Transformers Animated AllSpark Almanac and DC Universe Superheroes Action Figures

Cliffjumper, commence countdown. Five, four,

three, two... Welcome to Transformers Toycast,

episode 17. I am TFG1 Mike and joining me this

time is Peekoncourt Michael. Hello. Hi there.

How are you? I'm fine. You're fine? I want to

say I couldn't be better, but I'm sure I could.

I was going to say you know what fine stands

for, don't you? Do tell. Freaked out, insecure,

neurotic and emotional. I thought that was more

like fo -a -na. There's more letters in there

than I thought. Well, you don't count the and.

Freaked out? Is there an apostrophe in there?

Oh, well, hell if I know. Yeah, I'm sure that's

funnier in email. Something so translates to

the spoken word very well. Well, you know, go

watch the 2003 version of The Italian Job, and

that's where I got it from. Let's see what's

been going on we had the third geek cast radio

contest which actually got Surprisingly amount

of good response only because the prize was like

stellar Yeah, we we already know that you're

here what the hell that's the Japanese confirmation.

Oh, yes. To let you know that I'm still listening.

It's kind of like, yeah, yeah, I hear you. OK,

yeah. Sorry. So anyway, I had gotten, I said,

all right, well, whatever. I had some extra money

at the beginning of last month. And of course,

since then, I've been in the hole a few times.

Anyway. Hi. Knock it off, god damn it. All right,

I'll stop it. I'll explain that later. I bought

three copies of the Transformers animated AllSpark

Almanac. I kept one for myself and gave two away

for prizes. So we actually had 14 people enter.

It actually got promoted on AllSpark .com. And

the author, well, one of the authors, Jim Sorensen,

actually emailed me about it. So we may actually

have him on in the future when he has more news

on a potential volume two of the Almanac. I guess

somebody got in trouble for actually stating

that there would be a volume 2 and people jumped

up and said, oh, hold on now. No, that's not

what happened. Well, I mean, I really don't know

what happened. I know from what I've read, what

happened was Derek Wyatt on Twitter said something

about it. But apparently the way he framed it,

you know what? I'm talking like I don't know

what the hell actually happened, because actually

I don't. But the way I've understood it to come

is that the way he was talking about it made

it sound like Volume 2 was coming like now. Like

it was in production right now and it was coming

out in a few months from the original release

of the one we have now. And apparently that's

not the case. So which would make sense because

you know when you're working on the first version.

I'm sure there's lots of Content that comes and

see you know comes and goes and you basically

say hey, we should probably put this in the second

version I don't know if you listen to toy cast

episode. I think it was 15 was when I started

talking about it My only complaint about it was

I originally thought it was going to be a complete

type of almanac thing where it's the entire show

of Transformers animated. An encyclopedia? Yes,

it's only the first two seasons in the actual

almanac. But it's got a lot of cool stuff in

it. So at least they saved out the season because

I mean season 3 you can put... You could put

an almanac together for just season 3 anyway,

without as much stuff that season 3 gave us.

So, I mean, but at first I was, I either misinterpreted

it as being a complete, I guess, quote unquote,

public show bible. Right. But, you know. Well,

seeing as though there's more content that could

be available in season 3 for the next version,

then yeah, I can see splitting it up into two.

What would be really nice is if they had Season

3 and You know whatever plans they had they would

leak those You know plans for season 4. I mean

yeah, the the season 4 that was never actually

Created yes, but yeah, I'm sure that they had

ideas of what was going to happen Well, I don't

know if you've actually had a chance to pick

one of these up because I actually have it in

my hand right now I haven't seen it yet If you

open up to the contents page, it actually shows

you, on part of the contents page, the early

art of the title logo. So it's Transformers animated,

but it's not the actual logo that we got. It's

other logos that they were thinking of using.

And that's really cool. So I mean, they do show

you a lot of behind the scenes, what could have

been, what would have been, what we could have

gotten type stuff. So there's a lot of. stuff

and there's it it it's really it's really cool

book raised its bigger than i thought it was

going to be when the i said this and i guess

it's been one of them from the mailman and me

the box from amazon delivery of these things

it weighed like five pounds and i was dropped

him boxed down the stairs well i was kind of

expecting like a double -size comic book dude

this thing is huge i mean if you believe basically

take a comic book take about I don't know, 10

comic books, put them together as far as thickness.

It's about 300 pages. It's 220 pages, I believe.

