TF Views

The only other line I recall from the time that I saw prominently on the toy shelves was Robotech (aside from TF and GB). I'm more open to my giant robot fiction now than I used to be, back then if it didn't have an Autobot or a Decepticon logo I wasn't interested and most of it wound up as white noise "Not TF".

I was into Robotech back in the day, but I never considered it a transforming robots show. Even though the ships all transformed, it was more about the characters and what was going on with them. Same thing with Gundam. The mechs all seemed secondary to me.

Oh see there's the difference, you had the fiction to form an opinion on. I only ever saw the toys and only watched shows for toys that I collected. I never watched Thundercats because I viewed it as "not He-Man" and I only played with MOTU figures. Then in the robot boom, I played with TFs and that was it and never watched any of the other shows. Same holds true of Voltron (which I think would have been the next biggest competitor to TF besides GB). I still saw it as "not TF" and therefore didn't watch the show. To this day, I still haven't. Same with Thundercats. Course now the only reason I haven't seen those two is because I didn't have enough money for both those AND TF and MOTU on DVD.

So pirate them! Screw those companies that release things legally. >.>

Lessee, transforming robots from back in the day..

Well, there was of course TF and Gobots, but then they had, like, the Convertors. Surely some of you guys ran into those? I think they had some bootlegged Robotech toys under the "Convertors" banner, the ship that turns into a bigass bunny-eared robot, and the jet with the skull and crossbones that was derived from the same design as Jetfire (I loved that crappy bootleg back in the day. Pirate Jetfire!), and then a bunch of just crappier vehicle/robot toys.

I wound up getting a Convertors giftset for Christmas one year that had, like, five bird and five bug robots, too, that thing was awesome. Especially the owl, spider, and bat robots. They ruled.

Also, I wound up really liking Starriors because of the completely bad ass Marvel comic that came out to pimp those horrible wind-up robots. Actually, really, a lot of those robots were decent looking, if sort of crappy quality. And the badguy leader had one of the best bad guy names ever, "Slaughter Steelgrave". I tell you, I'd almost change my damn real name to that. But Starriors were only sort of kinda transforming robots, so I dunno if they count.

I was into every dumb thing as a kid, apparently.

Wow, you must not have read "Starriors" recently. You know who wrote it, right?

Aside from a *really* badly used McGuffin, "Starriors" was high-end of middling 80s Marvel actually.


Scourge, I have seen those 'bots you were talking about. They looked familiar when I saw them. Anybody else remember this?

Dom
-had a stationary set with those guys, and a tilt motion ruler that showed them all transforming.

It's true, I haven't read the Starriors comic recently, and rhe last time I did read it I noticed it wasn't as cool as I thought. However, at the time, I loved that book to no end, and would likely have described it as "completely bad ass". I stand by the description in this context.

Ooh,GoBots thread! I've a soft spot for them myself (Well, for Challenge of the Machine Men, but y'know, same thing), in that there's some gems in the toyline. Defendor is an especially good toy. The show is campy as can be, but not vastly worse than TF of the time.

Fun fact: Unicron's boringly-named Mini-Con, Dead End, was to be called Gobotron at one time. Wish they'd kept that.

As for the Convertors, I sure do remember them! Behold the glory.
They notably included smaller versions of the Dorvack toys that became Roadbuster and Whirl, as well as the tank that didn't get to be a TF. I own Wheels, the green Roadbuster, it is the neat.
My favourites, however, are the Spies. Note Cash, the cash register, who is only loyal to those who keep feeding him. Muahaha.

onslaught86 wrote:Fun fact: Unicron's boringly-named Mini-Con, Dead End, was to be called Gobotron at one time. Wish they'd kept that.

I think they couldn't. Trademark and that.

As for the Convertors, I sure do remember them! Behold the glory.

It is a testament to that site and the obscurity that it catalogues that it is 'still' one of the only good Convertors resources.

Yup, "Convertors" are the guys I remember from that old staionary set.

I actually did have the binocular guy.


Dom
-wants re-issues of these.