Transformers Toy News and EarthSpark Discussion

Hi, this is Frank Todaro, and you're listening

to the GeekCast Radio Network. Hey everybody,

this is Dan Kilbazan, voice of G1 Bumblebee,

and you're listening to All Things Transformers.

I feel bad that this kid has to lay down completely

flat on the ground in order to transform, though.

That's gotta be awkward. Yeah, it is awkward.

Someone's gonna step on his ankles or something

and break his leg. I thought you were made of

sterner stuff. Well, I was until you stepped

on my leg and broke it. I mean, this is like...

Oh man, I'm just going to save it for the show.

This is Optimus Prime, and you are listening

to all these transformers. Hello and welcome

to All Things Transformers. I'm your host, Steve

Megatron, and joining me on this adventure in

the Transformers fandom is TFG1Mike. That's right.

And returning to All Things Transformers is PeekonCoreMichael.

Hey, how's it going? It's going. Sometimes I

wish it would stop, but it's going. Uh, it's

going. Yes, things... seeds from the past have

come into the future at this point. So, we have

a bunch of news that we're going to get through.

What did you plant? No. Did flowers sprout from

your bottom side? No. It's been years since that

episode. Yes, yes. I actually just used Rhinox's

giant fart in a podcast edit recently. My kids

thought that episode was humorous. Well, yes,

I mean, although it's explosive farts, all roads

lead to the low road. So we haven't done a news

episode in about a month. We are not going to

catch up on a month's worth of news, but we do

have several discussion points tonight. And first

up is Velocitron Voyager Hot Rod First Look.

It's basically the studio series hot rod except

more of a red Rodimus color. I still dig it though

Actually like this one better To be honest, I

just like the deeper red. Yep Yeah, sadly, I

did not know that there was an original hot rod.

So this was new to me And I liked it a lot. I

was like, this is really cool. I you know, honestly,

I think hot rods should be That's a nice maroon

shade of red rather than the, you know, the hot

pink shade of red that you sometimes get with

hot rods. Yes. Yes. You know the shade I'm talking

about. Yes. Yes. I know. What's funny is they

have a core class hot rod that's out as a part

of kingdom and legacy. And my kid wants that

something terrible, but he was Looking at this

be like the last one that came out during the

studio series. I honestly think it's this one's

much nicer. Yeah. It looks sharp. I like the

accessories. I like I like the fact that you

can actually well, number one, he's got a chainsaw

hand, but two, you can put the chainsaw on top

of the car. Yep. Well, then they have blast effects

on everything now, which he's got to look at

his his exhaust. It's got the the blue kind of

sticking out It's yeah, it's got the orange actually.

Well in the one photo on the back. It's blue.

Yeah, oh But yeah for the toy it's that color,

but I do like how they actually made the figure

look Like the promotional image on the back.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah, because a lot of times they're

missing the paint deco Yeah, yeah, I've noticed

a lot But this this looks pretty sharp. Yeah,

it does. Well, that is the like that's the thing.

That's the thing with Hasbro packaging now. They

are basically instead of doing art for the back

of the picture, that's the toy. Well, no, I'm

I'm talking about the Kingdom. Oh, OK. A lot

of the figures that like Dinobot, for instance,

had better paint deco than what he had when he

came out. Right. Yeah. Which is why I had to

repaint it. Yeah. So for those listening, Michael

has drifted away from the transformers thing

for a while. So he's kind of out of the loop

on a lot of this stuff. Yeah. So he's having

to reteach him. We're having to send him back

to Cybertronian school and RC is going to be

the new teacher kind of thing. But, but yeah,

no, absolutely. The those. Ooh boy. Right. When

I first left you I was with a learner, but now

I return as the master. Mm -hmm Except in reverse,

I guess I don't know. Yeah. If I teach you will

you learn? No, not really. Yeah, you can't make

me. I was gonna say the last Rodimus that I bought

was the power of the primes Rodimus. Yeah, unfortunately

those lines were atrocious Oh, you know what?

He looks like a giant brick, but I love it. No,

don't get me wrong. They look neat. I just yeah,

they're basically a giant brick. The only one

that seemed to work really well for that was

Optimal. And that's because people figured out

they could pop the pin on the back and separate

Primal from Optimal. You know, I didn't I could

not find that one, so I did not get him. Sadly,

but yeah, this is again, this is a sharp hot

word. I dig it. Yeah, absolutely. All right.

Have you heard, I know you've been out of the

Transformers thing for a while, but have you

heard anything about the new Nickelodeon show?

I just recently saw the new trailer and it looks

fantastic. Okay. I like it. So there are two

new trailers. There's the... Nickelodeon tweeted

out just a little sneak peek at our Transformers

Earth Spark Autobot leader Optimus Prime. So

there's that one. And then there's the one where

it's all of them. The bots are back and we have

a breakdown of what each of the like Optimus

is a semi truck. Thrash. That's the, okay. So

this article, and I'm going to call them out

on this because it's not like they sponsor us

or anything. This article was posted on September

15th, 2022. As of this recording, it is September

19th, 2022. You mean to tell me you can't like,

if I have to point this out to TFW on Twitter,

you can't go back and correct your spelling mistake.

It's thrash. It's thrash not. trash. If you look

on their website, the additional images, it says,

transformers, earth, separate. Yeah. Oh my God.

