Toys that were never released here in the US

Hey, Tara Strong here, and you're listening to

the Geekcast Radio Network. Hmm, podcast good!

Will these infernal setbacks never end? The revolution

begins now! Transform! My name is Optimus Prime,

and this episode of Transformation Animation

Podcast features Mike Blanchard and Michael Wilson.

Hello and welcome to episode 18 of Transformation

Animation Podcast. I am one of your hosts, Dave,

Drew, and Mike, and joining me is Pecan Court

Michael. Hello. Hey, how's it going? It's going

and spade of the vault matrix. Hello. Yo. And

this time around, we're going to talk, this is

probably going to be a very short episode, ladies

and gentlemen. We're going to be talking about

the... Toys in the animated line that they showed

off at BotCon 2009 that we still have never got.

Probably will never get. These are basically

mostly all repaints. There are a couple in here.

Stuff like Wingblade Optimus Prime, Blackout,

and Hydro -Dive Bumblebee did come out in Japan.

But we haven't got them here in the U .S. So

starting with the deluxes, we have Toxic Oil

Slick, Fugitive Vospinator, Vortex Blur, and

Mercenary Swindle. I would have loved... to get

my hands on a Fugitive Waspinator because he's

a Bumblebee repaint, but he's green and he's

awesome. That would have been a cool figure to

get a hold of. That figure was not going to have

the remolded head, right? No, it's just Bumblebee's

head, but it's all Waspinator or Wasp colors,

green and purple and all that stuff, and he was

going to have purple boosters. It was going to

be cool. I still would have bought one. Yes.

I think I'm at a bit of a disadvantage here because

my web browser isn't reacting very well, so I'm

not actually going to be able to follow along

with the issues. And the funny thing is, Toxic

Oil Slick isn't that much different. It's not

that big of a repaint. No, it really isn't. I

mean, he... Yeah, it... They could have done

more with him. I mean, considering he's a motorcycle,

they could have done, like, a G1 Rekgar. Mm -hmm.

Despite the fact that there's already a wreck

car out there, but, I mean, he's on a motorcycle.

Mm -hmm. But, I mean, there's a couple different

things they could have done with him that would

have been really cool. I think they dropped the

ball there. Yes. Now, I am looking at the two

pictures side by side. Deluxe Oil Slick on his

motorcycle form is more dark. whereas the toxic

oil slick that we never got was more of a lighter

green. Now, remember, the picture you're looking

at has the Hasbro shininess added to it. Right.

Yeah, that's true. Oh, the Photoshopped? Yes.

Yeah. And then Vortex Blur was basically just

a grayish -silverish blur, gray and black. That

was a nice -looking figure, though. Yeah, it

would have been cool. And see, the greatest thing

about the Blur, I think, was the fact that, I

don't remember this on the original toy, if not,

but he actually had a red Elite Guard symbol

on his chest, so that was really cool. And Mercenary

Swindle, he's pretty much... Gunmetal. Yeah.

Just, you know, insert G1 Megatron colors here.

pretty much, as far as the gun metal. See, now,

there's another drop ball, because what really

would have been sweet here is a G2 Swindle homage.

You know, some red and blue camo? Yeah. That

would have been sharp. And that's a color combination

that you really don't see in the animated line.

Yeah. For me, out of the deluxes, the two that

I would mainly want is the Blur and the Fugitive

Waspinator. What about you, Spada? Just the Fugitive

Waspinator. Michael? I would have gone with the

Fugitive Waspinator as well. Moving on to the

Voyagers. As I said, we did get Hydro Dive, Bumblebee,

Blackout, and Wingblade Optimus. In Japan? Yeah,

in Japan. Wingblade Optimus looks great in theory,

but... He's got a trailer, though. Come on. Yeah,

kind of. Kind of, yeah. And he's more translucent

than anything else, which I thought was kind

of cool. Because this isn't just the... I almost

said Leader Club. This isn't just the Voyager

-class U .S. version just repainted. for the

wings. They basically took the mold and just

repainted it in shiny red colors. Well, all of

the Japanese toys were repainted in shiny colors.

