Reflecting on the Beast Wars Anniversary

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Be sure to check out All Things Transformers

with Steve Megatron and TFG1 Mike. Hi, this is

Larry Dottilio, writer for He -Man and Beast

Wars, and you are listening to the Geekcast Radio

Network. You're listening to All Things Transformers,

version 2 .0. welcome to all things transformers

version 2 .0 i'm your host steve megatron phillips

and joining me again is mike tfg1 blanchard and

p concord michael hello guys hey how's it going

going good yes we are continuing our transformers

retrospective here with beast wars retrospective

means to look back yes we know thank you mr obvious

Yeah, I actually just did this a while ago. I

feel like I've already done the Beast Wars retrospective

since I re -watched the whole series and wrote

up a new blog post about it earlier last year.

The whole series? Yeah. Wow. Okay. His pants

are full. His pants are full. That's surprising.

I mean, that is a lot of time to sit down in

front of the TV. Well, I sit in front of my computer

and I figure if I sit in front of my computer

for five crappy seasons of Breaking Bad, I can

sit in front of it and enjoy Beast Wars. Please

don't bring that into this show. I really don't

want it flooded with comments. Direct hate mail

to TFG1Mike on all social media aspects. More

hate mail? More hate mail than usual? Is that

possible? Well, only one email that we actually

get now. Well, it's only counting towards what

Mike brings up. Oh. Anywho. What are we here

for again? What's going on? Beast Wars. Beast

Wars. All right, then. Yes. This is our first

time coming back to the series since doing the

Beast Unleashed podcast. A few years back. Are

you sure? Yeah. I remember having a reunion special

or something. That was for TFG1. Yeah, we came

back for an episode 25 like two years later.

So what are you guys' early memories of Beast

Wars? I thought it was reboot at the time. I

got the two mixed up so bad. I was 16. I wasn't

really paying attention to cartoons at 6 .30

in the morning. I'm like, ooh, wait, that kind

of looks like Optimus Prime. Okay, I got to go

to school. Bye. I don't have any early memories.

I was in college and working full -time to put

myself through college. I didn't really get into

Beast Wars until much later because I was like

a G1 guy. I was the truck, not monkey guy. Oh,

Lord. Yeah, well, I don't know. If I had been

one of those guys who was online, you know, doing

the Usenet alt .transformers thing, maybe I would

have been truck, not monkey. But somewhere around

1998, 1999, I got back into Transformers, like

the very tail end of Fusors or something, and,

you know, didn't really get into it. So it wasn't

for, oh, boy. When did I get back into Beast

Wars? It might have been about the time that

we started doing the Beast Wars podcast. Maybe

2005? No, that would have been the... I don't

remember. Regardless, it was much later. And

then I started watching the show and thinking,

wow, this is really cool. I must own all the

toys. And now you do. And now I do. Most of them,

anyway. Yes. I think I'm missing some of those

Japanese things. There was a Japanese waterfall

playset with this frog, and I don't think I have

him. Some of those I don't have. My first foray

into Beast Wars, I think I've stated it before,

but it was right around the time it came out.

I remember watching it on the UPN Power Block.

Which, that dates me some, too, just because

it's UPN and it's now CW. It's sad. But anyways,

they had a kind of chopped up intro and outro

because it mixed with the power block. So instead

of the whole minute intro, you had 20 seconds.

Which, surprisingly, I didn't know the difference

until after I got it on DVD. Wow. For season

one, anyway. Season 2 and 3, I think they put

on Fox or Cartoon Network, which was horrid.

You're close enough to Canada to have seen Beasties,

right? No, I didn't see Beasties. Oh. I thought

that was a sick joke that was being posted around

online. I saw Beasties websites, and I'm like,

is that a website or something? Because it's

called Beast Wars. What the hell? And then I

saw the actual intro, and it says, Beasties!

And I was like, really? It sounds so awkward,

because it's the same intro, and it's the same

guys doing the voice, and they go, instead of

Beast Wars, it goes, Beasties! And I was like,

really? Really? What exactly is the demographic

we're shooting for? Are we shooting for that

12 -16 market, or the 3 -4 market? Yeah. Little

kids going, I watch Beasties. I don't know what

those Beasties are. I didn't know about Beasties

until I talked with Scott McNeil. And he was

referring to it as Beasties because he's Canadian.

And that's what they called it there. I should

say the entire crew called it that. I thought

it was kind of funny. Renaming it Beasties is

kind of like the UK renaming turtles Hero Turtles

instead of Ninja Turtles since nobody in the

UK approves of violence. Or G .I. Joe the Action

Force. Or... Action Man. Or, what was it? Transformers

War for Cybertron was Cybertron Adventures. Cool.

Yeah, that was the DS port. Well, that's because

it was on Nintendo. We gotta be PC about it.

Nintendo, the family -friendly video game company

that everybody forgot about. Give me another

Zelda game. There's no violence in Zelda. As

you slash Ganon with your giant sword. Now, did

you guys own any of the video games of Beast

Wars? No. I think that was only you. Okay. Yeah,

it apparently only was me. I almost bought one

once, but alas, I did not. I've played two out

of the three. One of them being the original

Beast Wars video game, which was, it came out

in 97. Well, 98 for the PC and 97 for the PlayStation.

I played it on the PC. I actually still have

the disc. Whether it plays or not is a different

story. Yeah, you still have the system? What's

that? You still have the system? No, I don't

have the system, but I have the program itself.

