The Energon Pub

Fri Feb 06, 2015 11:35 am

Hi this is my first post on here and just wanted to start a topic I am sure everyone would like and that is what are your memories of going to the store as a kid and buying Transformers? And where did you usually buy them at? Naturally I will start off myself. When I was celebrating my forth Christmas back in 1987 I got my very first ever Transformer which happened to be the Decepticon Headmaster Skullcruncher. :grin:

I loved it very much which sadly years later when I was about 7 I lost the head/Drax at a restaurant I had him at. :sad:

Hope to someday get another Drax to complete him. Anyway I went on to get more Transformers for the rest of my life such as Powermaster Optimus Prime and many others. The place I got most of my Transformers at was the old toy store some of you may remember (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_World http://geektarded.blogspot.com/2007/06/ ... alace.html)which is where I got Prime speaking of which and lots of others. My mother was always taking me there and getting me another Transformer. Of course I got alot of other ones from my next favorite place Toys R US. Woolworth was another place that had alot of Transformers in there toy section. They would sometimes have one's that were motorized going in there store also. I remember them having both Trypticon and Omega Supreme walking around in the toy section to display them. The one's that came to mind that I got there are most if not all of the second wave from 1989 of the Pretenders which of course were Pincher, Longtooth, Double Header (lost his little gun when I opened him in a Hornes Department Store there at the Southern Park Mall that Woolworth was at when I opened the bubble on the card later), Stranglehold, Bludgeon and Octopunch and got atleast two of the Monster Pretenders there which were Slog and Birdbrain. Another store that was good I used to go to as well some of you might remember was well was Ames which was formally GC Murphy Mart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ames_%28store%29). I got some of the Micromaster play stations there like the Decepticon combiner Canon Transport. Phar-Mor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phar-Mor)was another store I got some Transformers at like the Throttlebot's Searchlight and Wideload. And last but not least Kmart which I bought alot of Transformers from there toy section as well but one that stands out that comes to mind is my favorite Micromaster patrol which was the Decepticon Sportscar Patrol. After generation one (which will always be my favorite) ended and generation 2 and Beast Wars came along I got most of them at Toys R US, Kmart or Hills or Kaybee Toys at the Southern Park Mall since Childrens Palace went out of business back in 1992 and same with the Ames store out my way and Woolworth. Yeah I will never forget how excited I would be to go shopping every week with my mother and sometimes grandmother who would accompany every weekend at Boardman Township Ohio.

Never forget those wonderful days back in the 80's for as long as I shall live. So anybody else have any fond memories you would like to share about buying Transformers?

"Sleep Tight Earth Creatures. Your Awakening Shall Be Rude."

Long Haul in Five Faces Of Darkness

Fri Feb 06, 2015 12:42 pm

Might i suggest using alinea's to break up that huge slab of text? Makes it a lot easier to read.

As for the subject, i distinctly remember going to the local Toys'r'us with a few weeks of pocket money, and buying my first beast wars figures. one of them was cheetor.

Sun Feb 08, 2015 11:49 am

Yeah sorry for the sloppy layout of my post. Yeah paragraphs are something I always sucked at. Yeah Toy R US was my favorite place to buy them at after Children's Palace. They had a great selection there. Too bad Children's Palace couldn't stay in business like they had. I regards to Beast Wars I agree that Cheetor was awesome. He was probably my favorite. Him and the one from the same mold Tigertron. When B.W. first hit shelves I wanted to get Cheetor as well but Toys R US was sold out of them so I got Rattrap as my first one. Later at Hills I found Cheetor and bought him there. I never got real into B.W. since I always liked Generation 1 Transformers the best but that is probably because of me being an 80's person when I got into them to begin with.

Sadly in regards to places to by Transformers or any toys for that matter there are fewer and fewer out there no since Walmart keeps undercutting everyone and putting everyone else out of business.

"Sleep Tight Earth Creatures. Your Awakening Shall Be Rude." Long Haul in Five Faces Of Darkness

News Credits: 656 · Sun Feb 08, 2015 12:31 pm

Love the stories!

I can remember most of mine coming from discount stores as a child since I was born in '85. My parents were incredible and spoiled the crap out of me, in hindsight. Probably explains some of my current behavior but this is no place for armchair psychiatry.