That was the first thing I caught. I just, I'm

a horrible person, but I find them spelling errors

all the time and it drives me bonkers. It's all

about God. Yeah. I like this idea. I mean, Motorcycle

transformers are generally hit or miss. Yeah,

yeah, but I especially like the ones with sidecars

Mm -hmm. We haven't seen that since the transformers

animated. Yeah That was and if they if they make

human figures that are the right size to ride

in the sidecar That's just icing on the cake

rumor has that they are I would assume that they

would yeah We have twitch who is an airdrome

bumblebee yellow sports car He saw it as a yellow

sports car nowadays. Literally, it says yellow

sports car. Yeah. Wheeljack is a rally car with

a country accent. I don't know why Wheeljack

is saying y 'all, y 'all. Because he's got that

sweet goatee. That's why. I guess. Alita 1 is

an all -terrain 4x4. RC is a muscle car. She's

a 1960s hot rod. I want that toy. That's cool

looking. I think everybody wants that toy. For

years, it's like RC's the shelf warmer, but she's

going to be a sell -up. Oh, in this line, yeah,

people are going to want it. That's the nice

thing. I feel like they've actually given them

a decent transformation to where people are going

to want them. Yeah. Yeah. Skull Cruncher is a

croctobot, whatever the hell that is. I'm kind

of interested in that. That's a cool -looking

robot mode. Yeah, I love the robot mode. It kind

of reminds me of it. It's almost got like a bludgeon

slash Skeletor type look. He's got this huge

face for a chest. Yeah, I did. I like it. Which

is cool looking. I'm curious to see the toy for

that one that does surface because I feel like

I could bash that into a Megatron. It kind of,

you know, it reminds me of Death Charge. Yeah,

yeah like a spiky death charge. I mean that would

be cool. Yes There's swindle who is an SUV who

is basically Swindle it and well, yes, but it's

it's more of an homage to animated than any other

generation because of the SUV Ness of him. Sorry

Fred Willard died Yes, I understand that but

again, it's a no. It's an homage Yeah. Is he

supposed to have a big purple mohawk? Because

I'm not getting that. I meant the truck mode,

not the robot mode. Oh, sorry. The truck mode

is the SUV part of his transformation is the

homage to animated. I don't think Fred Willard

Swindle had a mohawk. No, personally. I don't

pity that fool. In my opinion, yeah, the TFA

swindle is the best swindle. No arguments here.

Nope. But he's got a purple Mohawk, so we'll

see what happens. See what happens. Hey, maybe

Mr. T will voice him. Oh, wait, no, he won't.

And then for some odd reason written as two words,

we have Soundwave, a stealth aircraft. Did they

lose this copyright again? I hope to God not.

You would think that they wouldn't considering

they release him all the time. I don't think

they did. Changed his name. They've got one that's

out right now as a part of Legacy. Yep. And they've

got a core figure that's out too as a package

refresh. So I don't see them losing it unless

this is supposed to be a different version that

doesn't necessarily follow that. Yeah, maybe.

And then Megatron. Maybe he'll talk this time.

I don't think so. I think they're going with

oh, I don't like I think it'll sound wave It

know but like in prime he didn't talk much at

all. So you talk later on like season three Yeah,

once or twice once or twice, but yeah, it was

kind of a shock when he did it and it was well

Yeah Well, yeah silent Bob. What did you say?

Yeah. Well, I'm with this chicks. Don't you normally

bring you lasagna at work? They just cheat on

you I would love to hear Frank Walker say that

with the vocoder, please. Thank you. I'll pay

a million dollars that I don't have. I'm getting

close to figuring that voice out and the vocoder

effect. I already did one with Starscream and

Megatron arguing with each other with Starscream

doing airplane mode. That's right. You did your

little meme thing. That's right. I added the

vocoder effect to both of them so that they had

the echoey G1 sound to them. Nice. I recorded

it at work. And then Megatron is an armored aircraft.

Where have we seen that before? Yeah. Well, yeah,

this is going to be an awful lot of TFA callbacks

here. But I saw the short clip of him transforming

and it was like, that's amazing. I mean, the

helicopter mode is like, I've seen this before,

kind of. But the whole. He's transforming, he's

landing, he's hitting the ground, there's all

the smoke rising up, the dust, and he rises out

of it, and it's like, wow! Yeah. Yeah, it looks

really good. I like the animation style. I like

all of the designs. The only thing that I am

worried about is the human to robot ratio. Like

how much of the human story versus the robot

story is going to be told in this and I understand

it's For kids and it's supposed to you know,

you're supposed to show the the kid characters

to the kids. But all right Did you think the

transformers prime had too many humans? Because

this is looking like it's gonna be the same amount.

I think it's gonna be the same amount I just

hope it's not like totally stupid. I get like

kind of a I'm getting almost a armada meets animated

meets prime kind of aesthetic mixed, you know

between the three Armada really I'm getting an

armada feel. I Mean, I don't think twitch is

gonna be the minicon. No I'm not very I'm giving

kind of a TFA meets prime here. I don't know

about Armada, but and I liked TFA. I did like

TFA. I liked prime Prime was good for what it

was, you know, but and I like that there's a

lot of mix up here. There's a lot of mash up

between the two and I think it's sharp looking

and I for one don't mind the human aspect. I

like the idea that they have a, for lack of a

better term, a family of color, right? I'm not

sure what... Are they like, are they like Miles

Morales, like Mexican African -American or just

African -American? I am not sure. I like, I like

the human family. I like that aspect. I think

that they've already shown off some of their

personalities and I think that's going to play

well. Uh, I like that their parents are involved.

