TRANSFORMERS...PERHAPS THE BEST TOY OF ALL TIME...

 

I will never forget. It was the early summer of 1984. No later than April or May. I was almost 11.

 

I had gone to Mount Vernon, Illinois to spend a week with my aunt and uncle. The vacation was a nice break, but not all that exciting. We visited with some elderly people I didn't know. We worked in the yard, planted a tree and my uncle let me ride around on his Cub Cadet riding mower. Entertaining at the most. All in all it was a nice getaway but rather uneventful...but that was about to change!

 

I was nearing the end of my stay with them. My aunt and uncle decided to take me into town and do some shopping to prepare me for the upcoming school year. It was typical clothes shopping, and like any kid I hated shopping for clothes. I recall none of the stores that we went too...save one.

 

We had done all of our shopping and were getting ready to go eat, my aunt wanted to go make one last stop at Ben Franklin's. This store isn't around anymore, the last of what used to be called a "dime" store.

 

We wandered through the isle's, I found very little of interest. I asked my aunt and uncle if I could go check out the toys. It was a small store so I was never out of their line of sight, so they tol[/b][/b]d me to go ahead.

 

I wandered through the few isles they had. They had all the typical toys I had grown up with and come to expect to find. Wacky Wall Crawlers, Hungry Hungry Hippo's, a few He-man action figures. Nothing out of the ordinary, and nothing I considered exciting. Being a kid in the early early 80's was not as much fun as you might think.

 

I was coming around the last isle, getting ready to go meet back up with my aunt and uncle. As I came around the end of one of the isles something on an end-cap caught my eye.

 

It was an end-cap full of toy cars in red rectangular boxes. There was something about this display that drew my attention, something about it wasn't quite right but I couldn't exactly say what. The packaging is what caught my eye because somehow it suggested something different to me. The toy itself looked like a highly detailed toy car. The box was red, with yellow pin-stripping. I picked up one of the boxes and began to look it over. On the back was a giant scene of robots of all different shapes and sizes fighting in battle. First I had to take a step back and think for a moment. I had never seen anything like this before, it took a second to make the connection. This little unassuming car "transformed" into a robot. I was only 10, but I had never seen anything like this before. I had to have this! I begged my aunt to buy me the little toy, and before I knew it I was walking out of the store with the bag.

 

I was barely in the car before I was opening my purchase. Carefully I opened the sleek red box as so not to damage it. I pulled out the clear plastic tray. Inside were all kinds of things. Decals for the car, a mini-poster and a fold out pamphlet of other Transformers that were available. I quickly started transforming my car into its robot form (silverstreak). That was it.

 

TRANSFORMERS HAD ARRIVED! and I was hooked.

 

From that day on Transformers were the only toy for me. They became one of the most memorable things from my childhood, and they helped tie other events of my childhood together.

 

I remember going to my grandparents house on the weekends. I would arrive on a Friday night. I would do chores for my grandparents and my grand uncle who lived next door. I would mow the lawn, rake, dust, knock down wasp nests...whatever needed to be done. All in an effort to save for what I needed for my next Cybertronian adventure.

 

I would do my chores early on Saturday morning, my grandmother would often help. We would spend all day working together in the yard. Once my chores were done we would go inside and have a soda together. We would sit, cool off and relax. That afternoon she would pay me for the work I had done, I would kiss her on the cheek and set off on my adventure to Elias True Value in Cairo, Ill. Elias was about 1 mile from my grandmothers house. Not far, but quite an adventure to an 11 year old. Setting out on those warm, humid summer afternoons I would walk up the road... past my uncle's and the neighbor's homes becoming more and more nervous as I ventured away from familiar territories. I would cross the cobblestone road avoiding all the dogs along the way. After about 10 minutes I would round the corner of the church and I was halfway there! Once I got as far as the school I could see the white-painted side of the department store. This would set my mind in motion, thinking of what surprises would be in store for me this weekend. Finally after what seemed to me a long journey, I would come to the entrance of the store, stepping inside the cool air would blast me in the face. A small but nice reward for surviving my adventure.

