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A Decade Ago part 2


robo_rob

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Since the thread I made last year at this time was so much fun, I thought I'd do a follow up. It's the end of the year and next week will be the beginning of 2011. What were you doing in 2001? What was Transfandom like for you?

 

Me, well I was no longer in college and living with my friend Thomas. He was something of an anime/gaming dork so our collective geeky interests made for one dorky living situation. We both had jobs and usually would spend quite a bit of time playing video games together or watching tv. He was game for any B grade horror flick I would pop in and I usually was game for whatever he wanted to watch. Which was usually whatever was on. He had a part time job at an comic/gaming/anime store where he had a barter agreement worked out. He'd work a few hours a week for free rentals of anime. This pretty much lead to the gang of regulars at the shop to spend a lot of time at our place. Combine a Kroger and Little Ceasers Pizza across the street and you had a regular group of dorks drinking beer and eating pizza every night. We'd all either watch wrestling, whatever video we had handy while playing some board game or generally chatting about whatever. It was good times.

 

I'd spend most of the night in my bedroom on my old HP desktop with a dial up connection(never quite made it to 56k) talking on various TF forums/newsgroups/chats and reading the usual sites at the time. Of course listening and contributing to RFC whenever I could. Cold Hard Slag was a somewhat popular site at the time and I kept a regular blog there for a time. I was still finding BW and Animorph toys regularly on clearance, while buying BM and the occasional GI JOE toy. I remember the release of Tripredacus Agent and Battle Unicorn being a high point for me at the time. Mostly because I found them a lot easier than I thought I would. At some point I had begun buying the SFC pvc figures from the local anime/gaming/comic shop Thomas worked at (after the owner realized I would buy them if he ordered them). The shop owner started getting copies of Car Robots subbed, which Thomas would check out and we'd make a copy of (I miss VCRs). Those copied tapes would begun a lifetime of regular play in the living room in tandem with whatever TF vhs tapes I had (TFTM, random G1 eps, BW and BM taped from Fox kids and local syndication). Of course we went through a few, so luckily we had the tapes so easy to acquire to make a new copy. Any other TF media came directly from the internet on a real media file with the size of a Gameboy screen, or from Iacon Hub.

 

Speaking of Gameboy, Gameboy Advance was released just in time for my trip to BotCon. That year, BotCon was in Durham NC, the closest it had ever been for me. The trip which shouldn't have taken more than 6 hours, managed to take 12 thanks to random road work and wrecks. Clearly the con was doomed from the start. Rhino video had shot some con footage for the upcoming G1 box sets, which later I found out featured me in the background (of course it wasn't until 2002 that I saw this). Actually it was a good con and on my arrival back home, Thomas and I played with my con haul in our living room. By that time RID had finally started showing up in my stores and I quickly gobbled them up. Not to mention those Fun 4 All key chains of Bumblebee and Cliffjumper started showing up. I think I ended up with a billion of each.

 

I loved the beast era, but at that point I was ready for a return to vehicles and RID didn't disappoint. I made a regular ritual to spend entire nights traveling Walmarts in order to complete entire waves of the toys. My friend Troy would go along and buy Bionicles. We always ran into the same group of Gundam collectors, which turned out to be fun. We'd look out for what each group was looking for and report if we ran into each other again. These were mostly fun nights filled with mix cds, laughs, stinky farts (when your up all night, the available food does horrors to your stomach) and stinky people (ever run into a Hot Wheels collector at 4 in the morning?). The most memorable late night trip was one where I was all alone and decided to do a few Walmarts and Walgreens out of boredom. RID wave 2 deluxes were popping up on sites, so I was hoping to find them (wave 2's in TF always seem to be hard to get). I remember driving and every song on the radio seemed to have a air of lingering peace. Like this was the last night in the world.

 

It was September 10th 2001.

 

So I found all the deluxes at a nearby Walmart (only my second of the night) and went home. I had the following day off, so I watched some of RID that I had taped off tv (the first episode was that prior weekend, and featured Megatron flying through a building) before crashing at an unholy hour. About 11 am, I was woken by a call from my mother. Apparently something big was happening, so I turned on the tv.

 

Holy crap.

 

The fandom reacted as any group of people would. Shock, worry over friends in NY, cursing out trolls who made light of the situation. Several fans made t-shirts that proceeds would go to the red cross. The one I bought was a long sleeved shirt with the rescue vehicle Autobots (drawn by the artist behind Super Deformers) featuring the tag line 'We're here to help' and info on the back about where all proceeds went to. I still have it somewhere in storage, probably should frame it for memories sake.

