Wave by Wave, Talking About the Transformers Animated Toys

Jazz here, and I'm jivin' to transformation animation.

Will these infernal setbacks never end? The revolution

begins now! Transformation Animation Podcast

features Mike Blanchard and Michael Wilson. Hello

and welcome to episode 17 of Transformation Animation

Podcast. I am one of your hosts, DMJuan Mike,

and joining me is Pecan Court Michael. Hello.

Hey, how's it going? It's going and making his

Transformation Animation Podcast debut is Spade

of the Balt Matrix. Hello. Hello, sir. How are

you? I am doing well. Yes, and the three of us,

I mean, there are other friends that we have

that love animated toys, but seeing as how this

podcast was mainly myself, Michael, and Steve,

Steve isn't into the animated toys, so I figured

why not get someone else who really is. So, Michael,

what have you been up to? Lately, I've been playing

Elder Scrolls V Skyrim. Yeah. A lot. Everybody's

been playing that game a lot. Yeah, I have successfully

replaced sleep with Skyrim. And it hasn't caught

up to me yet, but I'm sure it will soon. Oh,

yeah, especially with the holidays coming up

and eating all that turkey. I'm going on three

hours of sleep right now, so forgive me if I

pull a Steve. Oh, my. Other than work, I have

been up to Skyrim, Uncharted 3. I put Modern

Warfare 3 in my console last night and then fell

asleep on the couch. I have been trying to do

some upgrading to my reviews, and I bought a

bunch of equipment or a bunch of stuff, and it

all came this week. All of it was wrong. So I

had to send just about all of it back, save one

thing. So, yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's great. Yeah,

I ordered a green screen and some equipment and

some other stuff. And it's like $200 worth of

stuff. I had a crap ton of Amazon credits stored

up. And, yeah, when they say green screen, like

the darkest. Darkest Forest Green does not make

a good green screen. No. Oh, yeah. You have to

have a bright, sunny, happy green. Yeah, and

when you say it comes with software and it comes

with a stand for the green screen, do not send

ripped software and PVC piping. Oh, wow. That

got into Amazon. That one went to Amazon's customer

service saying, yeah, you know, guys who are

selling this are pretty much doing things illegal.

You might want to look into that. That's amazing.

I can't believe that. Wow. That's pretty bad.

That's like almost eBay bad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So yeah, I'm trying to get some reviews done.

Free time has been lacking. All free time has

been Uncharted 3 and Skyrim. Yeah, I can't get

away from the Skyrim. It's supposed to be 300

hours of gameplay. What's really bad is I go

to play Skyrim and I want to throw a grenade

and they aren't there. Wrong button. Wrong system.

It's like, why isn't the grenade throwing? So

a huge part of any cartoon franchise for the

most part is toys. And that's what we are here

to talk about today is all of the released...

Transformers animated toys, from the Activators

to the Bumpler Battlers to the very rare, hard

-to -find exclusives until they end up being,

you know... Shelf warming for six months after

the fact. What are you talking about? That never

happens. Oh, please. I bet I can walk it. I bet

six months ago I could walk into a Toys R Us

and see 45 Ironhides and two RCs. I was just

in my Toys R Us today. They had an entire peg

of Rodimus and Snarl. Oh, wow. Really? Yeah.

I was like, wait, what? I've seen pegs of Rodimus.

I haven't seen any Arcees. Not since I bought

two of them there. Yeah. I still hate you for

that video. I got one on my shell. Anyway, so

where are we going to start, Mike? We are going

to start with the children's toys, or what Michael

Wilson likes, which is the Activators. There

were, I believe, Seven waves of activators. That's

a lot of activators. Yeah. I'm actually going

through my shelf right now and looking at all

these and thinking, there are a lot. I forgot

that there were this many repaints. Yeah. You've

got, in wave one, has Bulkhead, Bumblebee, and

Starscream. Wave two has Lockdown, Optimus, Autobot

Ratchet. And then wave three has Patrol, Bumblebee,

and Thundercracker. Wave four, Megatron, Grimlock,

and Bandit Lockdown. Wave 5 has the very elusive

Cliffjumper and Dirge. And then Wave 6 and Wave

7 have Fireblast Grimlock, which he did come

out, didn't he? He did, yeah. Okay. No, it's

the other one that didn't. Goldfire didn't come

out. Goldfire was the deluxe size. We're getting

ahead of ourselves. Yeah. Yes. Soundwave and

then Wave 7 had Armor of Optimus and Battlefield

Bumblebee. I don't know. This one's pretty much

all on Michael Wilson because I honestly, when

Target had that $5 sale of the shockwave, the

purple shockwave with Bumblebee Activator, I

actually sent my Activator to Malunis because

I hate the Activators. They're too small for

me. No, I didn't have much of a problem with

them. I had two of them. Or I have two of them.

I have the Starscream, which was a gift from

Hailstorm when she sent me Classics Hotshot,

or Generations Hotshot. And I also had Autobot

Ratchet, which I bought something at Target,

but it wasn't one of the special figures, and

I somehow ended up with it. I don't... know how

I got that. Let me put it this way. I don't remember

paying money for it. So basically you put it

in your cart and forgot about it and walked out

of the store. Entirely possible. Okay then. Not

on purpose at all. I swear. See, I've been accused

of theft, but never actually stolen anything.

No, no, no. You haven't been accused of theft.

You've been accused of going in the background

room and opening boxes when you weren't supposed

to. That's what you've been accused of. And there's

nothing wrong with that. You know what? You put

on a red polo shirt and some khakis, and they'll

let you back there. I should really think about

that to go find those TF Prime figures. Oh, yeah.

Well, back when these toys were coming out, I

was really, really wanting them. Especially,

like these activators, the later waves were really

hard to find. And I was really hunting for them.

And sometimes you have to take extreme measures

to find the toys that you want. As a collector,

right? We're such desperate nerds. It's sad,

it really is. But that's, I forget what he's

called, but like the Magma Grimlock. The Goldfire,

or not, Fireblast. Fireblast, yeah. He literally

looks like he just came out of a volcano, so

it's like Magma Grimlock. But that was really

hard to find. The Thundercracker was really hard

to find. Durge, I didn't think I'd ever find

a Durge. But, yeah, I'm pretty happy. Now, the

activators were on shelves for a good while along

with the bumper battlers, correct? Yes, they

were. Yeah. The bumper battler, I'm really surprised

that anybody bought those. I mean, I bought them

for my kids, and they loved them, and then I

absorbed them into my collection when they got

done playing with them. You assimilated them.

Exactly. You're distinctive. This will be added

to my own. Yeah, the Bumper Battlers, I liked

them. But, you know, by the time they started

getting into repaints, the repaints were hard

to find. Wow. Yeah, so, I mean, there was an

Optimus Prime repaint in Toxitron colors. Oh,

wow. Purple and green. Yeah, and they called

them, like, Nightwatch Optimus Prime or something,

but I got him. Oh, yeah, Nightwatch, yep. Yeah,

there was supposed to have been a repaint of

Bulkhead, I think. And I couldn't find him. Couldn't

find him anywhere. But, yeah, and I want to say

that there was a... Oh, edit point. Yeah, I'm

blanking here. Soundwave. I want to say there

was a Soundwave, and I didn't get him either.

Couldn't find him. And it's like, you know, where

are they showing up? Do they go directly to Big

Lots or what? Probably. Well, it's sad because

toward the end of this tour line, a lot of stuff

either just disappeared or didn't get released

or ended up going straight to Big Lots or Dollar

Store or something. Everything pretty much goes

to Big Lots after it's done. I mean, that's how

at the time when I was collecting Robot Heroes,

that's how I found half the Robot Heroes I had.

I just found them at Big Lots. Oh, yeah. Yeah,

I found a few at Big Lots, too, but I think for

the most part it was one big eBay lot. Someone

was just dumping all of them off. Yeah. I mean,

the Activators and the Bumper Battlers, they're

okay, but let's face it, they're pretty much

for children. Well, the Bumper Battlers are just

horrible toys. They remind me of, like, Runabout

and Runamuck from G1. You know, and the only

reason anybody likes them is because they had

a cool comic cover at one point. You know, they

weren't even in the cartoon. So you've got –

it's basically a car, and the top of the car

pops up, and there's a little robot under it,

and it makes noise. It says something from the

TV show. And they're cute, and like I said, I

got them for my kids. But I really enjoy the

activators. I like the – it's a very simple transformation,

and it's all spring -loaded. So, I mean, literally,

you push a button, and he completely transforms

all by himself, except for, you know, like maybe

the feet need to be – Yeah, bent out or something.