Um, especially in prime. I really liked how the

mom was always involved in the mom and the, uh,

the army guy were. Kind of flirting back and

forth that type of thing. I mean, there's there's

a lot of human interaction or whatever it was

yeah, yeah, and in a lot of these You know you

end up with the robots even though they've been

here for 20 to 40 years. There's still kind of

a fish out of water So what do you think about

Prime's face without the mask on with the cheekbones

and the chin? You know being a fan of like Beast

Wars I'm okay with prime having a face I'm okay

with having a face, it just looks strange. Yeah.

Yeah, this isn't the first time we've seen Prime

without a mask, especially with TFA. The mask

comes up and down. It almost looks like Marvel

comics from the 80s. Yes, yes. So it looks really

off. What I find most disconcerting is that head

crest. It's just like a little thing that pops

off. It's like a mohawk again. He's sticking

out of the top of his head It doesn't look right,

you know, generally the head crest is formed

along with the top of the helmet No, it's almost

like he's missing a he's missing a lot of forehead.

I would yeah, maybe that's the problem He has

cheeks and mouth and chin He's a huge ass chin.

But I mean the chin is almost as big as the mohawk

but But very little forehead, very little top

of his head. I think that's why it looks weird.

Yeah, when you're drawing a head, you know, it's

an egg and right through the middle of the egg,

you draw a line and that's where the eyes go.

But his eyes are way up at the top of the egg.

Yeah, so I'm looking at the face plate less prime,

the open face. Yeah, you're right, but I look

over at the one with the faceplate. It looks

fine to me. It looks normal the three quarters

of his head You go from his eyes all the way

down to that giant ass chin. Yeah, that's that's

three quarters of his head Yeah, but I mean,

you know and I think the only reason it looks

good is because he's had it He has his head down

kind of looking at you over lidded eyes like

he's fighting you. I'm looking down at your face.

You can't have my face. Sit beneath my chin.

So yeah, I mean, some of these pictures are kind

of cool. They look good. Yeah, I do. I do. All

kidding aside, it can't be worse than the War

for Cybertron trilogy or the machinima. I still

have nightmares. Despite the great voice actors

that they had for the machinima one, the story

was crap. The story was awful. This was written

literally by 6th graders. And then coming over

to War for Cybertron, the entire thing was garbage,

with the exception of a few actors. We did get

Frank Dodaro. Frank Dodaro? He's amazing. Yep,

bring some it. Yeah, he's good to Frank though.

Oh, man. He got to play. I have a different I

have an appreciation for Frank Yeah, I do. Yeah

Frank rules Right, but when you look down at

the lower end of these screenshots You have a

lot of not just not just optimus prime with a

face but optimus prime with a huge smile making

finger guns, you know And when you compare Transformers

prime prime where fun goes to die Right, where

fun goes to die Prime, you don't see him smiling

with finger guns, you know? It's funny. I mean,

Bumblebee. That's how we do it. Huge difference

between Prime and Earth Spark is that Prime was

Cartoon Network, and Cartoon Network has always,

lately in the last decade or so, played more

towards adults than kids. Nickelodeon is the

kid's network. They've got SpongeBob, they've

got whatever other things they have. I'm looking

through some of the other article with the Optimus

reveal. He looks okay. I mean, for the most part,

it's not a bad Optimus. I just think it looks

stupid with his face played off. Who's doing

the voice in this one? For Optimus, it is Alan

Tudyk. Oh my God. All right, I'm sold. Yeah,

I knew that at one point actually someone had

said oh, you know if they don't have they don't

have Peter Cullen I'm not gonna watch this crap

and then I saw was Alan Tudyk and I'm like, you

know what if anybody is going to fill the shoes

I'm willing to see what Alan Tudyk does about

it, you know, because honestly, I don't have

a problem with actors trying stuff. I Really

don't I just I just want I don't want a bad mouth.

Anyone else has done the voice other than Peter

Cullen, but it's kind of a pale imitation. I'm

interested to see what Alan does with it. It's

not going to be Peter Cullen. It's going to be

something completely different. No, and I'm happy

to hear another unique take on it as long as

it's fitting of what the character's presence

on screen is. Well, he has no faceplate and he's

doing finger guns, so I think his presence is

going to change a little. So if you look in the

one link I sent you, Transformers Earth Spark

Optimus Prime sneak peek video, you can actually

hear him as the character, which is what everyone

has wanted to do. As he's going back looking

at that, I... Oh boy, pricing on toys. So the

war for Cybertron listings that the more 2023

Transformers listings found, Studio Series is

expanding next year. It is not just going to

be Studio Series 86 or just the general Studio

Series that it is, or that it has been. It's

going to expand into other things and one of

those things is Megatron and Optimus from the

War for Cybertron video game. Except as of right

now, they're only listings and the only image

we have of it is obviously one of the game images

from the game to show you what Optimus Prime

looks like. But Optimus Prime, Voyager, War for

Cybertron, Optimus Prime, just a generation studio

series. $33 .97 for a Voyager. Oh my god, these

prices. Back in my day. Oh, I remember when they

were much cheaper. Uh -huh. Yeah. Like, what

I have a hard time with is the reissue of the

Beast Wars. Yeah. Yeah. Because they're just

ridiculously priced. Yelp. Yeah. Expensive toys?

