Revenge of the Fallen Bludgeon, Music Label Soundwave, and Transformers Movie Mighty Mugs

You're listening to the GeekCast Radio Network,

a podcast. Cliffjumper, commence countdown. Five.

Four. Three. Two. Yeah, you know you're in trouble.

You still having voice problems? Just playing

it up. Bea, I wanna talk to you about the college

thing, okay? Hey! I'm not taking you with me.

I'm gonna wait outside, okay? I meant to tell

you about this earlier, it's just that... You

know, here's the thing. Freshmen aren't allowed

to have cars. I know, if it was up to me, I'd

take you with me, but it's not, Bea. Look, you're

an Autobot. You shouldn't be living in my dad's

garage. I mean, you're suffocating in here. You

deserve better than this. This is hard enough,

man. Don't make it harder. Can you just look

at me, please? Come on, big guy. Look, the Guardian

thing is done, okay? You did your job. Look,

I'm safe now. You need to go be with Optimus

Prime and the others. I just want to be normal,

B. That's why I'm going to college. And I can't

do that with you. It's not the last time I'm

gonna see you, you know, B? Come on, don't do

that. B, you're killing it, B. But you'll always

be my first car. Love you, B. New Year is Brian

Kilby, hello. Hey Mike, how's it going? It's

going, how are you? Cold. I know the feeling.

Oh boy, it's like it just came up and snuck up

on us. It's gotta be that global warming. Yeah,

I'm skeptical of everything, but I've made the

joke that, oh, haha, global warming, but I mean,

like I said, I'm skeptical of everything, but

I don't know enough about environmental science

to make a determination one way or the other

whether or not global warming is bunk or not.

Or it could be global freezing. Yeah, who knows?

We're coming out of an ice age, so. Yes, yes,

yes. 2009 is gone, 2010 is here. New year, new

stuff. We've got tons of stuff over here at Geekcast

Radio. We've got... We will have four main shows

running. Two are going to be running weekly and

then the other two are going to be running the

opposite weeks of each other. We've got Tooncast

and Movie Week in Review. And then we've got

the Beast Unleashed podcast and the Secret Origins

podcast, which that is a Justice League review

show. On top of everything else that we do. Yeah,

I know the feeling we remain busy. We're adding

a third regular podcast I don't even know the

name of it right now, but it's a Power Rangers

sentai podcast it's gonna be head up headed up

by XV of RFC Didn't you guys just destroy T formers

podcast we didn't destroy T formers podcast T

formers podcast is Anthony slash iron hide 1975

is Too busy these days. I understand that I've

been you know I've done the corporate thing,

too But he doesn't have time to juggle. You know

the work -life balance, so He's ending the tea

farmers calm podcast and radio free Cybertron

is taking over as the official podcast of tea

farmers calm Yeah, I was listening to your all's

last episode of the decade and talking about

bludgeon for... For all that I've heard about

this toy, you guys sure complained about it a

lot. No toy is perfect. True. In fact, I can't

think of a toy that I'd love that I don't have

some fundamental complaints about. I can think

of one that I love that I have no complaints

about whatsoever. Which one? Mighty Mug Shockwave.

Yeah, I mean, that may be the one exception.

I do have to admit. But that's just me. I'm going

to be doing something a little different this

time around in Toycast. We're each going to be

talking about two toys. This will not be a normal

thing here on Toycast, but I have been trying

and trying and trying to get rid of these damn

Transformers movie Mighty Mugs and just couldn't

do it. Nobody would buy them. Nobody would trade

me anything for them, so I said screw it. I opened

them and they're probably going to end up...

on the back of the shelf somewhere, hidden and...

Yeah. So, I guess I will let you go first. What

are you going to talk about for your... We'll

just alternate. What are you going to talk about

for your first one? You know, I'm going to go

with the obvious one first. I'll talk about Revenge

of the Fallen, bludgeon. Okay. He's awesome.

I love him. He's a great toy. Like I said, there's

no toy that I really love that I don't have some

complaints with. The tank mode is kind of limited.

