TFCon Toronto 2010 Recap

Cliffjumper, commence countdown. Five, four,

three, two... Hello and welcome to the 64th episode

of Toycast sponsored by BigBadToyStore .com where

you can save from 20 to 90 percent and over 1

,000 items. I am your host TFGO and Mike and

joining me is the goddamn Protoman and Jaws Deadeye.

Hey guys, how's it going? I'm great. I'm doing

good. I'm doing good. Very cool. And this is

the TFCon 2010 edition of Toycast. I was gonna...

have program and come on and basically just rub

in my face all the crap i missed uh... well i

get it i'm just gonna give like a report like

what happened after you know after the show and

everything uh... like you know friday was pretty

cool because we had a pizza party one of the

friday regulars who always brings a cake every

year ultra primal he brought a mysterious cake

and when he revealed it it was a hot rod cake

which was absolutely awesome it was like the

flame chest and everything uh... uh... well then

we had the animated trivia contest uh... we had

how to draw robot faces was done by uh... done

by kuber and uh... ninja tron we had the parts

trading party which was very successful this

year is very busy Even Vangelis, he had a little

table. He was selling his BotCon exclusives.

And he had his buddy Aaron with him, who was

someone who came up from the States. So he had

a whole bunch of like, you know, because you

guys get figures before we do. So he had all

the generation figures and all the power core

combiners that we didn't get yet. So he brought

a whole bunch of those, and people were just

like bugging him to sell those to people. That

the Friday was was awesome. It's usually the

icebreaker. They was social Derek Wyatt was there

having a great time. He was doodling and drawing

and Everyone was just having a really cool time

like always a TF con the Saturday Which is when

everything pretty much kicks off I was relegated

to signing autographs for the comic book that

I wrote along with Alex Milne colored by Josh

Perez and a whole bunch of other IDW staff and

Give a shout out to Udonzo and Matt Moylan, who

did the layouts and the CG for cover for the

book. But yeah, I was relegated to doing signings

and everything, so I didn't really get to enjoy

the morning of the show. But there was a scavenger

hunt going on. Activision was there with War

for Cybertron in the Paris room so people could

play the game, test it out. They were giving

out little dongles and stuff that you could you

know, hang your name badges from. They didn't

have many of those, like, disappeared quickly.

There was a Derek and Wyatt, a Derek and Wyatt,

a Derek Wyatt panel. There was a Mark Ryan panel.

There was a David Kay panel. Those were all full

to the gills. There was autographs. There was,

oh man, I know that Aaron Off, one of the board

members of TFW, he did a panel on transformers

that never were. So it was pretty much a giant

panel about all the Transformer toys that never

came out. And so we had a whole bunch of pictures

of prototypes and stuff. So that was an interesting

panel to watch. Then there was the costume contest.

And wow, there was a crazy turnout for that.

I mean, you could see it all over Facebook, all

the different people. There was a girl who came

in a Black Arachnia outfit. Animated Black Arachnia.

Animated Black Arachnia. Wow. That was like dead.

on to the character model. And I'm not over -exaggerating.

I mean, like, absolutely dead on to the hips,

to the waist. Like, I don't know. This girl's

amazing. Like, she did a dead -on Black Arachnia.

There was two Saris. There was a G1 shrapnel.

There was... What else was there? There was an

Ultra Magnus that actually transformed. I know

that's crazy when you think about it, but there

was. pretty much the guy lied down and his feet

transformed into the cab and stuff. Anyways,

it's weird when I describe it, but you just got

to kind of see it in practice, but it works.

What else was there, Wendell? No, there was a

jazz. Yeah, there's a guy dressed up as a jazz.

The same girl that dressed up as the animated

black arachnia came back the next day as Bumblebee.

And she just had a flock of kids following her

basically. Kids dressed up in yellow, kids just

bugging out like, oh man, it's Bumblebee. Yeah,

it was an animated Bumblebee too. That one was

also pretty well done. What else was there? There

was also, I guess I should mention this, there

was also the customization table that was going

on which leads to the customization contest.

And this year, Chanformers Who's a legendary

customizer in the TF community specifically the

Raticon? I Swear like it's me a guy named Dak

who's on the staff And the guy named GM fan were

the judges and when we saw his it just he was

like, okay, let's discuss second place. It was

just He completely destroyed ever because there

was a lot of really nice entries this year. Well,

what did he have actually? what do you think

this is the omega supreme all right all the really

big wonder yeah the really big okay he brought

ice where to god it was like bigger that almost

bigger than fortress maximus transformable like

classics omega supreme and it was it we're not

talking like someone took like a bunch of toys

and like painted them up and called it omega

supreme or took a pre -existing toy he just scratch

built every piece and made this amazing Omega

Supreme that actually transforms and has a working

track and everything. And it's sad because when

you look at second place and third place, they're

awesome, but they just pale in comparison to

what Transformers brought. Second place was a

newcomer to the con, another American who came

down who wanted to check out the show, Plow King.

He did a very... unique idea and a lot of, and

me and Duncan and Chris, we all thought like,

yeah, this is really original. He did a alternators

Kremzyk. Cool. Hear me out. Hear me out. His

alt mode, the car that they used was the electric

car, the vibe. So Kremzyk whose electricity turned

into an electric car, which was kind of smart

for an alternator. And again, like the pictures

are online. He did an amazing robot mode that

gets those Kremzyk like visual cues. The vehicle

mode is a dead -on alternator so you wouldn't

even be able to tell it's a transformer toy because

it just looks so good in its car mode. And it

was just, again, a classic example of not taking

a pre -existing toy and just painting it up is

he just took a Vibe model kit and then he just

worked his way up from there and he made it into

a transformable toy. Which is, again, a lot of

respect for that because... as much as i respect

people who do repaints and everything i really

put above and beyond respect for people who engineer

and scratch build their own transformer customs

and that goes on to third place which was nemesis

predaking uh nemesis predaking last year got

second place with his animated uh beast wars

megatron this year he came back he got third

place with his scratch built um animated sorry

the older edition oh awesome Yeah, he made like

pretty much a super articulated action figure,

like super super articulated with removable armor

of a sari like her older all spark fused form.