What? Yes. No way. Well, I mean, don't get me

wrong. I understand. Yeah. I mean, I've been

collecting well since 84, but when I started

getting back into toy collecting in like, what,

98, 99, uh, uh, you know, a, uh, what do they

call them? What size class back then? Just a

regular toy size class was, yeah, whatever it

was, was like nine bucks. And when they went

to 12, it was like, Yeah, deluxe. And when I

went to 12, it was like riding in the streets.

Now they're 22. No, they're 24. Yeah. Geez, oh,

Pete's. I know. Another reason I can't collect

Transformers anymore. And the Megas became Voyagers,

which are now like 34. 34, yeah. And then your

leader classes are like 60, 70, 80 bucks. Yeah,

the Ultra became Leader, which is like 55. And

then the Super, which was like... 40 back in

the day is like 80. My wife who is fantastic

and she's very supportive got me Skylinks for

Christmas and I almost made her take it back

because I'm like, honey, that's 80 bucks. I don't

know if I want to spend that much money on a

toy right now where I'm kind of phasing out of

that collecting phase. But I still have it. It's

awesome. It's an awesome toy. Have you put a

bunch of guns in his, nevermind. That's right.

He just swoops in and there's those guns. Grab

yourself, grab yourself some ordinance. We're

going to, we're going to overthrow the tyrannical

government. That's right. Cause that's how that

stuff works. Right. So did you see in here, Alan

as optimists? I did. And I was wrong. He's totally

trying to do a Peter Cullen. Oh, I didn't which

is but as soon as it starts she's like Autobots

roll out and I'm like, oh man, come on But sound

wave actually did talk. Yeah that and Megatron

said something at the very end when he transformed

and it was like Is that Megatrot? Because it's

not gravelly. It's not vocoded. It was just like

terror from the skies. And I'm like, oh, well,

that's a neat take on it. I'd like to see more.

Well, we've had Jason Marnosh's kind of gravelly

for years. It's a mum -rah. It's almost like

Scourge from Generation 1 Headmasters. Some weirdo.

What do you mean, idea? He's always one of the

leaders of Cybertron. The true leader of the

Decepticon. Consequently, Cybertron. Is there

something? Do you need a lozenge? I actually

have one. I'm good, thanks. Oh yeah, it's that

guy, because he's got that really slow take on

it. And I will talk for hours like this. I will

talk for hours and get Rodimus Prime. It's awful.

I yeah that I hate I can imitate that I do it

for the headmasters fan dub still nice But yeah,

I think I'm okay with uh, even though even the

wheel jack is alright I like the twitch voice

stuff the young youthful female. Yep voice I

like that a lot and honestly, I was always a

big proponent of Female Transformers. I like

to see I mean I wanted more of RC originally

He likes big bots and he cannot lie. Uh, new

other brothers won't deny. That's right. All

right. Moving on to, I think Steve and I talked

about this, but I showed it to Michael and he's

like, Oh, that's cool. Uh, the movie masterpiece,

the masterpiece movie 12 and nemesis prime us

pre -order is live or it has been live for a

while now. Uh, but, uh, yeah. What do you think

of nemesis here? Yes, your face. I know. I thought

I thought we talked about this earlier. It's

really cool. Yeah, no, it's it's really cool.

And the fact that it looks like a like a movie

prime. Right. Except he's a nemesis colors. And

I it's cool looking. I just I like it a lot.

I'm half now that I've actually seen this figure

close up. Right. I'm half tempted to go back

and try to find the the Optimus Prime version

of that because it just looks really good. Yeah.

Why wouldn't you just get this, though? This

is better than that ever was. Arguably better.

Yeah. No, this is really cool looking. And I

even like the I mean, this reminds me of kind

of a better version of MP1, which was still one

of my all time favorite Transformers. Right.

Yeah. Yeah, and I mean other people that be like

her well I mean this is the movie line versus

generation one, but I see what you're saying

Yeah, you're right. It's it would be interesting.

It looks really good. Yeah, absolutely But I

mean he's got a lot of detail Differentiation

in color. I mean, it's like teal black and gray.

What more can you do? But he looks really good.

Yep, absolutely And you know, I mean, maybe you

get nitpicky about it and be like, well, these

are scourge colors, not nemesis colors. But he's

still just like I said, the amount of detail

and it looks really great. He's fantastic. Yeah,

absolutely. And he's got it all. He's got he's

got the he's got the got a neon green and gold

matrix. I like it. I think that is cool. I mean,

back in the day, right? It's like, oh, great.

Another Optimus Prime. Like, you know, you're

doing the slow jerk. You know, but when he opens

up his chest and there's a matrix in there, it's

like this crowd goes wild. Wow. Absolutely. Yeah.

If you're going to pay that much for a masterpiece

toy, you're going to want a matrix in the chest.

Yeah, absolutely. Just for clarification from

my favorite retailer. Big Bad Toy Store, even

though they don't sponsor us, you can pre -order

Transformers Masterpiece Movie Series 12N Nemesis

Prime from the... Oh, it's the Bumblebee movie

version. That's what it's from. $154 .99 at BBTS.

