Animated Toys and Universe Powerglide

Hello, this is TFG1Mike with the GeekCast Radio

Network and Transformers ToyCast. I would just

like to tell everybody that I'm very sorry with

the audio quality for this episode. Every now

and then the call recorder that I use messes

up audio quality. I don't know why. When I play

the Starscream clone thing and when I play my

My Name is Blur thing, please excuse that. it

does echo if you'd like to fast forward that

part that's fine uh... but please listen to the

discussion where uh... myself uh... kevin buskey

dog thompson and uh... the goddamn for a man

and shane big bad boombox talk about uh... animated

toys and one universe toy so please tune into

transformers toy cast episode nine universally

animated thank you for listening welcome to the

ninth episode of Transformers Toycast. This one

will be titled universally animated since three

out of the four of us are talking animated toys

and then the other one is talking a universe

toy. I am TFG1 Mike I am joined by Big Bad Moonbox

say hello. Yo hello. Boss K Dog how are you?

How's it going guys? And the goddamn protoman.

How you doing people? Doing pretty good. This

is Boscata, this is Kevin's actually first appearance

on twicast or breaking his chair even though

he's been with me on tooncast for the last nine

episodes But and since this is all transformers

thing I should go by or at least drop my Transformers

name on there optimus solo for those of you that

visit transformer sites That's what I always

use on those So again this is one of those impromptu

things i just felt like recording something in

that these guys uh... on with me i guess uh...

do we want to do like any general chat before

we actually get into the toy discussions like

kevin doesn't like animated that is a travesty

you said to me in the skype conversation i will

not buy those kitty looking toys So I'm waiting

for the punches to be thrown. No, I don't have

they could that I don't doubt that they're excellent

toys I've heard, you know, the transformer the

transform ability and you know, I said there's

not excellent I'm not gonna hate on them for

that I just they're just not my not the style

that I don't collect all toys all Transformers

toys I kind of pick and choose and it's just

one of the lines that I haven't chosen to collect

yet. I go from from G1 to a lot of Beast Wars,

Beast Machines, Alternators, Cybertron. I just

animated, I haven't got to. Well, let me ask

you this, have you seen the show? No, I have

not yet. See, that's a big deal breaker right

there. I think part of the reason why you own

Beast Wars toys is probably because you enjoyed

the show, correct? Correct. Oh, there you go.

That's probably what's going to happen. You will

buy toys, you just got to enjoy the fiction first.

A lot of people are like that. Although I will

say that with the Cybertron line, I have seen

a couple episodes of that show. I'm not a big

fan of the show. Well the dub is horrible, that's

why. I do like the Cybertron toys though. Oh

yeah, well they're great toys. A lot of them.

Galaxy Force Optimus Prime or whatever you want

to call them. Just Optimus Prime is probably

one of the best Optimus Prime toys made in a

while. I think what will happen eventually is

one of my favorite characters or something I'll

see in the animated line and I'll pick it up

and then that'll start. I used to work at Target

so I got a lot of toys while I worked there and

I don't work there anymore. I'm a teacher now

but it's kind of taken me away from the scene

so I wasn't there when animated came out. I didn't

get to see them on the shelves every day so I

just haven't been exposed to them enough I think.

Okay. They grow on you. Yeah. And they're marvels

of engineering. Especially in my case, when you've

owned so much and transformed so much, it's really

nice to see a different way how a car turns into

a robot, or let's say a motorcycle or whatever,

because they really did different twists and

turns that are not commonalities with past Transformer

toys. Gotcha. It's extremely different with Animated

compared to any other line that I've seen. And

you know, I dare say animated has been the best

line in the past two years. As everybody knows,

I hate the movie toys, but you know. Blasphemy

if you're not counting the universe as the best

line of the last two years. Sorry. The only universe

here I have is Cyclonus, and that's the only

one I like. The only other ones in stores I've

seen is outside of those larger versions, just

the deluxes, is Cheetor, Dinobot, and Smokescreen.

Ah, shelf warmers. Yes, exactly. Or in Cheetor's

case, not bought at all. Oh man, it probably

said, you know, now comes with cancer. Probably

would have sold better. So who wants to go first

today? I've got you guys on the list here, but

I just want to know, does anybody have any preference?

No, not really, not for me. Okay, well then you

can go first. Excellent! It's always the nail

that gets stuck that gets stuck with the hammer.

Alright, so I'll be starting off with the seeker's

mold here. Actually, probably the most pain in

the butt. Collectible pieces that I had so far

getting Skywarp and Sunstorm. Thank God Target

decided to have that little mispricing error.

But yeah, going into the figure. Interesting

alt mode. It's a futuristic carrier jet. It has

a little bit of kibble. Hands stick out a little

bit. That's probably my only real complaint about

the figure, the mold in general. As far as the

Sunstorm figure goes, It's a little too day glow

orange for my taste. I mean, it's one of those

things where the light reflected off of my shelf

one morning from the sun and I was blinded when

I woke up to Sunstorm's face. Yeah, it was a

bizarre way to wake up. It was like, what was

it? Child's play. Yeah, it's like, come play

with us. It's like, oh no. But in general, the

figures are great. It's got great poseability.