They remind me a lot of the later G2 toys. So

you have, like, the G2 Jets, Space Case, and

Terra Dive and those, and they were all spring

-loaded. And that aesthetic carried through to

the early Beast Wars toys. The scout -sized ones.

So you've got, like, the original Rat Trap. And

the Prime and Megatron 2 -pack and Razor Beast

and Iguanas. Exactly, yeah. I mean, that's a

fine toy. Those are really cool. And they came

back to that with the Activators. And granted,

you're not going to get, you know, snap -on weapons

that have their own hidey -holes like you do

in the early Beast Wars toys. But, I mean, these

are still really nice. Like I said, I really

like the Seeker mold for these. The Starscream

was nice, but then you've got a Dirge and a Thundercracker.

I know there's a Skywarp in Japan that Thorazine

has. He's got them all. He's got all the Seekers.

All your Seekers belong to Thorazine. But, yeah,

I really wanted that because I just like these

little guys. They're cool. I mean, the only drawback

is with some of the molds, the spring -loaded

catch doesn't hold very well, so it's hard to

keep them in their alt mode. Yeah. But they look

really good in regular. Like I said, this Grimlock

is awesome. Practically, because of the show,

the way it's animated, it's very simple, right?

It's very minimalistic. I was going to say, these

figures are... for the most part, show accurate,

even at their size. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and especially

if you're a seeker collector, you know, you don't

have to buy all these Voyager -sized seekers

because you can get them for six bucks at the

smaller price point. Yup. Spada, any last thoughts

on Activators or Bumper Battlers? I think they're

a cool idea, or specifically the Activators,

but I was never a big fan because I... I like

transforming them myself. But for smaller kids,

these are great. Because for smaller kids, I

mean like three, maybe four, kids today just

don't have the capability of doing the more complicated

transformations. Well, even some of us adults

don't have it either. Well, yes, that is true.

But I think the activators were a good idea.

I just don't think that many people bought them.

But that leads us into probably the best -selling

part of the line, which was the Deluxes. The

Deluxes. Now, before we get too far into this,

do you guys remember what the first Deluxe class

figure you both bought? Spader, do you remember

which one was the first that you ever got for

the Deluxe size class? For Transformers Animated?

Yeah, because I got a couple of the Deluxes all

at the same time. The first one that I opened

was the set from... was the two -pack deluxe

set where you had Battle Damaged Cybertron Optimus

and Battle Damaged Cybertron Mode Megatron. That

was the first deluxe set I opened. What about

you, Michael? Me too. That would be it. I think

the first deluxe I ever bought probably was Elite

Guard Bumblebee. Really? Because he came later.

I know, he came much later, but again, back at

the time when the show was airing, because, and

I've said this before on this show, because at

the time it came on at like 10 .30 in the morning

on Saturday, and I just couldn't remember to

watch it, and just really wasn't at that time.

I don't think I really was watching video reviews,

so. And in all honesty, some of those episodes

were, especially in season two, Very hard to

watch. Yes. If you don't like the human characters,

yeah, it's kind of a little hard to watch. There's

an interesting story about when I first found

the animated toys. I was at BotCon 2008, and

there was one guy who showed up, and he said,

hey. I was driving up here, and 20 miles to the

south or whatever, there's a Toys R Us that has

all these toys. And they really hadn't been released

anywhere else yet. And to my knowledge, they

released them in that area around, what was it,

Lexington? No, 2008 was in Cincinnati. Okay,

in Cincinnati. So I remember I drove. So they

had them in that area specifically because BotCon

was there. And one guy got a complete set of,

like, The first wave was like six figures and

was like showing them off to everybody, and people

were freaking out completely. I was in line for

something, and the guy walked by and go, oh,

look at this. And coming the opposite way was

Scott McNeil. And so it's me and Scott McNeil

and this guy with the animated toys, and we're

all just going completely nuts over them. But

on the way home, on the drive home, we stopped

at a Walmart. And it was just like, you know,

there's a Walmart every 50 miles off the highway.

So we pull over, we look. Yeah, they had them

all. They had like wave one and two. Yeah. And

I bought them all. And Chrissy's like, didn't

you just spend like two grand on toys? And I'm

like, yeah, but I'm going to buy these eventually,

you know, I might as well do it now. So I walked

out with all of them, like a whole cart full

of them. Wow. Yeah, but, yeah, it was a great

find. I mean, you know, as a toy collector and

a toy hunter, to run into something like that,

you don't, you know, it's nice. It's like looking

at a gift horse in the mouth. You just don't

do it. Exactly. You know, it's like, you know

how long it's going to take me to find this particular

guy? Because he's wave two, and he's not going

to be released anywhere else in the country for

six months. I'm going to get him right now. Yeah,

in Wave 1, we had Cybertron Mode Optimus, Bumblebee,

Lockdown, and Prowl, and Wave 2 was Blackarachnia

and Autobot Ratchet. Well, Wave 2 was really

kind of a 1 .5, and then... Yeah. It really was

weird, because you had Cybertron Mode Optimus,

Bumblebee, Lockdown, and Prowl, and they were

all... I'd say the weak... Personally, the weak...

one out of that bunch for me was Lockdown, but

that was because of the hand issue. Really? Oh,

yeah. What was the hand issue? The fact that

you couldn't, you could only, like, put them,

you could only, let me try speaking again. The

fact that you could only flip the hand out halfway,

so it looked like his hands were constantly pointing

into his thighs. Oh, I see what you're saying.

Yeah, they won't push straight forward. They

couldn't. You would have to take the figure apart.

I see what you're talking about. Yeah, it looks

like there's a catch on his wrist, like it should.

Like it should be able to do that, but it's catching

on the inside of that frame. Well, it's not just

the frame. It's also there's too much plastic

on the actual hand, and there's too much plastic

on the inside of the wrist. On the inside of

the wrist, yeah. And then Bumblebee had his own...

That's never bothered me before. It drives me

batty. Bumblebee also has his own set of issues

where the little stingers will not fold all the

way into his arms. Now, that was corrected in

his repaint, which was released in Wave 4, I

believe. Yeah. And then Prowl had his own issues

where he would fall apart because the ball joints

weren't the correct size. Yeah. Wow. That's amazing.

I've never noticed that before. Yeah, the reason

I'm talking about this is because this is starting...

This is showing something that happened with

the entire animated line that really hadn't happened

before. And that is the severe lack of quality

control. And this came up because, one, Hasbro

changed factories where they were having their

toys built. They went with much cheaper factories,

and it's... It was evident. Huh. Yeah. I never

noticed that about the Bumblebee before, but

I've got the Elite Guard Bumblebee here, and

his singers do fold back completely. Yeah, and

they do not on the original. The original. Right.

The other thing about the original was, and this

goes to what Spada said a second ago about just

crappy construction in the factory, the regular

deluxe Bumblebee. they couldn't pick a shade

of yellow to save their lives. I mean, on one

side it's neon yellow, on another side it looks

like it's painted almost dark gold, on another

side it's another color. It's like, pick a color

already. And that was because all of the plastic

parts were made in different factories. specifically

with Bumblebee, because they were using different

paint mixes. Normally, when they make these figures,

when they make all the parts, all the parts are

cast together in the same factory. Hasbro has

stated that that was not the case with Bumblebee

for some reason, because they were having Elite

Guard Bumblebee, which was actually made first.

If you actually look at Elite Guard Bumblebee,

the plastic where it's black is different plastic

than where the yellow is. And if you go back

and look at the original Bumblebee, it's where

that black is, is where the coloration differences

come in. Right. Hmm. So technically, Elite Guard

Bumblebee wasn't the repaint. The regular Bumblebee

was the repaint. Correct. In the manufacturing

process. Right. Right. That is interesting. You

know, in 2000, I want to say 2008, there was

a Walmart exclusive called Legacy of Bumblebee.

And they had a repaint of classic Bumblebee and

a repaint of movie Bumblebee and a repaint of

animated Bumblebee where they all, well, animated

and classics have the racing stripe. Well, he

already has a racing stripe, so technically that's

not a big deal. That was, oh, I can't remember.

