1995 Hasbro Toyfair Catalogue scans - with unproduced G2 toys.

Discussion in 'Transformers News and Rumors' started by BB Shockwave, Sep 2, 2013.

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  1. BB Shockwave

    BB Shockwave Behold, Gagatron!

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    Thanks to Steevy Maximus and this thread - and extra thanks for my good friend Chris for his help in buying it (as the seller would only ship to the USA) - I got the 1995 Toyfair Catalogue. :) 

    It was a gift for my old friend Megatron, but of course, I also scanned it before gift-wrapping it, so I can share it with you. ;) 

    Naturally, the most interesting part of it (to us) are the Transformers pages - here they are. These are just normal sized pics, you can find the link to the whole Hi-Res catalogue scan below.

    HD scans


    [​IMG]

    Not much new here, except maybe for the odd spelling of the names - "Iron Hide", "Side Swipe", even "Sound Wave". I don't know if the final Go-bots had their names written like that too.
    And apparently Hasbro thought "High-speed racing axles" are the bee's knees and kids will love these. :D 

    [​IMG]

    Here is where things get interesting! Firstly we have the Laser Cycles - "Sound Wave" would have featured a LOT of chrome, apparently. Jazz is oddly green in places.
    Then we have one of the most odd Optimus Prime repurposes ever - "General Optimus Prime", a green-gray military camo repaint of G2 Dirtbag - complete with US Army star markings. It's odd, but the way Dirtbag's head is painted, with the large "jaw" and these colors, he now reminds me of Animated Bulkhead. "Sergeant Hound" would have been a white-grey repaint of Road Block, not sure how many earth movers the army uses...

    [​IMG]

    And here we have the biggest "never released" bunch... A.T.B. Megatron and Starscream, an idea I always found hilarious - I doubt any of them would be fond of combining with each other. I loved the colors, though, and we can be glad BWII re-used the same (or very similar) color scheme for Starscrem and BB. One noteable thing - note how it says "Manufactured under licensce from Takara Co. Ltd." Hmm, so this means Takara not only designed Dreadwing/Smokescreen, they also held onto the licensce?

    Next we have the alternate color schemes for Hero Optimus Prime and Megatron... Man, I love these. The tiger-stripe deco on Megs is awesome, and Prime looks almost Diaclone in color, though he also reminds me of Micromaster Overload there. Too bad these never got released.

    Here is the Mega link to the whole catalogue, scanned: HD scans


    The toylines featured are:

    - Batman TAS -mostly the various "hilarious unnecessary gimmick Batman/Robin" toys, but there are also neat vehicles too - and a talking 30 inch (!!!) plushie Batman. :D 

    - Legends of Batman, aka Kenner thought about the idea of Batman travelling through time long before the idiotic DC storyline.

    - Waterworld!!! Yes, there would have been toys. Or maybe they were released, though I never saw any, myself. Surely, kids came out of the cinema asking their parents to get them an "authentic pissing-action Mariner!" :D  So many Mariners... This could have been called "Kevin Costner, the toyline".

    - Gargoyles - as much as I loved the series, I never was fond of the toys, though I did collect all the non-gimmick toys of characters. I wonder why they did not make Xanatos' armor red-and-grey, like in the toon. And yeah... no toy of Angela, nor the Pack, or the many other allies and enemies. The castle looks awesome, though - I have never seen that one before.

    - Saban's VR Troopers - another Power Ranger -wannabe? I frankly, barely remember seeing these. LOTS of toys were made, though. Poor Kaitlin Star -she has to be the most un-feminine looking female action figure from this era. I could have easily confused her for a guy. The dual-spiltting vehicle looks like it was a leftover from M.A.S.K. - and Grimlord oddly resembles pretender Starscream from the waist up! :) 

    -Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.... PLUSHIES! Yeah, these... existed. Odd toy choice for the show marketed to boys. Lord Zedd is adorable, though.

    - Alien vs. Predator. 'Cause what else screams "FOR KIDS!" then two of the (at the time) scariest space horror movies? :D  Maaany, the nineties were wild. Anyway, apparently these were made for a saturday morning cartoon (think that through... Aliens and Predators... in a saturday morning toon) .... which was never made past the intro. There are some hilarious toys here, from the many alien varieties (snake, dog, bat, scorpion, weird long spike-headed thing) to the hilariously dressed and armored Predators - my favourite one is the red armored guy with his tentacled moustache that ends in small robotic hands. :D 

    -Congo! Another movie that... did that really need a toyline? Especially with terribly inaccurate looking apes that lacked poseability. But hey, at least we got a 22 inch poseable Amy that you can practice sign language with.

    -Mortal Kombat -the Movie: The regular toys aren't too great, but the 12 inch ones ain't look bad. No Kitana, though... And oddly, Smoke gets a regular release but Reptile (who actually was in the movie) only comes with a boat... which looks suspiciously like a Cobra boat from GI Joe.

    - Star Wars - guess SW never truly goes away, even if this roster is nothing compared to the amount of toys these days. Still, some rather nice vehicles here.

    - Street Fighter - the Movie: LOL, I did not remember these two movies came out at the same time - odd how Hasbro made the toys for both. There is a whole Colonel Guile assortment - I wonder if there are fanatic collectors trying to complete all six plus the giant one. Thankfully, the other toys actually look like the characters from the games, rather then GI Joe variants. Though they do come with Joe vehicles, like a repainted Snowcat.

    - The Mask - now the kids can freak their parents out with some of the freakiest toys I have seen. :)  The talking figure is... seriously creepy.