The legs have a great 360 -degree swivel on the

hips, two points of articulation before the knees.

So you've got the 360 on the actual bottom of

the hip, and then a 180 -degree bend just for

putting the legs in and out. I find it gives

the figure some real stability. OK, and there

goes the missile. That is not a complaint, but

definitely one of the pet peeves I have about

this particular mold. Displaying it, you even

breathe on the missile as they go off. But good

attention to detail. I don't know, do you guys

all have at least one of these molds? I have

them all. Yeah. Portalman has everything. Yeah,

that kind of goes without saying. Yeah, but I

mean, and it's no offense to you, Portalman,

but that's the problem with having you on a podcast

when somebody asks, do you guys have these? I

automatically know. I have everything. I probably

shouldn't answer anymore. I don't have them.

And the reason why I don't have them is because

I don't like the jet modes, the jet mode where

the cockpit is every time I've seen them in pictures.

It looks so fat and it looks so ugly to me, I

will never have the animated seekers. I don't

really think they're all that bad, to be honest

with you. That's just my opinion of the entire

mold. They do have some quality issues, the Voyager

ones, but all in all, they're not bad figures.

Again, my only other complaint I can think of

is, well, it's a Starscream mold. It wasn't really

unique on its transformation, but I can't blame

them. They always try to keep that same, I guess,

design aesthetic You know, I don't hate them,

but I'm not crazy about them either. I although

I do like the little What they called activators.

I love the the secret activators I think that's

quite interesting how they were able to engineer

the Voyager toy into such a small figure like

that very nicely Yeah, they pulled that off excellently.

Yeah, but I love a lot of activators in general.

But anyways, yeah Yeah, I other than that. I

think the only complaint I have is I don't know

if you guys have had problems with these, but

I kept losing hands. My first Starscream, I went

through about three or four of them just making

sure the pain apps got right, got it home, the

left hand fell off before I even had a chance

to get out of the box. Two seconds later, a dog

ate it. You know what, at that point, I'm a completionist

for keeping my figures all 100%. Got to say,

not going to go digging through... Thankfully,

Optimus Scourge was nice enough to give me a

complete set of Starscream forearms now, so if

that happens again, at least I'm covered for

one set. I got to admit, the Skywarp one, I'm

looking at it online. The Skywarp one doesn't

look too bad out of those. I looked at the Sunstorm

and the Skywarp. The Skywarp's got a nice look

to it. Yeah, they're in general a great figure.

What I'm seeing that really stands out in terms

because I I'm an animated Fanatic is the light

piping. I mean a lot of these figures I mean

some of them you really got to have the light

hitting it just right But with with you know,

you can just have ambient light in a room and

it lights up these figures I kind of wish that

they may might have done a little bit different

light piping for each one of them But it seems

like they they use the same light piping back

of the head on all three Yeah, that's gang molding

as it's called. Oh Yeah. How it works is that

they always gang mold the same mold for specific

figures. Especially, again, it's a Decepticon,

so they usually want to stick with the same colors

for the eyes and any other clear plastics. Because,

again, with any Transformer toy, and I stress

this, any Transformer toy, whatever the clear

plastic is on that toy, it's going to share it

with all the other clear plastics on that toy.

And when you gang mold, meaning if there's a

repaint of that mold, and they use a different

clear plastic color for the same areas, it's

going to be shared in the same areas. It kind

of goes back to how it's all assembled in the

factory when it's on the, I guess, if you ever

built a model kit, or it's on trees, it's kind

of like that. I mean, it would be cool to have

different colors, but it's really difficult.

And then Hasbro will be like, well, since we

did different colors, we're going to call it

premium. sunstorm and charge two more bucks.

Oh, God, yeah, that's just one of those lovely

ways. We're going to give you five cents more

of paint and charge you two dollars more. Well,

that's what premiums was, Hasbro going outside

of the gang molding process. We're going to actually

paint stuff differently outside of the normal

process. But because we're making that extra

effort, yeah, we've got to charge you a little

more now. The only issue I have with not having

different light piping for different characters,

as far as that goes, on the animated line is

Bumblebee, which they are going to be doing a

deluxe Bumblebee wasp repaint. I wish that they

would have done the purple light piping to match

the eyes from the show. Yeah, that again. See,

it's an example of gang molding where it's like,

well, there's clear plastics on the toy in vehicle

mode that are blue. So it can't be expect, unless

they did purple windows then or whatever. That

would have been the only way. Yeah, that would

have been. I haven't seen it yet myself. I haven't

either. I just know that it's coming eventually,

I guess. I don't know when. It's going to be

definitely part of the exclusives when they release

Rodimus and Arcee and the others too. There's

no official announcement where it's going to

be and which exclusive it will be available to,

but it is coming. Is that going to be included

with the, going back to the Seekers, the Thundercracker

that they were rumoring to make for a Voyager?