- Lots of Pretenders were acquired through Brendle's
- K-mart was a gold mine, only cassette set I ever saw as a child was there and my mom wouldn't buy them for me. 4 year old Scotty threw a complete temper tantrum. It did not help. Good on her.
- B.E.S.T. was where some of my Targetmasters came from. Amazing store.
- Ames is where, I think, many of my Micromasters came from.
- KB Toys was Action Master central
- There was a regional (I think, maybe) chain around here called Toy Liquidators. What an amazing place. In 1990/91 we slowly acquired all three Mega Pretenders, Bludgeon, Stranglehold, Monstructor, and several others. I was really into the Decepticons of that era because of the old Marvel comic. Just a fantastic place for finding, at that time, "old" stock. They even had some of the gold box G1 "Classics" which is why I was gifted an Onslaught for my birthday in 1992.
- Walking into a Ben Franklin store in 1991, iirc, and walking out with a Galvatron was pretty amazing.
- Buying my first Beast Wars toys, Terrorsaur and Razorbeast, from our TRU. This was in the days before the dark times/remodels started.
- My dad taking me to Roses (the old one, not the modern junk store with the name attached) and randomly buying me a G2 Optimus Prime. Will never forget that because it was almost always my mom that would do that and only when he wasn't around.
- Woolworth's was the place for Throttlebots well into the 90s.
- The birthday (I think my 4th or 5th?) when I took my $50 and walked out of TRU with Powermaster Prime and some others. Was so excited about Prime that I was scolded for opening it in the car on the way home!

Well that was nostalgia city. Could go on for hours but that works for now.

News Credits: 6188 · Sun Feb 08, 2015 1:31 pm

You know, my biggest/most vivid memory of buying Transformers is only one, during Beast Wars.

My mum (whom I saw about once-twice a month) decided that for my birthday that year - whatever year it was, probably 1996 or 1997 - she would get me a game of my own for her Game Boy. We went to an Amico Giò shop, and headed for the videogame section. But I was transfixed by the Beast Wars red boxes. The Ultra class toys were out. They were beautiful. I picked up both Optimus Primal and Megatron, and looked at all the lookable, read all the readable, tried all the triable. I settled on Optimus Primal, in the end.

On our way out of the shop, my mum said she was willing to get me the other one, as well, as she had intended to spend more on the videogame anyway - I said no, it was more than enough to have this one. I keep thinking back at that strange day, as I never owned BW Megatron since, but still have the same OP.

I lied! There is a second!

It was a year later, I think, when my grandad promised me Magnaboss for my birthday, knowing full well (him, me and everyone else in my family) we might not find it in Italian shops. Which we didn't. So he took me around six shops in one afternoon later in the week, and bought me a Transmetal Waspinator as a 'pacifier' - I loved it, and it worked. My dad eventually found Magnaboss a month later in a weird department store, and I got it as a second birthday gift.

Mon Feb 09, 2015 2:47 pm

My first Transformer was Ratchet (renamed in Italy as Doc). It was probably the 1985 and I boght it in a small shop near Turin that is still open today.
It was a GIG edition and I don't remember if the box was branded "Trasformers" or "TraNsformers". Nothing is left of the toy.

I remember clearly my delusion when I noticed the robot didn't have the head and was totally different from the cartoon character.

News Credits: 22 · Mon Feb 09, 2015 3:22 pm

Va'al wrote:she would get me a game of my own for her Game Boy.

Her Game Boy? Man, you must be rather young, or she must've had you when she was in her teens. I mean, I used to have a Game Boy! I could be your dad.

News Credits: 6188 · Mon Feb 09, 2015 7:19 pm

Rodimus Prime wrote:
Va'al wrote:she would get me a game of my own for her Game Boy.
Her Game Boy? Man, you must be rather young, or she must've had you when she was in her teens. I mean, I used to have a Game Boy! I could be your dad.

She was all of those: fairly young (26), travelled a lot between Italy and UK, and I'm not that old myself. I'm talking first generation Game Boy here, used mostly for Tetris.

Quick check, it was out in EU in 1990. So yeah, the time fits. She probably bought it around 1993-4.

News Credits: 6188 · Mon Feb 09, 2015 7:24 pm

Sideswipe79 wrote:My first Transformer was Ratchet (renamed in Italy as Doc). It was probably the 1985 and I boght it in a small shop near Turin that is still open today.
It was a GIG edition and I don't remember if the box was branded "Trasformers" or "TraNsformers". Nothing is left of the toy.

I remember clearly my delusion when I noticed the robot didn't have the head and was totally different from the cartoon character.

Oh man, GIG and Amico Giò. So many mornings/afternoons/evenings spent staring at their catalogues.

News Credits: 293 · Mon Feb 09, 2015 8:18 pm

earliest memory of being in a store and getting a TF wasnt a good one :lol:

as a wee lad i cant remember wanting any TF more than hotrod. and the day i finally saw one, i was told "no". however, to shut me up there was a consolation prize: throttlebot freeway. FW was such a POS that i hate him still to this day, and view him as the reason i never got my beloved hotrod.

after that, the next big thing i recall was seeing a G2 optimus prime in canadian tire (around xmas time, they had awesome toys isles!). which naturally i got for xmas. i think the following xmas we were vacationing in the states and went to a TRU, where i got the three G2 dinobots (all silver).

later (early teens?) after getting a late start on BW, i was on the hunt for a dinobot. i had seen the original rock bubbled wave 1 when they first hit, but shrugged them off not knowing they were actual TF's. then i saw the show and my jaw dropped to the floor.... "NEW transformers??!" i snatched up every one i could find, but dinobot was elusive. but i finally found at another TRU while visiting my sister in another province. and seriously, the highlight of any family trip (for me) was finding a TRU, or anything with a toy ilse :lol:

regular toy haunts when i was a kid: zellers, hans christians, fields (sucked), sears, eatons, the bay, canadian tire (around xmas). ahhh... good times.