That's pretty good still. Yeah, 220 pages. And

it's got a whole bunch of character designs,

stuff like that. Pretty much all the Autobots

Decepticons from the first two seasons are in

here. Basically, it's a coffee table book. Huh,

interesting. That's the best way I can describe

it as far as its size. It's something that you

would see on a coffee table type of deal. Like

a very thick magazine. Huh. Yes. So what's been

going on with you? When was the last time you

were on? Was it episode 13? 13 .5? I don't even

remember. Uh, what were we talking about, uh,

Robots in Disguise Bruticus? Uh, yeah, that was

probably 13, or 13 .5. I think it was 13 .5,

yeah. Probably. I, I can't remember. It's been

so long. So what's been going on with you? Uh,

mostly playing with the kids. Yeah. Uh, as far

as Transformers go, I haven't, I haven't done

a whole lot, uh, lately. What's been going on?

Well, I'm not real thrilled with the movie line.

I think I mentioned that before. And there's

really not much else out there. That's about

it. I did pick up the two new activators that

came out, the Transformers animated Grimlock.

Oh, OK. Yeah, the Grimlock and the Soundwave.

Yeah. I like him. I dig him. So yeah, I got those

two and that's about it As far as transformers

collecting goes, you know, I had a dry spell

during the first movie, too Well, you know and

I've I've said this before and I'll say and I

don't like the movie line in general Anyway,

doesn't matter. I mean it could be transformers

10 in the movie aesthetic would still you know

Make me turn away from the toy Yeah, what's bothering

me now is I'm seeing the new comics that are

coming out of IDW. Well, they take the classics

look, where it's like the classic Optimus Prime

and classic Dinobot, and then they overlay the

movie aesthetic so that their faces look like

the movie. toys and the joints and just the way

the pieces of their body fit together look very

movie -like. I just think it looks like ass.

I kind of like the re -imaginings of the way

they look. I think Don Figueroa redesigned these.

I can see where he's going. I really like the

classics look. But I really don't like the movie

look and when you marry the two aesthetics up

together It it just turns me off Not pleased

with it. I'm sure there's a lot of people who

do like it But I mean as a compromise or a lot

of people who don't like the movie toys. It's

like well These are classics toys. They're much

better because they look like Transformers as

opposed to babeformers. Yeah, but no they they

you know you screw up their faces and and You

know, it's not helping. We've said it before,

and we'll say it again. Michael Bay, you raped

our child. I just bent my childhood over and

took a stick to him. Oh, god. Yeah, not a pleasant

thing. You know, it's like my childhood was sent

into the backyard to the willow tree to cut off

a stick to beat itself with. you know, my child

who's just walking back to the house is sobbing,

and he's swinging his stick in the air. No one

full well is going to get his ass beat with it.

Michael Bay waiting in the house behind the swinging

screen door. Bring me that stick, boy. I'll beat

your ass with it. Oh, crap. Yeah, that's about

it. Anyway, so enough of my complaints. First

of all, I'm the boss at our show so I can pretty

much do whatever the hell I want and since I

don't have any more Transformers toys and yes

boss I'm going to be talking about DC You see

universe superheroes that it's part of the Justice

League unlimited line I've got seven of them

here. I'm just gonna like pick one up talk about

it really quick. It's not really I'm not gonna

go into great detail. I've got Superman in my

hand right here first thing I noticed about this

thing since I've been looking at it here He has

his cape which is kind of like a It's a like

a not really leather, but it's that type of Like

glossy material for his cape first thing I noticed

is Because his his face and stuff is like you

know flesh color like it's supposed to be But

there's a there's a there's like a little slit

in between where his neck is and where his cape

is And the first thing I thought of, holy crap,

Batman could put an ice cube down Superman's

cape! You know, you put an ice cube down the

back of somebody's shirt. It does come with a

little piece of kryptonite. I don't know why.

As an accessory? Yeah. As an accessory. That

is the cape removable? No, it's... No, it's on

there. I don't know if you remember this far

back but the the vintage Star Wars toys like

the Darth Vader and the Obi -Wan had the plastic

capes that came off. Yeah, they came while you

had you know, he had to lift their arms straight

up and they kind of Weasel it up over his arms.

But yeah, you could you could take them off.

Yeah, that's uh, yeah, I hated those I like the

Star Wars movies, but I never really get into

the toys Even then I was a kid it was either

he man Transformers. Oh Christ. I can't believe

I'm going to admit this Captain Planet or James

Bond Next up is Batman. The first thing I notice

about him He has a battering thing that comes

with him for an accessory But when I was trying

to pose him originally for a picture to go online,

these figures all have really, really hard to

find joints. Like, they bend at the elbow and

they bend at the knee. Only issue is, when I

was posing Batman and I bent him at the knee

joint, it looks like he broke his fucking knee.

