I don't know if this has been discussed on this forum or not but can someone explain to me the appeal of those Targetmasters & Headmasters?? I just don't get them!!
It was a way to bring a new gimmick into a seemingly dying toyline. (I didn't much like them either except for Fort Max and Scorpy.)
it's four toys for the price of one! plus you can treat the bigger one as a playset for the tinier one.
Out of all the G1 gimmicks, the Headmasters are my absolute favorite. I just love the idea of a small bot transforming into the head of the large bot. And even better, the small bot being able to ride inside the big bot's alt mode as it's driver. Was just an awesome gimmick and I seriously wish HasTak would revisit it. But I'm still surprised the Headmaster gimmick didn't turn out to be more popular than it had been. Too late in G1's lifespan I guess. Or maybe the gimmick was just ahead of it's time.
I thought they were the coolest thing since sliced bread when they came out. They local toy stores could not keep them in stock, I had a hell of time trying to find them. Scorponoc was impossible to find at Christmas time that year(1987), I ended up getting Sixshot instead.
-Master toys are fantastic. Especially Powermasters. If you don't get their appeal now, you probably never will and should stop trying.
From my experience it was that they were fun as hell as a kid. I remember playing with my Mindwipe and Skullcruncher and having. Sometimes pretending that Skullcruncher's headmaster was driving him or sometimes getting eaten. It was also fun to switch the two heads around. The tech specs on the chest were also fun. The -masters were just a fun gimmick that added a lot of play value to the toys.
I did not like them when they first appeared back in 1987. I thought Headmasters were a lame gimmick and a desperate attempt to revive kids' dying interest in the franchise. I saw The Rebirth when it first aired and thought it was a step down from Season 3, with poor animation and somewhat jumbled story. The Headmasters comic from Marvel looked even worse to me at the time, although all the US Marvel Transformers comics back then looked horrible to me. Flash forward. It is the year 2001. Rhino has put out their first Transformers dvd releases. This is before they started releasing season box sets. The ONLY Transformers G1 episodes on dvd at all at that point are single disc releases of 'The Ultimate Doom' and... ...'The Rebirth'. And at that time in 2001, it had probably been about a full decade since I'd watched any animated G1 other than the movie. I was starved for Transformers. So half out of nostalgia and half out of desperation, I decided to pick up Rebirth, even though I'd remembered it as not being very good. I watched it. And... I don't know what happened. All of a sudden, the whole thing clicked with me. I liked the Headmaster and Targetmaster concepts and I liked the characters. A lot. And ever since that day in 2001, the Season 4 toyline has been right up there with the Season 3 toyline (and 1988's God Ginrai) as being my favorite Transformers toys ever produced. In fact, if I could only own one complete year's Transformers toy line, it would absolutely be 1987. I have a few already, like Chromedome and Sixshot, but I'd love to have them all. I'd choose the 1987 toys even over the original '84 & '85 lines. They just appeal to me more these days.
Wait, you don't get why the heads of a robits what turn into cars and whatevers, having heads and guns what turn into other tiny robits is cool, and you've been posting here for almost 2 years now? Sure, the designs might be dated by today's standards, but the idea is solid. HM Hardhead is one of the coolest Transformers ever - not an opinion, this is FACT. It's just like Nam man, you had to be there.
For me it was just such a great concept, particularly for the Headmasters. You essentially got two toys in one, the pilot and the vehicle which you could combine into a large robot! I also liked the Powermaster concept of having an engine unlock a transformation, in fact, it was apparently so good, Hasbro/Takara brought them back as mini-cons in Armada.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last Headmaster we got was Energon Omega Supreme right? I really hope Hasbro or some 3rd party company will give us some Headmaster love in the near future
I second that, one of my fave Transformers characters ever...in fact, just about all of my favorite Transformers characters/toys came from the Master lines, like Powermaster Prime and Targetmaster Hot Rod. Just wish we had gotten a Headmaster Arcee, I still wait and hope that a 3rd party company will do one. As for their appeal, well as a kid I prefered the toys over earlier releases because of the increased play value...what's not to like about a smaller robot transforming into a bigger robot's head? When you add the story line from the cartoon, of the smaller robots actually being humanoid beings in mechanical suits...that just adds the cool factory that get's my geek juices flowing. Depends, do you count the Wal-Mart Exclusive Universe Ultra Hardhead w/ the Headrobots upgrade? If so, then he was the last Headmaster we got but of course it took two to make it happen.
Well yeah, except they're just heads. Sorry when I said Headmasters, I meant the complete package, robot transforming into head of a bigger robot. The last one was Omega right?
I hated Headmasters as a kid, it was only when I saw the Japanese show it made any sense, the idea that the small robot is the robot, and the big robot is just a body (or transtector) he uses made so much sense. Kind of a prelude to Micro-masters and the great downsize that happened pre-Beast Wars. Makes sense for a race constantly short on Energon. Target Masters works, the idea of another robot becoming the gun, a partner. I just hate the nebulon crap, whether little green men or completely humanoid. Toy wise, it's just a bit of fun, but maybe an excuse for more limited transformation. Can't dis Scorponok though, loved him as a kid.
Back in the day they were awesome and brought life back to the , at the time, dying franchise in so far as the headmasters and power masters but the target masters really irked me. For people who got Blurr they now had to buy a new Blurr to get the target master. I was always bugged about one thing with headmasters though. Who is the actual bot? The guy in the head suit ? If so why the voice and attitude change on some? Anyway, they were the last of the popular groups of transformers for g1.