I can't remember what store that that was an

exclusive for, but I know what you're talking

about. No, it's Walmart. It was Walmart. It was

a multi -pack Autobot Ratchet and Bumblebee 2

pack. Thus far, this pack has only been found

at Toys R Us stores in the United Kingdom and

Germany. Well, I was about to say, it looks like

his arms are the ones where the singers fold

all the way back. So it literally looks exactly

like the original Bumblebee, except for the stingers.

Yeah. That's kind of neat. So weird. Just drug

him out of the closet. I'm going to put him back

now. So. Yeah, like Spada said, Wave 2 is essentially

also Wave 1 because they released... I don't

get that. Like, if you're going to have a wave

of toys, three or more makes sense to me as a

wave. Two figures in one wave, that makes no

sense. You also had Black Arachnia and Autobot

Ratchet. Was it actually a... Was the whole wave

just two figures, or was it those two figures

and Bumblebee and Optimus again? No. It was just

those two figures. And that's another thing we

will, as we get farther into this, that folks

will see is their wave distribution in this series,

or in this animated, is just so out there. It's

like Hasbro just completely forgot how to do

its job. But Blackarachnia was an okay figure.

It wasn't bad, but it was so tiny. It was the

smallest animated figure, hands down. All of

the deluxe figures tower over her. I was going

to say, what about Soundwave? Because he's kind

of squat, too. She's shorter than Soundwave.

Wow. And then Ratchet was a pretty damn good

figure. Yeah, Ratchet was pretty cool. I like

the Earth Mode Ratchet more so than when we get

later to talk about the Cybertronian Ratchet.

The Earth Mode Ratchet was a really, really great

design. No, I like it. I like the fact that he

has tools and he can hold them all. It's a neat

toy. Yep. And then Wave 3 is where we get Autobot

Jazz. Oil Slick, who the hell is that? Snarl,

and Soundwave. And the only reason why I say

who the hell is Oil Slick is because at the time

Wave 3 came out, we were still in, what, Season

1 or Season 2? Season 3 had, I mean, Oil Slick

wasn't even in the show. Yeah. And when he was,

he was in there for, what, two minutes? Yeah,

exactly. Yeah. I think that was kind of an afterthought.

They're like, hey, wasn't this guy a toy? Let's

just throw him in there for fun. And the funniest

thing, I think I said this last week or a couple

weeks ago on this podcast, when I've gone into

Walgreens or Rite Aid or something like that

a year ago, I would find oil slicks out the ass

in these just overpriced pharmacy stores. I'm

going to stop you there. I strongly suggest you

rephrase that. Why? Just trust me. You can't

say overpriced pharmacy stores? No, no, no, no,

no. Oh, found him out the ass. Lovely. Yeah,

anyway, sorry. He was essentially, you know,

after the people that got him that wanted him,

he was essentially one of the biggest shelf formers

in the line because you would find him pretty

much anywhere and everywhere. But he didn't appear

in the show. Not yet, no. And when he did, like

Spada said, it was for, or Michael said, it was

all of, you know, less than five minutes. He

had one line. Lincoln, you'll miss it. Yeah.

But no, I'm looking at it now. This is a cool

figure. He's a cool toy. He looks cool. Oil Slick

is a fantastic figure. Yeah. He's one of the

best in the line. Yeah. He's a, yeah, I mean,

they could have played him off as like the anti

-prowl. Oh, yeah. He's a motorcycle. They both

have nunchuck weapons. Well, yeah, this is kind

of a nunchuck, sort of like a barrel slash nunchuck

thing. I mean, they could have done a lot with

this character. Oh, yeah. But it's a very cool

toy. I really liked Autobot Jazz. I thought he

was really cool. Soundwave, I wasn't. It wasn't

the best figure, but I see what they were going

for. And it was an interesting character in the

show for the two episodes he showed up in. Well,

yeah. It was an interesting character in the

show, but the character design in the show I

don't think really translated to the toy. I mean,

the overall design deco and the overall... Aesthetic

of the toy compared to the animated design is

correct. But the toy was just, as Michael said,

he was way too squat. For me, he did not say

deluxe class figure. He said more of like a scout

class or legends class figure rather than anything

else. I would agree with that. I mean, it was

a very small figure. Well, I think, yeah, just

because of his robot mode, it's kind of a, what

are they, like a Scion type of thing. A Scion

XP, yeah. Yeah, but I mean, when he transforms,

he looks just like he does in the show. But when

you stand him next to the other figures, he's

at least a head or two shorter. Especially when

you stand him next to, like, a Lockdown. He's

half the height of a Lockdown. Well, everything

was half the height of a Lockdown. Lockdown is

bigger than Voyager -class figures. Yeah, no,

he's really tall and lanky. But the... I mean,

this figure may have been better in, like, a

Voyager -class. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I would so like

it better if he was Voyager -sized. It's kind

of like Lugnut. Not Lugnut. What was I thinking?

Bulkhead. Where Voyager Bulkhead is a decent

toy, but you wouldn't buy him because you'd want

a big Bulkhead. You'd want a leader class. Leader

Bulkhead is better than Voyager Bulkhead. Exactly.

So, I mean, if they could release a Voyager -class

Soundwave, I mean, I'm not sure what they'd do

with all this stuff on him. They might... make

him open up and keep guitars in his chest or

something. I don't know. That would be cool.

That would be cool. And then the last figure

in that wave was Snarl. Snarly. You're snarly.

Which was the same height as Blackarachnia. Yeah.

That figure sucked. He's supposed to be short

and squat, though. Yeah. I didn't mind him being

short and squat because I think that was his

character. He's got a lot of translucent orange.

I love his head sculpt. I think it works for

him where it doesn't work for Soundwave. I think

the one problem that I have with the wave releases

is that if you're going to have the Dinobots

as toys, they all need to be in their own wave.

Snarl, Swoop, and Grimlock should have all been

in one wave. As a team, rather than sporadically

releasing them in, oh, hey, look, let's throw

Snarl in with these other three guys, and let's

throw Swoop in with these other two. So, wave

four, we have Swoop, Elite Guard Bumblebee, and

Sentinel Prime. Everybody that has listened to

this podcast before, and everybody that's talked

to me about Transformers Animated pretty much

knows my feelings on Sentinel Prime and Sentinel

Prime's toy. Worst toy ever. Really? I just...

I disagree with that. Yeah, I put him in robot

mode. There are worse out there. He's not the

best. Definitely not going to lie to you. Where's

Toyin animated then? I mean, aside from these

giant shoulders, he's fairly cartoon accurate.

He's got an awesome head sculpt. He looks like

he does. That goes without saying. All the toys

are cartoon accurate. The problem I have with

him is just the fact that again, it's the same

problem I have with Soundwave. He just seems

too small. Even though I don't care for the character

of Sentinel, if this was a Voyager class, I might

like the toy a little bit better. Yeah. I could

see that. I could also see how if they had I

don't want to say spent the money, but literally

they could have made him a little taller. His

legs are very squat compared to his chest, and

especially how they have lockdown literally being

really, really twice the length of his vehicle

mode almost in height. They probably – and I

don't want to say this for certain, but I would

– probably go out on a limb and say that originally

his legs were supposed to extend somehow to make

him taller so that he would be a little bit more

in proportion to his upper body oh yeah but at

some point that got lost or something i mean

you can see the way his the way his lower legs

transform uh the back half it's like a hinge

or something that swings it down. I mean, I could

see how they could have done this in such a way

where he could have gained, you know, half an

inch to an inch. And also something, for all

of those with the AllSpark Almanac, I think it's

the AllSpark Almanac, the Sentinel toy mold was

slightly remodeled and redone to be an Ironhide

Earth Mode toy mold. Really? Yeah, it was a pretty

big redesign, but it looked awesome. Was it in

Volume 1 or Volume 2? I believe it's in Volume

2. Yeah, that's when they talk about all the

toys. I'm actually going to look it up right

now. Spader, do you have any thoughts on Snarl

or Elite Guard Bumblebee? I liked Elite Guard

Bumblebee, hated Swoop. Hated Swoop. Yeah, Swoop,

that's what I meant, not Snarl. Swoop. I'm actually

looking at my shelf here for Swoop, and I'm not

saying that. Somebody must be standing on top

of Swoop. I'm not seeing him in here. But Elite

Guard Bumblebee, my favorite part about him was

the fact that he had the same color as his prowl.