    -G.I. Joe - Seargant Savage with a VHS tape, plus his whole squad and enemies. Must say, I did not recall this period of the Joes... who was he and General Blitz?

    -Action Masters! - Heh, the trademark got re-used after 1990. Hasbro essentially did Attacktix back then, too - from various toylines. SW, Batman, Aliens, Predators, Terminator, Superman - small die-cast minis that could be attached to each other for "battle scenes".

    -Starting Lineup - the same as above, but with baseball, hockey, basketball and american football (hand-egg? ;)  ) players.

    -XRC - "X-Hilerating, X-plosive, X-tra-ordinary" - oooh, Linkara would love this. Basically, flip-over remote-controlled cars.

    -NERF - pages upon pages of NERF guns, crossbows, machine guns and other pacified killing instruments. I guess NERF was big in America? Here, it never took roots - could not compete with the life-accurate pellet-shooting or spark-firing toy guns we had as kids. :D 

    -Preschool, including construction vehicled and copters from Tonka, nuff said.

    -And lastly - this was a separate leaflet inside, Batman Forever! Probably a late addition to the catalogue. It has some neat toys, some silly toys, and some amazing toys - I'd have killed for that Batcave, for example. :D 
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2019
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  2. Sir Spamsalot

    Sir Spamsalot Well-Known Member

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    some of these looked really really good too :( 
     
  3. TacticalBacon

    TacticalBacon UT Gang Rise Up

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    I wish these were released. Too bad they weren't.:( . I also noticed Laser Optimus Prime has longer smokestacks compared to his final product.
     
  4. T-Logicon

    T-Logicon assembles the drones

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    Cool pics, thanx for posting them!
     
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  5. Blackout32

    Blackout32 ANTHRAX - PERSISTENCE OF TIME

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    Thanks for posting these cause this is really cool I think.
     
  6. Aernaroth

    Aernaroth <b><font color=blue>I voted for Super_Megatron and Veteran

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    The good news is most of these molds saw some sort of a release, even after repaints and retools, and if only in the Japanese market.
     
  7. Mewtwo

    Mewtwo Transform & Bamboo out

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    Now the "Combat Hero" Optimus in the "Ultimate Gift Set" makes sense... I was wondering where those colors came from...
     
  8. BB Shockwave

    BB Shockwave Behold, Gagatron!

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    Hmm, indeed! I did not notice that!
     
  9. Superquad7

    Superquad7 OCP Police Crime Prevention Unit 001 Super Content Contributor

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    Oh boy, that's awesome. Thanks so much for sharing that here!
     
  10. Nevermore

    Nevermore It's self-perpetuating a parahumanoidarianised!

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    Uhm. That's a totally standard feature on any Transformers toy's packaging that was (co-)designed by Takara. These days it just replaces "Takara" with "Tomy".
     
  11. Anguirus

    Anguirus Well-Known Member

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    Quite funny that just this year Hasbro released a "Combat Hero Optimus" and "ATB Megatron." :D 
     
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  12. EightiesKid

    EightiesKid G1 archivist

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    That is terrific, thanks for sharing man! I love the Toyfair catalogs!
     
  13. BScorpinok75

    BScorpinok75 Squadron X #1 Consultant

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    Would've been cool if these all had been produced. I'd like to see updates to most of these especially the go-bots minus Megs n Prime.
     
  14. JazzIsBack

    JazzIsBack Well-Known Member

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    how many of these actually got released?
     
  15. Nevermore

    Nevermore It's self-perpetuating a parahumanoidarianised!

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    The G2 Go-Bots (Ironhide, Gearhead, Motormouth, Sideswipe, Bumblebee, Double Clutch, Soundwave, Optimus Prime, Megatron, Frenzy, High Beam and Mirage; no idea why the catalog parses most of their names as two words, the packaging spelled all their names except for Double Clutch, High Beam and, obviously, Optimus Prime as one word) all came out.

    The following made it to the sample packaging stage:

    ATB Megatron/Starscream (link 1, link 2)
    Combat Hero Optimus Prime (link 1, link 2, link 3)
    Combat Hero Megatron (link 1, link 2, link 3)
    Laser Cycle Jazz (link 1, link 2, link 3)
    Laser Cycle Soundwave (link 1, link 2, link 3)

    Only General Optimus Prime and Sgt. Hound, we only have these catalog photos of.
     
  16. Sol Fury

    Sol Fury The British Butcher Veteran

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    There was a later recolour of the Xanatos toy to give him the red armour. It was pretty sweet. I'd imagine the first run one could have been based on "Xanatos will don armour like his Steel Clan robots" being the sum total of what Kenner had to work with.

    I did personally enjoy the toys, but yeah, needed a few more baddies like Oberon and The Pack.


    Also, I got that Batman Forever Batcave. Fantastically fun playset. I think it ended up in the loft at my parent's house somewhere, along with a bunch of my other bat vehicles. One of these days when I have the space I'll have to get those dug out. I loved those things.
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2013
  17. Bumblethumper

    Bumblethumper old misery guts

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    secret origins of pickup truck Ironhide and sportscar Bumblebee.
     
  18. blackwidow1972

    blackwidow1972 HELLBRINGER

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    I missed out on those Laser Cycles "Soundwave and Jazz" at the Rochester Botcon many years back they where released to test market that I know guy wanted $75 instead I bought Grandus :'(
     
  19. Kaijumaster

    Kaijumaster 335

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    Oh Gen. Two, what a delightful placeholder you were.
     
  20. leov36

    leov36 Rubber Wheel'd UM

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    Thanks for sharing, some really neat stuff here!
     
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