That's true. So Bumblebee was more of a gold

bug. They all had their shiny bits because that

was the thing they were doing in Japan at the

time. But the fact that he was translucent and

had shiny bits was terribly cool. Japan had a

lot of translucent figures that were exclusive

for the animated line as well. But I'm not sure

if that's going to be included in the scope of

our conversation here. But no, Wingblade was

really sweet. I mean, I totally would have bought

one if it wasn't $80 on Big Bad Toy Store. It's

currently $60. Those are on sale. In fact, they're

having a clearance sale. I think that's its sale

price. Yeah, they had Hydro Dive Bumblebee for

like $20 or something, and I was so tempted to

buy it. Hydro Dive Bumblebee, I just don't get

it. You know, I don't know if you'll remember

this, but the McFarlane toys had a spawn. They

still have a spawn line. They're on like the

50th run now or something, but back in like the

6th or 7th run. It was like, I want to say 1997.

They had a figure. It was like Space Spawn or

something. But it was literally like a spawn,

a mechanical spawn with a spaceship on top of

him. And the spaceship would fold over the front

of him. And it was like a battle mech type of

thing. It looked like a spaceship with legs.

And it was terribly cool. And that's what this

Hydra Dive Bumblebee reminds me of. It's like

a bumblebee with a spaceship on his head that

folds over and becomes like a ship. He reminds

me of a shiny sea spray. Eh, I didn't get that

so much. And blackout and gold fire. Huh? No,

I said it seems like overkill. Why would they

make a toy like that when it didn't show up in

the show? And, you know, it has no... Has no

relevance anywhere. I mean, the Autobots were

in, I want to say, Lake Erie many times. And

never once did he break out, you know, a scuba

gear or a little mini submarine or anything.

Yeah. And the other ones, like Goldfire Grimlock,

I just... They're just doing repaints for the

sake of repaints at this point. I mean, the only...

The only... Three originals in here are Thundercracker,

Bulkhead, and Wingblade Optimus. Well, Wingblade

Optimus is a repaint, but at least it gave us

the Wingblade mode. But in Japan, we finally

got Thundercracker so we can complete the Seekers

for the Voyagers. Right. See, I would have bought

that. Yeah. And you've got to think, that was

an activator. Originally, yes. Yeah, so I mean...

You know, for $7? I would have bought that up.

Why not? But again, if it's a Japan exclusive,

that's $50. Yeah, that's true. And then there's

Mudbuster bulkhead, which, as we've said already,

you know, bulkhead, he just doesn't. That didn't

look like a repaint to me. It kind of looked

like a bulkhead with black highlights. It pretty

much is. I mean, all the bulkheads are different

shades of green or whatever, but yeah. I wasn't

terribly thrilled with that particular color

scheme, but the Grimlock repaint, I mean, Grimlock's

a popular character. He sold really well, but

would that be enough to sustain a complete different

repaint? I think that a Blitzwing repaint would

have sold really well. The Goldfire Grimlock

basically looks like a very dull... Dull gold.

Well, it is, yeah. But what I was going to say

was it's a very dull Lucky Draw colored gold.

I mean, it's not as shiny as the Lucky Draw gold.

It's very dull, and I just don't care for it.

I was thinking like a Gold Lagoon homage. Those

are pretty much the lucky draw colors, yeah.

And that's pretty much it for the unreleased

stuff. I guess we can kind of use this to – I

was going to do this last episode, but I guess

we can kind of use this really quickly to talk

about the VodCon set for 2011 because we have

repainted animated molds in that. Right. And

I know Michael wants to talk about that Motormaster

should have been Wreck Guard, not Optimus. You

know, I don't own the set, so it's hard for me

to say either way. But when it first came out,

when I first started seeing pictures of it, I

liked the head. It was like, that's a cool -looking

head. But I didn't like the way that head looked

on that figure. I thought that that head looked

a lot better on a boxier... blockier, bulkier

figure like Rekgar. And someone did a digibash

or a Photoshop of a purple -colored Rekgar with

that head on its shoulders. And to me, it looked

awesome. And when you put it in truck mode, it

looked like kind of a boxy semi -truck. Optimus

doesn't have a trailer. It doesn't scream Motor

Master to me. Yes. Spada, do you have any opinions

on the BotCon set from this past year? You know,

it's not a bad set. It really isn't a bad set

at all. I thought it was pretty cool. My only

big issue was I really wish they combined. Somehow.

