Celebrating the 35th Anniversary of Transformers: The Movie - Studio Series 86 Hot Rod (2021)

In just a couple of weeks, on August 8th, the 1986 animated Transformers: The Movie will be celebrating its 35th anniversary. Having already celebrated the 25th anniversary and the 30th anniversary with reflections, I'm not sure how much new there is to say about the movie itself (at least, not within the limited amount of space I allow myself on this simple blog!), but a series of toys released this year as part of the Studio Series subline (previously dedicated exclusively to the live-action movies, and thus essentially ignored by me) gives me an opportunity to celebrate the occasion with a reflection on the main character (IMHO) of the movie: Hot Rod (who of course later became Rodimus Prime, the new leader of the Autobots... until Optimus Prime came back from the inconvenience of being dead...).

Power of the Primes Punch/Counterpunch (2018)

To the delight of many old-school fans (and to the chagrin of others, including perhaps those young enough not to have the same reasons for nostalgia that we older fans might have), an increasing number of characters from the original "Generation One" Transformers line have gotten updated figures in recent years. The "double spy" character, Punch/Counterpunch, is no exception, having been given a new toy as a special release toward the end of the Power of the Primes toyline.^a

Not Your Father's Autobot - Episode #5 - Transformers: Generation 2 issue #5

For this episode of Not Your Father's Autobot, we're discussing Transformers: Generation 2 issue #5, cover dated March, 1994. This issue can be found reprinted via the Transformers: Dark Designs paperback, which may be purchased via Amazon. Listeners may also wish to try to find a copy of either the collected paperback or the issue itself via eBay (purchases through these links do not support the podcast in any way). 

Cyberjet Air Raid (1995)

In 1995, the last year of Generation 2 in America, not only was the "Generation 2" heading quietly dropped, but in a clear attempt to get additional product out at a minimum cost, almost every mold released during the year was either used twice, or had clear plans to do so that simply fell through when the entire line was cancelled to make way for Beast Wars. This kind of mold reuse is common today, but despite the truth that some mold reuse had been done since the very first Transformers toys in 1984, this was a significant increase compared to then-recent years. Perhaps as part of an attempt to persuade kids (or parents) to buy molds that had already been used just a few months previously, the reuses were all given the names of classic Transformers characters from Generation 1. Such is the case with today's featured figure, Cyberjet Air Raid.

BotCon 2015 Shattered Glass Stepper

Even among Shattered Glass characters, Stepper's story is more complicated than most, both in the real world and in terms of the fictional character himself. Let's start with the real world story....

Back in 2008, BotCon introduced the concept of "Shattered Glass," a mirror-universe concept where the Autobots were evil and the Decepticons were good. The attendee incentive figure for that year was a Shattered Glass Ricochet toy, which was (appropriately enough) a repaint of the Shattered Glass Jazz toy which was a part of that convention's box set. As longtime fans know, "Ricochet" was the American name given to Stepper, the previously-Japanese only black repaint of G1 Jazz as a new Targetmaster character, when that toy was finally re-released and made available to American stores in the early 2000s. Although BotCon 2008 Ricochet was not yet a Targetmaster, he was clearly intended to be the Shattered Glass version of the same character, and the missing Targetmaster was given to him early on when Shattered Glass prose stories began to be made available to club members.

Not Your Father's Autobot - Episode #4 - Transformers: Generation 2 issue #4

For this episode of Not Your Father's Autobot, we're discussing Transformers: Generation 2 issue #4, cover dated February, 1994. This issue can be found reprinted via the Transformers: Dark Designs paperback, which may be purchased via Amazon. Listeners may also wish to try to find a copy of either the collected paperback or the issue itself via eBay (purchases through these links do not support the podcast in any way). 

Windrazor (1993)

In February and March, I covered two of the three "Skyscorchers" I own. I actually had Windrazor for much longer than either of those two, but as I got it second-hand without the hand weapon/radar (actually, I discovered that the peg from the weapon is broken off, still in the weapon hole for Windrazor's jet mode!), I decided that I should discuss the others first, so as to demonstrate that feature that, in theory, figures in this subline shared. With that out of the way (and with Space Case discussed in April to break up the monotony), let's talk about Windrazor.