I'm sure I could get it to run. You never know.

Setting the compatibility mode on Windows so

that it runs. Windows 95 or 98 programs, which

would be sad. But it's got these extra -dimensional

aliens called the Skricks, which are weird. I

almost want to say that that was pre -Vok or

something, that they didn't know what they really

wanted to do. The graphics for this game are

atrocious. they're very blocky nothing is very

smooth to it um some of the robotic form is but

a lot of it's like very very low res of everything

uh they have primal cheetor rat trap dino bot

rhinox and air razor the funny part is you can't

use uh rat trap is only available on like polluted

areas Primal you can use on normal and rescue

levels, and then Airazor you can only use on

rescue. And then Predacons you have Megatron,

Scorponok, Tarantulas, Blackarachnia, Inferno,

and Terrorsaur. But Blackarachnia is the polluted

only, or unlocked in the polluted, and then Inferno

and Terrorsaur can do rescue. Wow. I'm really

confused because I've never seen the game, and

the premise is going completely over my head.

I'm not sure what I'm... Inferno and Rescue.

Well, the Rescue is basically if you die and

you lose a character. The Rescue mission is so

that you can revive the character. So you can

play as them again. Okay. I guess they made a

model for Waspinator but never actually put him

in the game. Nice. He always gets the shaft.

I remember there were three cheat codes for it

for the computer. because I used some of them.

Yeah, we figured you would. The sad thing is,

the game was so damn difficult, I only made it

to the second level. Because it was so blocky

in how it moved and functioned, it was terrible

to play. And then the timing for some of the

stuff, you'd get hit before you had time to lock

onto anything. It was such a batshit terrible

game. Uh, the only saving grace for it was you

could play it on the MSN gaming zone back when

that was a thing. Uh, now it's like Xbox live

network or whatever. Um, but back then it was,

it was all free and you could play four player

multiplayer online death match. And I was a fricking

beast. Um, I would get wired on like caffeine

and I'd sit there for like 12 hours playing people

online until my eyes were bleeding with tears

so I couldn't keep my eyes open and I might dial

up. My dad's like, get off the damn phone. He's

like, get off the line. I gotta make a call.

I'm like, I have one more level. He's like, you

cannot see straight. He's like, get off the line.

I'm sitting there all jittery and stuff. It's

hilarious. But yeah, the game was just atrocious

and the voice acting for it was terrible. It

was not even the original voice actors. Megatron

goes, yes! And it's really bad. It's not even

close. Come on! I could do better than that.

He was going, yes! Or, Megatron, transform! And

I'm like, really? I was like, this sucks. Somebody

make it stop. Yeah, I was about to gouge my ears

out. I played on mute mostly. And then they had

the Transformers Beast Wars Transmetals game

that came out for the 64. I remember seeing that.

I had never played it, but I do remember seeing

it. Well, it came out for the PlayStation as

well. The premise of that one was basically it

was a fighter. I never had it. I always wanted

it. And then by the time I had the availability

to get it, And I've actually seen it. I don't

actually have any of the systems anymore. I've

never had any of those systems, so I can't really

play those type of games. You could play as pretty

much all the guys from Season 2. Although...

They had Ravage in there. They had Terrorsaur

still in the game. They had Starscream, which

was Waspinator... It was Starscream colors on

a Waspinator body. Ooh, I would buy that. And

then you had Megatron X, which was some kind

of a weird... Golden Megatron with wings. Yeah,

it's the Japanese version. And I thought that

was kind of cool when I saw the pictures of it.

But they actually got the voices of the actors.

Very cool. I wish I'd played that one. And then

the other game I'd played, which was a... I had

it bootlegged for a while. It was a Game Boy

Color game. I had an emulator for it. And it

was like little chibi... Short versions of the

characters from Beast Wars, Beast Wars 2, and

Beast Wars Neo. I don't think I've ever heard

of that. Yeah, it's weird. It's a fighter, but

it's really, really cheesy. I was pretty decent

at it, which was the sad part. So for these fighters,

can they actually transform, or is it just the

robot fighting? Nope, you can fight and transform.

It was kind of neat. You just sent me a link.

It looks like this is a Japanese game. It was.

Like Lio Convoy. You had the G2 Megatron in there,

which is Megastorm. I used to play as him. You

could play as Cheetor, Primal, Megatron. It's

terrible. Wow, this is like Mega Man level graphics

here. Yeah. I can almost hear the Mega Man theme

song music in my head. It actually had that kind

of music. Oh, and it's got Star Upper. The only

people who remember Star Upper is like Derek

Wyatt. In front of a man. He's like... Gotta

have Star Upper at Animated Man. It's like, who

the hell is Star Upper? Oh, that's funny. He's

a kangaroo! Yeah, is he? Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's

even better. Oh, man. It was fun, though. I mean,

as little as I played it, it was more fun than

the other Beast War games. Yeah. I wish I'd played

the PlayStation one, but... Yeah, that was my

exposure with the games. I didn't have any Transformer

games until the Armada game. And I specifically

bought a PS2 to play that. That was such a revolutionary

game at the time. It was! It was amazing. It

was a great game. I played the hell out of that

game. And I think that was the only game I had

for the PlayStation 2. Yeah, I had that. I totally

bought a Wii. Mega Man games? Yeah, the Mega

Man X games. Okay. You know what? To be honest,

I wasn't a huge Mega Man fan when it was on Nintendo

when I was younger. I didn't like the actual

Mega Man. I liked the X because it had better

powers and you could climb walls. Okay. It wasn't

one -hit KO. Yeah. Those are really hard. It

was like three -hit KO. Well, back in the day,

it was like, yeah, I'm going to rent this game

and play it for a weekend, and I'd beat one level.