It looks small in the packaging. It looks like

a deluxe toy. The transformation is fairly complex.

It's complex enough to where it's fun, but it's

not so complex that it's aggravating like alternators,

vinyl tech, whatever. The robot mode, once you

actually transform it, It's very intricate. It

harkens back to the G1 toy. It's faithful in

the sense that it recreates bludgeon, but it

is so far superior to the original toy. There

are mechanical gimmicks galore. There are places

to stow his swords, and I said swords, plural.

There are two. inner workings of the toy. He's

just a freaking darn awesome toy. I love it a

lot. He's kind of flat though, a little two -dimensional.

Is he? Yeah. I just, you know, I've heard people

talking and talking and talking about him, and

of course, as everybody knows from listening

to this show, I am not a movie fan. Oh, me neither.

I hate the movie for the passion. Well, I like

the movie, I don't like the toys. No, I hate

the movie and like the toys, so it's backwards.

Wow. That's crazy. Yeah, the movie just kind

of sucks. But if the toys aren't designed based

on movie character designs, they're okay. But

I think we said before that the movie designs

don't really carry over well to toys. Or actually,

no, they especially don't carry over well to

comics. but they don't carry over as well to

toys as they are on the screen. But Bludgeon,

we don't really have to worry about him being

a movie design. So the toy is very much, I would

say it's closer to being a Cybertron style toy,

except much more intricate than the average toy

than like a movie design. I mean, it's truly

exceptional. It's a great piece of work. So you're

saying that we could possibly end up getting

a BotCon version of this? You know, it was more

likely that we would have forgotten a BotCon

version of another toy which was renamed Bludgeon,

but it's entirely possible that the guys at Fun

Pub could come up with a way to reuse the mold,

probably remold the head, but anything is possible

these days. Do you have any predictions for 2010

for Transformers? I mean, that's going to be

the big thing this year. No clue when they'll

be out. Probably summer, fall, but I'm stoked.

It's going to be awesome. Now, is that the new

official next toy line outside of the movie line?

Nothing has been confirmed openly, but from rumblings

from... sources within Hasbro that I may or may

not know, that's going to be it. I'm just waiting

for that cartoon. Oh yeah, absolutely. Because

if the cartoon is anything like the War for Cybertron

game designs, holy crap. I doubt it will be.

War for Cybertron is going to be something separate.

It's sort of like... For example, the War Within

comic was something separate from the other universes,

so I don't really anticipate War for Cybertron.

In fact, I think it's been explicitly said that

War for Cybertron is apart from the toy line

in the cartoon. Well, it would be nice if that

design aesthetic though, because I really like

the design aesthetic of that game. It looks cool.

It's okay. It's kind of like a cross between

Armada and War Within. See, I've never seen any

of the War Within stuff. I've seen bits and pieces

of Armada, and I don't know, maybe it's just

the G1 fan in me. I see more G1 stuff in that

game than I do, from what I've seen. I mean,

just that little teaser that they posted up.

Well, like with Starscream. Starscream kind of

looks like the Armada Starscream. And the Armada

Starscream, it harkens back. It's an homage to

the G1 Starscream. I mean, basically every version

of Starscream since... Oh goodness, I guess our

motto has been, in some way or form, sort of

like representative of the original Starscream

character design, whatever. Yeah, you really

can't do too much with a Starscream mold without

making it a jet. The biggest departure they made

for Starscream was when they put his spark in

Waspinator and Beast Wars. That was awesome.

No, I'm not saying it wasn't. I'm just saying

that, you know, you wouldn't expect, you know,

you would expect him to go into, say, like, Pterosaur

or somebody that I... Well, Waspinator, sorry.

But, I mean, somebody that... would resemble

him more, because, you know, watching Beast Wars,

since I'm doing that other podcast coming up

here, before I remembered that Starscream was

in that show, I thought Pterosaur was the G1

homage to Starscream, because the guy who does

the voice sounds a lot like the Starscream character

that Lada did. But that's just my opinion. Obviously,

Optimus Primal is the homage to Optimus Prime,

but beyond that, it's whatever you want to say.