Yeah. So you could literally put Elite Guard

Bumblebee on top of prowl and be in good shape.

It would look like he's riding him. And they

were the same color. Or it would have been a

good compliment for the highway theme that Prowl

had going. Yeah, it would have been. You know,

I really liked Ligard Bumblebee just because

he's black with blue windows and he's got gold

around the sides of him. So it's almost like

he's a reverse gold bug where he's a black bug.

Okay. Now, if we start looking forward at the

last couple of waves, we have waves five, six,

and seven. Now, for me, waves five and six came

out at the exact same time. in the stores around

here. And that was Wave 5 with Blazing Lockdown,

Blur, and Swindle. And Wave 6 was Waspinator

and Samurai Prowl. On my stores, I found everything

except Samurai Prowl. I love Samurai Prowl. You

what? I love that character. He's awesome. Yes.

It's a cool toy. My only issue is once you put

the samurai armor on, he can't... really move.

He's frozen in time. I had a problem with it

falling off. It doesn't clip on anywhere. It

just kind of balances on his head. Well, there

is that. But he looks really cool. That's very

funny. Out of these two waves, I liked Blur the

best, even though when I bought Blur... As soon

as I got him home and I tried to transform him,

his legs immediately promptly fell off. Mine

too. Is that the one where you – did you throw

those behind the desk or was that something else?

Oh, no, we'll get to that story later. That was

with Optimus. We'll get to that later. No, a

buddy of ours, Optimus Scourge, may he rest in

peace, he actually did a video for me. He did

it for more so for everybody, but where you basically

boil some hot water, dip Blur's legs into the

hot water, and it would melt a little bit. It

would form the plastic so you could actually

have an easier time of putting the legs back

on. Oh, okay. Yeah. It wouldn't actually melt

the plastic. Yeah. No, it would just soften it

up, and then the memory would kick in. Yeah,

it just softens it up. Yeah. And then Swindle,

I like Swindle. Swindle is an awesome character

in the show. He's an awesome toy. Again, my only

problem with him is if he was maybe Voyager class,

I would have liked the toy a little bit better.

There's nothing not to like with Swindle. Not

a damn thing. I had an issue where his top chest

would not stay. where it was. It just kept flapping

around. Blazing Lockdown was just a yellow piece

of poo. What? The only thing interesting to me

about Blazing Lockdown was the spikes in his

neck. Those were kind of cool. I like the fact

that he came with a chainsaw. Eh. I dug it. What

I liked about it is he's a repaint. but he's

a remold as well. Unfortunately, the figure didn't

do anything for me. Just as Waspinator, I was

really psyched to get the figure, and it was

kind of a letdown. It was such a letdown. It

was, yeah. And again, Waspinator was again one

of those... Actually, both of these waves stayed

in my stores locally, Target and Walmart, stayed

on shelves for months after they got released.

I mean, you know, I was worried when I bought

the original Blur, I actually went back the next

day to get another one for car mode. And I was

worried that Blur was going to be gone. And lo

and behold, looking behind several Sentinel figures,

there was a Blur. But these two waves were one

of the biggest batch of shellformers in the line.

Do you think Waspinator was such a big letdown

because it wasn't more of an homage to Beast

Wars Waspinator? Yeah, pretty much. Because I

think, to me, this figure looks a lot more like

the Beast Machines Wasp figure. Buzzsaw? Buzzsaw.

Yeah, Buzzsaw. It looks like a taller version

of Buzzsaw. And even in robot mode, or alt mode,

in the wasp mode, they look very similar. Yeah.

And my thoughts on Samurai Prowl are a sidecar.

Are you kidding me? Ugh. No, it's cool. And then

Wave 7. Wave 7, I like that they did electrostatic

sound wave because it was kind of homaging the

repaints in the show. Right back. But Wave 7

is really where... animated almost crossed over

with the freaking movies freeway jazz you've

got to be kidding me a movie animated version

of jazz it was a silver jazz yeah great you know

i would have been a lot happier with a stepper

repaint yeah yeah seriously no a stepper repaint

would have completely blew my mind i would have

bought the hell out of that all right so Before

we move on to the next wave, or next class, do

you guys have a number one favorite out of the

Voyager waves, Spada? Out of the Voyager waves?

Not Voyager Deluxe, sorry. I'm getting ahead

of myself. In all honesty, no. I liked a lot

of them, but none of them were absolute standout.

fantastic figures. There were some good ones

and there were some not so good ones. If I had

to pick, I would have to pick Oil Slick. What

about you, Michael, for the deluxes? Do you have

a personal number one favorite? I hate to waffle

like this, but I like them all. If you had to

pick one, who would it be? I don't know. Let

me look here. Megatron's got his fusion cannon

pointed at your head. Pick one. You have to pick

one. Actually, you know, just looking at them

all, I want to say the one that's the most visually

striking would have to be like Oil Slick. But,

you know, that Rodimus that came much later,

he's looking pretty good too. Well, and I should

state, the way that we're doing this, even though

we are going by size class, I saved the exclusives

for the end. So we'll come back to the other

Deluxes as well. Revisit that one. Yes. Yeah,

just looking at the shelf, the ones that jump

out at me the most are those exclusives. Yeah.

Yeah. So going into Voyagers, again, what was

the first Voyager you ever picked up, Spada?

Well, I picked up a couple at the same time,

as I said, but the first one I opened was, I

think it was Megatron. I'm pretty sure it was

Megatron and then Starscream. What about you,

Michael? I want to say it was Starscream. Cool.

I'm thinking Grimlock for some reason, but I

think he came later. Yeah, Grimlock was in Wave

2. Yeah, but I definitely opened Starscream first

because I like that character. Yeah, Wave 1 for

Voyager has Bulkhead, Cybertronian Mode, Megatron,

and Starscream. I didn't particularly... Like,

I like Starscream in the show. I like his colors

in the show, but I didn't particularly like the

toy colors. Something was off on the toy colors.

Yeah. And... Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. Oh, I was

going to say, I didn't really think that the

toy colors were, I don't want to say they weren't

G1 accurate, because they weren't, even though

he's an homage, but I thought they were very

show accurate. But I preferred the repaints.

Oh, yeah. Now, I have an opinion on Starscream

that is not widely shared. Okay. I think the

Voyager Starscream figure is a complete and total

piece of crap. Is that because it fell apart

on you at one point? Well, it's not just that.

I mean, it really isn't just that. The Voyager

Starscream figure is a 100 % ripoff of every

single Robotech toy ever made, or Macross. It

is the exact transformation for Macross figures.

Really? It is. dead exact it is spot on to every

vf1 and vf um i'm trying to think what the what

the one it's actually most like is uh whatever

is the red the vf19 i'm sorry no no it's not

the vf19 it's it's very similar almost to disturbingly

the same figure as g1 jetfire Yeah, see, I'm

looking at my G1 Jetfire right now, and I'm trying

to compare the two, going, well, how exactly

are these... The transformation is exactly the

same. Huh. I don't know. I'm differing on you.

I don't think that's the case, but... As someone

who owns a lot of Macross figures... I've only

got the one. I have the VF -1. I've got the VF

-5. I've got the VF -19. I've got the VF -21.

I've got a lot of those figures, and Starscream

is a ripoff. I'm sorry. I can kind of see where

you're saying that the dorsal portion of the

plane splits in half. Behind the cockpit, and

it then bends over to become the front and back

halves of the plane. Or the front and back halves

of the robot mode, I should say. So you've got

his chest here. I can kind of see that. The thrusters

in vehicle mode become the legs. The robot arms

tuck in between the rear thrusters. The chest

area and the backpack form the fuselage. and

the cockpit areas. It's exactly the same as a

Robotech figure. Well, that can be said for any

number of the Seekers, from any line. No, not

really. Not really. What I'm saying is the Starscream

animated figure, or that mold, is a one -to -one

transformation ripoff of those Bandai figures.

Okay. I'll kind of go with that. I'm looking

at the Jetfire, and just the way the legs fit,

they're attached on either side of the cockpit.

And for the Starscream, it doesn't work that

way at all. The crotch, for lack of a better

term, actually completely folds underneath the

cockpit. The whole front of the cockpit pushes

up. The whole front of the fuselage pushes up

under the cockpit. And in future Bandai figures,

the cockpit doesn't push up into the chest. It

actually folds – or I'm sorry, the nose cone

folds up completely into the chest as opposed

to just sliding up. Yeah, so that's what's happening

with the – yeah, I'm actually holding a – So

that's what happens with Skywarp. But the original

Jetfire, his whole nose cone kind of comes down

into a crotch area, and the legs attach to a

die -cast metal piece on either side of that.