There's no word of Thundercracker sadly. Oh okay,

so that was just... We're just stuck with the

Activator for now. Yeah, I still don't have him

The one I thought there was a one. Yeah, I thought

I thought there was a thundercracker Starscream

skywarp and Sunstorm Nope. Nope thundercracker

seemed to dodge that bullet for some reason then

they gave them a very purple Activator toy which

in all honesty when I first picked it up off

of the shelves I actually thought it was skywarp

look at just a miscolored skywarp kind of They

kind of mixed around the color schemes a lot

for animated though. I mean, I think they were

trying to, as much as we all loved when they

did that episode where they had the first clone,

the one that actually had the traditional G1

colors, and then immediately killed it off to

kind of say, yeah, you guys, here's your taste.

It's gone now. Enjoy your teal. I'll continue,

I'll play off of it after. Oh yeah, well that's

something that I think that hopefully in bot

cons in the future we'll possibly see some of

these exclusive molds, maybe like animated games

of deception and actually have the rest of the

Seekers including Slipstream in there. Just kind

of round that off because I know that these three

molds are great. I kind of wish that maybe like

Fans Project or any of the other custom sites

would... do like that the headsets or maybe even

release like you know new molded heads for the

animated line just for just for the seekers for

those people like myself picked up a couple extra

sunstorms and was like we can make that no ramjet

to to mention the first thing was like sunstorm

uh... his colors are pretty dead onto the g one

toy of the same name which was a hobby exclusive

i believe back in two thousand two or something

where some of the other uh... some of the other

characters that are based on color like slipstream

herself um... you know a lot of people said oh

she's uh... she's a homage to the g two ramjet

toy or she's a homage to this or she's a homage

to that uh... according to derek wyatt even me

i when he's mentioned this stuff at tfcon i kind

of raised my brow and i think that's a bit of

a stretch he said it's a homage to uh... to overlord

who was a uh... a Japanese leader from MasterForce

who was Decepticon who had two Power Masters,

one that was a guide, one that was a girl. And

even then, that's kind of a stretch because the

colors don't really match up, but I digress.

When you were saying you'd like to see those

in the future, that is a possibility with BotCon

because BotCon stated that they're not allowed

to touch any of the movie molds ever. for their

exclusives. That's why we've gotten three, four

years of Cybertron universe slash classics and

Energon toys, because they really have to milk

those molds because their first rule is they

never use molds of the show that's currently

on the air. That's why we didn't see any animated

exclusives. And they have a 100 % clause where

they're not allowed to ever use movie designs,

ever, and their molds, ever. That's good. possibilities

for next year. How long was that again? What

do you mean? Oh, I was just trying to bait you

there. No, you're just saying never use movie

molds. Oh, apparently they're not about to ever

use the designs ever. Like, ever. Like, Brian

Savage at BotCon said it and we're like, okay,

so I guess that means we're going to be getting

more repaid. I mean, I guess it's... kind of

good because it gives them an opportunity to

focus on other pieces of fiction because in all

honesty if they did use the movie molds chances

are using that aesthetic they'd be forced to

write fiction that's movie -esque I guess so

you know if they're forced to use animated molds

that means we could get continuation of the animated

story that we would all love to see oh yeah and

Marty Eisenberg who worked on animated prior

to working on animated was a comic book writer

so to see him Continue animated through the written

word would be great. You know he also did Beast

Machines Yes, he did a couple of episodes, too

As far as the seekers go like I said it's just

maybe down the line If they kind of grow on me,

but the toys never have grown out grown on me.

I kind of like the seeing them in the show But

before we go on to the next person. I want to

play the Starscream clones Us? Against Megatron?

Were you insane? Huh? I think I just sprang right

on a leak. Silence, you fool! Megatron is a worthless

pile of scrap metal compared to my genius! Brilliant,

brilliant, brilliant! But your genius pales in

comparison to the genius of our leader, the original

Starscream. I can listen to this one all day.

What are you talking about? I am the original

Starscream! Liar! I am the original Starscream!

I never said I was the original Starscream! You

just did right now! No, I didn't! Yes, you did!

No, I didn't! Yes, you did! No, I didn't! How

did you figure it out yet? Yeah, I don't know

what echo you guys are talking about so well

I got an echo but you know, I think I don't know

if this is widespread, but doesn't she represent

Starscream's crabbiness, to put it in a PG way?

Well, actually, Slipstream was invented because

Starscream is the most beloved Transformer character

by the female fandom. And a lot of times the

female fandom, when they ask, well, what is that

about Starscream, which makes them so popular

with female fans? And it's like 9 out of 10.

female transformer fans love Starscream like

it's their favorite character and they said part

of it has to do is that he has a feminine side

you know that it almost seems like if Megatron

and Starscream had a gay relationship he would

be the chick you know like you don't call anymore

so that being said that's why when they asked

when she when he asked slipstream what part of

me are you and she's like don't ask you know

That's why I hate to reference the movie but

Starscream I'm home Exactly, you know there's

kind of that weird ambiguous relationship that

they have and a lot of female fans You know who

are dying for any kind of? Relationships among

the robots they right away pick up on that Wow

why don't you go next for the man who are you

talking about? I'm going to be talking about

everyone's favorite Autobot douchebag, Sentinel

Prime. Yeah, Sentinel Prime, well I guess like

I love to always do, I'll give a little history

lesson first. The name Sentinel Prime originally

stemmed from the Marvel G1 comic books. He was

supposed to be the leader that came before Optimus

Prime. In different retellings of that story,

he was actually shot dead and handed the Matrix

to Optimus, or alternatively in War Within. uh...