And again, scratch build, you know, painted by

hand all by himself. Amazing job. You know, some

shout outs go to other people. There was Mount

Wave who brought his Mega Man. Transformer crossovers,

which they work in practice. They're not awesome,

but they're like, wow, some of those really work

with specific molds. There was another guy who

brought in Omega Supreme that was really cool.

Someone did their interpretation of Cybertron

using a basketball. Even my girlfriend, she did

a paper mache slash pinata of Hot Rod, and she

just brought that to show off. It was amazing

like there was tons and tons of entries, so many

to choose from but those were the three winners

for sure and they deserve their names mentioned.

They got these gorgeous trophies that were donated

by Hasbro. Pretty much Hasbro donated action

figures to be used towards trophies and so we

made these beautiful gold, silver and bronze

trophies using Transformer characters and they

had a base and everything for second, third.

That's awesome. Yeah. What else? Well, then there

were some other panels. One panel that I'm not

too proud of, but I was kind of forced to. There

was the pairings panel, which is, it was a panel

because we wanted to do something for the female

fans because TFCon every year gets a buttload

of fangirls every year. And so we wanted to do

a panel for them. Usually because they write

slash fiction, they love doing their, this character

is in love with that character. GM fan wanted

to do a panel for them about the official couples

in transformer history and So he wanted me to

help him with it because of my extensive out

-of -the -box knowledge that would come with

every answer So I participated in that one. I

wasn't too proud of it. Thankfully. There was

no video recorded of that one Damn, so there's

no evidence. There's no evidence of it even though

I speak of it right now, but I believe the first

picture was quite entertaining, but then I left.

I totally left, sadly. The panel was very visual,

let's just say. But yeah, and then there was

the script reading, which I guess I'll mention

now since we have Wendell here, too. Yeah, sure.

Every year at TFCon, whatever voice actors we

get, voice actor or voice actors that we get...

We always arrange a script reading. So usually

when we find out about the voice actor that we're

going to be getting for that year, we spend the

next three to two months that we have until the

show to write a script with that said voice actor's

characters, make a comic book of six pages to

accompany that script to kind of like be an opening

into the story that they're about to read. And

then auditions for congoers to also be a part

of that script reading. So because we had David

Kay this year as one of our voice actors, he

played Beast Wars Megatron and his two other

Megatron interpretations, which were Galaxy Force

and... What was the other one, Wendell? Wasn't

he in Energon and Cybertron? Yeah, but I think

they only did the Armada and the Armada, the

Galaxy Stores one. And he played those three

characters along with Grimlock, Glugnuts, Cliffjumper,

all those from animated basically. Yeah, all

those animated characters too. And there was

auditions for extra roles who could be along

in this script reading for Jazz, Sentinel Prime,

Blitzwing, Bumblebee, Blackarachnia, and am I

forgetting any? And Megatron. Animated Megatron.

Animated Megatron. And so it was a great turnout.

There were some really talented people who actually

got the roles. And one of them that's with us

right now is the winner of Jazz, which is Wendell.

Which was Jedi. And his was pretty interesting

because TFCon has been around for nine years

now. And we've actually never had a black person

And the funny thing is, is that for years we've

had black Transformer characters, if you will.

We've had Blaster, we've had Tigatron, and we've

had Jazz in the past that you won Jazz. But they've

always been won by... you know, Caucasian people.

And it's kind of ironic because last year, one

of the most colorful, and I guess you could call

the whitest individual we'd ever know, Goober,

he won the role of blaster, and it was kind of

funny to see him do that role. And so then we

had, you know, here we have animated jazz, and

we have the script reading, so the auditions

went, and the finals were between Wendell over

here, Jaws, and Vangelis. And keep in mind, David

Kay is the judge of all of this. He judges who's

in, who's out. It's down to David Kay and Meesam,

right? Meesam kind of just tallies the scores

and the names, but David Kay is always kind of

the final answer. Every year we always kind of

rely on the voice actor to say, well, this person

has talent, this person doesn't, you know? Right.

No, it's really not in that sense not so cruelly.

I guess the best way to come and kill me with

a knife but but but it's just You know and so

it got down to the finals and the line was what

was the line? Do your do the line that you was

it again? I can't believe I still sort of remember

it, but I was forget the Decepticons and dig

the pile of your own mind. That was the line,

if I remember right. You had to do it in a very

Phil Lamar kind of jazz, and so you had Vangelis

trying to do it, and then you had Wendell, and

then even David Kaye's like, wow, I really hear

Phil Lamar in Wendell's voice. And so he won

it, and that was awesome. So Wendell broke the

color barrier for TFCon. But then, like, almost

like 10 minutes later, a very talented guy named

Christian, his name was Christian, he won Sentinel

Prime. Yeah, Christian, another black guy, he

won Sentinel Prime, and his Sentinel Prime is

also equally as very well done. Because I remember

when he had to go up for the second reading,

basically Sentinel Prime's character is the tick.

and he goes up and he says, I'm not just a Prime,

I'm Sentinel Prime, and then he yells out, Spoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I guess the head Prime in the fiction in that

particular thing and then something happens where

Like a time warp a time hole a wormhole or something

burst dispersed through like three different

dimensions and then like all the Megatrons like

well all the two Megatrons like team up or three

of them decide to team up to take over the animated

one and It's up to Optimus Prime jazz and bumblebee

to stop them basically and mayhem ensues yeah

mayhem and a lot of funny lines a lot of really

funny dialogue ensues it was a really fun script

reading Yeah, and it went extremely smoothly

it was hilarious and again if you kind of like

it close your eyes and listen to it It's like

an episode of animated because we had David Kay

doing all his legendary lines and characters

including Beast Wars Megatron just thrown in

for good measure And then you had a lot of talented

people again the people who were picked to do

the other characters They were the people that

were the most suited for those. And every year,

whenever there's a character audition, there's

at least like 10 to 15 people auditioning who

feel that, oh, they should be Black Arachnia

or they should be... Sentinel Prime. We always

try to pick the best of the best of that that

really matches those original characters. It

was very well done this year. For anyone listening,

if they want to watch the script reading on Vangelis'

channel, he actually recorded the entire thing

in very good quality so you can catch it and

get an idea of how we do things at TFCon. I may,

I don't know, but I may look up on Vangelis'

channel, the video for that, and I may link it

in the website post for this episode of Toycast.