Yeah, I would literally beat one boss out of

eight and go, yeah, I'm taking this back and

never renting it again. It sucks ass. I mean,

some people like that. I mean, if you get it

for Christmas and you play it for six months

straight, and it's like, yeah, I beat it. Awesome.

Well, that's great, but I had it for three days.

So, as far as Beast Wars is concerned, since

we've jumped opposite direction, what were some

of the early toys that you remember getting?

I know you have all of them. Yeah, that's actually

an interesting story. When my wife and I first

started dating and such, we would go recreational

shopping. And this would mean we'd find ourselves

in a mall. Like, within 50 miles away, but, you

know, not too far that we couldn't drive there

in a couple hours. And we'd just go shopping.

And this extended into, in the summertime, you

know, in the mornings, we would do garage sales,

you know, as recreational shopping. And we'd

just, you know, like, hey, you know, this is

cute. We used to buy a lot of, like, oh, hell,

candles. And picture frames, because that's what

you get when you don't really have a permanent

place of your own. This is before we bought a

house. So, digressing. We were walking down the

street at this neighborhood garage sale, and

this kid is on his lawn with this box of Beast

Wars. And we walked up, and I'm like, you know,

this is cool. I was a big fan of Transformers

when I was your age. But I've never seen this

type before. What can you tell me about these?

And he goes, well, this is Cheetor. And let me

show you how to transform him. And he's transforming

him. And he's like, oh, yeah, and this is K -9.

Let me show you how he transforms. And he's transforming

him. And these are deluxe -sized guys, probably

from the first or second year. And he had maybe

half a dozen in this box. And I'm like, well,

how much? And he's like, well, I'll sell them

to you for a dollar each. And I'm like. How about

$10 for the whole box? And he's like, heck yeah.

Because clearly this kid didn't want to part

with Cheetor. His mom was making him sell his

toys, and I felt kind of bad for him. And I like

Transformers. I just didn't have any of these

particular ones. And they were all complete.

There wasn't anything wrong with them. He took

really good care of his toys. So yeah, I stole

all these toys from some kid for $10. It's no

different than you going into the back room in

Target, so, I mean, you know, you've been stealing

all your life. Yeah, that's right. You guys got

toys, don't you? I'm looking for toys. No, it's

not that bad. It's not like I kicked the kid

or anything. Give me that box. Yeah, after that,

every time we went out to garage sales, I'd look

for more Transformers, and we never found any

after that. People hoard them or something. Kind

of like you. Kind of like me. Because you don't

only just have, and this is not necessarily going

off topic, but you don't not only just have a

giant display case, display shelves, but you

have a whole closet stacked full of stuff you

don't even open. I've got a closet full of boxed.

mitten box stuff i've got uh huge display cabinets

full of everything uh and then i don't think

i sent you pictures but i have another uh i took

one wall and i cleared it out so that i'd have

more shelving oh wow yeah so i have cubbies now

they're like so let me ask you this back when

we were doing the beast unleashed podcast when

you still had all those toys are they still the

same box toys from then or are they different

What do you mean, the ones in the closet? Yeah.

You know, I think a lot of them are the same.

Because I think even back then I had the closet

pretty well full. Yeah, you did. Because right

now, yeah, I'm looking in here and it's like,

did I add anything? I've got a lot of Prime boxes

in here now, the empty ones, because I pulled

all those toys out for the boys to play with.

But behind those, you know, I've still got robots

in disguise. I got Energon. I got some R .I .D.

stuff. I got movie stuff. Oh, looking back here,

I got a lot of Japanese stuff. I got a lot of

animated stuff. Yeah. And then just boxes and

boxes of stuff. And I even have some Beast Wars

in here put away. I know I've got a Waspinator

and a Dinobot minted package. Or mint on card,

I should say. That are boxed away somewhere.

They're not on the shelf. Yeah, they're back

there. I mean, you know, I just got a lot of

stuff and not enough storage space. My wife's

been getting on my case to, you know, put a lot

of this stuff away. I've got stacks and stacks

of stuff that I never bothered to take out of

the box. And she's like, you got to do something

with that. I want to see the floor in your room.

And I'm like, uh. Too much crap. That's what

these extra shelves are for. I honestly haven't

populated the shelves yet. I haven't put anything

on the shelves because my boys will take stuff

off the shelves and play with them. So most of

the toys are on the floor. I have an awful lot

of Prime toys on the floor. Yeah, all over the

floor. And that's why my wife is upset with me.

She's like, you know, clean up your office. I

do. I'm going to have to put plexiglass over

the new shelves because the kids... I don't know.

I let them play with my toys, but they're supposed

to pick them up afterward. For me with the Beast

Wars toys, I had seen them. Wasn't like... I

was still in the... the denial phase in my early

teens that oh no g1 isn't over it's just gone

away for a while you know but obviously it was

over um and i had seen a lot of them once i think

the trans metals hit i really kind of liked you

know the the cheetor there and the megatron and

that kind of stuff but i never really had any

had any of the beast wars toys as a teenager

because by then i was out of toy collecting yeah

I was out of playing with toys, so... Yeah, it's

what happens when you get old. Get old? Welcome

to my world. Yeah. Do you remember service merchandise?