Megatron is kind of an homage beyond the name

to the original design, but other than that,

it's all up in the air and it's all conjecture.

If you want to see Starscream and Terror Sword,

that's just as valid as me seeing Bumblebee and

Cheetor. Really? Bumblebee and Cheetor? Well,

I mean, they're the same color. They're the kid

characters. I mean, it's an archetype. It's not

necessarily a strict, hey, this guy is supposed

to be our version of Bumblebee. I mean, they're

all archetypes, one way or the other. Right.

And I don't disagree with that, but I always

thought of Cheetor more of a Caphart 2 Hot Rod

slash Rodimus because of all the character growth.

Because if you look at Cidor in the beginning

of Beast Wars, he's almost just like Hot Rod

in the movie. You look at him at the end of Beast

Machines, he's pretty much a more competent Rodimus,

if you would think about it. Sure, and it's fluid.

I mean, you know, the characters change. I mean,

Beast Wars is not a code for, you know, G1, so

it's not like they have to take, you know, walk

through the motions of recreating G1. In the

beginning, he could be sort of a You know, backhanded

homage of Bumblebee, and by the end, he could

be Rodimus. That's true. I can agree with that.

Back to Bludgeon, would you recommend that everyone

pick him up? Oh, God, yes. At Walmart, he's currently

$21 .53 with North Carolina sales tax. Buy two

of them. Keep one mitten box. Give one to a kid.

He's a great toy. Like I said, there are some

problems. XV reviewed the toy and he said that

if you didn't follow the strict transformation

by the directions, his transformation was a little

cumbersome. Luckily, I didn't use the instructions,

but luckily the way I transformed him basically

paralleled the way the instructions called, so

I really didn't have a problem with that. He's

just an excellent toy overall. There's a little

bit of kibble, like on the hips. Beyond that,

man, he's great. Yeah, I don't know. I think

it's just me and the whole no to movie toys thing.

I think the only exception that I've made to

that rule is Ravage, is the Rage of the Fallen

Ravage. So I guess my first pick will be... out

of the way first. Transformers Mighty Mugs movie

Bumblebee. What can you say about this thing

that hasn't already been said? He's black, yellow,

and silver mainly. He does have a little bit

of white. He basically looks like somebody tie

dyed him, I think. Like literally somebody took

black and yellow paint put it in diluted water

and threw this toy into it I don't know You know

that old adage don't don't step in yellow or

brown snow But One thing I don't know. Are you

that big into money mugs or not a fan? I love

shockwave from afar, but I've actually yet to

buy one Well, I made a comment on one of the

other episodes of Toycast, and I'm not really

sure. Movie Bumblebee has the same design aesthetic

as G1 Jazz, where the doors are on the back of

it. It's almost like Starscream's wings. Starscream

Muddy Mug has the detachable wings. Now, the

T .F. Wiki said on the Jazz one that the doors

were detachable. Well, no. They're not. It doesn't

look like they are on jazz, and it doesn't look

like they are on Bumblebee. They could be, but

to me, it looks like they're molded right on

there. It doesn't look like they can detach at

all. I mean, it doesn't really bother me either

way, but, you know. I don't know, I just, again,

going with the whole me -hate -movie -toys thing.

He's okay. He's not the best thing in the world.

He's certainly not the best version of Bumblebee

ever. I don't know. He really doesn't, he really

can't. Because the whole point of the movie,

the whole point of the Mighty Mugs is they're

supposed to pull off the the homage look and

the cute look and the G1 Bumblebee which is not

actually out here on my desk, it's in the other

room. He is cute. He has that like cute little

smart face with these giant, you know, blue eyes

and stuff but you know in this one it tried to

do the same thing but I mean he's got like a

speaker box for a mouth. How the fuck can you

make that cute? I mean it's like welcome to Burger

King where I take your order you know I don't

know It's not something I would ever recommend

to anybody. And again, I've said on this show

plenty of times before, I think that the Mighty

Mugs are for collectors. They are for people

who do display only. And they are for homages.