That way people can, you know, see this thing.

And then after the script reading, which is mainly

the reason why I have to constantly ask Wendell

about it, was because I was actually preparing

for the panel after that, which was the history

of Transformers and video games. And that was

a panel that I was hosting, and it was going

to be pretty much me standing up there for an

hour talking about the unknown history of Transformers.

And again, thanks to Vangelis and pretty much

sacrificing all his bit space on his channel,

Vangelis uploaded an hour -long single YouTube

video of my entire panel in its entirety. That's

a good thing he's a partner. Yeah, he's a partner,

so he gets that kind of... And he actually, one

single YouTube file, one hour long, start the

finish of my entire panel. And so if you really

want to find out about the really nitty -gritty

stuff that people didn't know about Transformers

and video games, I'm up there talking for an

hour. I brought examples, videos, all kinds.

I guarantee everyone listening to this, there's

tons of stuff you've never heard of, easily.

So that's also on Vangelis' channel. After that,

every year we always try to have a group photo

of all the people on the boards together. Then

we do a showing of a choice of Transformer movie

by voting. This year, obviously, the 1986 movie

was voted to be shown this year. Thank God. Well,

let's just say Revenge of the Fall didn't do

well on the polls. Well, no. And because it was

2010, we kind of wanted to have that Rodimus

theme still, so we wanted to play it that year.

You know you jury -rigged the voting protocol.

Oh yeah, I rigged the voting. I rigged the voting,

I rigged the cake. The cake, too. That was all

my scheme, of course. Tasted like... Tasted like

chosen one. Anyways. Oh, Jesus! Anyways, then

we had... Another thing that we started doing

this last year, and it was a really big success,

at 8 o 'clock at 8 p .m. at night, we had the

Faction Feud. And the Faction Feud is the big

trivia contest for TFCon. But it's done in a

family feud kind of style, where teams of four

go up there, and they're asked specific questions,

and it's done family feud style, where you could

pass or steal. So there'll be a question like

name, you know. All the parts of Bruticus. Yeah,

yeah, name five parts of Bruticus. Obviously

something like that's very easy, but that's just

something that went off the top of our head here.

And it works on a point system and everything.

And the winner of that competition was the Fembots,

as they were called, led by Vangelis, ironically.

Vangelis, Aaron from TFW, Gabby, known as...

Oh god, I'm trying to remember her screen name.

I apologize, Gabby, if you're listening. And

what was the other member of their team? There

was another member of their team too. And they

easily won. They did a very good job. I was very

impressed with some of their answers because

always at the faction feuds, I'm the judge. So

if there's anything that's kind of ambiguous

when it comes to answers, I'm always there to

say if it's yay or nay. And Vangelis actually

said an answer that I didn't even think of initially.

And it was a very good one, which was name a

transformer that has two personalities, but the

two personalities are separate bodies. And he

was drawing blank, and then he said, reverse

Megatron. Rebirth convoy and that's like an extremely

obscure Transformers robot masters OVA one episode

appearance character Yeah, he went Japanese.

Yeah, he like he went completely left field and

like me I know this character, but I didn't think

to put it on the list And he guessed and I was

like, wow, okay, yeah, give him the point. So

they won, they did a very good job. And their

prize was they all won Aveo Swerves, the extremely

rare Aveo Swerve transformer toy from Chevy Aveo.

They also went into, then there's a bonus round

where if they win this question, everyone in

their team wins a copy of Transformers War for

Cybertron in the version of their choice. Awesome.

They wanted to have it for Xbox or PS3 or Wii

or whatever. We had it because Activision gave

us donations of every game of every system. And

I'm betting nobody picked the Wii. Well, here's

the thing. They didn't win the bonus round. Oh,

dude! Yeah, so a lot of people were depressed

about that. Really hard question. How we do the

bonus round, again, is similar to Family Feud.

where the question is, it's a little complicated,

I'll explain it, is we'll ask you a question,

name a yellow Autobot, but it'll be like name

a yellow Autobot with high strength. Now you

have to think of an Autobot with high strength

and name it. We take the number that you, like

say you said Bumblebee, right? Bumblebee's strength

is two. So we take that number and we tally it

against all the other questions and you had to

get over 21. So the questions were, name a high

endurance headmaster, a high strength yellow

Autobot, a fast Autobot tank, and a, what was

the last one? I don't remember. There's no such

thing as a fast Autobot tank. Yes, that's what,

that's just it. That's why, so like when people

were like, oh my God, name a fast Autobot tank.

Oh, and a fast Scramble City piece, meaning like

a combiner team. Right. Except for Devastator

because he's not part of Scramble City. And so

like, you know, fast Autobot tank and everyone's

like, oh my God, Warpath, you know, that's all

that comes to mind really, but is he fast? And

then the correct, like the best answer was Fast

Track. He's a micro master and he has a speed

of eight. The strongest yellow Autobot, primary

yellow. And I actually argued this myself, but

they put Hot Rod on the list and Rodimus. And

so that's 10 right there. Yeah, but he's not

exactly it's not. Yeah, I know. I argue it too.

Like the second place was Sunstreaker who has

an eight. So then you have the strongest head.

