Generation 1

What a blast from the past! Lmb3.net has obtained a 1986 Transformers The Movie Ziploc Promotion Salesman's Sample Kit. As kids, most of us probably never saw this back in the day. So it's interesting to see just what exactly was in this kit.

The kit itself came in a backpack. These kits came with promo sheets, copies of coupons to be used, a thermos, Powerdasher, iron-ons and amongst other items, sheets containing some revealing information. Just how well was the Transformers brand doing back in the 1980's? Here's the answer to that question:

The third sheet in the packet actually has some really interesting information on it (or at least, interesting to me. It talks about the Transformers brand expecting to make $300 million in 1986. It also states that Transformers made $100 million in 1984, the most for any first year series ever at that time. I’m sure that record has probably been broken, but I’d love to know how that stacks up all time.

It says that there would be $20 million spent on advertising, and an additional $3 million spent promoting the movie. Maybe I’m thinking about it by today’s standards, but $3 million to promote a movie doesn’t seem like a lot, even in 1986.

As we near the 30th anniversary of the Transformers brand, it's quite a revelation to know just how successful it was almost 30 years ago!

The author at lmb3.net was missing the Powerdasher figure and thermos from the kit. However his article has scans of several articles contained within the kit, including the iron-ons, promo sheets, and much more! Head on over to it to get a glimpse into the glory days of Transformers Generation 1!

Riptapparel.com is now featuring a new Generation 1 t-shirt of the Soundwave Cassettes! Sounds of the 80's is currently up for sale with just a little over 12 hours left to purchase.

Check out the new G1 Cassettes Shirt after the jump.

Sad news reaches us this evening via voice actor Jack Angel and Facebook. Unfortunately, Philip L. Clarke has passed away. You may remember Philip as the voices of Generation 1 Dead End, Tantrum, Auggie Cahnay and the Supreme Military Commander, President-for-Life, and King of Kings of the Socialist Democratic Federated Republic of Carbombya, Abdul Fakkadi.

May he rest in peace.

Hisashi Yuki has tweeted some more images of the Encore Fortress Maximus on his Twitter account. These new images show how the eye stickers are now factory applied, as well as the newly altered sticker sheet and foam tray. Encore Fortress Maximus is drawing closer to release - have you preordered yours yet? Or more importantly - have you worked out a suitable display spot for the largest vintage Transformer ever made?

Hisashi Yuki has tweeted out some images of the Encore 23 Fortress Maximus in box. For those unaware of just how massive the box on this toy is, these new images will give you an idea - along with a look at the box itself, which is a faithful reproduction of the Generation 1 Fortress Maximus box as it was on its original Japanese release.

And now for something a bit old-school, thanks to The Spacebridge Facebook page, who has taken the storyboards used in the production of the 1986 Transformers movie and created animated storyboard videos from them, showing off two deleted/rewritten scenes.

Video 1: Devastator falls- "I have included a section of the film either side so you can see where it would have fit in. I believe this scene was animated as it exists in very late production notes & music was written to accompany it. It was cut as Nelson Shin felt it ruined the flow of Primes attack leading up to his battle with Megatron. Ultra Magnus, Tracks, Sideswipe & Red Alert were picked to attack Devastator as they all have rocket launchers. It also explains what Megatron was looking at when Prime found him."

Video 2: Ultra Magnus's original death- "In the storyboards Ultra Magnus had a much more barbaric death at the hands of the Sweeps. As you can see in the video, he is literally pulled apart. This scene was animated but removed due to concerns over the violence. There are many clues in the film that this scene should still be there. The audio matches this version exactly, Magnus sounds like he is being pulled apart. You see the Sweeps fire out 4 solid beams towards Magnus. Finally Galvatron catches the Matrix when it falls perfectly into his hands from above."

Big thanks to The Spacebridge for sharing these videos with us!

The cube is back, baby! Well... not just that one. The CyberNet Space Cube is back as well, thanks to Hasbro's Television Channel The Hub which is now airing episodes of Transformers: Generation Two.

What is Transformers: Generation Two? To those who don't know, during the early 1990s select episodes of Generation One cartoon was reaired on TV with a new opening and usage of the aforementioned CyberNet Space Cube for transitions and commercial breaks.

Transformers: Generation Two (while not exactly a full-on cartoon) joins the likes of Transformers: Generation One, Beast Wars: Transformers, Transformers: Rescue Bots, and Transformers: Prime (and soon Beast Hunters!) on The Hub.

One of the mysteries that the most-dedicated of Transformers fans such as Monzo have been trying to solve for some time was a mysterious mini-comic issued in Europe during the Generation 1 era of Transformers toys. This mini-comic, published by Milton-Bradley who handled some of the toy distribution in the early days, featured Jetfire as the leader of the Autobots!