So he doesn't really have a crotch with – well,

he has a crotch. Well, the crotch is the nose

cone of the plane. Yeah, but if you're saying

that later figures transformed just like – The

animated figure, then I'll buy that because I

don't know any better. Yeah, I have a figure

upstairs in our guest room that is a – I'm going

to say it's a $100 – it's a $150 figure that

comes with like a shat ton of accessories. Yeah.

But it is a one -to -one transformation similarity.

It's disturbing. But it's a nice transformation.

The only problem I have with this – Transformation

is that the cockpit is supposed to lock in place

at the crotch level. And it doesn't. It's very

loose. It is. And then in the back, you've got

these two tiny wings that aren't even attached.

They're kind of like wings that are almost like

the tails of a sport coat or something. And they're

back there, but they fall off. And every time

I go to pull his back over... Because it doesn't

lock into place either. It kind of flops around.

Those little sub wings fall off. And that's the

only problem I have with them. Do the legs break

off at the upper thigh on your figure at all?

No. My figure had all the problems that yours

does, plus the legs falling off at the thighs.

You know, mine... I'm twisting mine around like

this. Mine has a very satisfying click there.

We can hear it, yes. Yeah, at the crotch level,

the hip level, let's say. Not at the hip level.

There are swivel joints right below the hips.

Oh, okay. Now there's a swivel joint below the

hips, but then there's also a hinge directly

below that. No, the swivel is where my figure...

Now, I've also gotten... I also ended up getting

a Skywarp. Same exact issue. I took them back

and got my money back. The other ones in Wave

1 are Bulkhead and Cybertron Mode Megatron. When

I saw Cybertron Mode Megatron, I was like, really?

This thing doesn't look like anything that we

saw on the show. No, it doesn't. It's like they

couldn't figure out what to do with the gun.

Yep. And Bulkhead... has a really good vehicle

mode. The robot mode sucks. Yeah. It's not a

good robot mode. No, those legs are horrible.

The legs are horrible, just the figure itself

is not very good. But then, in, I believe it

was Wave 2, we got probably the best figure of

the entire line. Would that be Earth Mode Optimus

Prime? Yes, it is. Yeah. Even though Optimus

Prime officially debuted in Wave 2 of the Voyager

-class toys, he was found at U .S. retail later

than the Wave 3 toys Grimlock and Lugnut, which

is really weird. Now, I have an issue with Optimus

because apparently when he was first packaged

and sent out to people, I had bought one at Target

or was Target or Walmart? I don't know. It was

one of those stores. I bought one, and he had

his Autobot sticker on his left shoulder. I then

went back, and obviously there were no more Optimuses

at Walmart, so I went online to one of Michael's

favorite websites, Entertainment Earth, and I

ordered one from there. When I got the one from

Entertainment Earth, I opened him up, and I wasn't

going to transform him because I wanted him for

vehicle mode. I didn't really care. I didn't

really notice this. As soon as I eventually said,

screw it, I'm tired, I want to change, I transformed

the version I got from Entertainment Earth. He

had no sticker on his arm. I'm like, what the

hell is this? Apparently, some of the earlier

waves or some of the earlier boxes of Wave 2

that got sent out didn't have the sticker on

it. Which sticker are we referring to? The one

on Voyager Class Earth Mode Optimus, his left

shoulder, his Autobot symbol. Oh, I don't have

one. You don't have one what? I don't have an

Autobot signal insignia on his left shoulder.

That you have one of the first shipments that

went out then because he then came out later

with the insignia on his left shoulder. I had

never noticed that before. Mine does not have

one. Yeah, I so noticed it as soon as I opened

that package, as soon as I transformed him. Now,

if I had never transformed that toy that I got

from Entertainment Earth, I probably would have

never noticed it. But, yeah, I so noticed it.

I never noticed that. I'll have to take a look

at... I'll have to watch my own video review

and see which one I had. See, now, I have a problem

with this guy, and the problem is that the way

the waist... Yeah. The auto -waist. It's his

waist. The auto -waist, yes. The auto -waist,

yeah. I mean, there's like a gear or something

that turns when you move his waist. I mean, that's

a neat gimmick, sure, but it's very loose in

robot mode, and it's hard to keep him steady.

So that kind of bothers me. But other than that,

I love his proportions. I love his colors. The

way his battle mask folds up and down over his

mouth. That is awesome. His head rotates. He's

just got a lot of articulation. He's a very,

very cool figure. I could probably do without

the axe. Yeah, that axe is kind of... First of

all, it's not show accurate at all. Second of

all... That's where they went back to doing gimmicks

for kids because the axe and the gun, well, the

gun specifically is a water pistol, which is

kind of silly. Oh, that's kind of worthless,

yeah. Yeah, I'm looking at the TF wiki for Optimus'

toys, and they do note the very first releases

of the figure did not have the faction symbol.

They then went back, which is weird to me because

I bought the one at Walmart. after the Optimus

Wave had already been out for a while. That's

me too. Yeah, I found it at Walmart. Thinking

I got lucky. Yeah, and it wasn't like that I

had gotten it right when it first came out. I

bought it way later. So the one at Walmart had

it, and then two days after I got that one, I

went on to Entertainment Earth, and it's weird

to me that Entertainment Earth would still have

a shipment of unstickered Optimuses. Right. And

mine is unstickered, apparently. Ah, there you

go. I'll have to look. I mean, you're not going

to be able to find it now. Are there any that

have stickers? Yes, there are. Yeah, there are,

because mine had stickers. The one I bought from

Walmart had stickers. This line is chock full

of writing changes. Oh, yes. So what was in the

next wave? Well, still in this wave, because

we just... Talked about Optimus for now. Still

in this wave, we have Grimlock and Lugnut. I

thought those guys were in Wave 3. Oh, you know,

they are in Wave 3. Oh, so Wave 2 was just Optimus?

It sounds like it. Wow. You know, it's weird.

I didn't see any Optimuses out until after Wave

3. After Wave 3, yeah. Yeah, when I saw them

at Walmart, I was like, oh, my God, they must

have just pulled this out of the back or something.

I'm going to scoop it up. The Voyager class toys

for this line, Wave 2 and Wave 4, only have one

figure. Wave 2 has Optimus, and then Wave 4 has

Blitzwing. So going into Wave 3, we have Grimlock

and Lugnut. Who I never saw in stores until the

end of the entire toy line. Yeah. Which was so

weird. Now, both of those figures were pretty

darn good. Yeah. Grimlock looks awesome. Grimlock

is awesome. I liked him at the Activator size

class, but he's pretty good at that size class

too. Yeah, Grimlock is awesome. Everybody knows

I'm not a fan of Lugnut whatsoever, just because

I think we needed Astrotrain animated. I would

have liked to see an animated Astrotrain, because

I love the Blitzwing figure. which came out Wave

4. I absolutely adore that figure. It's not perfect,

not going to lie, but I just think it's a fun,

fun figure. Yeah, it's a fun figure until when

attempting to get it out of the box, it rips

your entire thumbnail off. I remember that. I

didn't have that problem. Well, you're lucky

then because, all right, Michael remembers this

story. I do. I'll tell it for people that don't

know because this was on a ToyCast episode, I

remember. I believe it was Christmas of 2009,

I think. Yeah, Christmas of 2009. I went to Walmart.

All of the animated toys were on sale. And I

was like, okay, well, you know, I'd like to get

a Voyager. What Voyagers do they have? They've

got these guys. Okay, Blitzwing. I like him in

the show. Pretty cool. I get him home. I literally

had to have, because of the, and this is before

Hasbro went to those bread tie things. This is

when the really hard plastic twist ties were

still in effect. I had to literally half -transform

him to get him out from under the ties, because

I've never had an X -Acto knife or clippers to

clip it, so I would just use regular scissors.

But I couldn't get the scissors in the spot where

I had to clip this one wire, because it would

have scraped the toy up. So I basically had to

transform the damn thing while it was still in

the box, and even pulling it out, it still ripped

half my thumbnail off. Ouch. Yeah. You see, you

need a big serrated knife. Like I got. Yeah.

Uh -huh. But Blitzwing is really, really cool.