The most endurance headmaster, obviously, Fortress

Maximus. Amazingly, a lot of people didn't guess

that. A lot of people were thinking everything

but Fortress Maximus. Everyone was like, is it

Hardhead, is it Brainstorm? Everyone was thinking

like that instead of thinking about Fortress

Maximus, the leader. Obviously 10, 10, 10, 10,

10. But yeah, so and obviously they didn't win

because I believe for primary yellow Autobot,

the question went to Aaron and he kind of stumbled

and then he went Pretender Bumblebee, you know,

because he was thinking Bumblebee, Bumblebee,

Bumblebee and then he's like, well, what's a

stronger Bumblebee? Pretender Bumblebee. And

I think that was like a strength of six or something,

which is not bad, but it's not great. The guest

for the headmaster one went to Gabby and she

said brainstorm and that was like also what was

like five for the for the fastest Scramble City

piece Vangelis guest groove the motorcycle from

the protect the bots which is also like five

and Vangelis is like what he's a motorcycle I

mean that's speed itself you know apparently

blast off is the fastest which makes sense because

he's a space shuttle And then the last one which

was Forgetting oh the tank. Yeah fast track the

micro master was the fastest yeah, they guess

they guessed warpath Just to so they didn't win,

but they at least they won Oveo swerves, which

was the like that was it was a bonus thing They

could win extra prizes, but they all won of AOSwervs,

which is a value of $80 on eBay easily, so props

to them. That was the end of the Saturday. Obviously,

the beauty with TFCon is that the con doesn't

end when... The con ends. There's tons of bar

parties and sketches going on. Derek Wyatt was

doing sketches for everybody. We were all partying

at the bar. A lot of fun to be had. There's tons

of video of that online. If you go to Nemesis

Predator King's YouTube channel, he recorded

a lot of the nitty gritty stuff that happens

outside and around the convention. Yeah. Like

the bar and stuff. So that was pretty cool. The

Sunday opened up and that was the... The TFCon

slash eighties expo, which is we give a chance

for our dealers to also bring out their non transformer

related products to sell to so the morning of

it the custom class was happening alongside the

convention, which is DAC he runs a class where

him along with Hasbro have a customized figure

that's made as one of the exclusive for the show

and this year the customized figure for this

year that only 30 people were able to get into

this class was UK Flash to accompany your UK

slash G2 box set from Bakon. So they took the

Aveo Swerve and everyone in the room got an Aveo

Swerve and was asked to cut it to pieces to make

a UK Flash and it looked very, very good. Reprolabels

provided these stickers that add that extra touch

to the figure to make it really look like the

original UK toy. And that was very nice. It's

a shame I wasn't able to be a part of that. Also

that was going on at the same time was because

we had Mark Ryan as one of our guests and he's

the voice of Jetfire from Revenge of the Fallen

and the voice of Bumblebee. And he also does

all the voices of all the generic robots in Transformers.

He gave a behind the scenes look and explanation

what's happening for Transformers 3. Oh really?

Because he's there on the set the entire time

for all the generic stuff. He's kind of like

the Frank Welker of the movies. Because if there's

a certain robot that's going to be screaming

that has no purpose whatsoever or a sound effect,

it's his job to do that. He was talking about

the process and what's going into Transformers

3 right now and how stuff's going on. And he

was even showing some behind the scenes that

weren't shown on the internet, although they

showed up obviously a couple days later after

TFCon. But he debuted that floating shockwave

head that everyone's seeing online. That showed

up at TFCon first and everything. We also had

the Hasbro panel, where Hasbro showed off the

new toys for next year. And so this was, again,

a lot of stuff that a lot of people haven't seen

yet, which was a lot of the new toys, two packs,

and Hasbro explaining where a lot of these exclusive

toys that are in the States are going to be showing

up in Canada to help out some Canadians that

are worried if they're going to be able to get

their animated Rodimus. Speaking of animated

Rodimus, What do you think of the Takara version

considering it's pretty much the photoshopped

image we originally saw of Rodimus the Mistransformed?

I would have to see it in person because I've

seen a lot of the Japanese animated toys in person

as opposed to when I saw them in photos. They

look a lot nicer in person. Like a good example

is, I call them Ironhide because that's his Japanese

name, but Bulkhead. When you see them in pictures,

it doesn't really come through, because these

are all shiny toys. It's very hard to get that

yummy glitter with a camera. Well, the image

that I saw was... I don't know if it might have

been an article on TFW, I'm not sure where I

saw it, but I saw an image of pretty much Season

3 colors for Rodimus. G1 Season 3. A lot of people

are making the comparison to the original G1

toy that has that dark maroon already to begin

with. Right. And a recent issue of, I'll tell

you right now which magazine it was, I think

it's called Teriyubu Magazine, which has a lot

of Japanese toys in it. They actually did a comparison

photo of Japanese animated Rotomus next to G1

Rotomus to show the differences in colors and

the similarities. I believe that image is up

right now on TFW somewhere. Yeah. Again, it's

one of those things that I can't really judge

until I see it in person. I've seen animated

Rodimus in person multiple times now. And I can

say that that's gorgeous, to say the least. Lucky

bum. Yeah. But this one, I'm going to hold out

because I know that when I saw a lot of the animated

stuff from Japan originally, I was kind of like,

eh, kind of shiny. And I know it sounds great,

but the bumblebee from animated in Japan is amazing.

It's like they use like a gold tinge to it and

it's like a gold bug. It just, it's, it looks

really good. Again, like when I saw it in person,

I was like, oh my God, I want to buy this. Yeah.

I, I so want to get it from, uh, from BBTS. I

really, really do. Pick up the bubble bee. I

know the mold is kind of eh, but really like

that gold chrome works so well with that mold.

I can't even stress it. Like it's. It's crazy.

As much as I like Bumblebee in the cartoon, I...

