BotCon Europe MMII (2002) Rook

The year 2002 was a significant one in the history of BotCon. It marked the first year that BotCon was truly the official Transformers convention, with full backing by Hasbro beyond the mere inclusion of exclusive toys. It also saw a marked increase in the sheer number of exclusives available that year. I've already featured three of the four exclusives available at BotCon 2002 on this blog (Tap-Out, Glyph, and CatSCAN, I do not... yet?... own the fourth: Cyclonus). Yet BotCon 2002 was only part of the story. There was also a BotCon in Europe that year: BotCon Europe MMII (The TFWiki refers to the convention in more traditional terms: "BotCon Europe 2002." I consider the version with the Roman numerals, found on contemporary advertising and its website, to be correct, because it's less easily explained). BotCon Europe MMII was by no means the first BotCon held outside the US, but it proved to be the last.

Impossible Toys TS-03 Prankstor (not-Skywarp, 2013)

Having won Hasbro's recent fan poll, Impactor (and Mirage) will be given new toys in the upcoming Transformers line, which Hasbro has confusingly decided to call "War for Cybertron." This isn't the first time that Hasbro has re-used an old name for a current toyline (the most famous, if debatably not the first, was the 2015 Robots in Disguise line), but it gets more difficult for those of us who try to keep all this straight with each successive re-use. At the time of this writing, the new line hasn't yet come out, and indeed no molds for it have even been revealed, so all we can do is speculate on the basis of the few fragments of information we currently have. So we'll start with those....

Requiem for Toys R Us

If you've been following the news, you already know that Toys R Us, already in bankruptcy since this past September, finally announced liquidation this past week. While liquidation sales are not yet starting (at least, for those remaining stores not already having clearance sales since February, which were at one time hoped to be the only stores to have to close), they will very shortly, and the company, as we've known it, has effectively ceased to exist.^*

Combiner Wars Impactor (2016)

When the results of Hasbro's recent fan poll were revealed a few weeks ago, few fans were surprised that the "Impactor vs. Mirage" pairing won. That's not to say that everyone was happy with the results.

In each of the three pairings we were offered ("Spinister vs Wheeljack" and "Needlenose vs. Tracks" being the other two), the '84/'85-era Autobot in the pair was relegated to secondary status. The comments made in support of votes in all three cases seemed to be much more about the other characters. Indeed, that's part of why I've featured only those three characters these past few weeks, the other reason being the coincidence that those three characters all happened to be featured as toys in the 4.0 version of the Transformers Figure Subscription Service (TFSS) offered by the now-defunct Transformers Collectors' Club.

Combiner Wars Needlenose (2016)

The recent fan poll conducted by Hasbro to promote their upcoming toyline paired Spinister (featured two weeks ago) with Wheeljack, Needlenose with Tracks, and Impactor with Mirage. I'll deal with Impactor next time, but for now, it's enough to say that Hasbro's reasons for these pairings are still a bit murky for the Spinister/Wheeljack and Impactor/Mirage options. For Needlenose and Tracks, on the other hand, a discussion of the IDW comics should make Hasbro's reasoning pretty obvious.

Combiner Wars Spinister (2016)

This week, Hasbro is starting a promotion whereby fans can select pairs of characters to be featured in an upcoming toyline. As it happens, each pair features one G1 cartoon-era Autobot alongside some lesser-known character who (coincidentally, I'm sure) happened to be featured in the fourth "Transformers Figure Subscription Service" by the now-defunct Transformers Collectors' Club a couple of years ago. I doubt I'll ever have a better reason to feature these lesser-known characters, so I'm taking advantage of the opportunity.

Reflections for the 50th Anniversary of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood - A Foundation of Faith

On February 19th, 1968, a mild-mannered man in a cardigan sweater introduced himself to the nation.

He wasn't completely unknown at that point, of course, having worked in Canadian television for a few years, and for a local Pittsburgh public station for a few years both before and after that. And he'd had other experience, mostly behind-the-camera, before that. In fact, by the time Misterogers' Neighborhood (as it was originally known) first aired nationally, Fred Rogers was already nearly 40 years old, and had been working in the television industry for the better part of two decades. More or less ever since his graduation from college with a BA in Music Composition.