It looks like somebody smashed his knee. You

know? Oh, the way the pieces fit together? Well,

no, it's not the way they... Well, yeah, but...

I mean the leg is... Well when it's fully extended

the knee fits together firmly, but then when

you bend it they pull apart. Yeah. So it looks

like there's a huge divot where his knee should

be. Yeah, exactly. Okay, yeah I know what you're

talking about. And then the same thing with his

cape. You can't put an ice cube down his back

because obviously he has the cowl. None of the

heads on these... Oh wait, no they don't. Christ,

I'm wrong. I thought none of the heads turn,

but the heads do turn. He can turn his head with

a cowl? Yeah. Well that's got to be worse than

the knee, because then you've got like, cowls

sticking off the side. Well, his head is... The

cape and the cowl over his face is actually a

separate piece. The cape is the same thing as

Superman's, but instead of showing Batman's neck,

instead of showing his flesh skin, it's the cape

coming around. It's basically like if you took

Batman... crossed him with little red riding

hood where the cape comes over the front of your

oh yeah oh yeah i mean his his head is completely

separate from the actual cape part right right

wonder if superman's head turns 360 degrees holy

crap i'm doing exorcist superman yeah exactly

it does your mother sew socks that smell at first

i thought i was gonna uh... break his head off

but no next one is flash he comes with a lightning

bolt type of thing i guess because he's a light

you know i guess because he's super fast and

again does he have similar articulation to the

rest of them um yeah with the arms and the legs

yeah i don't know about that oh his his little

yellow things on his on his on his mask they

actually are they're not completely separate

but the the antenna at the top are and yes he

does i think yep his head turns 360 nice oh you

know It shouldn't happen. That would hurt. You

know the only thing I... Now that I did that,

what if he went insane and started doing that,

like really really fast turning his head all

the way around? I think that only works with

plastic man. Plastic man can pull that shit off.

This guy can. Next up is Huntress and of course

she has the same cape as everybody else as far

as the caped ones. She comes with a crossbow

actually her hairpiece is Her hair is separate

from her head. Well, no, it's not it's not part

of the mold. It's a It's part of her head mold.

It's not part of the cape. Well, like it it's

part of the head but it just I was afraid it

was like just you know, a separately molded chunk

of plastic that was put on top of the standard

female head. No, her cape actually feels like

it could come off because it's very loose around

her tits. Sorry kids, but that's the truth. I

will now fondle the action figure. No, no, no,

no, no. Anyway, next up is Lex Luthor. He comes

with some sort of energy saw. For the record?

Lex Luthor does not have tits. Yes, we know.

Okay, good. Now you know. Yes, and knowing is

half the battle. And the other 25 % is red lasers.

Wait, wait, wait. If knowing is half the battle,

will the other 50 % be red? No, no, no. The other

25 % is red lasers. And the remaining 25 % is

blue lasers. It's a pie chart. Come on. Oh. You

ever seen this? No. Oh, you don't like G .I.

Joe? No. Yeah, so, okay, never mind that. Hey,

wait a minute. You can't just call me out on

it. It's not that I don't like it. It's just

I was never exposed. We're constantly ragging

on G .I. Joe. No, I'm just saying that... Yeah.

I'm gonna call you out here on the... uh... the

tune cast episode with with mask and you're like

all about the mask mask is the greatest thing

ever and you're like connie west and saying oh

you know uh... g .i. joe i'm gonna let you finish

but i'm gonna tell you right now that mask was

the best cartoon ever we're not talking about

connie west and any of these damn shows what

i'm getting at here is that They created the

Matt Tracker figure in the G .I. Joe line. And

you had glowing, glowing reviews of all things

mask except for the one G .I. Joe character that

they made for the Matt Tracker figure. And for

that you said, this is utter crap. It shouldn't

have been made. And I'm thinking, you know what?

It's an old property that Hasbro just happens

to have the ownership for. I think it's a good

nod to the fans of the mask ban. The mask ban

is not the fucking G .I. Joe banner. See? You

don't like G .I. Joe. It's not that I don't like

G .I. Joe. Help me is ragging on the Joe. I don't

think other properties need to be mixed in with

the G .I. Joe fix. Joe fans are going to hate

on you. Where will you get the fan mail? What

fan mail anyway? Let's look there. He has absolutely

no leg articulation other than at the hip Like

right where his crotch is like move his leg up

and down, but he has no knee articulation whatsoever.