When animated was still really big, like when

Bumblebee had first come out here in the US,

I was like, meh, I'd seen like three or four

different video reviews of him, and of course

people don't always have the same figure, and

it's quality control per figure. But some people

are like, oh, well the yellow doesn't really

match up. The yellow doesn't do this deal. And

it really didn't do anything for me. And then

I was in one, and I've told, I think I've told

this story before. I was in Walmart one time

and I saw a black bumblebee and I'm like, what

the hell is that? And it was Elite Guard bumblebee.

And of course we all know he never made it to

Elite Guard, but they did just do the repaint

anyway. And that's the only mold of the animated

bumblebee I have, or the only coloration. of

that mold that i have so yeah i really want the

japanese version the japanese one it's glorious

it really is and and that's just it going back

to the animator ottomus thing i get it's one

of those toys that i know i'm gonna love it anyways

by by yeah you are a fan myself yeah but it's

just it's one of those things that i really need

to see it in person uh... yeah it's it's it's

those at and clear figures those are two kind

of figures that you really have to hold them

to get the full effect. I mean, photos do not

do justice for queer figures. Yeah, I know we're

kind of getting off the... Oh yeah, sure. Okay,

sorry about that. No, I mean, I know we're kind

of getting off of TFCon, but I'm just wondering,

why did they... Why did Takara do two Sons of

Cybertron sets? They've got one in Classics and

then one in Animated. we found out about the

animated one and it was kind of like a no -brainer

because it was part of this campaign that they

were doing to celebrate 2010. And to celebrate

2010 is emphasizing anything that's Season 3

or Rodimus. So they did the animated set first

and we heard about that. And then this weird

classics version showed up from the Philippines.

Everyone freaked out and thought it was some

Filipino exclusive or something and even I freaked

out because I was like, oh my God, I hope it's

not that. But so I don't know they decided to

go with both I mean the the final list is we

have Masterpiece sleep mode convoy, which is

fine when he dies And it has Rodimus in his wrist

Communicator when you open it up Then we have

as you mentioned before the sons of cyber of

Cybertron animated to pack which has Rodimus

in it the sons of Cybertron Classics to pack

which has Rodimus in it Then we have the final

two figures, which is a movie -accurate Unicron

and a more budget -put -into -the -paint scheme

Primus. And the cool thing about the Primus and

the Unicron is they're boxes. When you put them

next to each other, they make a single image.

Yeah. And then we also have a challenge at Cybertron

box set, which is pretty much classic Rodimus,

but... For U .S. people anyway, it's pretty much,

Classics Rodham is in actual hot rod colors.

Not purple. Coming with a Galvatron and a Cyclonus.

Cyclonus, yeah. I actually have three of those

coming my way. I don't know, and anyone listening,

if they have some reliable local people, I'm

willing to somehow get rid of those extra Cyclonus

and Galvatrons for a good price, because I don't

know what I'm going to do. I'll have one set

for myself, but I don't know what I'm going to

do with two. I'll take one of the cyclonuses

just for alt mode because I've already got one

set pre -ordered. Well the cyclonus impresses

me because it's not friggin lavender. like that

it's a version and it's really lavender yeah

and it's not super dark purple like the u .s.

version so again it's one of those things i guess

i have to see in person yeah yeah it's hard it's

hard to tell we only we only literally have the

one image or the two images they're not exactly

the most flattering so yeah so what else happened

on sunday moving on um we also had a panel that

we always have every year david kate did uh...

how to get into voice acting panel which a lot

of people, because during, we've had this problem

where every single voice actor we've ever had

during their panel, we always get people going

up to them, how do I get into voice acting? And

it's become this ongoing joke within the staff.

And then one day, one of the staff was like,

why don't we just do a panel, how to get into

voice acting? And we did it with Dan Gilvison

originally. And Dan was completely up for it.

And then it became a hit. Because Dan was very

honest. He would tell people, you need to do

this, you need to do that. Don't mimic. Don't

make mimicking your gimmick, because that doesn't

work. You're voice acting, not voice mimicking.

He was very honest, and I felt that it helped

for people who... want to break into this industry.

So we did the same thing with David Kay. And

David Kay, you know, he brought his own expertise

because he was at one point the new guy trying

to get in. And he was telling his whole story

about how, you know, he wanted to be part of

that Vancouver crew. And what we refer, what

we refer to as that Vancouver crew is the Beast

Wars crew, the Ian Coralette, the Gary Chocks,

the Scott McNeils. Richard Newton. Yeah, those

guys were the Vancouver crew, and he wanted to

get in with them. He was a nobody at the time,

David Kay. And so, he learned that, you know...

His gimmick was to mix characters together to

make other characters. When he auditioned for

Beast Wars Megatron, he was thinking of Sean

Connery meets Cobra Commander with a little bit

of snake in it, so that's where the yes came

from. Although now it became yes, but it's just,

he kind of like mixed, you know, and he was kind

of showing how he... does his character creations

for auditions where he kinda just takes multiple

characters, puts them together, puts them in

a blender, and whatever he gets is what he uses.

And again, it was very educational. Is that the

one with... Eric Bowser, I was about to bring

up. Yeah, there we go. Okay, excuse me. He was

also joined by Eric Bowser. Now, Eric Bowser,

because we had the 80's expo, Eric Bowser is

the voice of Snake, not Snake Eye, Storm Shadow

from G .I. Joe. Oh, awesome. We managed to get

him. Resolute, right? Yeah, Resolute. But here's

the thing. A lot of people don't know about Eric

Bauza. He's also the voice of Stimpy from Ren

and Stimpy. Oh! And here's another interesting

piece of information. Derek Wyatt used to work

on the character designs for the background characters

of Ren and Stimpy. So it was very interesting

to have Eric Bauza there with Derek Wyatt. And

it was funny because a lot of times people were

asking Derek to sketch a Stimpy and then Eric

to sign it. It was pretty cool to get that. But

Eric's a really cool guy. Again, being a guy

who's worked in Ren and Stimpy, he has a very

fun sense of humor, especially with the crowd.