Sadly, yes. Oh, yeah. This was like a department

store that was open long, long ago. But they

had a service merchandise in the area. And I

remember when they were going out of business...

Uh, Chrissy and I went in there and we bought

like a blender that was like a hundred dollar

blender. We got it for like 20 bucks, uh, and

some other stuff for, for our new place, you

know, cause this was a long time ago. Yeah. But,

um, they had a toy section. Uh, the toy section

had a lot of the, um, the fuse ores. Oh yeah.

Yeah. A whole, like the, the fuse are apparently

they're all peg warmers because they couldn't

sell and they were all half off. I got a lot

of them. And what was the... Crap. Someone's

going to correct me here, but they had one that

was like part fish and part bee. Injector? It

might have been. But they had like 50 of them

and they couldn't sell them because they were

so damn ugly. Yeah, that was a shell former for

sure. Yeah, I'm like, what the hell is this?

It was robot mode. It was a giant barracuda head

or something. I have no idea what this is. This

is ugly as hell. But I bought all the rest of

them. I made sure to get one of each. So I had

a lot of the later lines. The tail end of the

Beast Wars line, I should say. And I had to go

back in after the fact a couple years later and

get the earlier stuff. My brother actually had

that injector. Oh, did he? It was a top -heavy

piece of shit. Just crap upon crap. Some of those

were cool, though. Some of the Fusors were cool.

Yeah, some of them. I liked, even though it was

basic, I liked Bantor. Yeah. I had that one.

Yeah. Those ones still had the spring -loaded

gimmick. That one I don't think really did. I

mean, it had a spring -loaded arm that shot out

and punched stuff. Oh, okay, so they didn't have

the early base. The transform was kind of odd.

Okay. No, you're right, you're right, I'm wrong.

His head was the shoulder. Yeah. Or the hand

or something. No, you're totally right, because

I'm looking at Bantor right now. He's got, yeah,

he's got something going on with his shoulder

there. Bantor sounds like a minion of Skeletor

or something or other. Injector has the worst

smile I've ever seen. He's awful. The toy, I'm

looking at the image on the TF wiki, and the

toy in robot mode, that is going to be the smilest

Transformer out of all 30 years of toys. I don't

think it's going to shut it in red. Yeah, it's

like the later Beast Wars stuff is on a really

low shelf, and I'm practically sitting on the

ground trying to see in here. I see Bantor, though.

Yeah, he was part baboon, part tiger. So Optimus

Primal and Tigatron had a baby. Great. It's an

orange tiger. He's orange. So Rampage was involved

somewhere along the way. Oh! He's indestructible,

baby! So, what do we know about the, uh... Oh,

crap, what was it called? There was a sub -line

at the very end that had no robot mode. Machine

Wars? No, no, there was two... Each one had two

beast modes. The Mutants. Oh, the Mutants. They

even had their own insignia. So they weren't

Maxwell, they weren't Predacon, they were...

Ice Bird, Poison Might, Razor Claw, and Soundwave.

Yeah. Soundwave, I swear to God, was a copyright

reason. Yeah, no, they had the name of that in

order to hold on to the name. Otherwise they

would have lost. Because he was an owl. I think

he was an owl. Was he not an owl? It's funny

because... He was an owl alligator. No, wait,

that was a different one. It's funny because

these robots are supposed to be somehow something

from the Oracle. But they're also supposed to

have taken place during Beast Machines. Yeah,

so it's like they were triple changers, but they

lost their robot mode. And if you try to transform

them, you can see their head inside. It's like,

look, their head's still in there. It's creepy.

I guess they made four of them. I read somewhere

that they were supposed to make more, but nobody

bought them. So you've got this assload of mutants

and injectors sitting on a shelf. Soundwave was

an alligator bat. A bat -igator. A bat -igator?

Yeah. The other one was an owl and a polar bear.

Right. The owl was Prowl. Prowl. Oh, no, no,

the Transmetal Owl was Prowl, not the Mutant

Owl. Well, they also had Prowl and the Magna

Boss. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I had the Magna

Boss. That's funny. I had Magna Boss. Yeah, I

had Magna Boss and the other one. You know, could

not figure out their transformations to save

my life. I had to, you know. reference photos,

get them in roughly what they're supposed to

look like, and just leave them there. Icebird

was the other owl you were talking about. Yeah,

that's right. Those are cool. They're neat. They

have their neat robot modes. It's just a shame

that they don't... Icebird actually looks like

a cross between Airazor and the cat's lair from

the 85 Thundercats cartoon. It does. That's cool.

What were you going to say, Steve? Well, I was

going to say, well, before I get into that, my

first figure was actually Optimus Primal. Wow.

Which is funny because I actually used to go

around as Optimus Primal on the web for a while.

before it became Megatron. Was the bat named

Optimus Primal or did they not name it that?

The bat was named Optimus Primal. I did not have

that one. My brother actually had that and the

alligator Megatron. Yeah. My first out of that

lineup I had was Cheetor out of the first wave.

Yeah. I also had Iguanas and the repaint of Dinobot

of Grimlock. Yeah. Is this Grimlock? Yeah, it

was white. It's a white Dinobot. He's Grimlock.