shot dead and then the matrix given to gravitas

which that was headed to optus prime either way

he was a guy who pretty much had always bad luck

out on the opposite end of megatron's got uh...

we fast forward to animated and when they were

designing a character that was supposed to be

kind of the rival to optus prime like the bully

kind of asshole character uh... originally the

writer staff of animated was opting for this

character to be named rodimus prime And then

Hasbro stepped in and said, yeah, we don't really

want that name to be associated with that kind

of character. So they went back into the pool,

and they're like, well, let's look at all the

other primes that exist. And they decided to

go with that one that kind of really had no character

behind it, and that was Sentinel Prime. And that's

how Sentinel Prime came to be. The only other

interesting thing I could say about him is that

his first appearance in the first episode of

animated where we see him on the view screen

like snidely talking to Optimus Prime He actually

has a completely different torso design in that

scene if you rewatch it Where every scene that

he appears in afterwards is the more standard

look that he gets for the rest of the series

and what the toy is based on So yeah getting

into the toy Sentinel Prime was actually one

of those few figures I was actually very interested

in getting. I mean, a snowplow, hey, you don't

really get that much in Transformers. That was

something that was really different. He also

came with his two standard weapons that he had

in the show, which was pretty cool. and that

he can hold them, which is nice that even though

it looks weird in vehicle mode, I like transform

toys that can still weigh their weapons in one

way or another instead of just spraying around.

Don't you mean three weapons? His shield, his

lance, and his friggin' chin. And a nice little

a Phillips screw. So that's a nice little design

aesthetic for a robot there. instead of just

being a dimple, it's a screw. But yeah, so his

toy's pretty cool. Very simple transformation.

I actually, when I first saw the toy at BotCon

2008 when it was on display, I was quite shocked

that they were able to even pull it off because

one thing that animated always seemed to surprise

me with, and that's one thing I've always loved

about animated, is looking at those show designs

and seeing that robot mode and all its slick...

and say to myself, how the hell is that going

to transform and look like that? And they always

seem to pull it off somehow. And that's something

I've always loved about the line. And Sendel

is another example of that, where I would see

that he's supposed to be this big truck that

has a snowplow in front. And I'm saying, how

is he going to get that upper torso and that

large chest and everything and still be able

to do that and they managed to pull it off they

did a very good job uh... you know it does have

its flaws its figure i wish that it would have

what it might have been larger you know maybe

even put it in a different price point completely

uh... because it's kind of sad that you could

have a next to like optimist prime in his own

deluxe scale of these kind of shorter that uh...

where it all is representations of the anime

to be the end of the animated uh... episodes

uh... he was kind of like face -to -face or even

a little larger kind of like the large jock to

the more timid uh... optimist prime character

yeah so and again what's kind of sad is he's

kind of like shorter than black arachnia who

again was you know what she was the leader one

it was kind of like is you know pseudo girlfriend

so he's just the toys kind of out of scale with

everyone else which is something that some animated

toys suffer from whether it be deluxe bubble

beer to some people prowl and walk well lockdowns

decepticon so maybe he's supposed to be larger

than what else but It's always been a kind of

a little problem that's existed in the line,

and Sentinel Prime is one of those people that

suffer from it. He's still a great toy, great

coloring. I love the face design. He has his

little, like, chagrin smirk on there. He has

his little tick ears, because he's based off

of the tick. And also his voice actor was the

original voice actor of the tick. He comes with

his power lance and his shield that he had. in

the second headmaster episode that he used when

he was hunting down the headmaster. Just a really

good toy. Nothing perfect, but a really cool

toy nonetheless. What's interesting is when the

news got out that he was supposed to be Rodimus

Prime, a lot of people noticed, and you can notice

this too with your Sentinel Prime toy, that if

you take in robot mode his, I guess you could

call them the plow shovel. That's normally rests

on his chest. You could actually position them

on his back and make it kind of like Hot Rod

Erotimus Prime's pointy spoiler back piece So

it makes yeah, it's possible. Yeah, you can I

gotta try that. It's just horrible. I'm sorry,

and I'm talking about as far as mixing the characters

No, no, no, no. Oh, yes, of course, of course

I wouldn't have been game for that either if

they would have used erotimus in that representation

But it's kind of interesting that the design

Was kind of there. Yeah prior to the finalization

of the figure so You know, it's it's interesting,

you know, of course, I'm much more happier than

with the Rodimus that we ended up with in the

end especially with the voice acting choice to

of Judd Nelson, but You know Sentinel great figure

nothing to complain about if you're if you're

someone who's an all -around transformer collector

I really don't suggest you pick him up unless

you get a good grip of the fiction and the character.

