I'm pushing 40 and will admit to you - I don't remember the show all that much. As an 80s child, no doubt, I watched, but I just don't recall! I have a few foggy memories about the dinobots and devastator, but that is about it. Over the past month or so, I've been obsessed with the dinos and devy - and the concept of transformers in general. So, here I am, collecting toys ... at 39 ... with very little nostalgic connection. Am I alone?
21 years young here! I’ve watched all of G1 season 1 and the 86 movie but past halfway through season 2 it’s really foggy. I don’t even recall seeing some characters on the show but I know they exist. I think that if the 2007 movie didn’t happen my collection wouldn’t exist and my Transformers experience would have been just the Unicron Trilogy. That movie was like a jolt that stirred my passion again. I’ve dabbled in most areas of the fandom most recently comics but it’s always going to be primarily a “toy” thing for me. My collection is like 95% modern CHUG and a couple of old stuff like the mentioned UT era. I have a few masterpieces and I’m seriously considering downsizing and replacing it all with the Masterpieces that I want in the next year.
I'm very similar! I barely remember the show because as a kid back then I was more about the toys and I'm not sure how much traction the show even got in the UK? Watched some episodes in later years and enjoyed them though. I don't rate the animated movie at all and the Bay movies are barely watchable (how the fuck you can put that much stuff onscreen and still have it be boring and/or unfunny I don't know). Cyberverse was great until 'throw the sink at it' season 2, and I desperately want Netflix WFC to be good! Currently I'm loving the original IDW run because Siege brought me back to the wider mythos. I'm more about style meeting function when it comes to the bots! lol
I am sure I watched G1 but I don't remember it. I know that I got Action Master Bumblebee as my first toy and then one christmas I got Skywarp from my grandmother. It wasn't until Beast Wars that I truly got into the series.
Kinda-sorta? These days I just don't watch much tv at all. Plus I skipped on huge chunks of tf media. Still love and watch the original. Bought the boxset and movie for my kiddo and we watched it together. Tried BW back then and was utterly shocked at how ugly it was. I don't even think I made it all the way through the first episode. Tried Animated. Couldn't stomach the awful art-style. Bayformers left me feeling repulsed, annoyed and confused. Not the feeling you wanna evoke when trying to reel in the nostalgia crowd. Unless its a deliberately gross and annoying franchise I guess? Prime is slightly less ugly but enjoyable. I watched some of it when my kid did. RiD15 was fun but CN's schedule for anything not TTG is pure sabotaged bullshit. Screw you Cartoon Network! I didn't actually bother to watch RB at all. I gave CV an earnest chance. It has potential, but too many issues brings it down hard. Lost me by the second season. I did not have any TFs growing up in the 80s/90s, and I started my collection with Fall of Cybertron.
For me, I watched the show just like any other Saturday morning one, it wasn't my favourite at all, as it was a very general good guy against bad stupid guys that was episodic and never went anywhere, no worse than the other 20 shows playing, but I did enjoy the robots transformation thing. I was more a "Shogun/Chogokin" (Grandizer) and other anime of the time (Capt Harlock, Capt Future, etc.) and at the time, Robotech that was eons better than TF ever was. I played with the few toys I had, kept them safe and was very meticulous with them, and started my collection with those few, then collecting as I could afford them. Many found by chance, sales and liquidation, always sorting through what was out there, as the pickings were very small as there was no internet then. So Comic cons and such that weren't the circus/artisan markets that they are now, people would have items that were never seen in stores, many times used, but better than nothing, and first glimpse of items that I wouldn't know existed until then, and my collection grew bit by bit, and was more of almost everything else than TFs as I barely even had any of them, nor cared that much as the G1 were blocky and worse than most of everything else for articulation and such. I always wanted and preferred robots that could move, so Micronauts and whatever else there was. Jetfire was the most prized figure I had then but it was as a Macross figure and not TF that I cared for it. I did read many of the comics (Marvel - US and British) but the others, just one now and then in passing, but none pulled me in as I stopped collecting comics a long time ago as all series I enjoyed were getting more and more difficult to get, or divulged into several spin-offs that as the pricing of comics started jumped higher and higher, I simply couldn't afford them, and so many of them resulted in diluting my interest greatly. And aside a few TFs that I absolutely loves, such as the G2 Hooligan (Macross type plane and transformation) that was revolutionary, and a few others now and then, I could barely find much of interest. TF were dying out bit by bit and seldom seen, and felt like they would end at some point soon, but BW made them return, and though I wasn't a fan of the toys, they did push them back. Then while the cartoon never played here, the Gundam small figures started showing up, which was amazing. Once the internet was invented and started to become available, everything changed, and I was finally able to really be more selective and increase my range. So got into the Soul of Chogokin series, and several others. Then the new TF cartoons started, which I never did watch until lately (to an extent) and more toys showed up in stores, and I was very selective as my "true" passion was and always will be the "piloted" robots thing, so I cherry picked the ones that I could see as such. I did have some favourites from the originals, as per the usual dinobots, Devastator and the likes, but they never did any that looked "right" until the CW and such, and that pulled me back in, with Bruticus, Superion, etc. (the usual ones). And now Siege, which it was Shockwave's space ship that absolutely pulled me into the series, seeing and holding Shockwave and Ultra Magnus in hand, then Sideswipe and Optimus, and seeing how much better then were, I ended up getting almost all of the series. I've rewatched the G1 series last year, and it was fun to see the full series, but my opinion about it didn't change.. so now I'm going to give a few more a try. I watch them for what they are, but with no attachment to the toys.