That's just the way I think. And I understand

that they were trying to capitalize on Revenge

of the Fallen's you know, popularity and success,

especially the financial success in doing this,

but I think they wasted two molds. I seriously

do. I was looking up all of the mighty mugs,

like from Star Wars to Marvel to Indiana Jones

to G .I. Joe and the Transformers earlier today,

and apparently, according to Wiki, well, not

the TF Wiki, but the Wikipedia .org, there is

yet another wave of Transformers ones coming

out. It listed TBD, Ironhide, and Prowl. Now,

whether these happen or not, I don't know. I

would hope that they would. I would think that

there are plenty of Transformers characters that

they could make into Mighty Mugs. Tons. You know,

especially to keep the... you know, keep the

line going, keep the the armages going. I would

even, you know, I've said before, I would love

to see some Beast Wars Mighty Monks just to see

what kind of design elements that they could

put into that. Because if you look at, you know,

for me, Shockwave is the perfect example. Whoever

thought you were going to get a corded wire from

the back of the body into his hand for the gun.

I mean, that's just amazing. It's interesting

what you just said, and I know exactly what you're

saying. They have set up with this line a different

set of expectations. We expect it to be this

cute, cuddly little round thing. The fact that

they actually went to the effort to mold the

cord from his back to his arm. I mean, that's

great. They've completely set up our expectations

to do one thing, then they surpass it. I mean,

that's pretty brilliant. I would say outside

of these two, outside of the movie mugs, only

because, again, they're not homages. They're

just making money off of the movie. I have to

say, out of the original Autobots and Decepticons,

the worst one for me, unfortunately, is the G1

Bumblebee, but that's only because he is like

two and a half inches shorter than everybody

else. But that is an homage. I mean, he was shorter

than everyone else. You're getting less for your

money. Yeah, that's true. That's true. So who

are you going to be talking about next? Music

label, Sound Blaster, or being a fan of the RTM1dub's

new Soundwave. He is, I just recently picked

this up. I've been holding off on it. I actually

bought this for someone in my wedding party last

year as a Grimsman gift and paid about three

times what I paid for it this year. He is without

a doubt the best representation of this character,

Soundwave slash Sound Blaster. The mold is great.

The size is great. The articulation is fantastic.

The fact that it's an actual working MP3 player

is awesome. I have some problems with it though.

The plastic quality is iffy. It's not that the

plastic quality is bad. The plastic quality feels

more like a model kit rather than an actual toy.

That seems to extend to the device label toys

as well. I was talking the last time I was on

about device label Ravage and how much I loved

it. Well, that's until his jaw became dislodged

and I snapped it in two trying to put it back

in place. Right now, as far as the build quality

goes, I've had no problems with this toy. Like

I said, the mold is fantastic. It's incredibly

articulated. MP3 player functionality is awesome

because it's parallel to the way the tape player

worked. The hinge door, you open that up and

you put in a mini SD card, which is kind of unfortunate.

They went with mini SD as opposed to standard

SD or micro SD, which both are used in far more

applications. I actually had to buy a mini SD

for this. And the problem with that is I got

an SDHC mini SD card, a 4 gig, and he doesn't

seem to support SDHC. So I have to get a smaller

card probably in the 1 gigabyte range to get

it to work as an MP3 player. But the paint job

is good. My only problem is that he's lacking

some of the touches that the G1 toy had. But

for seven bucks, DeltaStar at reprolabels .com

has a sticker kit to remedy that. So once you

add those stickers, which I have yet to get,

it makes him a closer representation to the original

Sound Blaster slash Soundwave toy. Yeah, I saw

it. I think you posted it on Twitter. You showed

a picture of him with device label Ravage. Yeah.

After you fixed Ravage's jaw. Yeah, that was

before. The toy was broken. I broke it yesterday.

That's kind of sad and unfortunate. Yeah. I don't

know if it was you or somebody I follow on Twitter

posted a picture of a Walmart exclusive at Toys

R Us. My friend that was Rob Springer. Was it?