Don't buy him just for the toy because you won't

be happy then. But if you're a fan of animated,

he's definitely in my top 10 of must -get figures

just because he just represents something that's

important to that whole story and just interesting.

Yeah, so that's it. You haven't heard a lot of

the stuff, but I mean, Shane, do you guys have

any other opinions on Sentinel? In fact, I do.

In fact, I do. I think my biggest complaint with

the Sentinel mold was I think it looked the most

badass when he had the battle mask on. And I

kind of, you know, I know not all the figures,

like you obviously had Voyager Prime that had

the flip -up battle mask and that was pretty

much it. And if you really wanted to go down

that road, you'd go to Reprolabels and get the

Bumblebee and Prowl battle masks respectively.

But I really felt that they almost took a little

bit away from the figure not having that. And

I definitely agree with Protoman that it should

have been more of a Voyager or a larger price

point figure because there was a lot that was

just, that could have been a little bit more

well -represented. I have mentioned this before,

his legs. If he had maybe another what, maybe

an inch and a half, two inches from the knees

down, I think it would have been, I could have

even dealt with the deluxe. mold just in height.

I mean, they did it with lockdown. They did an

excellent job giving him that crazy vertical

of a Voyager while maintaining the deluxe price

point. Overall, the figure is great. I've had

a couple of little problems with the shoulders

not staying locked in, but other than that, it's

a solid figure. Alright, well, I'm going to leave

us with this and we're gonna go to break I am

TFG1 Mike with the Geekcast Radio Network visit

geekcastradio .com And I am here to tell you

about the final three episodes of the TFG1 podcast

They will be released over the next week and

a half episode 22 features reviews of the burden

hardest to bear the return of optimus prime parts

one and two and two other episodes also episode

twenty three will be our season three recap where

we discuss what we like what we didn't like overall

of the generation one cartoons third season and

then episode twenty four will be rebirth which

is the final episode of the tfg1 podcast we will

be discussing the final three u .s. episodes

of the japanese continuity will not be discussed

on this podcast because it does not exist Alright

we are back and I think I'm going to have Kevin

talk about his pick. So what are you talking

about today sir? I'm talking about the the universe

2 .0 classic power glide figure from 2008. Really

like this figure I know what the normal complaints

are about it obviously a lot of people didn't

like the Inversion of the colors and the scale

that it's done But I gotta say I have most of

the the universe classic figures at least the

ones that are G1 G2 Figures and I like this one

a lot a couple things about it that I really

like I like the The fact that when you hit the

button, obviously you have the lights on both

the The what turns in the robot would it be his

chest but also his eyes that are lighting up

I like that part about it. I like that when you're

transforming them, it actually makes the transforming

sound. I like the amount of articulation on this

one. And I actually like the change of the colors.

A couple things that are drawbacks of it. If,

let's say, from personal experience, your cat

knocks it over or something like that, and it

lands the wrong way, that sound will just go

off forever. And even sometimes when you're transforming

it or like if I've moved a couple times recently

if you put it in the box wrong You know if you're

not very careful with it that that button can

just be held down It's got one of this even though

I like it a lot. It has one of the silliest features

I've ever seen on a transformer Which is when

you raise the chest piece on it that has the

Autobot logo it reveals a heart The girl who

loves Powerglide. Right, right. But yeah, I just

never expected to see it on one of the actual

figures. So I mean, it's not that bad. I mean,

you can keep it covered up, but it just seems

kind of silly. And the only thing I dislike about

the actual making of the figure is it's very

hard to find one where both wing pieces in robot

mode will actually latch onto what you can call

the shoulders. There's like a little there's

a little like Little slat type thing or a slot

whatever you want to call it and it's supposed

to click into the shoulders and keep it in place

and Out of all the ones I've seen I don't think

I've ever seen one that both of them do it like

consistently the storm cloud mold has the same

problem I was just I never I never noticed out

of my power glide, but the storm cloud one I

have Yeah, I've seen that I've seen a bunch of

pictures online and I never seem to see one That's

that's clicked in both of them like mine They

both will click in if you do it just right But

otherwise if you're just kind of doing it quickly

you usually want to get one of them to click

fully into that We're getting that mold again

later on down the line with the quote g1 accurate

colors. Maybe they fix that. Yeah Is that still

supposed to be this year? Yeah, it is this year

So and what he's talking about is the one that's

supposed to be basically changing the colors

back to the red Like it's done in the traditional

power glide colors and he's gonna be shipped

with a repaint of onslaught called hardhead Okay,

which is a homage to the headmaster. Oh, wow

Eric nice And I guess I'll have to wait until

I see the that one actually, you know pictures

of that one But I don't mind this color change.