And he's very humbling and he's very cool. And

so it's always awesome. He actually came to TFCon

last year, not as a guest, but as just an attendee.

He just came to the show to check it out. Derek

Wyatt who was at our show last year He spotted

him. He's like, oh my god, Eric. What are you

doing here? He's like, oh, I don't know I just

came here and then everyone just like bumrushed

him This is before he did resolute he was just

like the voice of Stimpy to get a voice of Stimpy

and so people were bugging him and then like

there's a video somewhere out there of like people

are recording him doing the voice of Stimpy it's

like hey red you'd be the pitcher and I'll be

the catcher. Oh wait, that doesn't sound too

good Like He was he's a very talented guy and

it was great to have him back at the show and

now signing autographs as officially a guest

and Since he did GI Joe with he did tunnel rat

and he did a storm shadow. Yeah There is one

thing that and I don't want to start a war But

even though this comment will probably start

a war but there's one thing TF con this year

had that bod con didn't Big bad toy store. Oh,

yes That's well, you know what big bad toy store.

Let me tell you they filled They filled TF con

with so many Star Wars toys. I can't even describe

I swear they had like a wall of Star Wars toys.

I've never seen so many Star Wars I was gonna

say, someone, you know, a company like Big Bad

Toy Store that doesn't just deal in Transformers,

how do you guys, as a Transformers convention,

do you just allow them to display anything, or?

Well, the cool is, is that Saturday's TF Solman.

That's the rule. And then Sunday, we allow, um,

we allow people to then bust out their 80s stuff.

Because a lot of these guys are businesses. And

we can't, you know, some of these guys, like,

you know... their transformer display might only

be seven figures. So it's very difficult to buy

a table for a weekend and Saturday you pretty

much have nothing, you know? So we do kind of

give a leniency for some people when their stock

is very thin on the transformers, but we always

say please, if you're doing this show, bring

transformers for the Saturday. But BBTS, man

with the Star Wars. I swear, there's gotta be

a photo out there somewhere. of their star wars

wall i'm telling you it's just like i'm not over

exaggerating maybe 200 figures mint on card like

it was nuts what is that what's the order in

star wars order that makes all the uh clone troops

turn and make them work for the emperor again

the sith no no the order the order that they

give order 60 oh order 666 yeah yeah that's what

it felt like all those yeah it was nuts they

had so many but if they were there they were

there in full force they brought us a brought

tons of transformers to but just the star wars

was my boggling that they brought and so it worked

out well because we are we uh... on the sunday

we also had the fifty one five hundred first

regret that brigade which are these uh... star

wars cosplayer so they were all over the show

on sunday so they were doing uh... they were

doing good uh... also on the sunday was another

one of my panels the truth of go -bots. This

panel was pretty much to show what GoBots would

have been if they stuck to the source material

and not went with Hanna -Barbera. And that went

over surprisingly well. I was not expecting this

panel to actually get people in the seats. But

surprisingly, a lot of people showed up for it.

And someone recorded it. And it's going to be

on YouTube sooner or later. So you'll be able

to see. And it's PG -13. It's actually quite

gory, the truth of GoBots. Just a warning in

advance because there was kids in the audience

and I actually looked at the parents and said

I'm just gonna warn you in advance Some people

are gonna get cut in half here This isn't you

know Hannah Barbera This is machine Robo So and

I brought a whole bunch of toys for people to

check out and it went super well I was actually

quite shocked how well it went There was also

other panels. There was the costume design panel

led by Misum for people with Misum and Vanessa,

the black arachnid chick, showing how to make

costumes, what materials to use and stuff. Then

there was the toy design panel by Marvin Marino.

Now Marvin Marino, a lot of people don't know

his name, but they know his work and his infamy.

Marvin Marino was one of the main designers on

Reboot. He designed all the Mecha based stuff

the megabytes sweet the binomes he designed all

of those He would later go on in mainframe to

design obsidian for beast machines Cool, and

that was it, you know in terms of transformer

late stuff But he designed an ass ton of stuff

that never got used for trans tech And he's one

of the sole owners of some of the trans tech

toy prototypes Wow. prototype toys and and the

Starscream and the Megatrons that later on became

kind of prototype for Armada Megatron and that

was really interesting panel and he also he has

a book that he has with all his art and all his

sketches and stuff that he was selling. And it

was really worth it to check out that panel,

it was really cool. Then we had a panel with

Alex Milne from IDW teaching people how to draw

transformers, and pretty much Alex Milne's style.

To say Alex Milne's style is very his own, and

it's very... dynamic, and so he was teaching

people how to kind of draw in that dynamic style,

which where he kind of starts from the center

going out. Some people start with the head, some

people start with the feet. Alex starts with

the chest, and then he bleeds out in that direction.

And so he was teaching people how to draw transformers

in that dynamic style of angling. And then the

last panel was just the organizers panel, which

was all of the staff just thanking everyone for

the show. I hope to see them next year and any

ideas or suggestions. And that was TFCon in a

nutshell. And our show is crazy fun and it was

extremely successful. We actually got double

the amount of people we got last year. The final

numbers were about 3 ,500. We almost sold out

the comic book that I wrote. There's only, I

believe, 15 copies left. I'm expecting a signed

one. Yes, I have one. Funny thing, one of the

attendees sold his on eBay with his Nightbird

and he got $175 for it. I was like, wow, there's

some value in these limited comic books, I guess.

