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Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 4:26 am
by noomi
nice posts...............

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 7:14 am
by Rodimus Prime
I was 7 years old and wanted a comic book, any comic book, so my Grandma picked up US Marvel G1 issues #13, "Shooting Star" and #14, "Rock and Roll Out" from the post office when she went to mail stuff, and I've loved TFs and Bruce Springsteen ever since. It's probably the reason I root for Megatron more than Optimus.

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 11:13 pm
by FortMacs
A lot a great stories, reading through them helped me remember another small tidbit i could have added so i will now.

First transformer i got was Bone crusher. seen him at a Kmart. I remember my mom worked some nights, so the times she did work at night on her way home she brought another piece of devastator till i had all 6.

was an amazing day when i got them all and my dad formed devastator. on my birthday thatyear i got my first large transformer....none other than Prime himself. that was my most prized possesion for years.

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 4:23 pm
by d_sel1
Actually, from the first commercial, although in Fort Worth, the GoBots commercial came first. When I saw those commercials, I wanted those both of those toylines. I am still not a GoBots hater to this days.

First TF, G1 Starscream. It just confirmed my passion. Still a great looking toy (mine is not great shape, my childhood friends were toy breakers!) despite the short arms and easily lost fist and landing gear. My friends (actually in the nerd catergory) in college (I still U of I) made fun for liking a "outdated" toy line so much. I was right, and they like so many Illini on so many subjects were wrong!

also had TF #1 too! Probably lost it, although the cover was separated from the rest of the comic since the mid 80's.

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Sun Oct 07, 2012 9:28 pm
by Cipher
Started out by renting the 1986 movie from a local video store when I was like ... four or five? This would've been '94 or '95.

Blew my mind. From there I rented every other G1 tape they had, which was a decent smattering of Sunbow season 1 episodes.

Beast Wars hit shelves very shortly after that, and, although I actually didn't realize they were related to Transformers yet, I thought they looked cool and had my parents buy one. (Razorbeast)

Then the cartoon hit the air, I quickly realized it was a sequel to Transformers, which was awesome, and I watched it through to the end with my friends each week, explaining any of the references I could.

I built up a pretty sizable collection of Beast Wars figures, which are still sitting in a tub in my parents' garage, and actually got my hands on some old G1 toys as well, which were always kind of mysterious to me and a huge treat.

I don't remember when or how I got back into it again as a late teen/early adult, but like most things from my childhood, I found I still got a huge kick out of it, and I've been eating up the fiction (though not the toys) since.

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 10:21 am
by SJ21
I got into them watching the G1 cartoon with my brother. We were hooked. We didn't have a lot of the G1 toys, but between the two of us we had enough for some pretty epic battles.

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Sun Oct 14, 2012 9:57 am
by Insidious
My earliest memory in the TF world was an older neighborhood kid playing with a Starscream and Thundercracker (G1) and I had to borrow some of his in order to be able to play Transformers with him.

Then I quickly started getting my own. My first was a Constructicon. Slowly but surely, everyone in the neighborhood pretty much had their own little collection of Transformers and every once in a blue moon a lot of us would get out to play at the same time and have a "war". Otherwise it was usually just a smaller affair with 2 or 3 of us getting together to tell stories with our toys or play out what was the 2nd-3rd grade equivalent of LARP'ing.

All the while, the original toon was part of the Saturday morning block of cartoons that got our imaginations fueled up and ready to go. It was probably on before and after school at varying times, too. They switched programming schedules all the time.

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Fri Oct 19, 2012 12:41 pm
by Dagon
I remember watching the original run of the G1 cartoon after school when I was really young. This kid in my class had a G1 Blitzwing and I thought it was the coolest toy I'd ever seen. One Christmas I got a haul of G1 figures and from there I just never stopped loving the franchise.
I was totally lost during the Beast era until Beast Machines came along. In subsequent years I've rewatched the BW series and really taken a liking to it, but I'm a G1er all the way. A part of me will always love G1 not for Geewunning, but out of respect of where the brand came from and for being something new and different. I scratch my head when people screech that the movieverse is somehow innovative but the original series is some type of derivative, as the original series was....the...original series. If anything, being a part of the online fandom has just reminded me that I don't have to like everything TF, I just have to like the TF things that I like.

