G1 Strafe (1987)... and a Few Namesakes

If you were to ask most Transformers fans, specifically ones who have followed the franchise during the 1980s and have continued to do so to this day, to name all of the G1 combiner teams, the odds are reasonably good that they can remember all of them (and even if they somehow forget the Pretender Monsters or some groups of toys that never came out in the US, they're all-but certain to identify all of the "Scramble City" teams, as well as Devastator and Predaking). That said, even those fans are likely to stumble if you ask them to name all of the combiner team members, especially those who came out after 1985. The reason for this is apparent enough. While the combined forms, themselves, likely were featured on the popular cartoon of the era, the members often were only name-checked once, if at all. Thus, an individual like Strafe, whose G1 package art is seen here to the left, is frequently forgotten....

Fraggle Rock Happy Meal Toys (1988)

Dance your cares away! Worries for another da-a-ay!

(Be honest, you just sang that, didn't you?)

Almost from the time the Fraggles first hit television screens in 1983, they were incredibly popular. The adorable puppets^*, infectious music, and whimsical stories became "must-see" viewing for many of my generation (perhaps despite being available only on HBO, then still only a cable service that subscribers had to pay to receive).

Celebrating National Video Games Day - Quarter Arcades Ms. Pac-Man (2020)

I sometimes quip that anyone can call anything a "National Day" at any time, and it becomes so. While I definitely don't take these so-called "holidays" very seriously, they do at least provide excuses to feature relevant items here from time to time. Thus, when I learned that September 12th is "National Video Games Day" (note the plural, as at least one source suggests that the singular "National Video Game Day" is July 8th, just in case you needed another reason to recognize how silly this stuff is), and apparently has been since at least 1997, I decided that this was a good time to feature my favorite video game, Ms. Pac-Man (strangely, for the first time ever on this blog).

Legacy Jhiaxus (2022)

The third time, as it happened, was indeed the charm.

The first official Jhiaxus toy, which I reviewed a dozen years ago, was a repaint of a Beast Machines figure, and looked nothing like the character created for the Transformers: Generation 2 comic book, either in form or coloration. But even though it was little more than a name slapped on a seemingly unrelated figure, the fact that the comic had already been ancient history for a decade at that point meant that few Transformers fans ever expected to have another opportunity to see the character in toy form, so we snatched it up.