I thought it was cool. I liked it. I had it for

a while. And then I also had the Megatron one,

the dinosaur. And then pretty much it went right

into the Transmetals and got the Optimus and

Megatron Transmetals from that and Tarantulas.

Ended up with an Inferno and not Scavenger. Yeah.

Scavenger was another shelf warmer. Yeah. And

the Transmetal 2s, I had Dinobot and Megatron.

Okay. But yeah, I mean, I actually still have

some of these. With this whole 30th anniversary

thing going on and Beast Wars' 20th anniversary

is coming up in a couple of years, I really hope

they redo Rat Trap from Beast Machines. I know

we'll talk about Beast Machines next time, but

I'm going through some of these toys, some of

the mutant versions that I'm looking at, because

if you click on the name in the TF wiki, it takes

you to the direct character article, so you have

to scroll all the way down to get to the toys.

And I'm looking at Rat Trap from Beast Machines.

He deserves so much better. Honestly, it just

wasn't a very attractive character in the show.

They really did their best as far as building

something out of that. I thought he was cool,

but what do I know? The funny thing is the new

30th anniversary of Transformers they actually

managed to get Rattrap and Rhinox and Waspinator

correct. Yep. Generations, yep. I'm actually

going to try and seek out some of them, but I'm

definitely impressed. Yeah, I'm looking at Rattrap

now. He looks awesome. He does look really good.

Yeah, I'm impressed with that. The tank war they

have coming out looks pretty good. Yeah, that

looks pretty accurate. Yeah. I mean, don't get

me wrong. I dig the original. You know, the original

Beast Machines toys did look anything like the

cartoons. They weren't cartoon accurate at all,

but they still look pretty cool. I mean, that's

a nice looking tank, even if it's not Tankor.

It's got a lot of neat gimmicks on it. It's a

lot of fun to play with, even if it's not Tankor.

And then when they finally did come out with

the Tankor, he was like a basic size. It just

wasn't very satisfying. Yeah, I kind of agree

with you there. So what's some of your favorite

lineups of the different figures? As far as feature

-wise, whether it be the original line or the

Transmetal, Transmetal 2, Fusor. Mine's got to

be the Transmetals. I love those. They were bright

and shiny. The paint flakes right off. But no,

I thought it was an interesting design choice

between the show and the toys between season

one and season two. Because in season one you

have all these, you know, basic, you know, not

necessarily basic, but you have all these, I

guess you could call it a matte finish. And then

I'd probably call the Transmetal stuff like a

glossy finish. And it just, it looked so much

better to me. The toys looked so much cooler.

for the transmetals than the originals did to

me. I'll buy that. Yeah, I see what you're talking

about. I liked the early basic toys. I think

we talked about this before, but they have that

spring -loaded gimmick where it's kind of like

some of the earlier G2 toys, which transition

into some of the uh, machine wars toys, like

all your, your secret jets from, uh, your cyber

jets from, from machine wars and G2 where, you

know, that there's a trigger that you hit and

they basically just flip open and then you got

to move their feet so that they stand up. And,

you know, that wouldn't work on a larger figure

cause it'd be kind of lame, but for these little

basic size guys, it works really well. And, and,

you know, essentially where the transformation

is, I stand up. There's not a whole lot going

on. Most of those guys, the little basics, were

shellformers anyway. If you look at the first

rat trap, his head folds down as a chest, and

his sides open up almost in a light, like wings.

He's got these little rat feet hanging off the

side of the wings. And then inside, there's his

arms and his legs. And you just take your fingers

and pull them forward. And the spring -loaded

gimmick is literally flipping open the wings

and letting the animal head fold down into his

chest. Well, a lot of the gimmicks, it was either

you pull on their head or their tail, and it

would just pop the rest of them in place. Yeah.

But I mean, I literally got like a dozen of those.

And they're cool. I mean, I like that. I think

there's a lot of play value there. And you think,

oh, this is simple. They made them out of a certain

type of plastic that was really sturdy. And it's

not like I have any of them that broke. I've

seen knockoffs that break at the drop of a hat.

I've seen, you know, I've seen, you know, like

I said, crappy knockoffs. But the ones that came

from Hasbro, or Takara for that matter, you know,

they hold up pretty well. And all of them had

weapons that would stow away in the wings. or

in the back of their legs. So you would have

a gun and a silencer that would turn it into

a rifle that would break in half, and then the

pieces would stow away somewhere on the body.

And there's ball joints everywhere, so they're

really poseable. So, I mean, if the last time

you were playing with a Transformer was sometime

in, I don't know, 87, 88, and you had, like,

here's my headmaster brick. It's articulated

in the elbows. No, I'm sorry. They didn't have

elbows. They had shoulders. It's articulated

in the shoulders, and they have to move at the

hips just because the thing folds in half as

part of its transformation. And you put that

down, and you pick up one of these new Beast

Wars, new in 96, right? Pick up one of these

new Beast Wars basics, and these guys can squat.

They can raise their arms above their head. They

can bend their elbows. They can turn their head

from side to side. It's like, wow, this is a

miracle of modern engineering. And all of them

could do that. And they were tiny. Speaking of

tiny, until we get the Generations tank or the

only thing closest in cartoon accuracy was the

Robot Heroes version with Tidor. Oh. That's right.

I was about to say, do I have that? You probably

do somewhere. No, I've got a bunch of... I've

actually got the Robot Heroes toys sitting over

on my desk. I'm looking at the Cheetor and Blackarachnia

set. Mm -hmm. And... No, I don't think I do.