That's the price on their website. Steve, any

thoughts on Nemesis? I was just complaining about

a $22... Yeah, a $24 regular guy, deluxe size

guy, who honestly have gotten smaller over the

years, and the boxes have gotten bigger to hide

that fact. And yet, here we have this masterpiece

for $155. Hey, at least it ain't $400. Remember

some of those original masterpiece toys three

four hundred. Oh, no, I I think I paid like 200

for my Masterpiece Megatron No, okay. You want

to know it's funny. I remember getting mp01 Yeah

at Target For 60 bucks I want to sell and I had

an entire wall of them They did and he had oh

wait a minute that that was later I was gonna

say and he had a platform that talked in Peter

Cullen's voice, but that was later. That was

MPO4. Yeah. Oh No, no, no, no, no, no in America

that was he was released with a thing actually

I have them both but I've got the one with the

platform in a box I never took them out because

I liked my first one so much All right, folks.

Well, it is getting to be the end of September,

the beginning of October, et cetera, et cetera,

et cetera, which means it is that yearly time

we see Halloween stuff and costumes that look

really uncomfortable. And from the AllSpark,

we have new converting Transformers costumes

from Disguise available at Sam's Club. We have

Optimus Prime and Bumblebee and... Partsformers.

Are these really what kids want to dress up for

us? Like, in these specific costumes, like, that

doesn't look comfortable at all. I mean, if you're

happy in robot mode most of the time, sure. Yeah,

I guess. I mean, the Bumblebee robot mode isn't

bad. I the bumblebee robot mode looks like You

know a kid in a costume. Yeah, but once but once

you put the car on top of them Painful This looks

painful the way it looks like it's made out of

fabric though, so it can probably scrunch up

You probably throw it in the laundry after after

Halloween Yeah That they the regular actually

nothing I'm looking closely at it Even the the

jumpsuit looks like it's fabric. It doesn't look

like it's plastic. No, the whole thing is is

fabric Yeah, I mean and that's kind of cool.

I Think once you bend over and get on your knees

once or twice to transform it's gonna rip the

knees They don't look reinforced to me Well,

the bumblebee transformation into the car, like

it reminds me of when I was a kid. I was much

skinnier than I am now. When I was a kid, I would

do somersaults and do all kinds of like contortionist

things with my body. And now I'm like, ow, my

back hurts. Just looking at this. Well, you know,

for years they had the wrong Halloween. You'd

get this video on Facebook and it had these kids

transforming into. in their Halloween costumes

and clearly their parents made them for them

or something. But they literally would just kneel

down and kind of curl up into a ball and the

car would form around them. And I think there

was one for Optimus and one for Starscream and

one for Bumblebee. And it's like, that is the

coolest thing I've ever seen. And this honestly

would have been a missed opportunity if somebody

didn't market that and sell it. Well, luckily

they didn't make one for Megatron. At least not

the old. Yeah. Yeah. How do you make a transformer

out of a gun? Well, they did it in the eighties.

Well, yeah, that's like a strange yoga pose.

You know, if you can get a kid that can form

himself into a Walther, you know, it's like,

okay, cool. Good job, kid. Now show me the scope.

That's what she said. That thing is huge. It's

a shame there's only two of them, though. I mean,

what's a shame? And I want to throw this out

here. You have a full body jumpsuit, right? It

goes from head to foot. I can't even see the

kid's feet. You know, I can't see his hands.

He's got gloves. He's got a full it's a full

body coverage. And then you have this cheap plastic

mask that just attaches to the front of your

head. It's like come on man, do better Yeah,

well, you know what they when they used to sell

that full head mask for optimus oh It is just

it. Oh, that's oh, I know I'm disappointed. But

yeah, they used to sell the full head mask and

I think I still have one somewhere I guess I

had the voice changer in it. Yeah, I guess it

didn't make one for bumblebee Yeah, I guess technically

you could just have your to keep the illusion

alive for Halloween The second picture to the

right of the kid with the messo in the bumblebee.

So it's basically the fourth picture down on

the right where he's got his hood up, where it's

hiding his back. He's still wearing the car on

his back. Yeah, he's wearing the car on his back.

So essentially, I guess the same thing with Optimus

Prime, same thing. If you wanted to not be looking

like a dumbass. It's like a guy in a jumpsuit

with wheels on his arms. Yeah, really. Well,

no, I think you have to wear the car because

it's not bumblebee unless you have the entire

hood of a car on your chest. True. I mean, I

don't know. Like, I agree. Yes, but I don't know.

The optimist is kind of questionable, though,

because, I mean, he has a windshield on his chest

in jumpsuit, but you're also wearing another

windshield strapped across your belly. He's got

he looks like Hound. He's got this big car cab,

semi truck cab, beer belly hanging off of him.

Yeah. It should be good for me. I thought you

were made of sterner. Sterner stuff? Not sterner

stuff, but I thought you were made from sober

stuff. Not this prime. No, not this one. One

will fall. Yes, many will fall. Once that one

falls, all the dominoes go down. They all go.

Yeah, from jazz to... Dadbots. That's right.

Yeah. Dadbots transform. And blow out. Change

the new truck. Oh boy. All right. And finally

we have, we talked about this a while ago, but

we have two images this time of just Transmetal,

not Trans, well yes, it's Transformers Legacy

Leader Class Transmetal 2 Megatron in hand images.

What do you think of the dragon mode, Michael?

First of all, that is quite a mouthful. Yes,

yes it is. I thought he had a long name the first

time. I think he looks very close to the original.

