You will know you are awesome when 25+ years later they’re still making knock-offs of you

Was he an advanced engineerper or just a crazy cybertronian invehter?

If imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, then knock-offs of 25 year old+ toys must be the ultimate compliment. The fact that anyone actually gave enough of a damn to still make something that hasn’t been in a toy store since the 1980s, not even as an official reissue, is pretty awesome when you think about it. I say this because the other day when I was in Toys R’ Us looking at all the new Transformers on the pegs, I thought to myself, “I wonder if in another 25 years there will be knock-offs of any of these on the internet?”  Like the G1 Mirage and Wheeljack I just bought from a personal favorite gray market toy supplier.

When you really think about it, knock-offs are even more committed to creating a facsimile than some reissues. The knock off G1 Mirage, for example, to the untrained eye one would possibly think that this was indeed the real thing from 1984. And, no, I’m not even going to get into the shyster types who takes these things and stick them on eBay demanding vintage-collectible prices, either. Just that there is an obvious collector demand for the original toy, which has never officially been reissued due to the mold being lost.

I guess what I’m getting at is in the day and age of better articulated toys, with possibly even more popularity than ever before, will anyone still be willing to buy these as facsimiles of their original forms, even as knock-offs?

I’m not sure if anyone would know the answer right now. In 25 more years will toy robot enthusiasm die off again?

Buying new toy robots may not ever bring back 1984, but that’s OK when 2010 can also be awesome

Where have all the old toy stock rooms gone???

For quite some time I’ve been very aware that the nostalgia I always blamed for my ungodly toy robot accumulation had been futile. Futile in the sense that it really didn’t matter how many Optimus Primes or Soundwaves I ever bought, 1984 wasn’t ever coming back, and my local Lionel Play World from the ‘80s is now a Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

But, you see, yesterday changed my feelings when I went into a Toys R’ Us not too far from me and was actually greeted with swelling racks of toys rather than baby clothes and video games. Pegs and shelves filled to the friggin’ brim with plastic love. And I even bought a new Optimus Prime and Bumblebee at damn near 1980s prices thanks to the rare Toys R’ Us sale. It might sound absolutely beyond retarded to the non-robocentric folks that may have accidentally found my blog, but for me it was a glimpse of bliss.

I hadn’t enjoyed a toy store on that level in quite some time. If I wasn’t so skint and I actually owned a cell-phone with a camera, I should’ve have taken pictures of the scene. But this little episode got me thinking—where the hell are the pictures of old toy stores from the 80s? Plaid Stallions seems to have the corner on the market for awesome old toy store pics, but they are definitely of the 70s variety. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but what I wouldn’t give for just a tiny glimpse of an awesome toy display or shelf from a Lionel Play World in 1985.

So I really think that cool toy display pics are what I must seek. I’ve got to get cracking on asking the interwebz peoples out there: “PEOPLES, GIVE ME SOME OLD TOY STORE PICS FROM THE GOLDEN AGE OF AWESOME!!!”

Perhaps that should be my focus. Danny Choo has OTACOOL. Perhaps I should start something similar, only instead of people with ungodly amounts of anime goods and moe hookers with swords, it will be people with their toy robots collections. But most of all, pictures of an aisle of Zayre right before the fall of the great toy robot wars of the 1980s and pictures of people with their toy robot sickness on full display.

Damn, I’ve got to get cracking, and perhaps with a blog name change to boot.

Stay tuned…

P.S.: Whoever found my blog by searching for “werewolves fighting tigers”, I believe you and I could be great friends someday.

Back–again. Yeah…I know……and, oh yeah–BOTCON 2010!

I didn’t give this up.
I didn’t get a better job.
i didn’t get a life.
I didn’t get married.
I didn’t get any smarter.
I didn’t find a healthier outlet.
I didn’t join a cult, unless that cult involves grown men that collect toy robots and play video games whenever they can.
Most of all, I still feel like writing something here at least every 6 months.

So the Bobby Fisher of toy robots blogging has come out of seclusion for, exactly why, you may not be (probably aren’t) asking?

To write a friggin’ BotCon re-cap of course!

Hey Bot kiddies--remember these??

BotCon 2010: The Invasion

The whole thing began as anyone who’s been to a BotCon can attest–a long-ass line that stretched into the Epcot parking lot on Thursday night to pick-up my “package”. For a long time I’d felt stupidly alone in this toy robot accumulation thing, but this line eased my fear of being in my 30′s and being far more worried about scoring a Japanese Animated Blackout in the dealer room than how BP was going to clean up all that oil that’s laying waste to a delicate aquatic ecosystem.

I was actually one of the first 1000+ people, I guess, to register for this thing, as my pick-up line was actually in the first group at 6pm. Once I got in, it was smooth sailing, got my crap, got out, went to my hotel to watch a guy on the Discovery Channel catch killer river fish and fell asleep. I would need my rest for day 2.

BotCon 2010 Invasion +2

As I arrived for my first group of panels, I promptly met, you guessed it–ANOTHER LINE.
I got in and got to listen to the TFCC guys talk about their comics, a Takara legend in Yoke Hideaki speak about how designing great toy robots in the late 70′s was about making fun toys with no characters/characterization, and then got to hear Bob Budiansky honestly speak of his enormous contribution to the Transformers mythos.

His honesty was so refreshing to me. Writing Transformer bios and the comics was simply a job he performed well and by 1989, much like myself, he left it there to move onto other things. Yet, here we both were, 25+ years later, involved in toy robots again. Simply awesome.

More awesome, however, was finally getting to meet a legend in interwebz toy robot historian circles, none other than my main man, Evil King Macrocranios! Bonus–fairplaythings-Colin! It was so fantastic to meet people I’d spoken to on the interwebz over the last few years and finally get to meet them.

Your Agent of Doom on the left, Evil King Macrocranios, and Fairplaythings at BotCon!

This BotCon was already going great but that just made it go up a notch. To be honest, there had actually been a part of me that considered not going a couple months ago–even with it being held less than 2 hours from me. I would’ve have been an even bigger idiot than usual to have passed this up. The time I spent with those two made my weekend, really. Awesome toy robots but even cooler people.
I really hope to see the Evil King again soon at Star Wars Celebration in August! And congrats, Colin on an award well deserved for the diorama!

And to sum up the dealer room on Friday, it had everything I pretty much ever wanted in transforming toy robots, outside of a MIB G1 Star Saber for $20 and an aphrodisiac bot for obvious reasons.

Holy crap, I gotta have him.

Obligatory con haul pic.

I ended up spending most of my cash but walked out with great deals, met some of my TFW2005 peoples, and even watched one of them play the horrendously awesome Japanese Transformer game on the PlayStation 2. Love the little kicks.

Otherwise, as per usual, I’ll let some of my pictures tell the tale.
BotCon 2010 came and went, and when all was said and done, I really left wondering just what the hell I had been doing for the past 4 days or 6 months, even.

For more of my BotCon visit, see my flickr: BotCon 2010.

And on that note, I shall continue in my studies of the Robobnomicon, and that BotCon Rapido es muy fantastico, Crazy Steve.