I got Rattrap Megatron, Optimus Primal Predacon,

Waspinator and Rhinox. I think I'm going to have

to get my hands on the 30th anniversary Rattrap.

Yeah, it looks really, really cool. It's so show

accurate. He's got his two guns and he's got

his belly bombs. Yep. He's got them in his arm.

Yes. Yep. It's cool. Yeah. It's really good.

It's so detailed. I really like that new Rhinox.

Yeah, the new Rhinox looks really good. I'm hoping

that they will do a Dark Designs repaint. Hey,

we didn't get it originally. Why not now? I doubt

it will ever happen. I doubt it will ever happen.

But at the same time, Hasbro doesn't normally

make a new mold and not repaint it. So who knows?

would be cool to see. Yeah. Like if they do,

I don't know what other plans they have for,

for 30th to do generation stuff, but if they

did a new black Arachnia, I would want the silver

version from, um, the trigger when she went silver

and put that headdress on when they were on the

secret Island of misfit toys. Yes. Um, I'm trying

to think here. What is your all's connection

with the comics? Because there have been a ton

of comics for Beast Wars. Not nearly as many

as you'd think. Well, there have been more than

three, so there you go. More than three. There's

only been two sides. Name them. Yeah, there's

only been two sagas. You had the 3 -H saga, and

then you had the post -3 -H saga for BotCon.

What, you're talking about the universe ones?

Yeah. Still Beast Wars. Not really, it was universe.

It encompassed everything. That's like saying

the Collectors Club comics were Beast Wars, even

though they covered everything. Yeah. I seem

to remember there being a halfway decent... Beast

Wars story that tried to tie in a lot of the

characters that were toys, but not part of the

show. Primeval Dawn. Is that what it was? I think

so. They were going to animate it at one point.

Oh, really? That was one of four of the... They

introduced a lot of the Fusors as characters.

And then there was a lot of the Japanese characters.

uh that showed up um i want to say it's like

there was like some in cybertron it's so long

ago i don't remember i i honestly think that

i think only like two episodes out of our two

issues out of four of that got actually published

yeah i think it was yeah and it was like after

the fact simon firman was going well this is

how the story would have ended yeah posting it

on his blog or something Yeah, and they had the

Wreckers one and everything else, and everything

took place during Beast Machines. Yeah. It was

an interesting story. It was one of the few interesting

stories to come out of Dreamwave. And then, of

course, we have the Beast Wars, the Gathering,

and the Ascending from IDW. Yeah, I don't remember

that either. Those were fairly recent. Those

were like 2006 timeline. 2006, 2007. Yeah, I

spent a long time there just kind of ignoring

the comics. I had bought a lot of those early

Dreamwave comics, but the stories were just so

bad. I kind of lost interest. Well, I collected

the Dreamwave mostly for the art. It wasn't for

the story. It was because I enjoyed the art,

whereas IDW has better writing, but I don't like

the art, so I don't actually buy IDW. I'm interested

in the Regeneration 1, like I said before, but

I don't care for the rest of it. I did buy the

Ascending and the Gathering, which essentially

is all the stasis pods that are left are reawakened.

Oh, cool. You have Magmatron, which is a Predacon

general who is down there to wake up the pods

and create an army, essentially. And Razorbeast

from Beast Wars 2 with Leo Convoy awaken half

the pods. And then they find Ravage's body and

resurrect him. And he's like a transmittal to

cheat or, but he doesn't, he still got the, the

like cheat ahead for his head. Uh, so it's kind

of interesting seeing that kind of play out in

the ascending kind of, um, like the gathering

magmatron and all of everybody else is like phase

shifted. So they're like two, three seconds ahead

of the timeline of the regular beast wars. So

essentially, this group can see our regular Beast

Wars, but they can't see the other ones. So they

can watch history play out. And Megatron's trying

to arrest Megatron through that by bringing him

into the current time. Yeah. but they foil that

plan and he ends up going back. And then the

Ascending, you eventually see Megatron in his

transmittal form land on Cybertron after everything's

been decimated because of some catastrophic event

that happens in the Ascending. And they bring,

like, Shockerack into it and all the BotCon exclusive

characters that kind of come into play. And Unicron

and everything else. It's interesting, I'll say

that. And then it kind of explains how easily

Megatron was able to take Cybertron over and

why. Yeah. So, it's a nice bridging of the gap.

That would be cool to see. And then, of course,

we have the timelines. Yep. Dawn of Future's

Past and Razor's Edge. causing the theft of the

golden disc and everything else. Mm -hmm. I don't

know. It's too bad we can't find copies of those.

Oh, I'm sure you could. Well, I mean, if I really

wanted to go hunt for them, I'm just saying.

I want to go to a bookstore that's closing and

get, like, half off a trade paperback. Because

I'm lazy and cheap. No comment. I have a copy

of Days of Futures Past left. I did have three

copies at one point, but I only have one left.

And then Razor's Edge I've actually never read.

I don't even remember. Was that the 2009 set?

It's 2007. Oh, 2007. They're saying it's Beast

Wars Continuity. like, Eraser, and it's got Wingsaber

and some other characters, and Tripredacus Council,

and it's something to do with all that. I'm not

too familiar with it, but I know it's got, like,

Chromia and some other... Wingsaber and some

of those kind of characters. Huh. But then they

somehow... reintroduce Megatron back into it.

