Extremely quick one tonight ahead of the big one tomorrow, how about a very short post on how certain features of G1 Transformers I've owned for almost 30 years have gone completely unnoticed by me through childhood and adulthood? Looking silly is a specialty of mine, so without further ado...
In the picture at the top of this article, you can see Powermaster Optimus Prime's big head peeping out of his trailer with the ramps lowered. You can also see that I need to dust my childhood toys more often. Anyway, I recently brought PM Prime to my apartment for photography but realised I'd left the big head at home, so he only got photographed in vehicle mode.
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| P.E.P.O.P. (Pre-Epiphany Powermaster Optimus Prime) |
When I posted the photo on the TFW 2005 Generation 1 Appreciation Thread, someone poked fun and said I should have stored the head in the trailer like everyone else, to which I replied I didn't even know that was possible. Last night while out with some of the UK's finest, the matter came up again and I was made aware - after 26 years - that PM Prime's trailer has opening rear doors. Mind blown. I now see it can clip in there and fit snugly...funny thing is, as soon as I lowered the ramps and saw the innards, I got a strange feeling that at some point in my childhood I knew that this was possible...anyway, clearly I'd forgotten completely. Thanks guys!
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| Headmaster Horrorcons Snapdragon and Apeface |
Here's another, G1 Headmaster Horrorcon Apeface. I made a habit of never using the G1 instructions as a child, just figuring out the transformations instead. The result was that if I did something wrong in the 80s, chances were I was still doing it wrong on the transformation front today. A couple of years ago I finally realised that in ape mode, Apeface's Headmaster could actually be securely connected if his robot head/connection was squeezed into a space towards the back of the robot as seen above. For decades I had just precariously balanced it on that pink piece that juts out at the top of his chest. I had always thought it was a shame how that mode didn't have a good connection for the HM in an otherwise beautifully thought out pairing as Snap and Ape.
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| Decepticon Micromaster base Skystalker |
Last one then, well...that I can remember. Micromaster base Skystalker was one of the very last Transformers my parents bought me. Turns out all this time I had been connecting the blue shuttle to the rest of the base upside down, just as I've done in the picture above. Worse than that, I didn't even know the damn thing's name, or rather, whose name it was. I'll just paste in the tremendously embarrassing conversation I had with Argus about this 13 years ago...
Maz: Skystalker comes with a micromaster companion that is an orange Porsche 959 with a purple chest. Can anyone remember his name?
Argus: His name is Skystalker Maz :)
Maz: "DUH!" I was talking about the name of the micromaster ;)
Argus: That IS his name ROFLMAO the vehicle doesn't have a name Maz !
Maz: You're kidding! The micromaster dude hasn't got a name?!!?
Argus: He has. It's SKYSTALKER :)
Maz: He's just called Skystalker like the jet? No way i ain't buying that! I'll get back to you on this.....
Argus: The vehicles do not have names...
Classy as always. I do wonder at the number of collective facepalms generated when I announced that I was doing my own website not too long after that...
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| Skystalker and Nameless |
All the best
Maz
Powermaster Prime's trailer storage is a legacy of an abandoned feature. He was going to be a Headmaster too. Roller would have turned from (sadly 4 wheeled) car to robot to head, and docked comfortably in car mode in the trailer. Alas, this feature was dropped early in the design stage.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for that, Jim. Paul said the same thing to me as well, I think he may even have shown me the Headmaster concept images. A real shame it was abandoned, they really could do with a "Perfect Edition" PM Prime/God Ginrai incorporating all of these gimmicks.
DeleteAll the best
Maz
Pretty pictures of that in the Generations book too.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't matter how many times I read our conversation I laugh and am shamed all at once :P
DeleteAll the best
Maz
Your Skystalker gaffe isn't too bad. As a kid with only the catalogs that came with the toys as reference, for a long time I thought the names shown were those of the bases, not the characters. Like "Hot House" or "Iron Works" sound more like they belong to the playsets. Pretty sure I had the same misconception for Skystalker.
ReplyDeleteSee! I'm not the only one haha!
DeleteAll the best
Maz
If it makes you feel any better, I didn't know about the ramp doors on PM Prime until I was an adult either. However, I played with Prime more in robot mode as a kid anyways, as the truck mode left a lot to be desired with the lack of chrome and the hands sticking up. As a kid, I really hated those things, and I'd been so much happier with the God Ginrai toy had Hasbro made theirs like it originally.
ReplyDeletePM was my first Optimus Prime, I forgave a lot of what you're describing here :) I can still forgive him those failings in light of God Ginrai, such is his sentimental value to me.
DeleteAll the best
Maz
I tried to store the head in the trailer exactly once as a kid, and then Bumblebee went in there. As a matter of fact, that's where Bee was when I dug my figures out of my parents' attic a decade ago...
ReplyDelete