Childhood Transformers toy envies

[GoktimusPrime]

Megatron and Ultra Magnus were big envies.

Fortunately as many of my friends and relatives "grew out" of Transformers (ridiculous, I know) they would often give me their toys, so many of the toys that I previously envied eventually ended up being mine anyway. And better still it means that those toys that I got were also the same toys that I grew up playing with - so they're still my childhood toys even if I didn't own them in my childhood (if that makes sense).

e.g. I didn't have Cloudraker and Fastlane as a kid but my cousin did and I would often go over and play with his Cloudraker and Fastlane. He's since given me those toys, so the Autobot Clones in my collection are the exact same toys that I played with as a child even though they belonged to my cousin at the time. The sad thing with my childhood Ultra Magnus is that it was stolen. The really aggravating part is that although I've since gotten another G1 Ultra Magnus, it will never replace what was lost because my current G1 Ultra Magnus toy is NOT the same toy that my cousin owned that I grew up playing with.

Other toys that I envied as a child but didn't own and that nobody else that I knew owned have since been acquired (thank you, reissues!) - e.g. Predaking. I never owned any Predacons but I knew other kids who did, but nobody had the whole set and so I never saw Predaking as a kid. I did eventually see and handle Predaking in the 90s (thank you, internet and existence of online community) but it wasn't until the 2004 reissue that I was able to own one.

[Kranix]

I only had two envies as a child, a kid at school brought in G1 Jetfire and I was blown away by this Transformer! I vowed to own him one day and I did get a copy as an adult.

The other was G1 Megatron. A good mate had this figure somehow as even back then, the word was you couldn't buy him. His Dad brought him home after a business trip (overseas I assume). I was very impressed!

[GoktimusPrime]

Might have been from interstate. I also knew just one kid at school who had Megatron in the 80s. He was in Victoria when the Megatron recall happened in NSW and found Megatron still on sale in Melbourne and bought it there.

[Kranix]

Might have been from interstate. I also knew just one kid at school who had Megatron in the 80s. He was in Victoria when the Megatron recall happened in NSW and found Megatron still on sale in Melbourne and bought it there.

Stretching my memory but possibly purchased in Adelaide.

[Paulbot]

A kid in 1985 bought his Sideswipe to school. I thought it looked SO good. Wouldn't get one of my own until the Gold Classics version

I was envious of the M.A.S.K. Rhino a kid bought to school one day in 1987. I still remember how cool and big it looked. When I saw one as an adult I was disappointed it wasn't as big as I remembered (or I had got too big)!

The other was G1 Megatron. A good mate had this figure somehow as even back then, the word was you couldn't buy him. His Dad brought him home after a business trip (overseas I assume). I was very impressed!

He was available in some parts of the country such as Victoria. My parents definitely didn't go anywhere international to buy me my Megatron back in the early 80s. They would have most likely bought him at Parkmore shopping centre down the road.

[Trent]

The kid across the road from me when I was in Kindergarten had Hot Rod. I loved it. So much so that one day when he was over I hid it when we went outside to play and hoped he would forget out it. I ended up giving it back to him out of guilt. The other was Divebomb. I remember someone bringing it to school and being blown away at how big it was compared to the scramble city limbs.I was also such a cool toy in its own right. And another was Sixshot. Kid named Alfonso used to bring it to school and he was really awesome because hed let me play with it. He even let me borrow it over a weekend. It was so hard to give it back on Monday.

[GoktimusPrime]

Heh, I'm glad that I'm not the only one who remembers the names of kids that I used to play TFs with. The kid at my school who owned a G1 Megatron was named Leo. My cousin had Divebomb and Razorclaw and I distinctly remember Divebomb being my absolute favourite Predacon. He still is today. I also knew a kid at school (his name was David) who owned a Diaclone Sunstreaker model kit. At the time I thought the toy was a cheap knock off of Sunstreaker. How wrong I was.

For some ridiculous reason a lot of kids in my school owned a Thrust but they all insisted that it was Starscream. That this was how Starscream came and that you had to paint it in the colours that we saw in the comics, show etc. I kept on telling them that his name was Thrust, different colours, different wings, the fact that there was a separate toy on shelves named Starscream who looked like Starscream... but it all fell on deaf ears.

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

G1 Metroplex and Ultra Magnus.

Have an Encore Metroplex, could have gotten a reissue Ultra Magnus but passed on it due to having a good Odieverse Ultra Magnus already by then.

Also really, really wanted the Predacons/Predaking, have managed to pick up one of them (a G1 one no less) as well.

[Miss Kitty Fantastico]

I remember, back in the 1840s when I was young, being amazed by Jazz one time another kid at school brought him in. Not exactly envy (I don't know that I was particularly noble in not envying anyone, just that I had a whole bunch of toys, so if it ever occurred to me I didn't have something I'd just get distracted by something else in about two minutes anyway), but just being incredibly impressed. For some reason it was a big deal that he was unique - I had Prowl and Sideswipe, but I knew there were also Bluestreak and Sunstreaker (I think?) who were the same thing just painted different, likewise the vans, and the Decepticon jets, but Jazz was the only one of his kind, and that was somehow a marvel of modern technology (yes, I know there were other unique molds - I had several of them, like Prime - but I dunno, that didn't occur to me?) Also he had a colossal spoiler, which was the coolest thing ever. I did say I was very young.

Going off on a tangent, I also remember another friend having Wheeljack, and I was certain for a good many years that his transformation was the most difficult to master - like, if you could transform Wheeljack without looking at the instructions, you were some kind of higher being. No idea why I thought that. Maybe his owner just told everyone it was too complicated so we'd leave the toy alone and not accidentally break it...

[High_Q]

I never had a complete combiner set or a city-former as a kid. I used to visit cousins on the weekend, and gawk at their Metroplex, Scorponok, Trypticon etc.

I still don't have any these, in either G1 reissue or CHUG forms.

Woohoo! 500th post.