The toys were definitely out before the show, and the showed aired on Australian TV much later than in the U.S. I used to get a friend to tape episodes off American TV and send them to me on NTSC VHS so I could watch them shortly after the series had finished airing in the U.S., which would months before it started airing in Australia. I remember having small private meets at my place where other fans and I would sit together and watch the series.
There's something special about watching a show in the same room as other fans as you get to feed off each other's enthusiasm and reactions. Especially during the innuendos.
Mind you, I only did this from Season 2 onwards. I was living in Japan when Season 1 came out, so my first exposure to the show was the Japanese dub. It wasn't until I moved back to Australia that I saw it in English for the first time. It was weird, because I had to get used to hearing the original Canadian voices, but by that time, I'd become accustomed to playing with my BW toys imitating all the Japanese voices too. So it took me a while to acclimatise to mimicking the Canadian voices.
When I first got the toys, the show hadn't come out yet. So I
sorta played along to the early toy continuity, which established BW as being a direct continuation of G1/G2 (i.e. the Maximals and Predacons were simply the Autobots and Decepticons 'bioengineered' with beast modes). However, in my version, the Maximals and Predacons had no idea who bioengineered them, how or why. They would wake up one by one as beasts. The beasts were actually animals who were modified with components of their Cybertronian host inside, but of course, were unaware of this. When the Cybertronians started awakening, they found themselves trapped inside their bestial hosts. It took them a while to figure out how to transform, but the beasts remained conscious during the transformation, so it would be utterly agonising for them. The Predacons didn't care about this and would happily remain in robot mode, while the Maximals only transformed when they had to, and otherwise remained in beast mode for the sake of their unwitting hosts. Both sides wanted to find out what happened and discover a way to undo the process, but of course, fought with each other on contact. The Maximals also had to control their hosts from attacking each other (e.g. cheetah wanting to pounce on a rhino or rat etc.)... which wasn't easy. So this was fun until the show came out and of course gave us whole new canon. After that my toy play fell in line with the show, although I occasionally revisit my old "pre-show" toy plays (but usually not).
I find it interesting to see how I imagine a toy-character to be before and after their canonical appearance.
Nothing wrong with carrying Transformers around all day! The Transmetal period was actually when I started doing that. Soon I was bringing a different Transformer to campus every day.
I met other toy collectors on campus and we'd sometimes go toy hunting together. Depth Charge was one of my acquisitions on one of these communal toy hunts. I remember bringing this toy back to campus and ripping it open while standing in line at the cafeteria.
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Originally Posted by TAAUBlaster