Yeah. Okay. I wasn't sure cuz I I saw the retweet

and I wasn't sure who it was Does that really

happen? Yeah, all sorts of crazy things happen

at the TF wiki there. There is a Wiki on toy

swapping which is like a malady. That's like

it's it's probably it's a problem everywhere

people take toys they open them replace them

with crap and I don't know how the person at

the store managed to take the Fear Swoop set

and trade it in at Toys R Us, but somehow it

happened. I mean, crazier things have happened.

I remember someone, oh goodness, I think it was

Armada or something, they actually swapped it

for the G1 counterpart of the toy. I think that

was just done to screw with... to screw with

somebody. I don't even remember the toy, but

this got some coverage on Alt Toys Transformers

or AllSpark or somewhere. They opened the toy

and put in the G1 namesake of the toy. That was

kind of crazy, so it happens. Do you recommend

the music or device label toys? He's the only

one that I have. I'm not really interested in

the Optimus Prime music label toys. I got him

for 40 bucks on eBay. He's worth that. He's totally

worth that. My second pick will be the movie

Optimus. I'm sorry, he does not inspire me to

give him my face. It just doesn't inspire me

to do so. I don't know, I guess I've been watching

too many leader class Prime reviews lately, with

all the repaints and Japanese stuff and whatever

else. But yeah, like all Mighty Mugs, his hit

turns 360, his arms turn, neither one of these,

Bumblebee or Prime, come with a weapon. That's

weird. I don't know why, maybe it wasn't in the

budget, I'm not sure, I mean this guy, Prime,

has like... I mean, he's basically silver, black,

blue, red, and another shade of black like on

the wheels. I mean, there are details. They were

able to get the flames on there. They were able

to paint on the smokestacks the way the transformation

looks on the actual leader class toy. Going back

to Bumblebee, I do have to mention, I believe,

I'm not sure, but I believe on the back of his

head is the, it's supposed to be the battle helmet,

I guess. I don't know. It kind of looks like

it, but I'm not really sure. I'd have to watch

the movie again. But going back to... And who

wants to watch the movie again? Actually, I'm

going to have to because I need to get clips

out of it for this. Because I'm going to put

a Bumblebee clip in and an Optimus clip in at

some point. Just play some D .V .O. and that'll

be good enough. Yeah, how would you like to whip

it? Oh boy. I don't know. It's like I said before,

these are probably going to be like... Like,

I'll probably either put them inside Castle Grayskull,

which is actually blasphemy, or I will just...

hide them somewhere on the bottom of the shelf,

because I really don't like them. I really don't.

But that's what happens when you buy toys in

a wave set, and yeah, whatever. Because I actually

got the Wave 3 like a week before it was released.

Oh, congratulations, that's pretty awesome in

and of itself. mean they were they were like

show up at stores, but they weren't like showing

up around here, so I Just I don't know there

was some And I've said this before so people

would have heard this before but there was some

auction on eBay forum coming out of Taiwan or

Coming out of somewhere. I don't know I paid

for them one day and like four days later. I

had them Which is actually kind of Kind of a

miracle in it In and of itself, getting stuff

from overseas. Yeah, what's cool is being the

first person to get something. Back in the day,

before the proliferation of the internet, when

the internet was much smaller, I was the first

to find quite a few things, like Transmetal Tube

Black Arachnia. I think I was the first person

in the online fandom to find robots and disguise

toys. So it's always fun getting a scoop on that

and everyone hating you for a brief period. Yeah,

I wasn't the first one unfortunately, but I was

one of the first because after I ordered them

and I got the shipping notification from the

seller on eBay, I said, okay, well, let's see

if anybody else has got them. So I went on YouTube

and of course a certain YouTube reviewer who

gets everything first before almost everybody

else who I am not going to name or give any props

to on this show. And let's just put it this way,

he made me lose brain cells watching his video

reviews. If it's the guy I'm thinking of, I've

never watched any of his reviews, but from what

I hear, he buys stolen stuff. So yeah, there

you go. Two. But the other thing is, he doesn't

take a breath when he's advertising for a big

toy store. He tries to be John Machida, and he's

not. He tries to be John Machida in the Micro

Machines commercials, but he's not. Yeah, it

may not be the person I'm thinking of, but if

it is, if it's not, I apologize, but you know.