 

Once inside I went directly to that one special isle that always had the Transformers. In those days this was the place to go! You could always rest assured of finding the best selection there. Any given weekend I was sure to find my choice of Autobots, Decepticons, Insecticons or Dinobots.

 

Usually I was lucky enough to get a few Transformers a month. Those Saturdays were always the highlight of my weekend.

 

When we moved to a remote town in Kentucky called Berkley, my Transformers were my best friends for 6 months or so. After all no one wanted to befriend the "new kid" in school, for several months all I had were my toys!

 

My mother went to great lengths to acquire SOUNDWAVE for me. In those days there was no Super Wal-mart, Target, and certainly no internet. No, in those days, if you couldn't find it at your local dime store, you had to find the newest Sears&Roebuck catalogue. You had to figure the tax, postage and handling yourself, go down the the post office, get a money order, fill out the order form and stuff it all in an envelope and put it in the mail, then wait 6-8 weeks for delivery, and pray they got the order right! Yet she managed to get it for me, and it was the largest Transformer that I had had up to that point. I was in awe of SOUNDWAVE. Not only did he transform himself, but the even the small cassette tapes inside his chest cavity transformed as well!

 

By this time it was the winter of 1984. Just about everyone around here remembers that winter. We rarely went to school. I have never seen another winter like it, even to this day. This is not why I remember Christmas of '84 so well. My mother and stepfather knew I was having a hard time adjusting to my knew surroundings, they also knew of my fascination with Transformers.

 

They decided to make this Christmas very special. Every child loves to try and find their Christmas presents. I was no different. I will never forget the adrenaline rush I would get the search. Every sense was heightened, sight, smell...but particularly sound, remember? Every sound you heard you thought was a car door slamming, you would rush to the door to make sure it wasn't your parents coming home to catch you in the act!

 

I knew that my presents must be hidden in my parents room. I had already ran through the process of elimination in my 11 year old mind. I waited for one of those snow days, and in the winter of 1984 you didn't have to wait long, when school had been canceled, and my parents were at work I went looking for my presents. I remember getting up early and beginning the search, venturing off into their bedroom. I checked in the dresser, I checked under the bed...nothing. Then I came to the closet, first I checked the left side, nothing there either, I was beginning to fear that this year we would go without! Then I checked the right side of the closet, low and behold there in the back corner there it was. Covered purposely with clothes and knick-knacks a large brown cardboard box. I carefully removed all the debris, paying special attention to how things were placed so I could be sure to return everything to its original position as so to cover any signs of my discovery.

 

I rummaged through the box, there were various gifts for me and others. They all were nice, but as nice as they were they were not the objective of my mission! There about half-way down I found it. The Holy Grail of Transformers (at least in '84). There sealed, mint, in-box was Megatron leader of the Decepticons! The box was huge I hurriedly, but carefully opened the box to play with him. My nerves couldn't handle much, I was certain I would get caught. I played with him all of 10 minutes before I simply had to put him back in his box and remove all traces of my find! I put it all away and counted down the days till Christmas. That Christmas was certainly no disappointment. I received many nice things, but nothing topped Megatron!

 

My Transformers even helped me make friends too! When I began attending church in our new town there were a few boys there who also had gotten into Transformers. As a group we would keep each other up to date on the latest Transformers and comparing what we had to what others had. Many of those friendships still endure to this day.

 

Over the years I collected many Transformers. I have many fond memories of those first few years. Certainly nothing tops that first run from 1984-1986. The end of the first run was even marked by Transformers the animated movie.

 

There is a saying "Everything old is new again..." this is very true with Transformers. Now, almost 25 years after their first release Transformers are making a comeback. We have many things to thank for this. First off, the magic of Hollywood. After all these years technology is able to keep up with imagination, culminating in the 2007 release of Transformers the live action movie. Those of us who played with Transformers watched with stars in our eyes as all of our favorite character came to life on the big screen.

