The Essence of the Character

One of the privileges of my current working situation is that I have an office all to myself, with shelves that I'm allowed to place personal items on. Thus, I have an array of Transformers (and other items, but lots of Transformers) sitting behind me as I work that often catches the eye of those who pass through.

Often, when someone sees the toys behind me, they make a reference to the toys of their own childhood, and can recognize some of the characters behind me readily. It is not unusual for someone to comment saying something like "I had that toy when I was a kid!" This always makes me smile, not simply because it's nice to have one's collection appreciated, but because I know that, with very few exceptions, none of the toys on my work shelves are actually toys from the 1980s, but are rather from much more recent times.

I consider this to be a testament to Hasbro's ability to capture the essence of a character when they do an update. For example, Starscream was specifically called out by name in a recent conversation. The Starscream I have on my shelf (seen toward the left on the image at the top of this blog entry) is from the "Classics" line of 2006. Since the person in my office was quite certainly already an adult by that time, I doubt this is what he had when he references his own childhood, but there really isn't any disputing that this toy is Starscream.

Hasbro has done their job well....