I don't think Now, describe Luther a little bit,

you know, because Batman is Batman, Superman

is Superman. Aside from a slight variation in

color shade, they're always going to look the

same. But, you know, Luther could be in a suit,

he could be in a green thing he wears, he could

be in his power armor, his anti -Superman armor.

What does this one look like? It's basically,

if you've seen the episode of Justice League,

the very last episode, Destroyer, he has this,

like... like a holster with his gun and He's

in all in green. He has black boots. He's basically

a combat type of Figure and the way they show

him here is he's white which as we all know in

the cartoons. He was black Really, yeah Well,

he's very light -skinned. I mean they they they

portray him as an african -american in the cartoon

I mean, Bruce Timm even said that they intentionally

portrayed him as an African American for some

odd reason, I don't know why. His legs, as I

said, only go up and down at the waist. He does

come with a, I don't know, some sort of green,

it's not kryptonite, but it's some sort of green

gun. He has no arm articulation like the superheroes

do either. He's a very bland figure now that

I'm looking at him. i guess that before we went

on air we uh... i had said you to you when i

realized why i said it was because the shining

night figure from justice league unlimited uh...

i didn't realize that's his he's all yellow like

his it's like he's a yellow jumpsuit uh... and

he hasn't uh... of course the the flesh -colored

face and then like the knight, I don't know,

silver helmet. Well, he has a red tunic. And

I didn't realize before when I had this figure

that the tunic is actually kind of separate from

the actual figure, so it's like, you know, you

could put an ice cube down his back to... No,

I mean, that's the best way to describe it, because

it's not molded onto the actual figure itself.

Right, right. It's kind of like a cape that goes

over both sides. Yeah, basically. Front and back,

yeah. And actually it's very very weird that

the bottom part of him of the tunic slash skirt,

you know There's a hole right there Not an actual

hole like these a hole for Rodimus, but the skirt

kind of can move like like I can fit my thumb

Underneath it which is kind of weird. But anyway

And he comes with a sword i guess kind of cool

since it is shield the character of a shield

i think in the cartoon he did but he only came

with a sword since the huntress didn't actually

get it she will one interest like it weapons

yeshina crossbow get it right here uh... who's

i think you didn't have weapons uh... all the

flash you know he has a uh... you know yellow

lightning thing that you can put in his hand

Like I was thinking well they had to be cutting

corners somewhere with the plastic so And then

you have Vixen who was also in the she came later

in the Justice League unlimited episode she has

like Basically, it's you can attach Wolverine

type claws to her hands there. They are separate,

but that's her accessory So it's basically like

she's holding Wolverine claws Yeah, exactly And

then of course last but not least is John Stewart

the Green Lantern Holy crap he has the same articulation

as Batman Superman or anything else his Accessory

is a giant green hand That is you know, that's

where they that's where they stole all the plastic

for the shining nights yeah exactly um it does

have a button on it the hand is supposed to retract

like it's opening and closing and has you know

the four fingers and then the thumb it's a giant

hand that flips you off no no no no no evildoers

fuck you let's just hope his let's just hope

his dick is big enough for his hand because holy

crap i mean this jesus hand accessory is huge

he's in a green and black suit it's kind of completely

different from what he had it's a very light

it's more of a lime green than it is a dark green

of what his actual screen color is supposed to

be in the in the cartoon and as I said before

he can bend at the knees and the arms like like

the other heroes can so yeah that's the overall

I I don't know, I was kind of skeptical about

these. I think I should have just left them in

packaging because none of them, even without

their accessories, none of them can stand up

correctly. You have to basically break their

knees to get them to pose in a decent enough

position to even take one picture. I hear with

the DC pictures you need like double -sided tape

or something on their feet to keep them standing

in a pose. Now do these come in like a set or

are they all separate? Well, I bought it off

eBay. It was actually, I believe it was 12 figures.

I only kept four. I sold the other ones. I don't

even know. I don't know if I sold them on eBay

or if I took them up to the toy shop up here,

up the street here. They came with the ones I

just talked about. They also came with Dr. Light,

Zatanna, Wonder Woman, The Shade, and there was

one other one I can't think of. It was 12 figures

off of eBay. They were all individually packaged,

obviously, and they're, you know, just like if

you go to the store and you look at the toy section

and you look at the DC stuff, basically those

toys, but just all together in one big eBay bid.