 

RID wasn't on for a while (news coverage on local Fox Kids affiliate) and the world was kinda on pause for a bit. After things cooled down, RID was back on tv and I managed to get Ruination as well as a bootleg which I dubbed Urination. Actually, I got every wave of RID the moment it showed up. I had decent disposable income and RID was sized just right to buy all of. All while still finding beast stuff at local stores for mega clearance. Think I ended up with about 4 Tripredacus Agents. I also ended up scoring lots of Japanese Beast Wars stuff from a comic shop nearby that sold toys. Apparently the stuff just wouldn't move, so I was given a great price. The internet fandom ended out the year with discussion about RID and this new series called Armada. Major rumor at the time had it that Armada was to be the end all of awesome. Beast guys and G1 guys and Unicron and all sorts of stuff (which in the end, was kinda right in an ironic sense). There was much discussion about Armada and how awesome it was going to be. Then Toyfare came with first looks at the toys and there was an eruption of pure anger. Non of the rumors were true and for the first time, the fandom was mad about Pokemon.

 

I thought the stuff looked awesome.

 

The year ended out with getting my first DVD player for Christmas (still have it and yes it's huge) as well as TFTM and The Ultimate Doom on DVD. My apartment hosted a New Years Eve party full of dorks. As you can guess lots of beer was drunk while watching my new TF dvds and both Bill and Ted movies. For some reason my newly completed Rail Racer and my old Powermaster Optimus Prime were centerpieces. I recall one guests girlfriend being amazed Rail Racers light up gun 'still worked'. I informed her it should, seeing as I just got it at Walmart.

 

2002 would lead to a multiple of new developments, which of course will be discussed next year : )

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In January of 2001, I said it would be neat if Hasbro would release their own version of Transformers Car Robot for their markets. Hasbro said that they had no intention of doing this and were working on a new Transformers series for the new millenium. How exciting? Then in February's FAO Schwarz Toy Fair, Hasbro unveiled their 'awesome new Transformers line' for 2001 - DUN DUN DUN!! - Robots In Disguise! :o

 

WTF?! Don't get me wrong, I thought it was a great idea (I was only still suggesting it a month beforehand!), but after having been told that they weren't going to do it, then to see this... buh?! And of course, there were NO actual toys ready for display, just empty boxes and a few cardboard cut outs of Car Robot toys. Gee... that so doesn't look like a rush job </sarcasm> Anyway it was good news for me cos I was still a student, and in 2000 the Australian Dollar took a massive nosedive, at one point reaching as low as 45US cents, which made Japanese Car Robot toys more expensive, so I only got a few of them. RiD meant I could pick up on Car Robot figures that I'd missed the previous year. And for the most part, they were pretty good. Wasn't a fan of the visible faction logos on the alt modes (kinda goes _against_ them being robots in disguise, one thing I like about Car Robot is that they show no faction logos in alt mode, but visibly display them in robot mode). But most disappointing was the inferior quality of some plastics (welcome to the world of cheap Hasbro grey plastic) and of course, the notoriously frail rubber tyres that were prone to cracking. And more frustrating for Australian collectors is that we didn't get Sky Byte, Gaskunk, Slapper, Scourge or the bullet trains (baw!!). I'd already seen all of Car Robot the year before, and I watched a little bit of the RiD dubbing and just couldn't stand it. On top of the awful dubs, the episodes had footage CUT. Just as well I already had Car Robot on VHS, so I stuck to that. :) Couldn't believe there was a voice actor called Wankus. Still can't believe it. :P

 

Due to poor sales of Beast Machines toys here, Australian retailers must have stopped reordering more stock -- at any rate, Hasbro Australia stopped releasing any more BM toys, which means that we missed out on Battle For The Spark -- which of course were the best figures of the Beast Machines line! Thanks to Ben Yee I managed to get the ones I wanted though. :)

 

I attended a lot of fan meets. At this time I was still quite active on Japanese TF forums, and I started speaking over the telephone to this one user I'd befriended who was living in Tokyo; this started in 2000 and he'd decided to come to live in Sydney on a 1 year "waahori" (working holiday) in 2001 - so I offered him to stay with me while he looked for accomodation of his own, and I went to meet him at the airport. We'd never met IRL before and had seen photos of each other, but just to be sure I stood at the international arrival terminal holding a G1 Rodimus Prime in my hand (which was a gift for him) :) It was funny - when he first saw my collection, the toys that interested him the most were figures that most Aussie fans wouldn't care about, like Quake, Scoop, Spinister, Bludgeon, Doubleheader, Windsweeper etc. -- toys that never came out in Japan! I took him to another collector's house who has a bigger collection than mine, and he just completely IGNORED toys like Lio Kaiser, Landcross -- Japanese exclusive toys that make Western fans drool -- and went straight to drooling over toys like Needlenose, Ruckus, Override etc. - again, toys that Takara never released, so were really foreign and exotic from his point of view! The other Australian collecor and I laughed and found that rather amusing. :) We had quite a few fan meets in Sydney that year, and we all went and attended a meet in Melbourne which had fans from Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and of course, our friend from Japan. :D

 

That was my final year of university - finishing my graduate diploma. I qualified to do an Honours Degree but it would require an additional year at university. It was very tempting, but ultimatly I got into a targetted graduates programme and was offered work for the next year, and decided to start working the next year -- but that's a story to be told another time! :D

 

PS: This thread's a neat idea :)

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Couldn't believe there was a voice actor called Wankus. Still can't believe it. :P
I remember the jokes about his name, then meeting him at BotCon and learning he was a super nice guy and feeling bad about joking about his name. Then we learned he also worked in adult films and the laughing came back. Apparently now he's a born again Christian. The adventures of a man named Wankus!