 

There are also a few other reasons for the new found popularity.

 

All of those 10, 11, 12 year old boys and girls are now grown adults. Adults with jobs and their own money, and impowered with the ability to make their own purchases. This, coupled with the desire to recapture bits and pieces of their childhood it has truly led to a resurgence of the brand.

Young adults surfing the internet on sites like Ebay can now purchase in an instant their hearts desire.

 

Even Hasbro has taken notice. Over the last few years they have been taking those classic Transformers and modernizing and releasing them as "Classics".

 

Transformers are selling at an all time high, thanks in large part to those classic releases and to all of us now grown children.

 

My fascination with Transformers is just as much about recapturing those old memories and feelings of my childhood and the sense of wonder as it is about the actual toy itself. Probably more so.

 

I have many people to thank for my development, but I also thank those wonderful toys for helping keep me out of trouble. In those days and where I lived there was always the very real option of walking out the door and getting into trouble...real trouble. Instead, Transformers held my fascination and I stayed in, instead of going out and finding that trouble, I never got into drugs or alcohol.

 

You will find that this is the longest blog I have ever done, because I am very passionate about this subject...for that reason I would love to hear your stories and feedback, if you have any fond toy memories let me know, I would love to hear it![/color][/color]

That was an incredible post! I guess my best memories are sort of like yours. For me it was Smiling Sunnys in Staten Island, Ny. It was a small Mom and Pop toy store, but they had everything. I would kill to go back in time and visit that place again (its long gone now). I was in there with my dad and if memory serves me correctly, my first TF was, of course, Optimus Prime.

I guess it started for me when i was 4 or five, i was born in 82-so in 86-87 it really grasped me head-on and took my life by surprise, when i found out that everytime you bought a transformer, you where getting 2-3 toys in one, they where my life.

 

I actually had all kinds of toys when i was a kid, voltron, thundercats, masters of the universe and gi-joe, but none of them really grabbed my attention like the war of autobots V.S. decepticons, and for the first introduction (in 85 for me) TRANSFORMERS...Thank you for the good times that i remember growing up with these ahead of their time toys.

 

remember like it was yesterday, it was the winter of 87', the transformers have made their impact on the world, but i did not have mine quite just yet.

I have been begging my mom for a seacon giftset that i have been seeing on tv, i kept bugging her to get it for me, for some reason i knew she would. probably because i was a lonely child and my father was and is a piece of shit that was never around when i was growing up, times where tough but my mom was the best and she was the type to make thanksgiving out of a peanut butter and jelly sammich.

christmas has finally came and for some reason i feel that it might be bare under the tree this year...but guess what... there where like 4-5 presents under the tree and i was so excited that i could hardly go 15 minutes without trying to make a deal with her to let me open just 1, NO GO!!

The next mourning was different, christmas mourning!!!!! i went after this one present that i have been shaking and trying to use my present telepathy on, it had a feel about it that caused me to open this present first, i did and it was the purple and black decepticon box with all of seacons in it...

She died of brain cancer in nov 1993, i love her very much, my mother is a very special memory i get back when i play/buy/dust/collect with the bots that i have now......

TRANSFORMERS has and always will have a spot on the shelf in my heart!!!!

Thanks to the greatest toy ever made, TRANSFORMERS, you rock!!!!!!

Very sorry about your mom Anthony. That was the point of my post though, certainly to some Transformers was "just a toy" but to many of us it was much much more (than meets the eye) it was a way to cope, to escape etc., now looking back years later every time I collect one or get a rare find it takes me back and reminds me of that childhood and everything that went along with it....keep the posts coming...i love hearing from all of you! I will be attending DragonCon this year, hopefully I will see some of you there!

I was born 12 years after my brother, so until now, I was never really close to him. I remember watching Transformers with him, though. It was the early 1990's, so all I knew was G2. And though I remember very little, I do look back on those memories fondly, just like I remember curling up next to my dad at night, with the air conditioning at full blast, and watching The Next Generation, Deep Space 9 and Voyager.