I think it gives it a good look I know it's not

necessarily g1 accurate, but I actually like

the way they did the colors. It looks more realistic

to me as far as representing the actual plane

that it's supposed to be representing, the A10

Thunderbolt. A lot of people, when they see that

color scheme, they make reference to... Star

Saber who's the leader of the Autobots in the

transformer victory series and I actually kind

of see that when people say that because I didn't

really think of that when I first saw it but

Okay, as a lot of I'll try to pull up a picture

of it There's a lot of similarities the Star

Saber was also a big white jet who had a red

head and also had a very similar shaped red head

So yeah, I can also understand how they probably

wanted to go for more realistic look That's kind

of the same reason why Masterpiece Starscream

was the way he was that first time around was

because they wanted a jet that looked real rather

than red blue and gray. Right. A couple other

things that are real good about this one is obviously,

as in most of the universe line, the missile

launcher is really good. It doesn't stick at

all. It shoots very far, a long way. It doesn't

have the trigger happy that some of them do.

It does actually take... Little press to get

it going so it's not just gonna fire off for

no reason The other thing is the landing gear

has three different landing gear and when you

put those down it rolls Remarkably well if you

have a smooth hard surface and you have all three

landing gears You know flip down it rolls pretty

pretty well for for a figure of its size The

only other thing I'll point out about it that

I this kind of a drawback but it's I know they

did it to make it g1 accurate is the I guess

you want to call it the missile that is under

the cockpit, under the nose cone of the plane.

How they have it off center, just like the G1

Powerglide had kind of the gun that was off centered.

I know the reasoning behind why they did it.

I just don't care for it in the figure because

it makes it seem like it's off. It makes it seem

like you did something wrong. Even though you

didn't little bilateral symmetry problem, right?

I guess I'm I guess I'm anal and OCD about things

being you know, perfectly squared and centered

and stuff like that so it bugs me a little bit,

but it doesn't draw back to the awesomeness of

this figure the the transforming from one mode

to the other is Not like super easy, but not

so complex that you're gonna get frustrated It's

easy enough and once you've done it a few times

But I just really like this figure. I like it

a lot. I had obviously the G1 version way back

when, and I never really cared for it too much

because of the feet and the arms. It just wasn't...

It was very simple and boring, the original,

yeah. And I think my problem was is I played

with my toys so much when I was a kid that one

of the, I guess you can call it feet, but one

of the things that served as a foot was broken

on mine. I couldn't stand anymore. Yeah, it couldn't

stand for anything. No matter what you do, it's

not going to stand. So I like this one a lot,

the 2008 version. I'm looking forward to seeing

what the repaint looks like. Well, I just had

a thought. Peg leg power glide. What's that?

I said, I just had a thought. Peg leg power glide.

Oh, nice. Nice. Oh, I forgot to mention the other

little tidbit. I'm sure some of you guys are

aware of this But some may not be but a power

glide is the only Generation one transformer

with four digits on both hands and They did that

on this one too. I believe if I'm counting, right?

I never noticed that nor did I So he's got a

little bit of a little trivia bit there I guess

I will go, and here's who I will be talking about.

That's right. Autobot intelligence agent from

Animated Blur. First of all, in the show, I wasn't

even expecting the Blue Racer to be Blur until

I kind of saw it in a later episode, and I was

like, oh cool, it's Blur. Hell yeah, and the

greatest thing about Blur and Animated is I'm

very happy that they did that. Yeah, it is. Crap.

OK. Can you hear me? Yeah, that was better. Oh,

Christ. Stupid. OK. Did anybody? It's OK. We

were able to hear you before, just not as well.

OK. Well, Blur, as I said a second ago, the best

thing about Blur was his G1 voice actor John

Rashida jr. Was voicing him in this new series,

and I just absolutely love that The toy when

I first got him he is extremely difficult to

transform and One of my main issues on any of

the transformers twin lines that I've seen in

stores is that it They specifically say on their

level three advanced conversion. Now, if I'm

a parent and I look at that, I'm like, my kid's

not getting this. If I can't transform it, how

the hell are they going to do it? Which I know

all kids know how to do transformations and stuff.

But it took me probably three days to get this

guy transformed. The first two, he was legless.

The legs completely popped off, and I couldn't

get them back on. It's just crazy. I don't know.

I really do like his car mode. Can you guys hear

me? Are you sure you guys? Yeah. Yeah, we can

hear you. Yeah. You know what, Mike? I have to

say, I'm looking at the pictures of the animated

blur online. And I guess so far out of all the

ones that I've seen, if there was an animated

figure that was going to bring me in and get

me, I like the look of this figure. It is a very

good figure, actually. A lot of its design aesthetics

were actually taken from the transtech line that

ended up never happening. Cheetor was supposed

to be in the transtech line. He was supposed

to have a very similar design to Blur's. And

ultimately, in the end, a lot of those, I guess,

tidbits and pieces that were used were end up

being used in this character. So it's kind of

a history piece, too. Yeah, I do. Which is interesting.

Both modes. I actually had to go back, because

I'm the type of person, once I get my figures

into robot mode, they stay in robot mode. So

I had to actually go back to Walmart and buy

another one, because I wanted one for car mode.

And in car mode, it's very, very sleek. His wheels,

his back wheels, the wheel itself doesn't turn,

but they have a little inline wheel. which is

really, really cool. His front wheels turn though,

and it rolls very, very well for the most part.