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Sat Dec 08, 2012 10:08 am
by Red 50
Hard to remember exactly what, but it might have been something to do with watching weekend morning cartoons on a Finnish television channel and one of the cartoons being Transformers: Energon. Afterwards I kinda stumbled upon the rest in the net. But the idea that really got me was that they were ROBOTS who turned into VEHICLES! How cool was that!
And I was twelve...

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Sat Dec 08, 2012 11:00 am
by TDK Akita
The rerun of the first episode of Beast Wars on Fox Kids. I became obsessed with the notion of animals that can turn into robots. The rest is history... until I started watching RID (they can become cars too!) and then the rest truly became history.

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Wed Dec 12, 2012 6:32 am
by alldarker
Short story: playground peer pressure.

Long story: I went to school in England from 1984 tot 1988, just when Transformers hit. Some of my friends had Transformers: I distinctly remember friends bringing Kickback, Wheeljack, Skywarp and Grimlock to school on separate occasions.
I especially remember wanting to hold Grimlock, so I bragged to my friend I could transform him without instructions. It went well, until I got to his chest part, which I couldn't work out without being shown.
Anyhow, I soon harrassed my parents te get me a Transformer. Got my first Transformer, Thundercracker, from British Home Stores (BHS). I now sort of regret not getting a Dinobot, but back then, I was all about blue jets. Soon after, I did get Slag for Christmas, though.
Lost interest in Transformers with the 1986 and 1987 series due to non-realistic alt modes, and my TF's went to goodwill when we moved house. Beast Wars recaptured my interest in TF's.

I'm still not a fan of the G1 Seeker mold, but I did treat myself to a brand new MISB original G1 Slag a year ago, for nostalgia's sake.

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 3:53 am
by Breakdown 2099
Man, Canadian club doesn't help when I'm going back 25 years. I remember walking into a toy store with my mummy dearest and seeing a black hilux that turned into a robot to camper and back. Trailbreaker :D never looked back, I was hooked

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 10:50 pm
by skywarp408
The g1 cartoon for me. Love that transforming sound and Soundwave's voice. I could do a great imitation in elementary school. Then I hit puberty and there went the Soundwave voice!

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 11:23 pm
by PrymeStriker
skywarp408 wrote:The g1 cartoon for me. Love that transforming sound and Soundwave's voice. I could do a great imitation in elementary school. Then I hit puberty and there went the Soundwave voice!


You could still do it, all you need is a vocoder and a Dr. Claw voice. Seriously, that's what they did in the cartoon, same voice actor and everything.

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 6:56 pm
by Heres a Hint
hi guys thanks for letting me join youre forums looks like a fun place :)

ok ive always loved transformers since i was kid ( iam 30) just the designs and fantastic personalitys

my brother got me the g1 season 1 dvd boxset for my 21st birthday and that got me hooked again prior to that it was the rebirth and return of prime that kept me going lol

also as somebody with aspergers ( middle line ) its part of my as obbsesions so that a really big reason for it :)

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Tue Dec 25, 2012 9:53 am
by Geminii
Gobots (under a different name). I had a bucketful, and then when 1984/5 rolled around I switched to Transformers.

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Tue Dec 25, 2012 2:18 pm
by Cyber Bishop
I was 13, I saw a commercial for cars and planes that transformed into robots.

Nuff said..

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 8:18 pm
by Mindmaster
In technicality, Robots in Disguise Optimus Prime and Galvatron were my firsts (got them at the same time), but I didn't know what the hell Transformers were. When it comes to collecting, Armada sealed the deal. My first here was Demolishor. I need a new one of him; mine's all rusty and only has two missiles. Blackout is rusty as well. :-(

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 11:08 am
by Blackstreak
I'm not sure what came first: exposure to Prowl's action figure, or catching a glimpse of the first cartoon episode for G1. Either way I was hooked. Like many others, I lost interest as the marketing for TFs went down hill to a near non-existant state. Then G2 hit the stores and my interest was beginning to stir again. It wasn't until a friend of mine told me about Beast Machines and I was full swing into collecting and watching tv shows again.