It would be Transformers to let Megatron. Yeah,

it's like a false Megatron and I don't know.

It's real weird, convoluted mess. I don't count

it. It is not in continuity. I thought you'd

like that. So, yeah. Yeah. Okay, then. Going

back to Theft of the Golden Disk, what did you

guys think about that again? I liked it. I thought

it was interesting. I almost now want to see

more of the time before Megatron stole it. I

want to see what Cybertron was like before we

had to go do the Beast Wars. I think it was a

blatant toy commercial. You would. If you want

to review that, every single cartoon is. I suppose,

but it's like, hey, I got an idea. Let's make

these exclusive figures cool. You know, what

I didn't like is that they didn't make all of

them in the toys. Because there's a lot of figures

there that showed up. I want to say they turned

Laserbeak into one of the Cyberjets. I can't

remember exactly, and I've got all those exclusive

toys put away now. But a lot of those figures,

a lot of those characters in that comic became

toys. And then some of them didn't, but it would

have been really cool to see them. I agree. But

yeah, I remember that. I remember going to BotCon

and they were selling the golden discs. I want

to say it was like Unicron .com, the Lucas Brothers

were... Yeah, those guys had some pretty cool

exclusives over the years. Yeah, so they had

like an accessory pack. And they had an accessory

pack for Beast Machines and an accessory pack,

I want to say, for Beast Wars. And one of them

had the golden disc in it. They had, what was

it? They had one of the golden disc spinner things

that Megatron had. Oh, that you could replace

his hand with? Yeah. Yeah, and everybody ended

up breaking their Megatron. I used to be able

to pop that part of it off. The part of the Megatron

that would break was the part of the chest. Did

yours ever break? My Megatron? Yes. The cheap

hinge on the inside of the chest that folds in

with the arms. It would always snap. I had two

of them and the same problem on both. I transformed

mine once or twice and then left it alone so

I'm not going to bother to break it. Seriously,

you read about these and you're like, holy crap.

I wish I would have never transformed the one

again. Well, yeah, good luck finding one now.

Yeah, they're expensive, I've looked. I'll wait

for the reissue, redesign of it in 2016. Yeah.

If they ever have one. What was it? Was it the

10th anniversary that they reissued? Dinobot,

Waspinator, Rhinox. Yeah. Toys R Us had a 2 -pack

with Optimus Primal and Megatron, the purple

Megatron. Except they were repainted and they

were a little more show -accurate. And I still

got the Megatron on my shelf here. And he just

looks really, really cool. It's just a really

cool toy. I wish I had the money at the time

to buy the 2 -pack. I had the original renditions.

And he's still got a squirt gun in his mouth.

Oh, my God. Yep. Yeah. So, no, I mean, this is,

it's a fun toy. I like it. I'm going to put him

back on the shelf. There we go. So, yeah, they

also had three kind of, kind of three missing

episodes as well. From the series. Are we talking

about the ones that were written and not produced?

Or thought of. Or mentioned. I think I know where

you're going with this. Yes. They had a list

of three unproduced Beast Wars episodes. One

of them was A Greater Ape. Which, again, is an

Optimus Primal. episode that was supposed to

be it was basically come up with by Bob Ford

and Larry Dottilio and they said at BotCon98

that Primal after a blow to the head believed

himself to be an actual gorilla and ingratiated

himself into a group of gorillas romancing a

female ape until an attack by Megatron on the

gorillas brought him back to his senses They

wanted to turn Optimus Primal into Grape Ape.

I cannot believe this. Well, what was going to

happen is basically they were turning it into

the one where Tigertron falls in love with Snowstalker,

and then turning it into the one where they get

locked into their beast modes, and then the one

of Guerrilla Warfare. It's like mixing all three

into one. They'd be like, I've seen this before.

That's what I thought when I was reading it the

first time. Yeah. And then, of course, there's

one called Bitch Wars. Do I want to know? It

was brought up in the same one. It was supposed

to be like a Ladies Night Out episode with Eraser

and Blackarachnia leaving their factions for

one reason or another and banding together. Oh,

my God. What did they do? I don't want to know.

creating a third party. It was third parties.

We were both sides. Ladies went out to chip and

bots. Rattrap was there. Rattrap's always there.

Rattrap's always there. Man, they get this nice

hole in the wall. Yes. And then, of course, the

most famous out of the three, Dark Glass. Dark

Glass, yep. Yes. Which probably has the most...

Still trying to make one. What's that? I said

only because they're still trying to make one.

Yes, we are trying to make one. I'm a part of

that initiative. Whatever happened to that? They're

still working on it, actually. It's come a long

way. They've actually had some advancements with

the animation stuff. They actually have the character

models down to a T. It's exactly mainframe, and

some of them are actually a notch above mainframe.

I was going to say, it's been 15 years. They

better be a lot better. Well, they're trying

to match mainframe to at least make the episode

on par, but some characters are taking a little

bit of liberty with to better, i .e. like Rampage

and some other characters like that. But for

the most part, they're all pretty much spot on

of what you'd expect. Now, are they adding characters

in? Because I wouldn't expect that to have so

many. characters in it um being that there are

the original script and then there's this version

of the script which is uh i will say that this

version of dark glass encompasses i have to be

careful how it works but it encompasses it encompasses

part of what the original script would have But

it's also based off of that old CG comic that

somebody did back in 99 after hearing about the

premise of it. Okay. I can't remember the name

of who did it. I've never seen that either. I've

got a copy of it somewhere. But essentially they

took that story and then retrofitted it with

more of everything that they've heard of the

official Darkglass and then But it's still kind

of more of an original take. But it also wraps

up all of the loose ends of Beast Wars that were

kind of mentioned but never fully realized. Okay.