His robot mode, as I said before, he was legless

from the first two days that I had him because

his legs popped off and I was like, oh crap,

screw this, I'm dealing with it anymore. And

it took me about a day and a half to get his

backpack put down to where it's supposed to be

so you can actually put his hood energon saw

on his back as a backpack. The energon saw is

actually pretty funny. On the hood of the car

that detaches, you can press the button and he

comes out and it just looks like it's a clear,

not clear, but it's a blue translucent type plastic

for a saw and that's really, really cool. Which

is also a nice nod to the original G1 toy that

is hood detached to make some kind of shield

weapon. I did not know that. I can't remember

do we ever actually see that the the the energy

saw in animated though? No, he never used a weapon

boy. No He was known for his running Yes, he's

like running through space Yeah, and bouncing

off planets and clone faces and then getting

turned into a Cube an ice cube. I just really

like the face on this figure the face in the

head Is that what separates it from me? Yeah,

I got him up on my shelf just glaring over at

long arm prime. Just kind of like that. He's

holding the saw going, you know what? Yeah, you're

next, pal. My only issue with Blur with his head

is his antenna that's on top of his head. In

the car mode, I guess it's supposed to be an

antenna for the car mode. And it's like this

really, really weird rubbery plastic. That's

the only thing I really, really don't like about

him. It doesn't really sit in the slot that it's

allotted for. I mean, it just kind of sits there

static. Yeah, exactly. If I was to start recommending

animated figures to people, this would be probably

number one on my list for people to get if they

really wanted to get into animated. And I will

probably be talking about more animated figures

as Toycast goes on, since that's the majority

of what I have now. Just off the top of my head

the the three that I would mainly recommend is

the blur figure Jazz and elite guard mobile be

even though elite guard mobile be is not so accurate.

He is cool as hell toy Yeah, he had the the fixed

stingers, right? That's one of the molds that

they actually fixed it for Yeah, I still have

I still haven't I've yet to fix my my original

I mean I literally got it the day HTS was I was

shipping out and that's been my biggest complaint

is just it's like come on just sit flushed from

every angle when you first get it it's like okay

the thing should just sit in me okay why won't

it go yeah I broke I broke my first one that

way I thought he just had stingers I didn't realize

he actually had hands, and one day I was fooling

around, and I'm like, oh crap, he has hands.

I'm like, oh. I am going to send you guys a picture,

and this is what I think the two -pack of Shockwave

and Activator's mobile should have been. Overall,

purple shockwave. Other than the fact he is extremely

hard to transform because his where his legs

are Actually, let's move down and the arms move

up which really just Make no, I don't know. It

just doesn't make any sense to me Interesting

guy of going back to the blur thing real quick

interesting fact if you count the entirety of

the show blurs technically a triple changer No,

he turned into a cube. Oh Yeah, I actually I've

had an extra blur here I was actually thinking

about just blowtorching down into a into a nice

little box, but It's travesty I know that's why

he's still sitting in his bubble bubble prison

waiting his fate. He's alive according to Derek

Wyatt's art somehow he survived Well, you know,

I hate to go out on fanfic here, but I always

imagined that the fact that Blurr could move

at those hyper speeds, eventually his spark could

just rattle around enough to actually literally

pound the dents out. Yeah, shake them back together,

like Waspinator -style somehow. exactly exactly

oh man and it it would be kinda cool if they

almost came back with like maybe like that uh...

shattered glass blur face you know with the one

eye it's just not really quite there he's got

the monocle he's a little disillusioned about

everything he's really like i'm here to get a

long arm whoa you're not talking fast anymore

yeah that's right i'm here to get a long arm

that'd be cool yeah yeah well i guess i think

the first thing i would do if i was blur is i

would uh... dropkick cliff jumper in the full

modes uh... for specific characters when he was

doing blur uh... at the same time because eric

white was really excited about the speed racer

movie when it was first being announced to come

out uh... when he was designing an event and

he designed uh... blurs all vote off of the original

nineteen sixties mock five speed racer i thought

that uh... i thought it looks very smart familiar

to the original it on the toy what uh... while

obviously the underside uh... But in the show,

when they show the underside of Blur's car mode,

it's 100 % designed aesthetically to look like

the Mach 5 right up to the jumping jacks where

they should be, although he doesn't use them.

And what's called the half mono lights, which

the Mach 5 had these humongous headlights that

were on the bottom end of the car. And all those

little knots to Speed Racer are there. And obviously,

you see it from the top half here. That was another

little thing that's cool about the toy was that

it was a nod to Speed Racer. To my knowledge,

when he did appear in Animated, the Speed Racer

movie came out that same week or something. Something

like that. Yeah, actually, I think that was the

case. They planned something like that. I remember

reading about that, which was another interesting

little nod. But anyways, another cool thing.