I paid 43 bucks for them, so it's not that bad

considering I think the majority of the single

figures in the stores are like, I don't know,

$5 .99, $6 .99 apiece. 43 for 12 is a good deal.

Yeah, I mean, it's not it's not bad at all. So

Overall, I do like them. They actually kind of

sit lower on my on my shelf They're actually

under all the transformer stuff and they actually

sit in this this $1 purple bin that I got from

the dollar store They can't stand up so they

get the bin that's right Should have got the

two -sided sticky tape from the dollar store

for a dollar What are you gonna talk about I

Dug out the robots in disguise rail racer Now

did you really dig it out, or did you just open

the closet and everything fell down? Well this

one I actually have a robots in disguise shelf

and this guy was in the back of the shelf so

I was risking knocking over a bunch of the other

you know robots in disguise toys to get him out

but but I pulled him out and he's actually I

display him in in combined robot mode that's

supposed to individual robot mode or train mode

but I have the US version on my shelf that I

have the Japanese box set in the closet And I

got that in 2000 while I was at the BotCon that

year. Why is it every time that I see trains

or vehicles like that and they combine into one

giant robot, I think of friggin' Power Rangers?

I don't think so much of Power Rangers. You see,

I was thinking of Six Train when this came out.

And I thought it was like, well, where's the

other three? In Japan... Toward the end of the

MicroMaster line, I think it was 1988, 1989,

they came out with combiner sets that were six

MicroMasters that would combine into a small,

maybe, oh, all six of them would combine into

something maybe a little bit smaller than a Deluxe

toy. Not very big at all. Because I mean, these

are MicroMasters we're talking about. And they

had one called Six Train. And in the US, I want

to say like 2000. 2003 2004 I think they re -released

those and called him rail racer But yeah, there's

not a whole lot of trains in transformers mythos

just because with exception of let's say astro

train Oh, yeah, that's true. He's a god Exactly.

Well, there's astro train and that's pretty much

it You don't have much else in the way of trains

and certainly not bullet trains because bullet

trains don't exist in the US. Yeah There was

talk with all the money that the government's

flowing around in bailouts and such now about

putting aside a few billion dollars for bullet

train infrastructure. The closest thing I've

ever seen in the U .S. as far as a bullet train

outside of seeing them on TV is the monorails

at Disney World. Close when you say Disney well,

I think of like amusement parks. They have maglev

technology Yeah magnetic levitation technology

and amusement parks like the the Superman ride

when you go to I think they're a great America

Yeah, and I have six flags. Yeah the Six Flags

parks They have the Superman right and that's

all done on you know magnetic magnetic levitation

and if you've ever been on one of those it's

really neat because You don't need to go up a

ramp and then slide down to pick up speed It

actually just like they flip a switch and you're

off 100 miles an hour. Yeah, no. Oh, yeah, it's

fun. No, that'll never happen I rode the beast

at Kings Island when I was 16 and I have not

been on a roller coaster since I Didn't lose

my lunch I ended up Imagine me 16 years old at

probably 5 foot 9 and a half probably a buck

80. I was pretty much Where your feet go? My

whole body okay crouched all the way down No

roller coasters and me do not agree anymore Sit

right that first friggin drug after the first

drop it goes into a tunnel well you know i was

one of the tallest people there i mean the rest

of more like five six five seven whatever you

know i thought i was in my head in the friggin

cave so by the end of the road yeah no there's

pictures i haven't heard from my mom as it is

a picture somewhere where there's other people

just sitting regular and i'm all crouched down

That's too bad. Yeah, I love roller coasters.

I think they're great But anyway, so it's too

digress You don't see any bullet trains in the

u .s. There's just no money for the infrastructure

People believe it's faster to fly And it takes

a lot of energy takes a lot of electricity, you

know in Japan Whether they're huge there in France

where they have them They all everything runs

on nuclear power and power is cheap and easy

to come by Whereas here, after our Three Mile

Island incident, we don't have that much in the

way of nuclear power anymore, or easy generated

power. In fact, half California is in a brownout

at any given time during the summer because of

all the air conditioning and such, running all

at the same time, eating up all the power. Suffice

to say, not a lot of bullet trains in the US.