Blitzwing is a great figure. It is nice. I mean,

there's compromises between the different modes,

but he still turns out really nice. And his head,

the way it spins and you get to see all three

faces. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. Any other thoughts

on Blitzwing Spada? Just a freaking great figure.

Just a lot of fun. Yeah. Wave 5 had Shockwave

slash Longarm, the gray version, which... And

Michael's favorite character, Skywarp. Skywarp!

You know, I did not find Skywarp in stores. I

had to get mine off of Entertainment Earth. Yeah.

And it was like the last one, apparently. Yeah.

Even though I'm not a fan of Seekers in general

as far as action figures outside of, like, the

original G1 Seekers, Skywarp's colors on the

Starscream mode look awesome in robot mode. I

totally agree with that. The coloring of that

figure is great. Yeah. So much better than Starscream.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's a good -looking

figure. He's sharp. Yep. And then I am weird.

I like... the long arm shockwave figure. There's

something wrong with you. You need your head

examined. We all know this, but I like that figure.

Now, I like something that we'll talk about a

little bit later, which is the repaint, but the

gray version, oh, no. As a figure, though, as

a toy, you literally got a quadruple changer.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, four modes in one. That's awesome.

Yeah, he looks distinctive in almost every mode.

I mean, in crane mode, he kind of looks like

a tank with the turret up and something hanging

off it. But he looks pretty distinctive in every

mode. It's a well -engineered toy. He's very

sharp. I love the TF wikis because I'm looking

at the shockwave images on here, and you know

how they always do witty. under the pictures.

For the long arm, gray wave version, punch. For

the shockwave, gray wave, counterpunch. For the

purple ones, chugway. And then for the shockwave

version of the purple one, one -eyed, one -horned,

giant purple people squisher. That's pretty good.

Yeah. You know, shockwave, the... The gray version

is great for longarm if you want to have a show

-accurate longarm. But to just have Shockwave

not purple just seems wrong to me. And I understand

where you're coming from. And in the show, they

actually talk about that in Season 3. Or they

mention it. But I think it works. I just, I like

it. I like the figure. I think it's a good figure.

Now, yes, I would have preferred getting a hold

of the purple one later, but it's still a good

figure. And then you've got two different robot,

two distinct different robot modes, which I just

think is awesome. It is, yes. And then Wave 6,

you had... Rekgar and Atomic Lugnut, which Atomic

Lugnut is essentially just a repaint. He's a

nice repaint. It's not a bad repaint. What was

it? Green and yellow? It's almost a teal and

a gold. And then he's got a big black Decepticon

logo on his chest. And he's kind of got the yellow

and black highlights that signify the... I want

to say caution tape or like biohazard. Yeah,

exactly. I like this color better than the original

one. In the picture on the TF wiki, he looks

like he's more – it might just be the picture,

but it looks like it's more silver on the actual

paint application, just like his legs and his

chest and all that. I don't know, it looks more

silver to me in this image. I don't think it's

silver. It's all green. Yeah. It's a dull, teal

-ish green. But he's, I mean, you know, it's

still Lugnut. Do we really need more Lugnuts?

I mean, unless they're going to give us a Supreme

Class Omega toy and paint him up as Lugnut. And

that kind of does it for the Voyager class. One

more thing I was going to say about Lugnut is

on the cockpit, he's got kind of like the tiger

teeth with the mouth on the side. It's a very

cool looking plane. And then that was carried

over into the Hunt for the Decepticons figures.

Yeah, it was. Okay, out of the Voyagers, do you

guys have a favorite Spada? Earth Mode Prime.

Michael? I would have to lean toward the Earth

Mode Prime. You know, the Wreckar is cool, but

he's hard to find. I mean, the Atomic Lugnut

was a shelf warmer. You could find him anywhere.

Could not find a Wreckar on the shelves to save

your own life. I found one, and I was really

happy. I like the Blitzwing character. The Blitzwing

toy, but honestly, I think I transformed him

once and said, wow, this is kind of a pain in

the ass. I'm just going to leave him in robot

mode. Yep. And left him there. And honestly,

it was very similar to Shockwave, where I transformed

him and I was like, wow, this is kind of neat.

But he, especially Purple Shockwave, he looks

a lot better as Shockwave. I'm just going to

leave him in this mode. Yeah. So he's way in

the back of the shelf as Purple Shockwave. Yep.

I don't know. I would have to agree with you

guys. Earth Mode Optimus is probably the best

out of the Voyagers here. Going into the leader

class, we had Bulkhead, Earth Mode Megatron,

and Ultra Magnus. And then we also had two repaints

of Galvatron. Oh, I mean Shadow Blade Megatron.

And Roadbuster Ultra Magnus, which is redecoed

as Generation 1 Roadbuster homage. Electronics

that don't have acid batteries. Yay. Ooh. Because

all the old toys you had to actually put batteries

in, and if you left them in there a long time,

they would corrode. They bled out, yeah. Yeah,

you know, the Leader Class toys, I didn't open

any of them. Except for one. I did open... Roadbuster

Ultra Magnus. Roadbuster Ultra Magnus, yeah,

because I really like that toy. I really like

Roadbuster. I'm a huge fan of Roadbuster. And

I'll open pretty much anything that's looking

like an homage to him. And this figure, you know,

when you push his, I'm sure it's the same as

the regular Ultra Magnus, but when you push his

chest, his mouth opens and he lights up and he

talks. Don't be a hero. Yes. So that's kind of

neat. I like how he lights up. Ah, it just blinded

me. Okay, those are bright. But, I mean, this

guy is covered in guns. He's got pop -out weapons.

Isn't he wonderful? He's a great toy. I mean,

I like him, but, I mean, for kids, this would

be an awesome toy. He's big. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

I was going to say, out of all the leaders, I

think Ultra Magnus is the best. He's the only

one I opened, so. Megatron's good as well. I

really dug Megatron simply because it was the

Earth. Like, the Deluxe Class, that's the Cybertron

mode. And it didn't even look like what it looked

like on the show, so I felt kind of, you know,

gypped out of that. And then when the Leader

Class version came out and it was the Earth mode,

that's what I liked the best about it was that

it was the Earth mode version. Didn't you have

two of those? No, I only had one. I traded Thorazine

a bunch of stuff for one. Ah, okay. Yeah, I guess

I didn't even open mine. I mean, he looks cool.

He looks very simplistic to me, though. It's

like if he didn't have lights and sound, I don't

think I would have liked him nearly as much.

Well, that's the point of him. Like I said on

earlier episodes of the podcast when we were

talking about the stock animation sequences,

the stock animation sequence for Megatron is

essentially a tutorial to transform his toy.

The toy transforms exactly the way he did in

the show for the most part. Right. Yep. Yeah.

Who needs YouTube reviewers? Go watch the cartoons.

Go watch the cartoons. I don't know. I'm still

playing with Ultra Magnus here, and he is cool.

To this day, I don't like the Bulkhead figure.

No. Really? Yeah. I mean, I think Bulkhead really

got a raw deal in the show. They needed kind

of a jokey character. They made it Bulkhead.

And it just... None of his toys were any good.

I've heard his Activator figure is pretty cool,

though. I think if you're just going to compare

the bulkhead toys up against each other, I think

the leader class one is probably the best out

of all the bulkhead toys. But bulkhead up against

any of the other leader class or any of the other

figures in general, just no. But he came with

a headmaster unit, so he kind of makes up for

it. We all know how you love the headmaster,

you noob. Ultra Magnus here. Yeah. I'm still

playing with Ultra Magnus. This is such a cool

toy. I love this hammer. It's hammer time. And

then you've got the two repaints. Michael said

he loves the Roadbuster homages, and he loves

Roadbuster in general, so you've got the Roadbuster

Ultra Magnus, and you have the Shadowblade Megatron.

Now, I asked on Twitter, I asked Derek J. Wyatt,

I said, so is the Shadowblade Megatron toy just

meant to be a repaint and kind of an homage to

Galvatron? He's like, oh, hell no. Don't even

say that. Did any, okay, before we move on, you

guys, I'm assuming everybody likes Ultra Magnus

the best out of the leaders. Yeah. Don't be a

hero, Optimus. It's not in your programming.

