If it had been made like Transformers are made today?

All of the mainline toys since the movie have been front heavy on 6 - 10 main characters and a few figures to pad out the rest of the line. On average there are at least 6 Bumblebees made, 5-7 Primes, and 4 or 5 Megatrons and Starscreams in each line. There are multiple size classes, repaints of the same character, (Bumblebee the main offender here), Activators, RPMs, Robot Heroes, etc... This is the way it's been since '07 and it doesn't look as if things are going to change anytime soon.

So, I thought I'd start a discussion and see what you guys think. Would we have had as many characters in G1 if Hasbro had reused their main bots over and over every year? Would we have had Optimus Prime and Starscream as Jumpstarters rather than Topspin and Twin Twist? Would G1 have lasted 7 years if they had? Even bolder to ask, would we have had different main characters then as opposed to now? (Might Hound have become a main character?)

Now before anyone jumps on my case, YES I know that there were a few G1 reuses of characters. (Powermaster Optimus, Pretender Classics, Action Masters and so on) But one could argue that the Action Masters killed G1. (mostly because they didn't Transform I grant you, but even reuses of popular characters didn't help at that point.)

So, what do you guys think?


Personally, I could see Headmasters and Targetmasters having been done completely different than how it was made. We could have seen Sideswipe, Warpath, Powerglide and Springer as Headmasters rather than Chromedome, Hardhead, Brainstorm and Highbrow. Optimus instead of Fort Max etc...

 

I note that the depth of cast isnt just unique to TF. Even motu n tmnt had a deluge of non main cast toys back then but i guess motu did set the tone with variations of the main guys (and even then it was heman n skelly).

I guess they just figured thered be less shelfwarmers if if there were more main guys to go around but ironic now that its the likes of bumblebees are the one who are shelfwarming.

I think the biggest thing is that u just dont see fans of a niche character like a flywheels or s skystalker base on fan handles. Its always a prime this or bumblebee that or summat.

 

(Looks at own name)

Hmmmm. I may have taken the name Prime, but my favorite will always be my first. (Deluxe Insecticon Barrage) (I think someone had that name at the time I joined or something.)

 

Everyone seems to be talking about fly wheels lately, seems like it's since I put him as one of my favs on a thread(?)

 

Eh, I find it hard to address these kinds of scenarios. I think fans tend to forget just how much those old toylines were dictated by social, economic, and other factors that just don't apply anymore.

If anything, I'd argue that the presence of the "core character" methodology would have led to LESS experimentation in the case of Transformers, in addition to fewer overall characters.

Again, I think there are just too many factors to even come close to examining this topic with any sort of depth.

 

I think it's because of his untimely demise in the MTMTE books, siccoyote.

 

New characters with new bios and gimmicks kept me into Transformers from 84-87. I look at the flood of G1 characters as a weakness now, but from a marketing stand point it was the right thing to do. The only way I would buy two of the same character is if the figure had been broken and needed to be replaced. I wouldn't have bought a "battle blades" Optimus if I already had the original Optimus. Hasbro needed to constantly create new characters for kids like me to keep buying them.

 

I actually agree with you about the core character methodology, but I think that the multitude of factors make it a fantastic topic to discuss. With everything from the fiction, to the toys themselves. Even to the licensing if you think about how things were like in stores 25-30 years ago.

 

You touch on an interesting point. In the "old days" if a toy sold well, they just kept making the same toy. Now we have a Bumblebee and then a "Stealth Bumblebee" 6 months later even tho it's still the same character and mold. The question here would be, are they trying to get parents to buy the same toy twice, or are they targeting Collectors and Fans? One can't just say it's a mold cost deal as it doesn't seem to count if the repaint is a new/different character. One could also claim marketing and IPs as a potential reason for so many character reuses.

 

There would be a lot less characters if G1 was done today. Today's shows/toys seem to keep the same general cast of characters & make new toys of them over and over. Back in G1, characters would generally get 1 toy that would stay on the market for a year. If it was a particurly popular character, the same toy would kept in production for a couple of years. I think just Bumblebee & Starscream were released in 3 years' lines. The 84 toys did all stay in production until 1985 but after that, characters & toys would dissapear by the next year. Apart from a few characters, there were no new molds for the characters. They were just gone. Even the ones that did get new molds, it tended to be a few years between their first toy & the next one.

Toys controlled which characters appeared in the show as well. Midway through Season 2, most of the 1984 Autobots hardly had any appearences. Cons faired better but that was probably due to the fact that there was so few, they had to use them to fill out the ranks. Even then, Thundercracker & Skywarp got much less screentime then Thrust Dirge & Ramjet. Then you get to Season 3 & next to no 1984 Autobots appeared (even ones that weren't killed in the movie). In Rebirth, besides Prime & Soundwave, did any S1 or 2 characters appear (that weren't upgraded like Goldbug/Galvatron)?


So if G1 was made today, S1 characters would still have decent rolls well into S3-4.

 

I was thinking of a fellow poster with flywheels as a handle who regularly post yard sale finds but its adooorable you actually think that.

I think u look at g1 cartoon with every new season they try to push a new cast. But we supposedly have better continuity these days hence quite a bit of the original cast tend to be retained. So i think theres this balance of how well the toys sell the cartoon n vice versa.

If we were to have a large number of characters itd have to be like pokemon where every episode they introduce more of those lil fuckers. Cybertron was a good platform for that since the theme was travelling to find cyber keys so theres always a chance to introduce new guys.

 

That's why I said 'seems' because to me it seemed that though I thought it would be very unlikely to be true.

I haven't read any comics in years so was unaware of this other possibility.

He is cool though.

Back on topic I have been sorting out my collection and when you get up to the micromasters it gets a bit insane all the new characters, names, profiles etc that they have. There must be far more G1 characters than Pokemon.

I think the whole thing today of you have a character in deluxe voyager and leader/weaponizer is a bit annoying as which one is the right one? In the old days you knew where you were there were the big guys and there were the little guys.
I don't mind them getting a new form the next year for the same character but having different sizes of the same character is a bit stupid. I mean I don't count Cyberverse because that's the world to itself.

 

I'd probably see a more limited cast being done based on which characters stood out the most, I.E. Optimus, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Prowl, Ironhide, Jazz and Wheeljack for the Autobots in the first two seasons (and maaaaaaaybe Cliffjumper, Hound and Mirage) with the Dinobots appearing every now and then, while the 'Cons would be Megatron, Soundwave, Shockwave and his assorted cassettes, the original three Seekers, the Constructicons and Insecticons. The third season would probably still focus on the same characters of Rodimus, Kup, Arcee, Springer and Ultra Magnus (with Wreck-Gar, Blurr and Wheelie appearing every so often) while the 'Cons would be Galvy, Cyclonus, Scourge and maybe some guys who only got to appear in the comics like Bludgeon.

 

I see all of this happening.

 

But, If they rebooted the characters every year or two, would we have ever gotten a bot like Bludgeon? Or, Hot Rod, Galvatron, Ultra Magnus or even Wreck-Gar? Would all of the Throttlebots have been made up of earlier Mini Vehicles instead of just Goldbug/Bumblebee?

Now that I think on it, as bad as the Throttlebots were as toys, it would be neat to see them as earlier characters. Brawn as Rollbar would be the easiest. Huffer as Wideload, Cliffjumper as Chase, and Tailgate as Searchlight... hmmmm, I'm beginning to think that might have been the original plan. That would have left Freeway tho. Beachcomber wouldn't have worked, maybe a demoted Tracks?