So it's kind of give or take how a bullet train

themed transformer is going to do. When the classics

astro train came out. There's a lot of people

saying hey Why does he transform from a robot

to a space shuttle to a bullet train? You know

we don't see any bullet trains or bullet trains

aren't exciting. We were not we're familiar with

these yeah, that's one of the only reasons why

I will never own classics astro train because

No, that's my point exactly We don't have any

bullet trains in the US. Why would I want a bullet

train? It's kind of like, for alternators, Optimus

Prime was a pickup truck. And they can't sell

a pickup truck convoy in Japan because they don't

have any pickup trucks. There are no pickup trucks

in Japan. Nobody wants to buy a pickup truck

there. They released him, but they did a really

good paint job on him in Japan. I think people

bought him more for that, because he looked really

good in robot mode. Anyhow, digressing back to

the toy. What we have is three bullet trains

that combine into one big robot. You've got Rail

Spike, who's the upper torso, and the arms, real

skinny kind of. plate -like arms. And then rapid

run is the mid torso and the backpack. He kind

of fits in there in the middle. And then the

third guy is Midnight Express and he becomes

both the legs. So his legs kind of look like

a bullet train bent in half with feet sprouting

on either side. But, you know, this was kind

of a new novel thing as far as Transformers go.

You didn't have any combiners. Well, you did.

I'll get into that in a second. But you really

didn't see any combiners since roughly 1992.

The generation two, I want to say the orange

version of Devastator. Might have been the last

one they released. They released the yellow version

of Devastator. They released a funky version

of Superion. And then they released the orange

version of Devastator. And they had plans to

re -release some other G1 combiners, and they

never panned out. So there was a long drought

as far as combiners are concerned. The Beast

Wars line had a couple combiners. That weren't

so accurate. Well, were they in the show at all?

Don't I don't have no they weren't in the show.

That's what I'm saying. They were just toys to

be released Yeah, it's like oh look at this is

kind of interesting and Yeah, they are kind of

neat, but I mean I don't consider them as combiners.

They're kind of they there's three of them They

combine true, but you know it wasn't like the

good old days. There was a Japanese version the

Magmasaur I forget exactly what they call them

for be source video They brought to the American,

I want to say Beast Machines Dinobots line. He

was supposed to be the leader or something. Something

along those lines. There's three dinosaurs that

combine in the one robot. The dinosaurs themselves

don't have individual robot modes. They just

combine in the one big robot. I think his name's

Magnus. I forget offhand. But again, they didn't

have much in the way of combiners until Takara

comes out with this freaky bullet train trio,

the bullet train brothers. Team Bullet Train,

I think they call them. And they come to the

US. They don't have a box set in the US like

they did in Japan, but they come separately.

Probably a little bit too small to be Voyager

-sized toys, but too big to be deluxes. So they

kind of crammed them into these Voyager -sized

boxes. And they just look really out of place.

because they're long and skinny bullet trains,

and they're in this great big box. So yeah, anyway,

I picked up all three, even though I already

had the Japanese version. But the figure itself,

I'm not going to go into detail about the individual

figures because I don't want to un -combine him.

He's a bit of a pain. But as far as the combined

figure goes, he's fairly well articulated. I

want to say elbows in the middle of his arms,

like you would expect to see elbows. But he has

shoulder joints that will go up and down, and

then elbows that go in and out and twist shortly

below the shoulders. His legs are separate, and

his hips are on ball joints. And they click nicely

when they move his legs around. Unfortunately.

You know he's got kind of like knees that are

way up too close to his hips Because you know

again his his legs are basically a bullet train

bent in half But you know he can do some posing

He's just really hard to stand so for the most

part. I just keep his legs spread open to hold

up the bulk of his of his torso And the you know

his hips kind of are He's kind of got a skirt

looking thing on either side of him. So the skirt

is basically made up of the two sides of the

roof of the middle train. And then the top of

the train, or the torso, is mainly composed of

the front of the lead train, or the front of

rail spiking. And the head kind of pops up out

of that. He's got a really cool looking head,

though. I'm trying to think of an analogy here

like The original aliens movie how they have

this HR Geiger Giger looking alien thing and

he's all black and he's The whole top of his

head is transparent and you can kind of see a

skull in the front underneath it And then below

that, you know, you've got this big black jaw

with the inner jaws that come out Well, I'm drawing

the analogy here because rail racer The whole

top of his head is transparent. And that kind

of comes down into a visor. It's kind of a green

transparent piece. And then the visor comes down

like a jazz visor almost. Underneath the visor,

you can see his eyes. He's got like these red

eyes. And then his jaw. And part of his helmet

is his chin. It's a great big chin piece that

comes out below that. And it kind of reminds

me of the Geiger alien. It's kind of a neat thing.