Overall, if you're going for Transformers Mighty

Mugs, get the first two waves, which is G1 Optimus,

Bumblebee, Soundwave, Megatron, and then wave

two is Grimlock and Starscream. Get Wave 3, but

only get Jazz and Shockwave. Do not get these

moving toys. These just... Oh crap. I just don't

like them. Just don't like them whatsoever. So

yeah, do we have anything else we would like

to discuss? Other than, you know, this looks

like a great year to be, you know, to buy Transformers

toys with the return, hypothetically, of classics.

I mean, I really don't have anything else. I

do want to plug Radio Free Cybertron at TFradio

.net, though. Consider it plugged. We are all

about plugging stuff on this show. I mean, oh

boy. You know, hell, all of our podcasts end

up getting plugged on on all of the other podcasts.

Oh man, I wish they would give news already about

that cartoon though, because I want to know more

about that already. Of course, you know that

won't happen until Hasbro slash Discovery announces

their finalized details or whatever. Yeah, but

things have a way of leaking and it's even more

now than ever. Cell phone cameras and things

like that things have a way of showing up on

the internet or 4chan or wherever I'm actually

seeing is how I'm talking about the money mugs.

I'm actually looking into getting more of them

Other than the transformers ones because I already

have them all now, but like the marble mighty

bug mighty mugs There's a listing on eBay for

all for 30 of them which is everything every

single wave plus the exclusives the guy wants

like 730 bucks for them plus $50 shipping I averaged

it like 30 figures whether they're exclusive

or not 30 figures if you average a muddy mug

say anywhere from 10 to 17 dollars that would

come up to $450 for 30 of them not 730 Well,

he's done the job of, you know, collecting them

for you. True, true. But I think that's a rip

-off. Things tend to go down in price when you

collect them like that. I did order the Human

Torch one from Big Bad Toy Store. It's going

to be coming at some point. I don't know when.

Big Bad Toy Story, as much as I love them and

they are the sponsors of this show, they kind

of let me down because pretty much all the Marvel

money mugs they have listed, half of them are

sold out and I sent an email asking if they were

going to be restocked. Not at this time! Well

that sucks. With Big Bad Toy Story, there's probably

a higher purpose. Because I am never going to

rip on the Big Bad Toy Story because I love them

so much. Ripping on them, really? It's kind of

sad that they won't get restock of something

that I now want that I can't get from them anymore.

Yeah, that does suck. So that's really what I'm

ripping on. It's not really them themselves,

but it's just the fact that they had items they

no longer have, and they're not getting them

in. Oh, boy. What else should we talk about oh

I did find out I didn't realize you know you

mentioned the the end of robot heroes But you

know when I first got the RC frenzy set I Knew

the I know I knew on RC her arms moved and stuff.

I had no idea the head had articulation Yeah,

that's cool Her eyes look like they're gonna

bug out of her head though. Yeah, I was I was

looking at that set today. I don't have it. I

was looking at it at Big Lots and I was contemplating

buying it, but they always mark up everything

by like 20 % when it gets to Big Lots and I just

can't justify that. How much was it? $750. I

paid $699. Dude, I think five bucks is as much

as I'm willing to pay. I can go to Ross and find

sets for like $299. Yeah, the RC one, because

of her eyes, she kind of reminds me of Baxter

Stockman. Oh boy. Alright, well I think we're

going to end this episode before it goes into

a giant rat hole. Our shows tend to do that.

I don't know if you've really listened to any

of our other episodes, but the last two episodes,

in like the final, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes

of each, we won Michael Wilson and I. Yeah, he's

talking about G2 Hero Prime or something. He

was, and by the end of that show we were talking

about our favorite Dennis Quaid movies. Oh boy.

So thank you for joining us here on Toycast.

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Wow, that ran into each other. We hope you enjoyed

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I am TFD1Mike with Brian Kilby. Say any more

words of Optimus Prime, Transform and Roll Out,

and thank you for listening. Until next time.

Let's roll! Give me your face!