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 1:48 pm
by Prime0080
I think it was 80's cartoons in general really....I started drawing at a super young age, and I'd watch cartoons and draw while I watched them.

Voltron was my first big super robot cartoon- that got me hooked into transforming robots.

Then I rented Mazinger Z AKA Tranzor Z from a video store down the street- that got me hooked.

Then I rented Voltes V, Daimos, and UFO Diapolon from the same video store- and eventually I started watching Transformers all the time plus renting tons of videos whenever I could.

And seeing as how Transformers had a toyline I could actually buy and play with, whereas the others didn't, I bought G1 Optimus Prime and kept watching and collecting after that.....

There's still one toy I'd like, completely 100% posable, hasn't been made yet by any company, streamline or 3rd party: STAR CONVOY ^_^

If I could get a super-posable Star Convoy I'd be a VERY happy collector ^_^

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 7:46 am
by Sinnertwin
Holding my friends Transformer when i was 6 or 7, him saying "don't fold anything, just look at it" lol things kids say. After he showed me what it did I was hooked.

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 8:24 pm
by Nemesis Maximo
I was between 6 and 8 years old. My dad brought home a VHS (remember those?) of TF:TM. When we watched it, the tape went blank, though I don't remember where in the film. So he got a new copy. That was my first exposure to the franchise, and I still have that same tape.

What got me hooked toy-wise was Beast Wars, and I never really watched G1 until they released it for the 25th anniverssarry.

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 2:08 pm
by Jazz813
I was 3 or 4 year until I got my first Transformers for Chrismas it was G1 Ultra Magnus.

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 8:18 pm
by No One in Particular
I don't really know. I was older when they first hit the shelves,and when the show first hit the airwaves, and something about sentient robots from another planet locked in an eons-old civil war just struck a chord that the other toylines of the day didn't. At a time when I should have been moving on to video games, I just kept right on going with my little plastic robots. And I'm still there all these years later, although the later episodes of the Energon series made that a little more difficult.

Re: So, What got you interested in transformers?

PostPosted: Thu Feb 28, 2013 5:15 am
by Henry921
Ah, thereby hangs a tale.

RhA wrote:It's vague, but I remember green robots, a sandbox in the schoolyard and WHAT THE CRAP DID THAT T-REX JUST TURN INTO A ROBOT.


My first TF toy was G1 Grimlock; my dad bought it secondhand around 92. I didn't like it much at first, as I felt the T-rex was anatomically incorrect (it didn't have correct posture, was too bulky, and had the wrong number of fingers). After a while it started to grow on me and I played with it more often, until one day I discovered his chest could open and there was a robot head inside. I began to experiment, and eventually realized he could change into a robot. It took me a while to realize I was supposed to separate the legs, but I was really happy with the toy from then on. I wanted to learn more about it.

I went to Blockbuster (remember those?) and rented a VHS (wow, I'm old) with the G1 episode 'SOS Dinobots', and was enthralled at the dinosaurs, and annoyed when that weird red white and blue guy took up their screentime.

I didn't know anything about TF fiction, but did eventually infer from my friends with their toys that there were two factions, and I figured I should find a guy for Grimlock to battle. I found the Decepticon who would be his rival at a flea market: Shockwave.

I played with the toys regularly but didn't bug my folks to buy more Transformers until 1996, when Beast Wars hit. Dinosaurs changing into robots was the initial lure, but even as a kid I recognized the cartoon was of a better quality than its peers, even the similarly CG Reboot. It had story. It had soul. And man Dinobot and Megatron were awesome. And that spider guy's laugh creeped me right out.

I fell out of habit after the bad taste Beast Machines left in my mouth, basically ignored the 2007 movie, and then one day in 2010, on a whim, I downloaded the demo to try the multiplayer of this new Activision title called War For Cybertron.

After playing through the game proper a few weeks later, my love was renewed, and I was forevermore a fan.