He's got a big shield. That's actually the roof

of another one of the other trains and then a

great big gun that fits in the other arm that's

actually a combination of Two of the guns that

the individual robots carried That's that's kind

of cool. Yeah, they fit together. This is a Rail

spike and midnight expresses weapons to form

together and they light up and see if it still

work Oh, yeah, yeah. The top weapon actually

lights up. It's got a little button that doesn't

make any noise, though, which is surprising for

deluxe toys. Especially, you know, it's like,

at that price point, it probably could have fitted

in some sounds or something, as opposed to just

one little light on one little weapon. Yeah.

But no, I mean, he's fairly articulated. He's

very well detailed. He's got... He looks really

good in train mode, to be honest. He's got a

lot of decals on. These might be tempograph,

might be decals. He's got words on like Cybertron

Max on one train. And on this one, it says 500

Cybertron. On the gray one here, it says Cybertron

Railstar. Kind of boring as a bullet train looks,

just as a bullet train. These don't look bad.

Yeah. They're fairly well detailed. The paint

jobs are pretty well done. That's cool. And he's

got Autobot seniors all over him, which makes

any vehicle cool. Yeah. So he's kind of neat.

I dig him. As long as they're the right color.

Well, no not that I was talking about the white

ones are the silver ones are the gold ones from

animated oh Yeah, yeah Anyway, um Yeah, so this

is a nice figure again, you know the box set

from Japan's a little bit harder to find the

the combiner is called JRX in In Japan and that's

the J and the R stands for a Japanese row race

All of the railways in Japan used to be owned

by the government. And then they were turned

over to Japanese railways, which is a combination

of seven different Japanese companies that handle

all the rail lines in Japan. And they work very

closely with each other. I'm not sure how they

do that without competition. They kind of work

as a single entity, which is nice. I want to

say how you can get bullet trains in Japan. You

wouldn't see bullet trains in the US because

the different railway lines, different railway

companies wouldn't be able to cooperate to that

extent. I don't want to say dealt with capitalism,

because I love capitalism. But at the same time,

it's like, well crap, you know, if they'd only

worked with each other a little bit, we wouldn't

have these problems. Yeah, I don't. I mean, outside

of like freight trains and stuff like that, the

only actual passenger train company I know here

in the US is Amtrak. And I seriously doubt that

they're going to cooperate with anybody else

when it comes to trains. Right, right. Well,

Amtrak, you know, doesn't own the lines. Right.

I mean, there are other companies. Well, especially

here in the Midwest, I live right by Chicago.

Chicago is a major shipping hub, be it train

or plane. The shipping lanes here, the highways,

the trainways, everything is very, very, very

congested. And you know that the freight trains

here are a major player. You know the the freight

train lobby. Let's say it's probably just insane

Oh, yeah, most likely you know and the idea that

you'd have these bullet trains Using maglev technology

going 200 miles an hour And and hey you better

move your freight out of the way you know so

that this passenger train can get by That's not

gonna fly. I don't understand is why don't why

don't they? You know, I compared the bullet trains

to the monorails at Disney World, like to get

around from place to place in Disney World. I

don't know why they just don't have freights

on a monorail system, because they could use

the maglev technology. They could go faster and

get to the destination faster than they could

on a regular train track. I think it's a weight

issue. You can cram 200 people onto a bullet

train. And it's so gonna far it's so gonna weigh

far less than 200, you know s10 pickups on a

freight train. Yeah, that's true That's true

I'm not entirely sure of you know, the fine details

But you know, it's just It'll be interesting

when we do start seeing bullet trains in the

US I mean I would love to have a high -speed

rail between where I live in northwest Indiana

and Chicago. In fact, there's talk of a new rail

line that will go from Chicago down in northwest

Indiana and then down in Indianapolis. And even

that's just going to be a regular rail line.