I think that's everyone's issue. Yeah, I wanted

them to combine. Was there anyone who complained

about Dragstrip being a girl? There were complaints

about it. I didn't care. I would have rather

Dragstrip have been, instead of the RC mold,

I would have liked that to have been the oil

slick mold. I think that just would have worked

better for the character. I'll buy that, sure.

I figured that they would have included a motorcycle

mold in there somewhere. That was my only complaint

with the set. I don't think the RC mold was the

correct scale for those figures. Well, I knew

that they had to be race cars. And there were

only so many race cars in the line. So my thought

was either they're going to go with a motorcycle

or they're going to have to make one of them

a girl. I didn't mind. I mean, animated has been

known at this point to gender bend. I mean, they

made Red Alert a girl in season three. I don't

really care about that. What really pissed me

off was all the horrible bad jokes people started

making about, like, after the drag strip news

came out. That's what really pissed me off was

the fans making all these jokes. She's either

a drag queen, which means she's a guy, or she's

a stripper, which means she comes to their own

pole. Yeah. I was one of those people making

the jokes. No, no, no. There's a difference between

people like us who are actually in the fandom

and we take it, you know, we can joke around,

but we also take it seriously. Whereas you have

those half -assed three -post wannabes on TFW

that are just, oh, it needs to be G1 or else

it sucks. You know, those people. I've only got

three posts on TFW. Yeah. Let's not even get

there. We'd be here for two hours complaining

about those people. Sorry. I think the set is

very well done. The exclusives. The two -pack,

well, besides the Galvatron and the Thundercracker,

the two -pack exclusive of Toxitron and Sideswipe,

I really like that. The Physitron, the Iron Fist,

which uses Ratchet's... Cybertron mode. Those

were cool. Yeah, those are very cool. The Autotroopers,

that white one. Yeah, that was awesome. That

was so awesome. The Autotrooper looks so good.

Yeah. So awesome. I was really regretting not

going to bottom is end up with like four or five

of them. I think so. I don't remember what he

ended up with. Wow. So, but yeah. And, and Toxitron

green repaint of Optimus. That's awesome to me.

That was a very, very cool figure. Yes. My only,

I would buy them, but I'm sorry, $80 for, for

one of those figures. I think it's a bit much.

Plus, if you go on eBay and look for a full set,

aftermarket value on any BotCon set is going

to be $500 or over. Well, I can't say I wouldn't...

I can't say I would go to BotCon and not buy

them and then possibly resell them. I can't say

I wouldn't do that because you would make your

investment back. Well, Michael does that every

year. Yeah, well, every year except for Disney,

right? Yeah. I mean, I would go and Chrissy would

go and we would both get the Primus package.

And then I'd keep my set. And as soon as we got

back to the hotel room after picking up, you

know, after registering basically, she would

put her set. Up on eBay it goes. Exactly, right

up on eBay. And, I mean, literally she would

put it on. You can't wait. It has to be one of

the first up there, and you get top dollar because

people will jump on the Buy It Now price from

the first one they see. And if you put Buy It

Now for $750 within minutes of purchasing it,

someone is going to buy it. Yep, and that's easily

your trip. We made like $1 ,000 easily. I want

to say Lexington and the year we went to – Cincinnati.

Cincinnati, yeah, easily made $1 ,000 on our

figures, on her set. I kept mine. But, yeah,

I mean, it literally paid for the trip. In minutes.

Minutes you paid for the trip. Oh, yes. Exactly,

yeah. Now, that wasn't so much the case for Disney

because, you know, we brought kids and we hung

out in parks. Yeah, that was more of a family

vacation. It was a vacation, yeah. Yeah, just

going to BotCon. Now, I would have loved to have

seen what... If they switched the... Originally,

Wild Rider was going to be a Rodimus repaint

and Breakdown was going to be a Lockdown repaint.