 

When I was 5 or so, my brother left for college and I began getting very sick. Horrible migraines every other day, crippling hearing loss, and more doctor visits than any kid should have to go through. As a result, I was the "weird" kid that no one wanted to be friends with. Beast Wars was in full effect at the time, and I remember, almost religiously, getting up early to watch it, which makes me a little mad, that so many people are complaining about 8:00 being an early time slot for Animated. On Saturdays, when I was little, on network TV, 6:00 was early, 7:00 was when kids should wake up for cartoons, and 8:00 was about halfway through the cartoons for the day. HALFWAY THROUGH. Not early, HALFWAY THROUGH.

 

Through the years my family has taken numerous visits to Europe, and my parents would always buy me three Transformers to tide me over. One for the trip there, one for the midway point in the vacation, and one for the trip back. I remember I got Scavenger, one of my favorite Beast Wars' toys of all time, on a trip to Italy. I lost most of his legs at Circus Maximus. I still have him today, and I have enough of his legs, surprisingly, to make him look like a respectable ant. I've also lopped off his wheels, as they're the only shitty things about him.

Interestingly enough, my favourite memories of Transformers when I was younger was the movie. Now, I was born in 1988, so it was in the tail end of G1 being on TV. So I didn't get to see many episodes, the one with Nightbird, um, and that's the only one I can really remember.

 

But I remember having some toys (Prime, Bombshell, Sludge, Hot Rod and Inferno are ones that stand out the most, not sure why) and my friend across the road too, but it was really the movie, a VHS that he had that's always stuck in my mind. And to this day, I love watching it and just remembering the first few times and it's something I think I'll carry with my for a long time....."Now....light our darkest hour......"

 

 

There was a period where I kind of stopped being interested in Transformers, this was mainly due I got right into miniature wargaming (I'm still right into it), but eventually I got into toy collecting (mainly Spawn and some computer game stuff like Street Fighter) and through that Transformers, about when Alternators and Binaltechs hit the shelves. It's only been in the last few months actually that Transformers has cemented itself back into my life and I just see my childhood and my current life as being well, Transformers. It's what I love to watch, to buy and collect, to repaint, the talk about, to rumour about, hell to sing about to! (well, singing the theme tune from time to time).

 

 

I really wish I can imagine a time when I would've seen some toy car and then been blown away when I found out it turned out to a freakin' robot! But sadly.....I don't.

My own fond memories have been erased and replaced by these other wonderful yet long stories. What was this again? Animorphs?

My favorite Transformer memory involves my older cousin's G1 Soundwave. While he was old enough to experience Generation One first-hand, I was born in the summer of '84, meaning this memory comes into play when I was around 4 or 5.

 

All I can recall is sitting on the porch steps of my aunt's house--concrete steps, mind you--and repeatedly slamming Soundwave onto the cement, impressed by how he didn't shatter like my Ninja Turtles and G.I. Joes. Being a second-hand Transformer he was missing his weapons, cassettes and his tape deck window was gone, but he was still the toy I played with the most. The fact that he transformed was icing on the cake.

 

I also have fond memories of throwing my cousin's Jetfire up into the air, only to have him crash land in the mud. Then I pinched my finger in his landing gear and left him out in the rain.

My favorite Transformer memory involves my older cousin's G1 Soundwave. While he was old enough to experience Generation One first-hand, I was born in the summer of '84, meaning this memory comes into play when I was around 4 or 5.

 

All I can recall is sitting on the porch steps of my aunt's house--concrete steps, mind you--and repeatedly slamming Soundwave onto the cement, impressed by how he didn't shatter like my Ninja Turtles and G.I. Joes. Being a second-hand Transformer he was missing his weapons, cassettes and his tape deck window was gone, but he was still the toy I played with the most. The fact that he transformed was icing on the cake.

 

I also have fond memories of throwing my cousin's Jetfire up into the air, only to have him crash land in the mud. Then I pinched my finger in his landing gear and left him out in the rain.

 

You've made me die a little bit, on the inside.