It's going to cost billions of dollars and probably

take about 10 years to build. And I'm wondering,

well, why couldn't we do something? Why couldn't

we replace some of the lines that we have now?

with high -speed rail. Again, Chicago is a major

hub, and I'm sure that there's some demand to

have a bullet train route that goes from, let's

say, Washington DC into Chicago and then across

over into Seattle and then possibly down into

California from there. But again, people say,

hey, it takes up too much electricity. Faster

to fly You know the infrastructure is just not

there right now. It's gonna cost billions of

dollars to set that up You know we didn't jump

on it early enough like the Japanese did Yes,

well We're all backwards damn Americans Throwing

your food away children in China's starving Little

kids making rail racer toys making two pennies

an hour and we're here buying them and throwing

away our fast food wrappers full of French fries

But to digress I would say yeah, I really I was

really excited for this toy when it came out

You know again, it was it was the first new combiner

that we'd seen in a long time I really like in

the robot mode Yeah, I I really like the robots

in this guy's line and in general Over and above

the stuff that came out of Japan even the new

stuff that they hit Supplementing the line like

like the Bruticus we talked about before Well,

you know now that you mention it now that you've

you know talked about rail right, you know I

remember watching the RID cartoon with because

I remember because originally I thought it was

part of g1 I thought rail racer, you know You

know all three of those train. I thought they

were part of G1 I'm like wait no that well that

that's probably not right And then you said they're

part of our ID and I actually remember now watching

episodes with the with them in it with the rail

racer Characters in it of course. I don't remember

what episode it was for the life of me. I don't

even know if our IDs on DVD but I do remember

when RID was on the air, I remember watching

that show for some odd reason. No, I liked the

show. I really did. I mean, some people thought

it was too silly. The Japanese shows tend to

be a little silly anyway. Like Beast Wars in

Japan was pretty silly. And when they brought

it to America, they changed up a lot of the voice

acting to make it a little more serious, a little

more interesting for our audience. a giant mechanical

shark that flies through the air and sings to

himself. You can't really serious that up for

American audiences. It's going to be silly no

matter what. Sky Byte was one of my favorite

characters in that show. I so dug Sky Byte. the

shitty end of the stick there for the most part.

I just felt bad for the guy. He deserves his

spot in the sun, you know? The only reason why

I don't like RID is because it has that bastard

Neil Kaplan as Optimus Prime. Well, David Kay

still got to return as Megatron though. I didn't

like the voice he did for that Megatron. I'm

talking about RID. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Wait, he can't David K did Megatron and RID.

Oh really? Yeah, it was before Beast Wars though,

wasn't it? It was after Beast Wars No, was it?

There was Beast Wars, Beast Machines and then

Robots in Disguise and he did Megatron for all

three shows. Oh Yeah, now I'm assuming Gary Chalk

was doing something else and he didn't want to

do Optimus Prime No, I thought it went G1 G2

RID Beast Wars Beast Machines and then Where

do you think robots in disguise fit in? It came

out in 2001. Oh really? I thought it was early.

I thought it was in between G2 and Beast Wars.

Oh no. What happened is Takara in Japan took

it upon themselves to ditch the Beast Wars theme

and they created... Basically, they wanted to

return to the roots and make cars that turn into

robots as opposed to animals that turn into robots.

And Hasbro already had plans to do Armada, but

they weren't ready yet. So they said, OK, you

know what? We're going to take this stuff that's

coming out of Japan and repackage it as robots

in disguise. And that lasted about year and until

our motto was ready And then they brought out

our motto Because I thought it was in between

g2 and be okay. I thought it was way before beast

wars I thought that was I thought that was the

crappy show that we got before beast Before you

know the essence that is Beast Wars that that

okay never mind well there was G1 in America

G2 in America and then Basically, everything

went to Japan for several years. And then in

America, we brought out Beast Machines, and Japan

then jumped on the Beast Machines bandwagon.

And even after we stopped doing Beast Machines,

to move on to, I'm sorry, Beast Wars. And then

Japan did Beast Wars. When we stopped doing Beast

Wars and moved on to Beast Machines, Japan still

did more Beast Wars. They did Beast Wars Neo

and Beast Wars the Second. And then a few years

later, they went ahead and ran their own Beast

Machines line. Or the Beast Returns, I think

they called it. Anyway, suffice to say, 2000,

2001 was when Takara came out with their originally,

I thought was supposed to be called transformers

2000 and then the line itself was uh Was called

car robots in Japan and the car robots line was

then brought to America as robots in disguise

All right No, I think we're gonna close this

one out. So thank you for joining us here on

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we're USA. Thank you, Mouse. Yes. We hope you

enjoyed this episode of Transformers Toycast,

and wish that you'll join us next time. For now,

I am tfg1mike with... Michael Wilson. Saying

the words of Optimus Prime, transform and roll

out and thank you for listening. Until next time.

Sword of Omens, give me sight beyond sight. I

see a new episode of Toon Gas coming this week.