Moving on to the Supreme class, did anybody buy

these, the Rollout Command Optimus and the, oh,

the Powerbot's something different, but did anybody

buy Rollout Command Optimus? Chris, you bought

it for me. Did she? I was not going to buy it

because it's like $50. Yeah. And it looks to

me a lot like the Voyager size. Yeah. And I wasn't

going to buy it, and she came home with it. She

was like, look what I got you. Well, the kind

of difference is that. that Rollout Command Optimus

does have electronics. I mean, he's essentially

a leader class. I mean, even though he's in Supreme

class, he does have David Cave voice electronics.

I'm looking up in the closet to see if I can

see him. I see the Jetstorm and Jetfire that

I never bothered to open. I've got a couple of

those Target -exclusive Shockwaves and Sunstorms

that I bought and didn't open. I'll take a couple

of those if you want to sell them to me. I've

got one more up there, but I can't tell who it

is. It just says Decepticon Voyager Class on

the side. It's probably a shockwave. So getting

into the entertainment packs, well, Spada, did

you have any opinions on Rollout Command Optimus?

Nope. Saw him on the shelves. Even when he was

$15 on clearance, I didn't buy him. Oh, see,

I would have bought one for $15. Moving on to

the entertainment packs, we have Optimus Prime

vs. Megatron The Battle Begins 2 Pack. Now, didn't

this come with a DVD? Yes. What was on the DVD?

I can't remember. I never watched it. I think

it was the first or second episode. Okay. It

was a random episode, or either that or it was

like a description of... It was like all the

previews or something. I'm not sure. Now, the

two figures in general, are they both battle

damaged? Yes. They are both battle damaged. Optimus

has black battle damage. Megatron had black battle

damage as well. Do we like these figures? Are

they good figures? They were okay. It was the

only time we saw Megatron as a deluxe. Yeah.

And I think the deluxe figure was very similar

to the Voyager, but I think it was a better figure.

Yeah. And the Optimus figure was, if I remember

correctly, just the Cybertron version. Yeah,

Cybertronian version with battle damage. And

that was a decent mold. I mean, that was not

a bad mold at all. I liked the alt mode for the

Cybertronian Optimus, but the robot mode just

never really cared for that. The one thing I

did like was it was a completely different transformation

from... Almost a completely different transformation

from the Cybertron mode to the Earth mode. Their

transformations were different. Yeah. And then

Wave 2 has... The team -up that Michael can't

stand, Jetstorm and Jetfire. Can't stand that

one. Those were not good figures. They were not

good figures at all. I think we were talking

about them in the last episode, and I want to

say that I had compared their combined mode to,

you know, Cuddling with your girlfriend, your

wife in my case, where you have your arm underneath

her and your arm's falling asleep and you want

to move it, but you don't really know where it's

supposed to go. That's basically what the combined

mode of the Jet Storm and Jet Fire was. I was

just going... Where do the arms go? They're falling

asleep. I don't know. When I first transformed

it, I did something wrong, and I had one of the

arms sticking out between the legs. Oh, nice.

I'm like, wait a minute. This can't be right.

I know what to do with their arms now. But the

other thing that really irritated me was they

were almost the same figure, and they turned

into glorified robotic lawn darts. That was their

vehicle mode. Yeah, pretty much. And their combined

vehicle mode was two lawn darts stuck together.

Yeah, and, you know, for all the combining and

interesting things that they were supposed to

do, they were not good toys. They were not good

figures. They were horrible toys. Or I should

say, they are not good figures. Yes. Because

they all haven't been burned in a fire yet. That

is true. And then much later after even all the

store – well, not even after all the store -exclusive

stuff, but much later after the regular lines

here, they came out with the Powerbots with Cyberspeed

and Street Patrol Bumblebee, which essentially

are just – well, Street Patrol is essentially

just a repaint of Cyberspeed Bumblebee. I saw

these in stores, and I was like, well, I guess

kids will – get a kick out of it, but who really

cares? Oh, you know what? I didn't buy those.

That's how bad they were. I don't even remember

them. You know, I have the movie version. I should

say, my kids have the movie version of both of

those. And I did not get the animated one, because

I just thought they looked so bad. Yeah, here

is just the Cyberspeed image. Yeah, it looks

horrible. He has one stinger. No, but it's like

Transformers that don't transform. Yeah, the

Transformers that don't transform. Yeah. Badness.

Yeah, they've released the movie versions three

times. Oh, yeah, I know. The Dark of the Moon

movie versions now have a different arm. There

are four different repaints. Yeah. Yeah. So bad.

Moving on to the exclusives, the ever -elusive

exclusives, you had a couple of two -packs. Stealth

Lockdown with Legends Class Bumblebee and Legends

Class Optimus. You had Rescue Ratchet with Legends

Class Starscream and Legends Class Prowl. Now,

somebody got fired over those, I'm sure. Why?

Well, I mean, these are two -packs, right? They

probably should have retailed for about $19 .99.

And when they first came out at the stores at

Target, their Target exclusives, I walked in

and saw them in $19 .99 and said, yeah, that's

pretty good because that's about how much you

would pay for the Voyager class. But, you know,

I'm going to wait. I'm going to pass on it for

right now. Maybe when I get a little more money

next week, I'll buy them. Well, by the next weekend,

something strange happened. Well, they went on

sale for $5. Yes. Something happened. This also

is true for Sunstorm with Ratchet and Purple,

finally, Purple Shockwave with Activator's Bumblebee.

This is a really funny story, I think, because

I've never done this in my entire life. You know

how they always advertise the Coinstar stuff?

Mm -hmm. Okay? It was a Saturday morning. Derek

J. Wyatt had posted on Twitter, oh, hey, Shockwave

and Sunstorm are five bucks at Target. I was

like, is this just in California or is this everywhere?

He said, I think it's everywhere. I took probably

a jar that was... filled almost to the brim with

pennies. I took it up to the Kroger, put it in

the Coin Star. I got like 15 bucks and pennies

worth. I then walked over to Target and bought

two of the... Actually, I was sneaking through

the toy aisle because there was a bunch of kids

there. There was one left of Shockwave and Bumblebee.

I just kind of... reached around this old lady,

snatched it, and just went right up to the counter.

Right off. See, at my store, there was a huge

stack of them. And I bought, like, three of each.

Yeah. Because, you know, I would have spent $20

on them anyway, so why not? Yeah, true. Now,

going back to Stealth Lockdown and Rescue Ratchet,

do you guys have any opinions on these? Do we

like these figures? Because I never really...

I never really saw these in stores. I think I

misspoke. Those were not $5. I actually paid

full price for those. Yeah, no, those were full

price. What was $5 was the Sunstorms and the

Shockwaves. Right. What bothered me about the

Stealth Lockdown and the Rescue Ratchet is that

they came with Legends -class figures that were

not repainted. So I basically had already bought

the Legends -class figures. It looks like a horrible

thing out of an old A -Team episode. No, it looks

like a lockdown. He's cool looking. No, I just

mean his paint deco. It looks like an army car

you would see in an old A -Team episode. Oh,

yeah. He's kind of gray, translucent, with a

lime green. I like color. He's cool. I like having

my lockdown stand side by side because they're

very distinctive from each other. And I really

like the yellow rescue ratchet. I don't know

what they were trying to homage here, but he

looks really cool. It's a color that's brighter

than Bumblebee. So it's like, oh, it's yellow.

God, there's a lot of yellow in this line. But

no, this is a very bright yellow. Yeah, this

is like traffic. light yellow i mean this is

like you know people always say oh i hate that

fire engine red color this is like if if fire

engines were yellow i mean this is how bright

this is wow he's bright yellow with a fire engine

red highlight yeah yeah so no it's it's it's

a striking figure you know and it's it's that

uh that ratchet mold that's really nice yeah

what are your thoughts on these two spada Don't

care for the stealth lockdown. Just didn't really

care for that particular color and that weird

translucent -ness. Didn't care for it. But the

Ratchet was okay, but man, it was on the Target

shelf forever. Yes, it was. I am not kidding

you. Before Dark of the Moon figures hit, it

was still in the clearance aisle in my local

Target. Wow. I like them, though. I would pick

them up all over again. But again, I already

had those Legends class figures, so it was a

tough sell for me. In fact, I think I let them

wait until they hit the bargain bin first. Yeah.

And before we get to Sunstorm, I actually have...