 

PS: This thread's a neat idea :)

Thanks, had fun with it last year and thought it would be good again :)

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Ten years ago I was single living with a roommate in San Antonio Texas and trying my best to finish college before my attention span ran out. I swore up and down that i would not end up working for the Family Insurance Business, and had no intention of settling down. As of today I am back in Houston working for the family business, own a home, graduated from college and have been married now for 26 days.

 

As for Transformers I was just getting back into the world for transformers with Beast wars and was attempting to track down a BWN Ravage. Since then I have tracked down and completed a Victory Star Saber Set, European Overlord sold it then bought another one and owned three different versions of Unicron. Now my collection rests silently in a closet in my home office and has come to include members of Patlabor, dancougar, Tobikage, Roboteck, Macross, and Webdiver/Daigunder.

 

Like with the end of beast wars and the move to Armada I feel like something has changed in the transformers universe and will never be the same. Oh yeah Transformers Prime. Welcome back CGI transformers on TV.

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robo_rob: I just can't believe that a children's cartoon would openly air a screen name like "Wankus" in the ending credits. You'd think they'd ask him to change his screen name for the sake of a children's cartoon. Imagine this:

<child reading names out loud>: "Wankus."

Parent: "HOW DARE YOU SAY SUCH FILTH!" *SLAPPP!*

 

:P ;)

 

Damnit Dog: You've owned TWO Hasbro Overlords?? That toy was released in Australia but it was F*** RARE. I've never seen it in IRL _ever_, let alone owned one. It would ironically be cheaper and easier for me to track down a Takara Overlord! :o

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Oh wow that sure was a long time ago huh!

 

I'll try to think... I got my first *good* job then. I had jobs before that but this one was better. Also remember RID but I didn't watch a whole lot of it. It wasn't so bad but I had already seen most of Car Robot the previous year online from TFD (or TFW2005)... one of those. I ended up getting almost all of the toys except for JRX. One memory is me stopping out to a store before work and buying all the Build Hurricane and Valdigus toys... Sorry about the names, I forget the US names! Build King and Ruination? Interesting opening all those toys at work.

 

Earlier in that year, I was invited to be on the TF panel at Anime North. They screwed up my paperwork and I didn't get the correct ID badge, and only 1 of the 4 other panelists bothered to show up. I don't remember who the other guy was. Only real memory of the panel is telling this one dude there was no Diaclone cartoon. Also spent the most ever on a TF, that being $275 for SE16 Black Megatron... then lie to customs agent about not having any contraband... Megatron was (and probably still is) illegal to import to the US. Originally, BBTS had pre-orders up for the regular one and the black version, but they had to take them down because their supplier wouldn't ship to them.

 

I also bought my first new car... I remember Slayer's God Hates Us All album came out.

 

I don't remember to much more than that. Wait no... 2001 was also the first year I used the name "Tripredacus" online. This came after getting my domain name and joining the "new Allspark" forum... Was that also the year of the EzBoard fallout???

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I ended up getting almost all of the toys except for JRX. One memory is me stopping out to a store before work and buying all the Build Hurricane and Valdigus toys... Sorry about the names, I forget the US names! Build King and Ruination? Interesting opening all those toys at work.

The Hasbro version of Build King is called Landfill and Build Hurricane is called... (sigh) ... Grimlock. I wish I didn't know that. (-_-) You're right about Valdigus being called Ruination in Hasbro markets, although Ruination's colours are considerably different from Valdigus'... for some stupid reason, Armourhide (Dangar) is blue and the gestalt parts are grey instead of gold (making the toys look a whole lot less like the cartoon). I hope you have JRX now, cos that is one sweet gestalt set. :)

 

Also spent the most ever on a TF, that being $275 for SE16 Black Megatron...

You paid HOW MUCH?! (O_o) Dude... I paid like AU$80 (which would've been like less than US$40) in 2001 and the same price again for my eHobby Megaplex in 2002! :o You got ripped man.

 

then lie to customs agent about not having any contraband... Megatron was (and probably still is) illegal to import to the US.

Ummmmmm-mmmmmaaaaaaaa!! Norti norti! :P So... in America it's illegal to import toy guns that are inoperable weapons and can never be modified to become an operable weapon... but you have the constitutional right to bear REAL firearms? Yeah okay' date=' that makes sense. :wat So are the laws concerning gun Transformers consistent across all parts of the US? Cos in Australia it varies between states and territories. For example in WA it's completely unrestricted, in SA it's illegal to import them but if you already own them then it's unrestricted, in VIC they're just outright illegal, in NSW (where I live) they're a prohibited item which means we can own them if we have a permit and keep the gunformers in safe/secured storage -- I won't bore you buy going through every state/territory, but you get the idea.

 

This is what my permit looks like:

[img']http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y227/goktimusprime/Transformers/megatronpermit.jpg[/img]megatronpermitt.jpg

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