It was a great show. The exclusives were awesome.

uh... the guests were amazing and again the beauty

of tf .com and a lot of people that was the beauty

of it all was botcon really kind of messed up

this year by putting botcon in disney world so

we got a lot of the guys in the states live on

the border crossing over and they loved the show

they were won over by it this was our chance

to get a lot of these you know Americans to cross

the border and check out our show and they were

like wow you know it's not even about the show

it's about the after show like because at the

bar you have Derek Wyatt and Mark Ryan and they're

just partying with you guys where you would never

have that. Did David Kay party with you guys

at all? David Kay was actually in a different

hotel completely. Because of the fangirls Oh,

well, yeah, that's the answer we give people

but it's actually cuz he was visiting family.

So a lot of times He was that family reunions

and stuff, right? Yeah I Wish next I'm gonna

try for this next year Me myself the only reason

why I didn't go this year. It was two reasons

obviously lack of fundage and I need to get a

replacement birth certificate because technically

i guess you could say that it was never born

because my birth certificate went to the washer

about fifteen years ago and it yeah so i gotta

get on that so i get a passport but uh... my

buddy steve megatron who does uh... he could

he co -created the geocacher network with me

here and uh... when we interviewed k uh... you

know i said hey steve why don't you show david

you know your your thing and steve does pretty

much dead on beast wars mega i mean it is so

dead on if the two of them were in a room conversing

as that character you wouldn't be able to tell

the difference so i'm i'm hopefully i'm going

to be able to find maybe you guys can get david

back next year because i'm i'm hoping that uh

david and scotty neal and we took are kind of

those golden three that it's like it's like if

you don't got someone we'll always be glad to

show up yeah If ever we have problems getting

a guest, well, that's why Mark Ryan was kind

of our headliner, and it's like, hey, let's get

David. So, no, he's great. He's always willing

to come back. People love him. This is his second

time at TFCon, actually. Awesome. So, he loves

doing the show, and the fans love him, too. He's

a great guy. Yeah. Wendell, what was your favorite

part of this year's TFCon? My favorite part was

actually meeting some of the fans. I wasn't even

on the Cybertron .ca boards, but I'm just conversing

with people here and there, and they're very

welcoming. They're very nice. Even the guests

that they had were just really... They were always

willing to talk with you, and they were very

fun to talk to. I remember Mark Ryan, I was talking

to him at his table, and he was talking about

his career. the comic book he was selling and

it was just really interesting to hear him talk

and hear him see what he had to say about dealing

with fans. Not dealing with fans, but how happy

he was to have fans, to converse with them, to

meet with them on such a grassroots kind of level.

And I really had a lot of fun. I really liked

the fact that after I did the voice... the the

voice acting part everyone's like oh look there's

animated jazz and i'm like oh hey and then someone

like made the joke oh look there's phil lamar

and some people are like wait what really that's

phil lamar and i'm like no yeah that was that

that's one thing that was hilarious about it

because someone yelled that's phil lamar and

well because wendell black guy in a transformer

convention Who's going to argue it? And there

he was standing next to Derek Wyatt at Derek

Wyatt's table. So everyone just kind of thought

it was serious and they're like, oh shit, it's

Derek. It's Phil Lamar. It's like, no, no, no,

it's not. We were joking. We were joking. What

really confused people is that the guy that dressed

up as Jazz is there with us. Oh. that's probably

somewhere yeah i've i've been trying to get an

interview with phil for a while now it's for

ours uh... or justice league cartoon podcast

because of the because he voiced green lantern

and and stealing that and i i i had a brainstorm

and i'm like wait i was like wait a second that's

jazz i was like holy crap i can get him to do

uh... hopefully i'd if i ever get the interview

i can get him to do promos for all things transformers

and toycast as jazz holy shit but sadly it was

kind of declined i'm gonna ask again here in

a couple weeks and see if they can uh... if the

you know if mister lamar can accommodate like

twenty five thirty minutes for us to for us to

interview him well yeah i know i know i i tell

you one thing Hardest person to even and you

we've talked about this off the air for a minute

I'm not gonna bring it up too much, but holy

crap the there's only like Like five Beast Wars

voice actors that we haven't gotten yet Venus

Terzo Alec Willows Jim Burns Crap. Do you have

Kooman or whatever his name is there? No, Blue

Man Kooman, no. Alright, so six. The sixth one

is the hardest person to get a hold of because

I had an IMDB Pro trial, free trial for a while,

and there's no contact information for Scott

McNeil, damn it. Wow. And considering that Scott

McNeil is at every freaking convention, and that's

not an over -exaggeration, you just go to a random

anime convention and Scott McNeil is on the list.

He's everywhere. I know, and that's the thing,

it's like, we're at, like, tomorrow night, we're

recording this Wednesday, we're going to be recording

Beast Unleashed episode 17 tomorrow night, and

it's like... We're 17 episodes into the Beast

Unleashed podcast, which is the world's first

ever Beast Wars Beast Machines review podcast

on the entire Beast series. The only people that

are reviewing that era of Transformers right

now. I know that for a fact, because it's not

anywhere else on iTunes other than what we're

doing. And it's like, damn it, we've already

gotten Kay, we've gotten Chalk, we've gotten

Ian Coralette, who I didn't think... I would

ever talk to Cheetor. i was shocked in all hell

when steve got that area but it's like it's like

holy crap why is scott mcneil becoming my friggin

holy grail when it comes to interviews now it's

like uh... hilarious i'd like met him like five

times you know like and and and that's a i i

love scott he's a great guy but in my mind he's

the easiest voice actor to get I went to an anime

convention in Montreal. He was there. I went

to an anime convention in Toronto. He was there.

I went to BotCon. He was there. I went to TFCon.

He was there. It's like he sees all over. I went

to Fan Expo in Toronto. He was there. And I love

Scott, but you could smell him coming. Let me

tell you. That guy wears a lot of Aqua Velva.

A lot of Aqua Velva. Let's talk about Nightbird

for a minute. I saw the only review I've seen

of it was pretty much at convention. General

Tecno had done a little review of her. And honestly,

no offense, I'm so glad I didn't spend the $140

on a 10D package. I'll say this. It's a great

figure, but yeah, I'll agree with the price.