I had the original on my desk when I I worked

in Chicago and You know, I this is my desk spot

for a long time and people would always be like

what the heck is that? This is giant dragon On

your desk, that's kind of cool. It is like yeah,

he's a robot. Yeah, and then I transform him

But I think there's some subtle differences here

that I find a little distracting Yeah, and first

of all his tail Looks more like a little like

one of his little vestigial arms You know and

the original had this huge sick luxurious tail

with like a It was like a metal wire in it so

it was swinging back and forth right it was really

cool and You know speaking of vestigial arms,

you know, he sees a little bit less of a t -rex

this time but the neck You know and I like the

way the neck looks I think it looks it's it's

an improvement on the original jointed this time

Yeah, but I mean at the top of the neck That

we where the neck meets meets the chest, right?

Yep. It's it's like what is that? What's that's

weird looking for that to put something to cover

it It's almost like they mistransformed it. Yeah,

like it's supposed to notch in there somewhere

You know, it's supposed to it's supposed to come

down half an inch and notch in there somewhere

and it's just not He said a notch and all I can

think of is oh my god Samsung gonna hold the

Megatron or Apple gonna hold a Megatron This

is my thing with it. They're going to that DNA

designs will have a third party Add -on kit to

upgrade. Oh, yeah to fix that to fix the beast

mode head to fix You know various aspects that

kind of look goofy Yeah, I think they improve

the legs I think they tried to keep those weird

kind of wheel things on the knees and that looks

a little out of place in this mode. Well, I think

they tried to make it look kind of a blend of

the original toy and animation. Yeah. But not

have it functional of the fake third transformation.

Yeah. I think the wings look really good in dragon

mode, but not so good in robot mode. Yeah. Agreed.

They kind of look... Cheesy plastic in robot

Yeah, a little bit. They almost looked to me

like they tried them to make like dinosaur skulls

Mm -hmm, like but flat two -dimensional dinosaur

skulls. Yeah Actually, now that I'm looking at

them. It looks like sharks. That's just what

I was going to say. Get out of my head, Steve,

because I'm looking at the drifting mode again.

I like tilted my head and I'm like, oh, hi, SkyBite.

I think my favorite part of this entire toy is

the fact that you can put the translucent blast

effect. In his mouth to make him fire breathing,

that is my favorite part. Yeah, I like that.

I'm surprised that he doesn't use that as like

a club or something, because that's, you know,

it's always a tail that turns into a club or

a fire blast turns into a club, etc. He doesn't

really do anything with it in robot mode. But

I like the way he looks. You know, I don't want

to be too nitpicky about it. I'm really happy

This is something that I would not have expected

to have seen now that being said would I rather

have the original? Yes. Yeah, so just for your

Edification 20 years ago. Well true just for

your edification Michael the trends trends the

the flame It is. It does. I'm looking at the

old article that Steve and I talked about where

it said first official in hand images. And I'm

looking at an image of the robot mode where he

is holding the fire breathing blast effect in

his hand. So it does technically double as a

club. Yeah, I would kind of expect it to almost

be like a sword. Yeah, yeah. It's it's not authentic

to the TV show, but it would look cool. Yeah,

I used to have the original of this of the Transmental

2 and I got rid of it years ago because it which

was kind of bittersweet because I Really liked

it. I liked the effects on it I also was reading

the fact that a lot of them were breaking and

I wanted to get the most money out of it before

it did Because the knee joints were going bad

and parts in the back and a lot of the mechanisms

that made it move and do all of its effects.

We're breaking on the old ones. But it wasn't

very show accurate. To me, I'm one of those weird

animation show accuracy people. As much as possible,

given the new toys, I'm not that big of a stickler

on them, but they got to be at least in the ballpark.

I'm torn on it because I like aspects of this

and the original. And I did have at one time

the third party masterpiece of it, which was

massive. And I dumped it because it was so big.

But I wouldn't mind having this just as a, you

know, to fill that void. Yeah. You know, it's

funny is now that we're talking about it actually

got down. And I say down because it's on my bottom

shelf, but I've got my Beast Wars toys down here

on my shelf. And I'm actually looking at the

Megatron and the wings are spectacular. The original.

Yes. He looks fantastic. It's mind boggling how

bad the new one is in some regards. Yeah. Yeah.

Now that I'm looking at it, it's like, oh, that's

a really that's a disappointment. Mean coloring

on the original was much better the yes the transmetal.

Yes the train Transmetal, but just the column

like I love the translucent on the the wings

Mm -hmm. I I loved the just the whole overall

I Don't know the effects that were on it compared

notice. You don't see like a side -by -side comparison

between the original and the new one, you know

They don't want you to feel like horribly uh

aggravated by you know what they're trying to

put out there like the gold like they they maneuvered

the the beast mode hand so it's it forms over

the chest so it like folds into the chest cavity

and over you know creates that little effect

on the front the other thing it's going to drive

me nuts is in beast mode it they're supposed

to be black and then in robot they're supposed

to be the gold yeah oh i see how they did that

that is you're supposed to be black yeah Well,

I'd forgive that. That's that's not terrible.

I know, but my OCD won't let me. Oh, no. Now

that I'm looking at it, it's like the way they

did the dragon chest versus the way they did

the robot chest is really cool. And unfortunately,

the huge jewel on his chest doesn't have a seat

in it anymore. It looks like a giant eyeball

now. Kind of does. Yeah. That's weird. So I'm

waiting to see the third party add on kit upgrade

is and toy hacks. Yeah. Well, he said he doesn't

have a car mode. You still try to keep the wheels,

though. But no, I think this is and again, you

know, they're going to put this out for a certain

price point and it will be it'll be fifty five.

