I was doing some Spring cleaning and came across 2 Transformers catalogs from my childhood: 1985 and 1986.
I loved how one side was Autobots and the other side was Decepticons, each group in dioramas or displays.

I wish the siege line had a similar catalog

 

I miss those and the box art from that time.

 

Even the sheets they did during Cybertron. That's how you do a big universe map

 

I'd love checklists to return myself.

 

Pack-in flyers and checklists are fun. I wish they would make a comeback.

 

That seems like a waste of paper in an age where all of a line's toys are revealed digitally.

 

It is. I dont understand the little white sheet that's included now and think thats a huge waste.

 

I used to take those catalogues with me everywhere I went as a child. I used to love looking at toys I didn’t have.

And I still do.

 

I always just threw those away with the packaging. And with the internet now days they aren't really needed anymore. It saves on paper to not have those packaged in with every figure.

 

I keep the Playmobil blind bag checklists in my wallet so I can help my daughter feel packages and find the ones she's missing. That's just the tip of the iceberg. It also gives someone who, say, doesn't live on a fucking nerd forum the opportunity to know what the whole line entails.

 

"Nerd forum." Look who's talking.

 

Please tell me you're trying to be ironically obtuse...

 

There's a huge difference between toylines in the 1980s and toylines today.

Back then, Hasbro planned an entire year's worth of product well in advance, and the catalogs depicted the full range for the entire year. Toys were also meant to be available throughout the year, and no-one would have thought of a toy that was still available on store shelves six months after its initial release as a "shelfwarmer".

Today, we have multi-wave assortments, which means the toys that are going to be released in the second half of the year aren't ready in time for them to be depicted in a hypothetical catalog that would be included with toys that are released at the beginning of the year. And that's not even considering the fact that Hasbro wants to continuously reveal new toys at various shows throughout the year.

And then we have all those various store exclusives (which didn't exist back in the day), which competing stores don't want to advertise with the toys that are available at their stores for obvious reasons.

So as you can see, there are a lot of practical reasons for why catalogs like back in the 80s are not feasible today.

 

Just some food for thought:

How would you do checklists for the Combiner Wars, Titans Return and Power of the Primes toylines? Even assuming you have knowledge of the complete lines, including all the stragglers and postscript releases. How would you do them?


Starting with Combiner Wars.

Simply sorted by how they were distributed?
All the Legends, Deluxe, Voyager and Leader Class figures listed under their own assortments?
Keeping Dragstrip with wave 1 Skydive, Firefly and Alpha Bravo, and Air Raid with wave 2 Dead End, Breakdown and Offroad?
Titan Class Devastator and the "Collection Packs" as a separate category?
The "May Mayhem" Deluxe Class figures and "Special Edition" Blast Off as a separate category as well? Does the Prime Master that was included with Special Edition Blast Off get highlighted?
But... that way you'd completely omit the entire "combiner" aspect.

Or sorted by teams?
Then what about wave 1 Voyager Class Optimus Prime, Voyager Class Cyclonus, Voyager Class Scattershot, Legends Class Viper, all the Leader Class figures and the Legends Class figures that weren't actually part of the Combiner Wars play pattern, and thus not associated with any particular team?
What about the "May Mayhem" Deluxe Class figures and "Special Edition" Blast Off? Do they get associated with their teams? Then what about Alpha Bravo, Offroad, Rook, Legends Class Groove and general retail Deluxe Class Blast Off?
What about the "Collection Packs"? Do they also get listed with the general retail versions of those teams? Then what about Computron?
What about general retail Titan Class Devastator and the San Diego Comic-Con exclusive version?


Same for Titans Return.

Sorted by how they were distributed?
So... Soundwave and Blaster and their respective minions don't get associated with each other?
And neither do the Clones?

Or do figures that form a "set" go together?
Such as Deluxe Class Blurr, Hot Rod and Kup, or Deluxe Class Triggerhappy, Misfire and Slugslinger, or Voyager Class Astrotrain, Blitzwing and Octone?
Or Blaster with Rewind and Stripes, and Soundwave with Laserbeak, Ravage and Rumble? But Buzzsaw was released under the Combiner Wars line.
Then what about Hardhead, Chromedome, Highbrow (all released as part of the general retail Deluxe Cass assortment) and Brainstorm (released as a Walgreens exclusive)?
What about Flastclash (released as part of the Toys"R"Us exclusive "Chaos on Velocitron" box set), Pounce (released as part of the Big Bad Toy Store exclusive "Siege on Cybertron" box set), Wingspan and Cloudraker (released as a Walgreens exclusive two-pack)?
And what about Twinferno (released as part of the general retail Deluxe Cass assortment), Grotusque (released as part of an exclusive set with an extra Titan Master) and Repugnus (released as a "Special Edition" figure with a Prime Master)? And what about general retail Titan Master Repugnus?
What about general retail Titan Class Fortress Maximus and the San Diego Comic-Con exclusive version?
What about general retail Voyager Class Sentinel Prime, Walgreens exclusive Deluxe Class Brainstorm and the versions from the San Diego Comic-Con exclusive "Titan Force" box set?


Power of the Primes...

Again, sorted by how they were distributed?
Slug and Swoop with wave 1, and Sludge and Snarl with wave 2?
Rippersnapper with wave 2, and Cutthroat, Blot and Sinnertwin with wave 3?
So... no complete list of the Prime Masters?
Do the two Selects figures (Ricochet and Red Swoop) go on this list as well?

Or sorted by teams?
So what about Jazz, Starscream, Inferno and Walgreens exclusive Wreck-Gar?
So do Moonracer, Novastar and Elita-1 form an incomplete team, since Greenlight was released under "War for Cybertron: Siege", and Lancer under "War for Cybertron" Selects?
What about the Leader Class figures?
Does Selects Red Swoop go with the Dinobots? Then what about general retail Swoop?
A complete list of Prime Masters? Eight of them were released at general retail with "decoy armor" (i.e. Pretender shells), one was included with Titan Class Predaking, and the remaining four were only available as part of the San Diego Comic-Con exclusive "Throne of the Primes" box set. And what about the three "Special Edition" redecos of Megatronus (available with Combiner Wars Special Edition Blast Off), Solus Prime (available with Titans Return Special Edition Repugnus) and Prima Prime (available with Power of the Primes Special Edition Punch-Counterpunch)?



Seriously... there simply is no easy way to do this like Hasbro did back in the 1980s, because the distribution system is a lot more complicated than it was back in the day thanks to multi-wave assortments, store exclusives, online exclusives, convention exclusives and after-the-fact releases, and on top of that, characters that were part of teams or subgroups back in the day are now released through different channels, which cannot be adequately shown in a simple catalog leaflet while still keeping the "classic" team/subgroup association intact.

 

Nostalgia*1000 for sure. I clearly remember getting the hefty Sears catalog in the mail right at the start of the Christmas season every year and basically tearing out the toy section to make my list.

Sears wasn't the only one, but it is the one I remember most fondly. Toys 'R Us was another one, but less significant to me, personally.

 

Those toy catalogs were always fun to thumb through, like the ones you'd look through around Christmas time.  

 

Some fans have recreated those old catalogue layouts using more modern tfers. (Generations/Masterpieces/3rdParty)
They are really cool. Maybe someone can post them.

 

I know they're not the most popular eras but i used to love the silver and gold micromaster / pretender catalogues

 

This has been an issue from the beginning. Reflector, the Powerdashers and Omnibots never showed up in the old catalogs. I sort of remember them having their own advertisements that were separate pack ins. No reason they couldn't create a catalig for the main releases, and advertise others separately.

 

I spent so much time looking at those pamphlets.