New Bots On The Block - 3rd Party Rundown part 5

When I started this series of posts a few months ago, there were already quite a lot of 3rd party companies out there competing for your hard earned buck. While I covered a whole lot of companies in the previous posts, there were a lot more that I didn’t write about basically because at the time of writing I didn’t own any of their products or simply well...they didn’t exist yet.

We’re Not Done Yet! - 3rd Party Rundown part 4

The Transformers 3rd party scene is alive and well. It seems like every day there is some new toy company crawling out of the woodworks with some new plastic version of your favorite Transformers character. Case in point, when I set off to write a post on my own firsthand experience with a number of 3rd party companies and their products, it ballooned into a 3 part piece. And now, here I am just a few months later with a whole lot more to write about, so here we go with part 4.

Not a Case of Some Perverted Roleplay

A successful & healthy marriage is all about sacrifice, putting your partner’s needs ahead of your own. Since getting married 3 years ago, my wife and I had to learn how to live with each other regardless of our differences. One thing that we had in common though was our mutual love for toys. Sure my toys were more on the robot-y violent side and hers were more...cute? But one toy thing we did have in common was that we both liked Care Bears. Yes I like Care Bears. Unfortunately, it was this mutual love of those colorful bears that led to a major disagreement in our marriage. One that I would not back down on….you see, when it came to Care Bears...I AM GOOD LUCK BEAR.

Z Are Family

In 1984, Hasbro started getting a little more creative with their Cobra characters. Aside from adding more unique soldiers such as an anti-armor specialist and a saboteur, they even went further by including a ninja and possibly….a mutant?

Go-Busts

As a kid, my dad would go on a lot of business trips out of the country. I would always look forward to his trips not because he would be gone, but because when he came back it usually meant new toys for me. After one particular trip to Japan, he brought home a bunch of little robots I had never seen before. While i’d had my fair share of robots up to that point, these ones were quite different as they each transformed into some kind of vehicle, one turned into a helicopter, another a van and still another, a spaceship. Another peculiar thing about them was their names, they each had a unique number designation, but they all went by the name “mister”.

Buzz Words

I think it would be safe to conclude that one of the main reasons the original Masters of the Universe franchise was so successful is the diversity of characters introduced into the line. And the “formula” for creating all these interestingly unique characters was pretty simple, either give said character an exaggerated physical feature, like an oversized fist or a retractable neck….or make some sort of human animal hybrid. The end result of the 2nd formula gave us a mix of really visually interesting beast-men, snake-man, bird-men and of course insect-men.

Take A Walk On The Broadside

Almost every successful toy line owes their continued success to the various “gimmicks” they introduce through the years. For the Transformers, it was easier than most to expand from the central concept of robots transforming into an alternate mode. And one of the first “gimmicks” they introduced has remained one of the most popular ones to many fans and collectors. Simply put, what would be better that a robot that could transform into one mode? Why not a robot that could transform into TWO! And with that, the “triple changer” concept was born.