I would have loved to have seen that, but I still

like what we got with Breakdown as Rodimus and

Wild Rider as Blazing Lockdown. Again... For

the Blazing Lockdown mold as Wild Rider, those

spikes on the side of his neck, those make it

look awesome. That is a cool look. He's still

got the spikes on the side of his neck in the

original mold. Yeah, well, the Blazing Lockdown

mold, yeah. I think that's going to do it for

us. We're going to head to some ads really quickly,

and we'll come back to close the show. Transformation

Animation Podcast will be back after these messages.

Soundwave, jam that transmission! Rumble Frenzy,

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forced me to make the ultimate sacrifice. To

do the one thing that requires more courage than

anything I've ever had to do in my entire Autobot

career. I... apologize. Come again? I take back

every mean thing I ever said about you. Don't

let others tell you what you are. You can be

any bot you wanna be. You mean... I can be a

hero? Yes. And you can start by saving this city

from being consumed by a swarm of out -of -control

microbots. Yes. I am Rektgar. I am a hero. That's

a direct order, Optimus. It's Optimus Prime.

I may be an elite guard washout in a glitched

detail flunky, but the last time I checked, you

and I still have equal rank. So, Sentinel Prime.

Take your order and your condescending attitude

and stick in your hard drive. You're on my turf

now. Organic contamination alert. Contamination

located. What are you calling a contamination?

Stay cool and roll back off the ship nice and

easy like. And don't even think of spewing any

of your slime at me. What are you... Oh, you're

afraid of me, aren't you? Booga booga booga!

Now back to Transformation Animation Podcast.

So, final thoughts on the unreleased stuff and

the BotCon set. I absolutely love the BotCon

set. I wish I could actually have bought those

toys, but sadly, because of the price, I would

rather just spend something to have somebody

customize them in Puggle form, so I have BotCon

toys in the Puggle form. Significantly less expensive

that way. Yes, exactly. I have Dead End, Breakdown,

Dragstrip, Wild Rider, Motormaster, Toxitron,

and Sightswipe. A spate of final thoughts on

the unreleased stuff and the BotCon stuff. I

really wish they released the Wingblade Prime

here. Yeah, that was... That was the one figure

that I went... I said, I really am sad that they

didn't release that here. Now, I know you could

get it... for a reasonable price, imported, but

I'm done with the line. I don't want to get the

line anymore. Yeah. I mean... Kind of dead now.

Yeah, everybody's pretty much done with animated.

Everybody's moved on to Prime toys that are coming

out. Except in my area. I haven't seen them yet

either. Not that I'll be buying them. I think

I'm going to pass on those. Not that they don't

look good, but I don't think I'm going to collect

any more. Yeah, you know, I wanted to get them.

I thought, okay, sure, I could start collecting

the Prime toys. That would be kind of cool. And

then I watched a bunch of people's video reviews,

and although I love the toys, I love the way

they look, I just don't care enough to own them.

So I promptly canceled all the pre -orders I

put up. So I think that's going to do it for

this toy episode. Spada, do you want to pimp

out your YouTube channel? Yeah, you can go ahead

and check me out at youtube .com slash boltmatrix.

Hopefully having a bunch of new reviews going

up. Going to look at the Japanese Brave figures.

Maybe some more Lego and Mega Bloks stuff. And

just... As much as I could get up there Transformers

-wise before the TF Prime figures hit. Thank

you for listening to Transformation Animation

Podcast. If someone is in contact with us, leave

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Please do this. Follow us on Twitter. The shirt

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what is your Twitter? I am at Twitter .com slash

BoltMatrix. And Michael? PecanCTMichael. Become

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.com slash GeekCastRadioNetwork. God, I have

a lot of editing to do on these episodes. Holy

shit. And don't forget to snuggle up with some

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Tell us what you're leaving the message for and

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

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time when Steve Megatron will be back and we'll

be talking about the AllSpark Almanacs. For now,

I am TFG1 Mike with... Spade of the Bolt Matrix.

And Michael Wilson. We'll tap you again next

week. See you later.