After an appeal for information by the TFWiki, a fan in Spain ("Un tal Iván" - @Ivanspeedy on Twitter) sent a copy of the comic to the TFWiki Twitter account, and now thanks to Spark (for translating) and ItsWalky (for re-lettering) the comic is available for fans worldwide to enjoy. It's another piece of Transformers history preserved friends - a bizarre retelling of events from Marvel's Transformers #1 and #4 featuring not only Jetfire filling in for Optimus Prime but Soundwave taking the role of Shockwave and fighting the four Dinobots (Swoop is absent, possibly because his toy was not readily available in Europe, even though the comic features Roadbuster and Whirl alongside a Diaclone colors Blitzwing)

This comic, a store promo giveaway, also featured an early toy catalog which features some early toys such as the Deluxe Insecticons in their Beetras colors with Ransack in a different deco to any previously seen, and an appearance by the so-called "bearded Warpath" minibot.

All in all, it's a fun and obscure bit of Transformers history that I personally am very delighted can now be shared with the fandom at large. Read on and check it out, and a big thanks to all involved for making it available.

Here is something cool for the "high rollers" among us collectors - for the price of $232.91 US plus shipping, you can own a set of special Transformers edition silver coins from the New Zealand mint. The special NZ $2 coins are 1oz Silver each, and feature Optimus Prime and Megatron on the tails side, and HM Queen Elizabeth II on the heads side. They're legal tender in New Zealand, but why would you want to spend these special pieces?

The page with the order details is here. According to the page, the coins have a limited edition mintage of 5,000 sets.

AcidFree has posted up new images of it's upcoming G1 Megatron 5 Color Screen-Print that will go on-sale next week. Acidfree starts with the foundation of high quality printing and adding global creative efforts from artists worldwide. Bringing together these incredible talents and high quality printing, you get an invaluable source of extraordinary works from every corner of the globe.

More information about the G1 Megatron Screen-Print after the jump.

One of the great mysteries of the Transformers fandom, up until now, was what happened to Jason Jansen, the child actor who played Tommy Kennedy in the little-known fifth season of Transformers Generation 1 - the rerun season which introduced each episode with bridge segments featuring Jason Jansen as Tommy Kennedy interacting with an animatronic Powermaster Optimus Prime.

That mystery has finally been opened up, as Jason Jansen - or rather, Jason Jankowski, as Jason Jansen was his stage name - has got in touch with davidaschulz of the Digest my Brain blog and given a rare interview, shedding some light on the fifth season of Transformers Generation 1 - how he got into working on Transformers, what the experience was like, and even some on-set stories.

Check out the full interview on Digest my Brain here.

Generation One variant collectors take notice! In a bit of . . . interesting news to say the least, the Commemorative Series Optimus Prime is seeing a re-release. While this in itself isn't odd news in light of some of the other re-releases we've been seeing, the nature of this one is a bit more interesting. From our Cybertron.CA forums, member Bruticus (G1_Bruticus here) reports that this reissue is in the Commemorative packaging . . . but it's the 25th anniversary Optimus Prime figure! The notable differences of the figures are the shades of reds, blues, and grays used for the toy parts. The Autobot symbols appear to be tampo-stamped onto the figure as well (whereas the Commemorative issue has a label sheet).

You can view the original thread at Cybertron.CA by clicking here, and you can view the mirrored images here after the jump!

TakaraTomy continues pulling out the big guns when it comes to G1 reissues here lately! The latest one is a second run of the 2010 Predaking boxed set, as a preorder went up from our site sponsor, BigBadToyStore:

"This new gift set includes all five of the original Predacons (Razorclaw, Rampage, Headstrong, Tantrum and Divebomb) each with all of the die-cast content of the original releases. These new versions are done with a new gold finish to replace the original yellow content, and come with all of the pieces to assemble the monstrous gestalt robot Predaking. This new 2010 release commemorates the 25th anniversary of the original release."

The preorder listing is at $224.99 and listed to arrive in December 2012 (yeah, that's this month - just in time for Christmas!). The images from the preorder have been mirrored here. You can read more details by clicking the preorder or after the jump!

Our sponsors Big Bad Toy Store have updated with preorders for new runs of three more Generation 1 Commemorative series releases. Originally offered nearly 10 years back now, these three are we assume the next items to be reissued once more for the burgeoning Asian market interest in Transformers.

The three getting new reissues this time out are:

Astrotrain
Ultra Magnus
Powermaster Optimus Prime with Apex Armor, aka Super Ginrai with Godbomber.

PSY’s Gangnam Style is the latest dance craze adored by millions of fans worldwide.

Animator and brilliant creative thinker Randall Ng a.k.a NGSMOOV has uploaded a video of our favorite G1 Transformers dancing to Gangnam Style.

Op, Op, Op, Op, Oppan G1 Style…