You guys want to really discuss anything else

as far as Toycast, because I'm pretty much done

talking about Blur. He's a great toy. He's probably

also in my top 10 of animated figures, another

big suggestion. I love sexy car transformer toys,

and he's definitely up there. He's one of the

really nicer ones. Do you have a number one figure

for animated line? You know what? That's a tough

one, because I really want to say I want to say

Voyager Prime because he's really like just perfect

he's he's one of those figures that like you

know a lot of transformer toys when you when

you pose it and then you put its back to you

it kind of looks ugly from the back because it's

kind of like where all the kibble and everything

was hidden is now shown obviously Voyager Prime

is one of those figures from every angle, it

just looks perfect. It's just such a great...

The fact that it has the mouthpiece thing is

a nice touch. I think the only thing I can complain

about it is its axe, and even then you can just

get the axe off of any other Prime toy on the

line, and it fits universally in this peg hole,

which is great. Yeah, and then we'll also be

getting that wing blade one down the line, too.

But so far, that's probably my number one. But

again, that top 10 list, I can't really put a

solid 1 to 10. But there's at least 10 animated

figures that are must -gets because they're just

so great. I have to stress this again. This line

really just brought something different. one

of the reasons why though is because for years

and years and years uh... as transformer fans

we got very very used to a japanese aesthetic

we got very used to uh... transformer toys that

were designed by the japanese uh... even beast

wars that we love so much uh... the toys were

were more or less designed uh... in japan you

know so we all we got it up fairly You know we

got a fairly set in stone way of how we saw transformer

toys designed and everything and then animated

came around a lot of people freaked out But you

have to realize it was made made in America,

and this is you know the way that they do things

You know, right now, American cartoons have this

more stylized look to them, whether it be Teen

Titans or Batman the Brave and the Bold. It's

just that's kind of the look that they're going

for right now to battle the animes that are stealing

their ratings. And it's working. Animated did

very well. It made amazing ratings. The only

reason why it actually stopped after three seasons

was because of that $800 million movie that came

around that I don't think we have to name. It's

not only that, it's the fact that Cartoon Network

doesn't know that they have a good thing when

they have it. They said they had to stop it because

when Revenge of the Fallen comes out they want

to focus on that property and then reveal a cartoon

later on that's going to be based in the movie

continuity. I also truly think that Cartoon Network

dropped the ball. Definitely not has robot Cartoon

Network dropped a ball the simple fact that because

all of their programming now is seeing real How

can you oh and I've said this definitely even

Derek Wyatt has been complaining about it openly

how Cartoon Network is really going to hell and

he works there, you know, so Like he's paid to

do designs and stuff for that network and even

he openly admits on his Twitter and everything

how they're just they're losing touch for what

even the name of third he said that there's rumors

going on that they might even change the name

of the channel not another enemy network word

no words it might not be called cartoon network

anymore it might be called something else so

travesty for that is waiting for the hasbro channel

you guys read you guys remember like uh... I

was, well we're all probably old enough here,

when the Cartoon Network first started, it was

like, I think I remember the first day, non -stop

Scooby -Doo marathon. Oh, that's because Cartoon

Network at the time owned like everything Hanna

-Barbera. Yeah. Cartoon Network in the first

like five years was incredible. Yeah. Swat cats.

Enough said. Early 90s. Early 90s rocked. Almost

as much as the late 80s. Oh, I don't want to

get into early 90s. I really don't want to get

into early 90s and why it rocked so much. It's

a long -winded rant about cartoons in general.

Well, maybe we can do another show. That's a

Tooncast show. Yeah, that's a Tooncast show.

This is Toycast. It's kind of like I had to point

out, and I'm not really going to go into the

depth and detail of this, but I had somebody

on the PrickEyeEmpire .com slash CafeSparkForums

demanding that Tooncast get a new schedule with

less shows that are filler. And yeah, I don't

get these too easily. Alright, so I guess we're

going to close this out. I'm going to run through

the closing really quick. Thank you for joining

us here on Transformers Toycast. There are several

ways you can get in contact with us or leave

feedback for the show. The first is you can visit

the geekcastradio .com website and find all the

other GCRN podcasts there. The second is you

can stop by prediconempire .com slash cafe spark

and get all your GCRN transformers discussion

topics there. The third is you can leave the

show feedback on iTunes. Please do this. We do

need reviews. Five star feedback is appreciated.

The fourth is you can visit our For forum threads

over at earth -to .net under the self -promotion

section And the fifth is the email address, which

is tf toycast at gmail .com You can also follow

us on Twitter the show name there is tf toycast

mine is tf g1 podcast And what are your all's

twitters go one at a time? Jen Jane yes, I'm

still working on the Twitter thing working on

it what do you mean still working on it uh...

yeah i i i have it but i i i was actually trying

to blog and everybody else go out set up by uh...

is that i thought about it uh... just b o s s

k d eight w g and mind protoman acts protoman

with an exit the est someone else took part of

it All right. We hope you enjoyed this episode

of Transformers Toycast, even though it was sort

of a train wreck, and wish that you will join

us next time for our themed episode of All Bot

Con Part 1. For now, I am TFG1 Mike with... Big

Bad Boombox. Goddamn Protoman. Oh, damn. We shoulda

timed this better. They got it. singing the words

of Optimus Prime and thank you for listening

until next time