It's not a... She's so... Well, she's so small.

She looks like she's a scout class figure. In

robot mode. It's a little bit taller than a Scout

class. It works with the RC. I find that when

you put the RC toy next to Classics Rodimus and

Cup and stuff, it works in that scale. But I

think for Nightbird, I think it falls short of

being a little small for you. The only way we

were able to, I think, justify the price... was

that because the RC figure was the same price

at BBTS and everything. But with the Nightbird,

you got extra stuff. Now I can read it like she

came with two guns, two size, a sword, two weapons

clips. And if you went to the show for an extra

three dollars, you got the exclusive comic book,

which kind of like fleshed out explaining all

these accessories and why she has the two guns

and why she has the body. So if you were at the

show, it was kind of justifiable. But yeah, non

-attendees, forget about it. I can't imagine.

See, and I've mentioned this to you off -air,

and I know you don't do anything with the pricing

and the packages and all that. But I wish for

next year, I wish that they would include everything

that an attendee package includes outside of

actually being there, like the exclusive, the

comic, and the t -shirt. Yeah, that that was

like the big thing on eBay a lot of people were

like if they were gonna sell stuff on eBay They

sold their t -shirts their attendees badge The

comic book signed by me because I signed every

single book and every single book I signed I

also drew protoman on the cover So that was I

kind of like the authenticator right there Why

does that not surprise me? but uh... but uh...

to work on that yeah i've had many years to practice

that uh... but anyways it's just you know like

and that seemed like the whole package but it's

you know this was the first year we were trying

out uh... non attendees package in the price

also included shipping so like that's the thing

we didn't charge extra for shipping that was

included in the price i don't know the numbers

for it how well it did but it's you know i'm

pretty sure we're going to consider that for

next year i mean There is a lot of stuff We like

the whole process before we even got the Nightbird,

let alone how the Nightbird that we even know

that's our exclusive today. There were so many

things we went through in terms of talking with

different companies and what the exclusive was

going to be and the color schemes. Like we would,

we would get a vague idea of what an exclusive

would be. Then we discuss what character would

be. And then by the time we would like settle

on something, cause we're talking, you know,

seven other staff members, like, you know, butting

heads about who the toy should be. on a profitable

angle, on a recognizable angle, on a licensing

angle, because you know the name too. And then

like after that would all said and done, we'd

find out, yeah, the guy who was providing the

exclusive, let's say Impossible Toys, Fan Expo,

you know, whatever company. They'd fall through

and say, oh, we can't do it in time this year,

and so we'd have to move on to the next guy.

And it took a while. And we were very fortunate

for Impossible Toys to offer us this opportunity.

Originally, the exclusive was just going to be

a straight up repaint of RC done in Nightbird

colors. And we were lucky enough to have banksa

who did the head mold sculpts and the changes

of the weapons and the accessories To give us

this brand new toy and again, it's a great toy.

But yeah, I agree with you. The price is a little

high Again, it's more justifiable if you're at

the con for 125 dollars Yeah, where it where

it includes your badge getting the comic book

and getting into the convention for the weekend

We're 125 dollars straight up just for the figure.

That's a little more, you know Difficult to swallow.

Yeah But we'll try to fix that next year I know

powered commander sold out no problem because

the price was justifiable for a lot of people

We'll see yeah, and plus he's a bigger figure,

isn't he? He's a huge figure. Yeah He's like

like in terms of if we're talking mass Maybe

like 20 times, you know the size like it the

size and like just in terms of plastic mass and

weight Easily more so than a night bird Do we

have anything else we want to say about this

year's TFCon? Well, just it was a great show.

Thank you everyone who showed up. It was easily

our biggest year ever. We had more exclusives,

more guests, more people show up. We had more

attendees. We had even like people bringing their

customized transformer cars. Some guy brought

us customized Batmobile in the parking lot. And

he used a Porsche to do it. 944, right? Yeah,

the 944 Porsche. So it was a really wacky turnout.

It was a great year. It was bigger. I will honestly

say this. Our deal room was bigger than BotCon's.

And I could say that honestly. And everyone will

agree with me who's gone to both this year. Our

deal room was easily, I would say, 50 % larger

than BotCon's. What I was like it was a great

year. It was a great year. Thank you everyone

who showed up everyone who's listening and you

know stay tuned We're gonna we usually get the

date for next year and the location very early

I don't think you're gonna beat BotCon. Oh, yeah,

well BotCon surprised us. They actually for the

first time in Seven years they they actually

like revealed it instantly where TFCon usually

were the ones to reveal the dates first. So we're

going to have a date soon and a location and

everything. It's still going to be in Toronto.

We might actually move the hotel because the

convention has gotten so big we actually need

a bigger location now. But that's all on the

back burner. We're not sure yet. But just thanks

everyone again and hope to see you next year.

Wendell, do you have anything else you want to

say about TFCon? I wanted to say as like that

was my first TF con ever and I was quite Yeah,

it was I was really surprised how welcoming just

the whole community in general was and I really

had a lot of fun it was basically really easy

to slip in and You know at least geek out for

about transformers for for two like for two days.

It was really really great. I Bet wish I could

have gone but you know, oh well Oh, there's always

next year. Always next year. It's like what Don

Adams used to say, I missed it by that much.

So thank you for joining us here on Toycast,

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mine is tfg1mike. Wendell, do you have Twitter?

Do you use Twitter at all? Sadly, no. Okay. Proto

Man, what's your Twitter? Proto Man X. Did you

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Uh oh. Become a fan on Facebook. Search GeekCast

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your name. 502 -526 -5821. We hope you enjoyed

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us next time. Be sure to visit BigBadToyStore

.com for all your Transformers toys and other

related needs. For now, I am TFG1Mike with Protoman,

and what's your screen name again, Wendell? Jawsdeadeye.

Thank you for listening, until next time. Wow,

that was a train wreck. Holy crap.