Yeah, I mean. The question becomes, can you buy

an original for fifty five? No, maybe. No, I've

looked. I would definitely go out and try to

find the original. There was problems with the

original as far as, you know, the flaking of

the paint. I don't know how much how much of

it. Really? No. You know, honestly, I don't think

I have any of mine with flaking paint, but I

had seen it right before. Oh, really? That was

the only one that did it to me, although the

10th anniversary re -release of it does not have

that problem. Oh, you know what? I lied. I'm

right now looking at my at my jetstorm. That's

a little one, but the big one. Mm hmm. The tall

one and his chest is all flaked off. What's aggravating?

There's a reason why I have these guys in, you

know, oak shelves with the. The plexiglass over

the front, you know, like I want to keep them

in as nice a condition as possible. But yeah,

no, I mean, you go to trade shows and it's like,

oh, look, it's one of these old, you know, transmittal

figures. And I really like the chroming. But

a lot of times that's smeared off. You know,

that doesn't last very long in the toy box. No,

no. But yeah, I bought all these guys from like

service merchandise back in the day. And all

of those are closed. So you can imagine how long

ago that was. Yeah, they've always been on a

shelf. They've never been like handled. They've

never seen a sandbox, you know Is that like some

of the g1 figures you find where it's like, oh

what the hell We call those well -loved Yes,

those are it's a well -loved figure you got to

take it apart get all the sand out of the gears

I did that with an optimal optimus I got Before

the trans art one came out And it would not stay

standing to save its life like its knee joints.

He would just like flop backwards. Yeah. And

my kids were like, what are you going to do?

Like, and they're like, I said, well, there's

there's two options here. I says I take them

apart and I see if there's something that I can

repair. I said, or I said, I can tell this thing's

been in sand at one point. I put his bottom gears

are all stripped out. So I put his bottom half

in a bucket of Dundish soap water. Yeah. And

I kind of sloshed him around a little bit. And

then I dried it really well afterwards. Not a

problem. Huh? Really? Just cleaning it out. Yep.

I just sloshed it around. I was very careful

with it. I only did like the, you know, from

the waist down and it was fine. Nice. Well, good.

That's awesome. I actually think I got two of

those, one for each mode so I could display them.

But back in the day, those were prevalent. They

were everywhere. I mean, I think I even sent

one to Blanchard at one point and like here,

I don't need this one. Which which toy is this

optimal optimus? Yeah. Yeah, you did. Yeah. Yeah,

here you go, kid. I don't need this anymore.

Yeah, I got like a I got like a bunch of these

here. You can have this one. You know, every

time you bought like a lot like like a lot from

eBay, we come with one. Yeah. And it's like,

I got like four of these. I don't know that I've

parted out, you know, a couple of nice ones.

I don't need the rest of them. This is why you

don't buy lots on eBay. I used to buy all the

lots on eBay. I know you did. Well, the nice

part is with this new Megatron, as it appears

so far, he won't have his head up his butt. Like

the old toy. Like the old one, right? Somewhere

close to his tail. Yeah, it'll be close, but

it shouldn't be there. Yeah. I mean, it's nice.

I mean, if his head is close to his butt, it's

easier to bury the seeds. Again, I think I'd

like to see the original next to this guy. This

guy's going to stand a lot better. He's going

to. Yeah. Well, especially in dragon mode, he's

going to pose a lot better. Yeah. Dragon mode.

Well, the neck was terrible on the old one. Yeah,

because it was like a big rubber band and, you

know, it had a little handle so you could move

his head back and forth. But it didn't. It didn't

want to stay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he couldn't

do this. But well, he couldn't. Rear his head

up and have his arms flared out and blowing fire

everywhere like like they'd have him in these

screenshots But in robot mode, which is what

I kept him in the majority of the time He was

magnificent. He posed so well. Mm -hmm. I mean,

it's just like it like I said people walk by

and go Wow What the heck is that? You know, yeah,

I'm gonna repaint the new one We're gonna get

some metallic chrome paint I already have it

all. Oh, if you're kidding, that's awesome. I've

been kit bashing all of mine since Kingdom started

coming out. Nice. Yeah, Steve has become quite

the customizer. He hasn't finished anything yet,

but... No, I finished quite a few actually. I

just haven't finished that one Megatron. Oh,

the one Megatron, okay. Yep. Yeah, I've actually

bought third party stickers for some of mine,

but I won't put them on because that's... You

know, cheating. I've done it with a few. I've

actually got... Oh, what's the name of that company?

Toy Hacks. A long time ago, I bought the Toy

Hacks stickers for Omega Supreme. And I really

wanted my Omega Supreme to look like the one

I had when I was little, you know, with all the

stickers on it. And part of me was like... I

don't I don't want it's cheating and part of

me was like this is gonna take days So many goddamn

stickers But yeah, I had a similar moment did

you guys see The one in particular I'm talking

about is trypticon The trypticon that came out

probably it's a couple years back. Yep The sticker

sheet for trypticon. There's two sticker sheets

Mm -hmm. It's it looks like a toy hacks Sticker

sheet set and I put on maybe three of them and

I'm like, this is way too much like work Not

not doing this this is gonna take days and You

know, I didn't and I still like the trypticon

just the way it just the way it is now but I

think isn't that part of the Okay, maybe not

now that we're all old But when we were kids,

it wasn't that like we would get our parents

to help us, but wasn't that part of the play

pattern of Transformers? Yes, you have two toys.