I mentioned a couple episodes ago on this podcast,

which Spada will have no clue of unless he listens,

which I don't think he does. that I had a story

about the Shockwave purple repaint. The story

basically goes, I asked Derek J. Wyatt, what

was, you know, how did you guys get purple wave

into the show? And he basically told me that

he saw the toy was coming out and he ran really

quickly to one of the animators and said, hey,

I know that, you know, this episode is pretty

much done, but is there any way we can add this

into the end and animate it like this? For the

future episodes. And basically within five minutes,

they added it into the show at the end of...

Nice. This is Why I Hate Machines. Isn't that

where it came in? Something like that. Yeah,

it was one of those episodes. But no, the purple

on Shockwave makes it look like a way better

figure. It's pretty amazing. And if I remember

right, I want to say the toy came out before

he turned purple in the show. The toy, yeah,

the toy was out. Oh, yes. Yeah. And it was like,

hey, wouldn't it be cool if he did this in the

show? Yeah. But they had already set that up,

though, because, well, they had set up the electromagnetic

paint swap thing with the Wasp episode. Right,

where is that thing? Right. So the paint switch

or the color switch was already there to set

up. They just had to implement it. So it was

so awesome. That's awesome. Very cool. Yes. And

then for the Toys R Us exclusives, we have Bulkhead

and Megatron Leader Class with Activator's Bumblebee

and Starscream. Wow, more re -releases. Lovely.

I don't think I have that. Were they repainted

at all? No, it's just Leader Class, Megatron,

and Bulkhead. With that extra figure tacked on.

Yeah, with the extra figure tag. I didn't buy

it. I'm still trying to figure this out, but

why did this line have so many freaking store

exclusives? Yeah. Why? It had a lot. Well, I

think at the point of the main four that we're

going to talk about for the really elusive...

Well, two of the really elusive exclusives, because

the other two are nothing but shellformers since

they're repaints of each other. Arcee and Rodimus.

They came out at the end of the line. They were...

Well, technically they came out after the line

was already dead. Right. And they were Toys R

Us exclusives, right? That was a complete surprise.

had heard for months about, oh, they're out and

people are buying them. And I went back to my

Toys R Us for at least two months every weekend,

could not find them. And I thought, you know,

they didn't distribute them properly, they short

-packed them somewhere or something, and they're

not going to show up here, I'm never going to

see them. And two months later, I did see them.

And they sold out really quick, but then later

on they became shelf -warmers. Yeah, it took

months for them to show up in my area. Yeah,

the same here. I mean, and the funny thing is,

when I would go around to Toys R Us' and stuff,

they would have the two shellformers. They would

have Cybertron Mode Ratchet and Ironhide everywhere.

Cybertron Mode Ratchet, specifically, he was...

Everywhere. I honestly think that they short

-packed RC. Like, you know how some... What is

it? Sometimes waves come in like four or six.

I think if it was six, it was four Cybertron

mode ratchets and two RCs per wave. Well, if

you look at the case assortments for the upcoming

Transformers Prime toys, RC is going to be short

-packed. Yeah. So is Cliffjumper, so is Bulkhead.

That's a shame. Yep. There are still Ironhides

on the shelf at my toys office. Oh, yeah. There's

also some Walmart exclusives. Michael mentioned

earlier about the Bumblebee. Evolution? The Legacy?

Yeah. I forget what it was called now. There

was also a Revenge of Blackarachnia 2 -pack with

Optimus from the Battle Begins 2 -pack and Deluxe

Class Black. These are just to milk so the stores

can have exclusives. These are just re -releases

of figures we've already gotten. I think what

had happened is after the first movie came out,

the toys sold so well that all of the major retailers

were saying, I want exclusive toys, I want exclusive

toys. Then the first movie toys kind of trickled

down and Hasbro says, hey, we got this new series.

And all the retailers said, I want exclusive

toys. Well, they didn't realize that they weren't

going to sell for shit. In fact, it wasn't until...

They canned the series, and the new movie toys

came out that they really started picking up

again. And the last thing, because I know Michael

has a really, really awesome story for this.

The last thing we're going to talk about is the

McDonald's Happy Meal toys. Yay! Before you tell

your story, in North America, we got Megatron

Optimus, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Starscream, and

Lugnut. In Latin America, they got Optimus, Bumblebee,

Megatron, and Starscream. In France, they got

Optimus, Bumblebee, Megatron, and Blitzwing,

of all people. Cool. And Poland got Optimus,

Bumblebee, Megatron, and Starscream. And the

Optimus, Bumblebee, Megatron are the same molds

from the North American release, but with more

detailed paint applications. Blitzwing is the

only new mold out of all the Happy Meal toys.

So I remember you told me this story on one ToyCast.

You had heard something about animated toys being

at McDonald's, and you were just going to go

for one Happy Meal. I don't know. Tell the story.

No, we were at like a Walmart or something. And

Christy's like, we're going to pick up lunch.

We're going to go over there to the McDonald's.

And it was a McDonald's built in a Walmart. And

I'm thinking, well, that is really strange. She

was pregnant. She was very pregnant at the time.

So I'm not going to. you know tell her no you

know it's like yeah yeah honey whatever you say

so so we head over to the mcdonald's and and

uh i said uh you know what do you want she's

like well i think i'm gonna get a happy meal

and i'm gonna get a happy meal for aiden and

i said all right she goes well what do you want

and i said i think i'll have a big mac and she's

like no you're getting a happy meal I say, I

am? She's like, you're getting three Happy Meals.

I'm like, why? And she's like, we're getting

all the toys. We're getting them all right now.

And I'm like, best wife ever. I mentioned it

to her in passing. Oh, you know, McDonald's has

a Happy Meals with the toys. And I'll probably,

you know, maybe we'll get a Happy Meal and try

to pick one up. But she filed that away in her

steel trap of a mind, and it popped out later

at the least expected moment. Yeah, wives forget

nothing. Pregnant wives, no less. But no, she

not only remembered, but she got me all the toys

that day. Awesome. She haggled with the lady.

Like six hamburgers or six cheeseburgers. I think

I went through like four Happy Meals or something,

but it was totally worth it. Yes. We are going

to take a quick break. You're going to hear some

ads and maybe some quotes from the cartoon, stuff

like that. And we're going to come back with

final thoughts on the toy line. Transformation

Animation Podcast will be back after these messages.

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Now back to Transformation Animation Podcast.

We are back and... And Spada, final thoughts

on the overall animated toy line really quick.

A lot of the figures are pretty good. There are

some really outstanding figures like Voyager,

Blitzwing, and Earthmode Prime, and Deluxe Oil

Slick. But for the most part, I'm sorry to say,

I think most of the line is a little bit on the

forgettable side. There are a lot of figures

in here that I just don't care for, unfortunately.

Yeah, I would have to agree. For me, obviously,

I love Rodimus, I love RC, I love Blur, Purple

Shock Wave, Earth Mode Optimus, Elite Guard Bumblebee.

Elite Guard Bumblebee was the only Bumblebee

I ever owned, because after watching several,

well, your video review and several others' video

reviews of the regular Bumblebee, I was like,

yeah, I don't want a toy with multicolored yellows.

I just don't care for that. So, Michael, what

are your final thoughts on the line that have

been released to this point? I want to say I

was honestly excited for each and every one of

the figures that came out. I mean, this is probably

one of the last lines in memory that I was really,

really hunting for. Like, I have to have that

figure. I'm going to go with each and every.

Walmart, Kmart, Toys R Us in my area until I

find it. That being said, yeah, it's a hit or

miss line. Most of them are really nice. They

have their flaws. But again, as far as movie

accuracy, show accuracy, personality that is

built right into the mold, the smirk on Starscream's

face and things like that, it's... It's a great

line. It really is. And it doesn't hurt that

I really like the Activators because that makes

up a good quarter of the series. So before we

close the show, Spade, what do you have coming

up on your YouTube channel, if anything? Oh,

that's a good question. I've got some Sentai

stuff coming up, and I'm really going to be going

back and doing some Brave Figures. And with Thanksgiving

coming up, I'll be going up to visit my folks,

and a lot of my stuff is up in their basement.

So I'm going to be bringing hopefully back a

ton of Gundam figures for everybody to watch.

Nice. Awesome. Thank you for joining us here

on Transformation Animation Podcast. If there's

any ways to get in contact with us, leave feedback

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and wish you'll join us next time when we will

be talking about the toys they promised but we

never got. For now, I am TFG1 Mike with Spade

of the Bolt Matrix. And Michael Wilson. Long

live burnt toast! Saying we'll tap you again

next week.