I wasn't impressed when I first saw Beast Wars but a few years later when I was back into collecting, I tried it again and I was hooked. I will say the background music is terrible and I agree some designs are ugly. Rattrap looked ridiculous with buck teeth in robot mode and one of the most grating voices in the franchise. Dinobot had a terribly corny voice too but the writing was very good. I would recommend giving it another try. The G1 cartoon was my first exposure to Transformers though here in Ireland, we only got to see it on an English channel as with the right aerial, we could pick up English tv stations. I enjoyed the shows though they only aired Season 1. The Animated film came out in England in December 1986 but it was Halloween 1987 before my local cinema showed it. Ireland was very behind with movies back in the 80s. Even in the 90s when movie distribution here equalled the UK, you'd still wait a year for the video release. So apart from a few videos of Season 2 and 3 episodes, I didn't see much of the show. It was the discovery of the UK comic that really hooked me. Seeing the cover of issue 79 with The New Leaders...Galvatron and Ultra Magnus, I was curious what happened to Prime and Megatron and asked my mum if I could get it. I collected the UK comic until it ended 5 years and 4 months later. So yes I collected without really watching the show but only because it wasn't distributed very well here.
I watched the G1 series in the 80's when I could, grew up in the country and it was on a channel that didn't come in most times. I still have never seen the original movie, I might watch it tonight if I can find it. We just started streaming TV a couple months ago. I was hooked on the comic books though. I am just figuring out that the comics and cartoon didn't have a lot in common. I just started collecting a couple months ago, but only the combiners, as they were the ones that I always thought were really cool. Jason
I've only sat through about 4 series all the way through (RID 2001, Cybertron, Animated, Prime), but I've seen the first 3 episodes of every other series. I plan on eventually going through most of them.
Well, I vividly remember G1 from my childhood. I bought just about every VHS and DVD set of the series. I had a complete bootleg set on VHS before there was an official release of the whole series. So my love of the G1 toys definitely stems from the cartoon. That said, I have a mild collection of figures from Beast Wars up through TF Prime having only seen a handful of episodes from those cartoons. I also have a mild collection of Transformers that aren't based on any cartoon like G2, Alternators, and those early Universe figures that were repaints of figures from random TF lines.
While I've seen the G1 cartoon, Prime Wars made a good number of post-cartoon characters that I've bought simply because they looked cool (Krok, Twinferno, Overlord, Battletrap, and the like). It helps that I love the line-wide gimmick, it just encouraged you to buy as many as you can! Of course now that I'm on a budget I'm clamping down on my approach on collecting which is why I'm only collecting Bayverse now (since I have nostalgia for those designs).
I saw about a dozen or so episodes of the original but only the Movie really stuck with me. As far as media was concerned I was a Marvel comic guy. I didn’t get to watch the entire old show until just the other year when I bought the box set. But I’m primarily into Transformers toys, so I have figures from continuities that I have zero connection to, like Cyberverse for a recent example.
This is pretty great-- to know I'm not alone either. I had the movie on vhs. My uncle recorded it along with a few random episodes of the show when my family was stationed in Japan in the '80s. I tried watching the show and reading the comics but truthfully they bore me. Beast Wars and Animated were exceptions though.
Me, I'm the complete opposite. I was at the right age when all these cartoons came out and was a sponge. I watched a lot of cartoons when I was a kid... Lol I played outside a lot and also played games a lot. I've also been a person that can get minimal sleep and still function normally. Since forever. I'm also weird to where I can vividly recall most of my childhood memories. Whenever I talk to my brother who is older and mention crap from our childhood and he asks how I remember that crap. Like I can recall specific dates and years when stuff happened in the 80's. I can remember certain sounds, smells, textures like it was just yesterday. I'm a high powered mutant of some kind. Never considered for mass production. To weird to live. To rare to die.
I came into TFs in the 80's strictly because of the toys. I didn't know there was a cartoon until I brought a Cliffjumper to school and a friend told me it was from a cartoon. We lived in the country with rabbit ears for our TV reception and whatever channel TF was on, we didn't get. It was torture being at school and hearing about the show at school. In 4th grade we moved to an area where I was finally able to watch the show...but it came on before I got off my hour long bus ride so I usually only got to see the last few minutes or none at all. I DID get to see the original movie in the theater, which was my first truly amazing theater experience (Maybe my lack of exposure to the show is why Prime's death didn't phase me much and I fell in love with Hot Rod/Rodimus). I didn't really watch full episodes until I was in my 20s-30s and bought some DVDs. By that time I couldn't handle watching more than an episode at a time because they're pretty terrible (I love them, but come on...it's trash). Still haven't seen all of the episodes. Anyway, still in it mostly for the toys. The only TF media I've truly loved was Animated and MTMTE/Lost Light.
I didnt know what Transformers were till Michael Bay's movies..I just thought they were giant Robots that fight and transform into cars and trucks. But I did go back and watch Season 1 and 2 of the G1 cartoons and the 1985 movie.
