I actually have a different story.

I wrote here about how I came into Transformers. I'm not as old as most of you, but I feel like I grew up with G1.

Back in my day was a couple of years ago.  

 

For me back in the day was 1996 with the Beast Era. Now those were the days. No annoying humans stealing the focus, no R2D2 wannabe bots, no perfect leader, no goofy seek and find missions. I miss those days.

I still recall seeing the first episode of Beast Wars one morning before school. It was so epic to see that first transformation fight between Cheetor and Waspinator. Then as the series went on I just become more in love with it. I never would had known about G1 without Beast Wars. Before RID came around, I just known Optimus Prime as that bot Megatron blasted in the Ark. I even tried watching it, but its not even in the same league to me as Beast Wars is.

Then after the Beast Era ended, for me it was hello dark ages. At first it was cool to see Prime and the bots and Scourge and the cons in RID. But series after series after series, it just got old. Animated was pretty much my highlight since RID. If it did not remind me of Beast Wars, I'd probably would had been done. Now Prime has join the Beast Wars and Animated club for me. Between Vehicons returning, the only Arcee that I like, and a more Beast Machines like dark tone, its enough to keep me wanting more Transformers.

I just only hope in ten years things can be a bit different. Be nice if Hasbro started treating all of its older fans the same. No reason why there can't be a MP BW Dinobot, MP BM Jetstorm, MP RID Scourge, or even MP Hot Shot. That line is for collectors after all.

 

Well, I do remember sitting on the couch watching Fox Kids when I was about 7. Then, seeing a transforming named Optimus Prime and thought "This is awesome!" I'm so glad I got into this franchise. It has been a big part of why my childhood has been great

 

Considering the fact that I'm nearly 23 years older than you, yeah, you might say that.....lol.....just messin' with ya, bro.  

 

I'm an old timer. I was front and center and old enough to be mostly sentient when 1984 rolled around. I was a poor kid, though, so I had to cut my teeth on GoBots for a while until my Mom could afford some actual Transformers to give us for Christmas. Then my younger brother, who was always into mischief, found the stash of presents a few weeks before Christmas. My Mom wasn't too happy, but went ahead and gave us our TFs ahead of time (Mirage for me, Wheeljack for him). I still have this almost unrecognizable Mirage to this day (all 5 pieces of him) for posterity.

One of my fonder memories was pretending my GoBot Road Ranger was Optimus Prime until I would get the real one for Christmas in ,85. I also have memories of our local stores putting Megatron behind glass for some reason, which just enticed us into wanting him more (of course). Then there was trying to actually watch the cartoon, which for some reason was constantly and continually being broadcast at different times literally from week to week. I remember trying to refer to the newspaper TV guide to catch it and the guide being incorrect most of the time too. To this day, I'm still not entirely sure what the deal was with that. As such, it was years before I'd be able to see the entirety of the first and second seasons of the show. I still recall the bitter disappointment I felt anytime I'd tune in expecting to see TFs and something else would come on (and it was never as cool to me).

There are things I miss about the "dark days" in the hiatus between G1 and G2, like walking into a comic store desperately trying to get rid of all the pesky TFs taking up too much space and being able to buy Trypticon and Scorponok for $5 each and metal Springer for $2. The TF social network was limited to pen pals and club memberships for me back then. Getting fan-made newsletters and personal letters was always the height of my day. To this day, I still store all my old issues of Auto-Update and Overlord with all my TF comics, and still remain friends with a couple of folks from back then too.