I will say that there will be some guest appearances

by certain characters in a certain sequence.

Why don't you tell everybody your Scott McNeil

story from TFCon? Which one would that be? Didn't

he say something to you? Oh, why can't we be

on it? Aren't you guys doing two versions? Hopefully.

The concept is we're hoping to have it done for

the 20th anniversary of Beast Wars. Like I said,

they've got actually a lot of the scenes. kind

of thrown together. Most of what the time's been

is getting all of the stuff rigged and getting

all the models made. Right. Some of the scenery

is going to be a lot better than the original.

One would hope. Yeah, it's going to be. The lighting

and a lot of the... But again, there's only so

many people working on the animation of it, so

it's kind of going at their pace. But, yeah,

we bumped into the guy that's heading the project

and myself both bumped into Scott McNeil at TFCon

two years ago. Cool. And not only did we get

some of the prints signed from the actual project,

but we ended up talking to him. He's going to

try and... rally some not scott the the guy that's

heading our project is going to try and rally

some of the voice actors to reprise their roles

at least for the official video yeah when it

gets done and then we're going to have our own

voice track of everybody i cast so it should

be interesting when it's done but uh again that

that'll get updated on geekcast radio once it

eventually shows up Yep. There's a website for

it, though. Darkglassproject .com to keep up

with it. I don't know. I kind of lost track of

it. It was like, oh, this will be cool. When's

it coming out? Oh, 10 years from now. It's coming

out in 2016. We've only been working on it since

2010. Four years too short. Sure. I'll believe

it when I see it. It's getting closer. I've actually

been impressed with how much stuff I've seen

so far. Being that I'm one of the Tripredacus

Council, I get to see things. Oh, cool. Very

cool. They really should put more of that out,

though. Like, oh, look, we get a picture of this

now. Oh, look. Check this out. There's stuff

actually happening here. It will come with time.

I remember when they were putting things out

pretty regularly. It's like, oh look, here's

an animation model of Cheetor walking. Oh look,

here's Megatron looking back and forth with his

dinosaur head or something. There's actually

a video that was put out about a month ago of

Dinobot pushing rat trap up against a tree going,

die, vermin, and then you have the chain gun

of doom behind them shooting at them. They slam

up against and Rhinox says, you first. It's kind

of like a quick res of it. They didn't put out

the full quality one, but it's... You know, that's

YouTube. Yeah. True. This will be neat, though.

Yes. Be neat to see. I will put that in the show

of your top three favorite episodes from Beast

Wars? Go, Michael. You're going to expect me

to remember? Hell, I don't know. The links are

for you, dumbass. Oh, man, it was only forever

ago. Come on. We didn't record that. How long

ago? You know, I wasn't the guy who watched every

damn episode all over again last week. No, it

was actually, when did I do that? That was July

of last year. I think, yeah, last time I watched

them was the last time we reviewed them. So it

was a long time ago. If you really want me to

look, I'll go back and look. I would probably

say I like Coming of the Fusors Part 2 because

Primal comes back and kicks ass. So I really

enjoy that. I enjoy Possession because It's Starscream.

I'm listing five. I don't care. I like Optimal

Situation because you get the arc and you get

Primal becoming Optimal. Then there's Master

Blaster Megatron getting his upgrade to the dragon.

And then I love Nemesis Part 2 because it's just

it's Transformers scripture back and forth between

Primal and Megatron until one. falls and one

rises uh for me it would probably have to be

uh the low road the agenda parts one through

three uh the feral scream two -parter and optimal

situation are you the only one that liked the

low road because i think so who likes the low

road my uh nobody said code of hero i enjoy that

one i i enjoy it but like for this for these

purposes uh you know to kind of wrap this up

i wasn't i don't know oh that would be my number

six there's so many good episodes yeah yeah i

mean there's so many good episodes but i was

you know all right you can't like it but you

can't quote for most of them yeah so Decepticons

forever, there's one quote. Decepticons forever!

That's not Russian enough. Tell my tale to those

who ask. Tell it truly, the ill deeds. Tell it

truly. And let me be judged accordingly. Go ahead,

Michael. Good stuff. I think we're done with

Beast Wars, Steve. Yes, I think so. So thank

you for listening to all things Transformers

version 2 .0 and catch us next time when we'll

talk about Beast Machines. Starscream have taken

over Transformers Primetime. Call me Lord. No,

Starscream, we will not call you Lord, but we

will announce that the GCRN is bringing everyone

Transformers Primetime. That's right, before

we get into the TFG1 Redone, we enter the Prime

Universe. Join your hosts, TFG1 Mike, Steve Megatron,

Optimus Solo, and Pecan Court Michael as they

cover all 65 episodes of Transformers Prime.

The comics, the toys, and more. We will also

have a commentary on Predacons Rising, interviews

with writers, voice actors, and more. All in

the latest Transformers review podcast from the

Geekcast Radio Network, you can find TF Primetime

on iTunes and www .geekcastradio .com. And remember,

one shall stand and one shall fall. Hello, geeks.

Want a podcast that covers a vast array of topics

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wish to say...