(JAN-2013) Hasbro Gen1 Toys - Reviews and Favourites

[Ultra Mackness]

I thought I'd open this this a short review of my first Transformer ever - Wheeljack, then follow up with one of my favorites. Throwing myself back in time to 1986, although not my first choice (I'd wanted sideswipe but by the time I'd convinced my Mum that I should get this magical transforming car another kid had grabbed him!) in retrospect I'm glad that he was the first.

He came in a box like this:



I say like because as purists will note this is a repro box (from before Wheeljack was KO'd), but the rest (aside from the decals) is 100% G1:



There is a tendency these days to compare G1 toys with modern toys as though they might have been produced at the same time. Consequently debate points include things like nostalgia, engineering, articulation etc. but I think that the entire experience of a Transformer back in the day was completely different. Say a kid these days gets a Classics toy like Wreck-Gar or Perceptor, aside from a small bio on the back of the (very disposable) card and some stats to compare, the kid has no real experience of the characters. The playing experience for them then becomes almost like solving a simple Rubik's cube (in the absence of more imagination). One of the things I like about G1 toys was that not only was there a cartoon for us all to see the personalities of the individual characters, but there was almost a sense of inclusion into the faction. Tech specs weren't easily read without the decoder and the idea of the reinforcements from Cybertron plotline with the relief it brought the Autobots that left the kid in charge of trying to obtain said reinforcements was the kind of emotional leverage that it's probably illegal to use in marketting these days. Anyways, I'm rambling..must be getting old...






Sure, not as much articulation as today's model, but even after nearly 30 years there is a lovely heaviness to him (Die cast parts !), and the level of detail is still impressive.

So now the favorite (one of them anyways). Back in the day I wanted one of these so badly I made one out of cardboard! Very few of my TFs are on my "buried with me for the afterlife" list, but this is close to the top. I loved the idea of reinforcements from Cybertron, but while the powerdashers seemed simplistic, and the omnibots were also a bit meh, the Time Warrior watch caught my attention from the moment I opened the catalogue.



Although my pleas at the time to pick up more TFs then send the cut out robot points and more money to some address in Sydney was only met with stern looks from my parents, in 2007 I got lucky on an ebay auction and picked up this beauty. To this day it has been out of its packaging about 10 times (It was opened once by the seller before I obtained it) and now resides within metal and plastic display case away from sunshine. One of my absolute favorite pieces.

[Skullcruncher]

Wow Ultra Mackness two great specimens indeed!

What are your Best and Worst toys of this series?
Best: Sandstorm. Non cartoon toy would be Roadbuster.
Worst: I'd say biggest let down would be Ultra Magnus. I also owned a Pipes and I thought he was a bit lame too

What was your first one, and when?
Swindle or Optimus Prime. Must of been in 1988 - turned out my Optimus was a Made in France Optimus!!! I only learned this in 2011 - NZ recieved some of these but im not going into that now.

My last one I purchased before I got back into collecting was Nosecone and I got him the same time I got my G2 Orange Constructions.

What ones are you most looking for and why?
No more. Got all that I need.

[klystron]

FIRST ONE AND WHEN?
Sideswipe, in 1984. Still have him, although I have repainted him. He'd had a hard life.

BEST AND WORST?
Original Best: Swoop. To pinch Ultra Mackness rating system, Swoop was my "bury with me for the afterlife" toy.
Modern Best: Nowadays Snapdragon is my favorite G1 toy.
Worst: not sure.... never liked UM, but was frustrated with Blaster as a kid cause he was too big to fit with the other toys.

[GoktimusPrime]

Best toy: Original Soundwave.
Worst toy: Any Action Master. Mainframe - I never even knew what his "theoretical alt mode" was when I was a kid.
First one: Brawn
When: Late 1984
One I'm most looking for: Time Warrior (your pics make me so jelly Ultra Mackness!)
Why?: Because I _had_ this toy when I was a kid, but then gave it to my cousin who lost it! Baw!! Aaah, I'll probably never find one at a price I'm willing to pay... hurry up and reissue it, TakaraTOMY!!

For pics of my collection, follow the link in my signature.

There is a tendency these days to compare G1 toys with modern toys as though they might have been produced at the same time. Consequently debate points include things like nostalgia, engineering, articulation etc. but I think that the entire experience of a Transformer back in the day was completely different.

Indeed. For those of us who collected G1 in the 1980s and 90s, we had nothing else to compare them with, and they weren't nostalgic either, because they were current... so we were able to give them a more "fair" appraisal so to speak. And for the most part, G1 toys were pretty good for its time. I seldomly got a toy and thought, "Man this is crap." I did a few times, but for the most part I was thoroughly impressed. Hence why I've kept on collecting them!

Say a kid these days gets a Classics toy like Wreck-Gar or Perceptor, aside from a small bio on the back of the (very disposable) card and some stats to compare, the kid has no real experience of the characters. The playing experience for them then becomes almost like solving a simple Rubik's cube (in the absence of more imagination). One of the things I like about G1 toys was that not only was there a cartoon for us all to see the personalities of the individual characters, but there was almost a sense of inclusion into the faction.

I find the problem with that is that the toy bios just aren't nearly as well written as they used to be. Remember that G1 toys came out before we saw them appear in comics or the cartoon, so often the toy bio was your first port of call for imagining what the character is like. e.g. when I first got Wheelie, he hadn't appeared in the cartoon or comics yet, so I played with him according to his toy bio and made him to be a lot like Mowgli Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, or like a little Tarzan. Then I got the book "Wild Boy of Quintessa," which pretty much portrayed Wheelie as he's described in the toy bio, which visualised how I initially played with him.

Then I saw the movie, and retconned my play of Wheelie. No longer the jungle boy, he became a weird rhyming toy. No amount of cold Milo, could bring back the boy from the toy bio.

*clears.throat* But yeah, the difference is that G1 tech specs were written by comic book writers from Marvel - so they read like comic book characters. They have distinct personalities, distinctive personality quirks (like Huffer's homesickness, Thundercracker's moral ambiguity, Breakdown's paranoia, Groove is a pacifist, Bluestreak never shuts up etc.), individual special abilities (Skywarp teleports, Mirage can create illusions etc.) and weaknesses (Ravage is disoriented by bright lights, Steeljaw suffers from chronic rust etc.). Post G2 tech specs are written by toy execs... who really don't know how to create superhero/villain characters like comic book writers, and that's why most tech specs today pale in comparison with G1.

But to be fair, we have had a few periods of good tech specs from Hasbro, most notable examples include Beast Machines (the toys and cartoon may not have been popular, but the toy bios were pretty well written IMHO) and Transformers Cybertron, which really harked back to making the Transformers quirky again like in G1 -- look at Shortround... a Transformer who collects transforming robot toys! Freakin' hilarious! But yeah, I haven't seen any decent quality tech specs from Hasbro since Cybertron.

Tech specs weren't easily read without the decoder and the idea of the reinforcements from Cybertron plotline with the relief it brought the Autobots that left the kid in charge of trying to obtain said reinforcements was the kind of emotional leverage that it's probably illegal to use in marketting these days. Anyways, I'm rambling..must be getting old...

Those tech specs were EASY to read without the decoders! Hands up anyone here you used to stand in toy store aisles reading all the tech spec bios and stats of ALL the toys on the shelves and pegs? I know I did!