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| The original Smart Phone |
A recent episode of the podcast, TFYLP (Transformers For Your Listening Pleasure) discussed the Tech Specs that used to come on packages of Transformers. For those who don't know, Tech Specs were biographies and statistics that were printed on the cards and boxes of Transformers figures. The formats have changed over the years, and there are some lines that haven't included such character data at all, but for those figures that have had them, Tech Specs have provided important information on the characters represented by the toys. Especially for toys under-represented in other media (cartoon and comics, for example), the Tech Specs are sometimes all that separate a Transformers toy from being "just another transforming robot" instead of a full-fledged character.
There are some characters that it's fashionable to dislike. Maybe there's good reason for it. Maybe not. Maybe the character has a few fans here and there, but those intrepid few risk ridicule from others if they make their affection for such a character known. Wheelie is just such a character that people seem to love to hate.
As the twenty-first century was just beginning, Hasbro found themselves with a bit of a dilemma about where to take the Transformers franchise. Hasbro and Takara were both working more-or-less independently of each other at this point, sharing ideas as each found it worth their time. The firm back-and-forth partnership that was to become more the standard in the next few years (at least in regard to Transformers) was not yet in place. With the Beast Machines cartoon having recently been completed, Hasbro had been working on a concept they called Transtech, but they decided to scrap those plans for reasons not entirely known even today. Takara, on the other hand, had finished up a line they called Car Robots about a year previously, utilizing a combination of new molds and old ones borrowed from the past. Having spent all that time working on Transtech, Hasbro needed to buy some time before their next big idea (Armada) would be ready for toy shelves, and so they decided to dub the Car Robots line (and its associated cartoon) into what they called Robots in Disguise. When Car Robots became Robots in Disguise, a combiner known in Japan as "Baldigus" came to America as "Ruination."
Over the past few years, the Masterpiece line has been the place Transformers fans look to supply the most definitive versions of iconic characters, and last year's Ultra Magnus release is certainly no exception. It should perhaps be noted that this isn't the only Ultra Magnus toy to bear the "Masterpiece" label. A repaint of the original Masterpiece Optimus Prime, in white, was released roughly a decade earlier. However, this Masterpiece Ultra Magnus is the first such toy with a mold created expressly to be Ultra Magnus, and as such resembles the "iconic" version of the character far more than the first Masterpiece Magnus.
Four years ago, I entered a contest sponsored by the official Transformers Collectors Club. While I didn't win, I did share that entry on the old blog at the time. Here is that entry.
For today's entry, I had started writing about something completely different, only to find that I didn't really have anything to say about it. As a filler entry, then, I'm sharing some of the other images I took as preparation for that contest.
As the Fourth Doctor said in The Sontaran Experiment: "You never know when these bits and pieces will come in handy. Never throw anything away."
