was it, so we didn’t always get the new stuff straight away, also when I was younger the TV rarely went on so I missed a lot of the first two seasons run anyway. However I do fondly recall watching season 3/4 TF's on sat mornings religiously at some point in the late 80’s… I also remember coming home from a friends Birthday party with my jaw to the ground and eyes wide open telling (I'm not sure how coherent I was) my older brothers about this awesome transformers movie I’d just seen and Optimus Prime died
My first memories…
It was some time in the beginning of 1985 when some school friends of mine were talking about a cartoon they had been watching where this massive orange truck could turn into a robot and would fire lasers at the bad guys specifically a robot called Soundwave who had this cool metallic voice and could turn into a tape player
They also claimed to have seen toys of these Robots at Toyworld. When I inquired more, they were sure the show and toys were called transformers…
Well I had to see toys specifically this Soundwave guy, so I started pestering my mum to take me to the shops to see the toys.
One of my fondest memories about Transformers was going into Toyworld with my mum later that year (1985) and the store owner bringing out this large cardboard box chock full of the G1 transformers so many of us know and love today.
I was only allowed to pick one for my birthday (which is towards the end of the year) and one for Christmas, oh and my older brother wanted Sideswipe for Christmas so I had to make sure I found that for him.(apparently he had seen a few of the earlier episodes at a friends place and loved SS's cool-headed reckless attitude...and he was a Lambo
)
I remember pulling out all the G1 cars, Bluestreak, Sunstreaker, Mirage etc etc. I finally found Sideswipe and handed him over - that's my brother done. Then I found Soundwave and handed him to mum…that was Xmas sorted for me now for my bday. I couldn’t decide…I probably would of went for Sideswipe myself because I have loved Lamborghinis from the moment I saw my first picture of the Contach, but my brother had already layed dibs…I remember contemplating Sunstreaker but at the time didn’t really like the air intake thing on his roof so settled on Red Alert
I got my first Transformer – Red Alert – towards the end of that year (1985) for my 10th Birthday (it felt like an eternity of waiting since the visit to toyworld earlier that year) and Soundwave for the Xmas of 1985 (the same year). I am told by my mum that that for at least the next year of getting my first I didn’t go anywhere without a TF in my hand. Sadly those first few TF’s I owned are landfill now as they were played with so much to the point of wearing out and breaking
I too spent many hours drooling over the Catalogue that came with the bigger TF’s showing all the ones available
Well I could reminisce for hours but lets just say the rest is history for now…bring on the next 30 years as I am well and truly Hook, Line and Sinkered to this amazing brand and will continue to be for as long as I can…
"Today's Autobots are tomorrow's scrap metal!"
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Apparently there was enough activity on what was to become the "World Wide Web" (internet), that someone was already posting online their thoughts on that first issue of The Transformers comic... yes, 30 years ago this week.
It seems that the first recorded internet posting about Transformers in May 1984 was not a favourable review...
My vote for worst comic of the year would have to go to Marvel's TRANSFORMERS #1. Has anyone out there seen it? I'm still trying to figure out why I wanted to spend $.75 on it in the first place, but any reason I may have had was inadequate.
Rank 10 - Admin
While on the topic of the birth of Transformers, I feel this is a suitable place to share an excerpt from a book published in 1990 called "Toyland - The High Stakes Game of the Toy Industry".
Thanks to Sky Shadow for recently mentioning this book, as it was worth tracking down and has been hard to put down. It is just a shame that it is focussed mostly on the 80s (which was really the golden age of Action Figure toys and the birth of their marketing through TV shows), and ends in 1989.
The book itself centres on the creation and development of the Dino-Riders toyline by Tyco, but draws in history and statistics of the major Companies and Brands during those years in the 1980s... including a chapter focusing on the creation of Hasbro as a Toy Company, and its success in the first half of the 80s.
This is a scan of just that chapter.
There is just so much in this book that I wanted to share, but even though the book is out of print (and a bit of a challenge to find), it is still protected... so an excerpt for promotional or personal purposes is all I want to risk.
As such, I heavily recommend tracking down one of these books if you are a significant/dedicated fan of toys, as it gives a huge insight into the industry and Brands that exist even today.
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Rank 10 - Admin
On the Good Morning America news this morning was a note that the "father" of GIJoe had died... so I looked up their website article, and it seems that it was the Hasbro Executive (Donald Levine) who developed the line, not the person who created the soldier doll idea (Stan Weston as noted on pages 112-113 above) and sold it to Hasbro.
It's kinda like with Transformers - the toys were first designed and created by various Japanese people (some of whom are known by fans), but it was a Hasbro Executive in 1983 that would ultimately be credited as the "father" of Transformers by creating the storyline and Brand of Transformers (putting together a team of people to create characters and bible).
This 50th Anniversary of GIJoe is not shaping up to be too memorable, as Hasbro stopped the toyline, and, we have one of its creators dying.
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