You can play with them a multitude of different

ways. Oh, and also instead of us putting the

stickers on, you know, and maybe they not. Like

maybe the factory sticker stamp or, you know,

screws up or something, you know, here, here's

sticker sheets. You can put them on yourself

and screw it up yourself. Yeah. You have no idea

how many G1 seekers I've seen with their stickers

in just oddball places. It's just nuts. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like, why did they put this here?

This makes no sense. This isn't where this belongs.

Why did they put the Decepticon symbol on Starscream's

butt? Not even that but it's like, you know stickers

that were supposed to You know cover certain

aspects of them like the gaping screw holes,

you know, yeah They put them in on their knees

or some shit, you know, it's like this doesn't

make any sense. Why don't they put these here?

Yeah, I mean it took me a long time to find seekers

with nice stickers No Anything else we want to

bring up guys I want to hear Steve do a bunch

of Transmental Megatron impersonations, because

that's my favorite part about Steve. Give the

people what they want. Yeah, all right. I remember

Sean Hunter. Give the people what they want,

dude. Do it. Do it now. Well, we shall see what

this Megatron looks like. And we'll find out

where his head is buried. Yes. Ah, you're awesome.

All right. I think just because just because

we're going to go to a quick ad break, come back

to close the show after this. That's your cue

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We're trying to make our spot sound more exciting

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Transformers to Mask, Diaclone, Microman, and

more. Be it Nostal - All right, folks, we are

back and we are going to close it out as always.

Steve, where can the people find you online,

sir? Well, they can find me on the Twitters at

SCP -21. What about you, Michael? Uh, I don't

know. Somewhere out there is PiconCT Michael.

Don't get that song stuck in my head this late

at night. Get out! Get out! Get out! Which one?

Sing it! Sing it! Mushroom! Mushroom! I was swimming

in the ocean causing a commotion cause they are

so awesome. That's right. I'm glad this was on

this show, not the other show. DMJ and Mike on

Twitter, you can also follow on Twitter at Geocast

Radio and at all things TFV3 over there as well.

Megatron, take us out. Well, well, well, where

am I taking you out to? Not Burger King. No,

Taco Bell. Like Demolition Man, we're going to

Taco Bell. We're going to Taco Bell. It's a combination

of my enemies Do it Megatron. Where are we at?

I'm at the Taco Bell. I'm at the Pizza Hut I'm

at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell Which

get all their food from the same trough I'd rather

have little Caesars than combo Taco Bell and

Pizza Hut. I'm at the combination Pizza Hut and

Taco Bell. I'm at the Pizza Hut. What? I'm at

the Taco Bell. What? I'm at the combination Pizza

Hut and Taco Bell. I thought it was called the

low road. I may regret. Yes, it's strength Pampers.

And on that note, we're gonna end with some wild

bean vines, so Transform and Transcend, join

us next time here on All Things Transformers!

Thank you for providing the sound effects. Now

all I need is Megatron doing, oh no, not that!

This is the most humiliating defeat of my entire

career. Yes. But wait, there's more! What's total

process? I don't know how to follow that. How

the fuck am I supposed to follow that up? Like,

come on. Where did you bury your hand, Blanchard?

On my ass. I can't reach it. I can't reach my

ass. The words he speaks, it tells me he tried.

No, no, I automatically know the giant beer gut

will not let me reach anything anymore. And I

don't even drink beer. I'm not Michael. You got

to try going the other way. No, no, no, that's

going to be a huge record scratch right about.

You really did it, didn't he? Yeah, he broke

his back though. He broke his back by going the

front way. He couldn't help it. He tapped it.

I'm tapping out. Good night, folks. Oh, man,

I was hoping you were going to finish that up

as Megatron. We'll be right back. Anyway. Well,

so much fun. As always, doesn't matter how long

we don't do this together. When we do get together,

it's a party. It's it's like family, you know,

you may sometimes you only get together at Christmas,

but it's always nice to see you guys See in air

quotes I got a face for radio. You don't want

to see this I'm the one with the face for radio.

Thank you very much My wife is like she's like,

uh, I saw I'm going downstairs to that podcast

and she said You're gonna run a comb through

your hair, right? I'm like, no, there's no video

on this. No video on this? The hell are you talking

about? We're real professionals. I know. I say

this all the time to anyone who I podcast with.

You're gonna scare the children. There's that.

But then again, children are already scary as

it is some of them. But, you know, I usually

tell everybody I do audio, not video. So you

don't have to worry about anything. You don't

have to do anything. There's no camera hook.

I don't even have a camera hooked up to my computer.

I don't. I do because I know I do. And that's

fine. But occasionally I have to present myself

to people. Well, you know, yeah, but that's your

that's your job. That's that's different. You

get paid to present yourself for that. We're

not paying you for this. And I shower for that.

And I comb my hair. It's okay. Not today. We

can't hear your dirt in your voice, whether you

shower or not. Get what you pay for. Just covered

in filth. Free audio stream, everybody. It's

discount Morgan Freeman. Can you do a Morgan

Freeman? I have. But it only, what's sad is,

it worked better when I had COVID. That's funny.

Because my voice was gravelly. Every time I look

into a monitor prime. Nah, there's not really

any more. That's about it. I love when a plan

comes together. Yeah. I wish to speak to my lawyer.