News Credits: 6188 · Mon Feb 09, 2015 8:25 pm

shajaki wrote:regular toy haunts when i was a kid: zellers, hans christians, fields (sucked), sears, eatons, the bay, canadian tire (around xmas). ahhh... good times.

I actually cannot remember if I ever bought Transformers (or other toys, for that matter) myself until I got back into collecting in 2009. I did not have a focus for a long time, even during Beast Wars, and most toys were gifts or charity shop finds. :-?

Mon Feb 09, 2015 10:08 pm

TRU was the place for TF's back when I was a kid during g1. My first three TF's came from there. Megatron, Thundercracker, Brawn. Many others after that, but those are the ones I'll remember most specifically from there.

K-mart was probably the 2nd place, just because we didn't have any Targets or Walmarts in the area until the early and late 90's respectively. K-mart also had quite a few knockoffs back then, stuff like silver laserbeak, brown ravage, orange constructicons, they were low quality, but we still liked them, and they were cheap! The cassettes even came with cases, unlike the real TF's. There were also a lot of KO gobots, believe it or not. Biggest memory there is seeing the g1 Aerialbot gift set on sale, before any of the (post devastator) combiners had showed up in any commercials or fiction. Fitting memory now that I'm desperately seeking Combiner Wars figures!

There were also the Sears and JC Penny's catalogs (and at my grandparents house in another town the Best catalog) that I'd spend hours perusing. Not just TF's but all sorts of stuff even before TF's existed. Never really ordered anything, but those catalogs were a big part of my youth.

Kaybee, they were only in the mall, and I didn't get there too much back in the day. Probably shopped there more between RID (01) and when they went under than when I was a kid.

Children's Palace, never cared too much for that place, seemed like a dirtier, rougher (if a toy store can be rough at all) TRU, and always being right across the street from an actual TRU probably didn't help matters. I don't know if I ever got any TF's there, I think mainly I got MASK stuff there. I still wasn't happy when they went under, though. Competition is always good and if they were still around TRU might have better prices.

News Credits: 60 · Mon Feb 09, 2015 11:43 pm

Didn't have those memories until 1992 When my mum and dad bought me G1 Fortmax and the 1st gen Autonot and Decepticon Headmasters (sans Scorponok).

During the 80s, couldn't even afford them :sad:

News Credits: 293 · Tue Feb 10, 2015 11:35 am

Va'al wrote:
shajaki wrote:regular toy haunts when i was a kid: zellers, hans christians, fields (sucked), sears, eatons, the bay, canadian tire (around xmas). ahhh... good times.
I actually cannot remember if I ever bought Transformers (or other toys, for that matter) myself until I got back into collecting in 2009. I did not have a focus for a long time, even during Beast Wars, and most toys were gifts or charity shop finds.

yeah. i dont think i was present in the stores when my parents were buying toys for me back in the G1 days. i remember a whole lot of hunting when TMNT was big though. then came the star wars POTF line, then full circle back to TF's with BW. in the SW/BW days i was hunting for and by myself by then.

News Credits: 9 · Wed Feb 11, 2015 6:08 am

My earliest memory of buying a TF would be shortly after Christmas '85. Transformers had just hit the UK and my parents had given me Hound. They weren't sure if I'd like this new gimmicky toy so only got me one BUT I WANTED MOARRRRRRR! Some time before the end of the holiday my mum took me to a nearby town and I chose either Warpath or Powerglide (whichever one I bought first, I bought the other one a few weeks later). We bought some small cakes and sat by the river eating the cakes and playing with the new TF.

Mon Feb 16, 2015 1:05 pm

Thanks for the replies everyone! :grin:

Always nice to hear other peoples stories of there fond memories of buying Transformers.

Yeah I think all of you will agree that that is one of the best memories of being a child was anticipation of getting more Transformers each year. Besides going to the store also looking through the fold up catalogs of that years lineup to get ideas on what to look for next or to ask our parents or relatives to get us for our birthdays or holidays or whatever.

Yeah your right Optimum Supreme. Shame that Children's Palace didn't stay open since it would have brought the prices down on Transformers and other toys at TRU. :-x

Not to mention it would have kept more jobs in the struggling economy of today. Yeah I guess they couldn't stay in business because of them being named in a lawsuit and some poor choices they made. Atleast it wasn't out of greed like with the one discount store chain I mentioned that was founded in Youngstown Ohio old Pharmor which was because of the owner being greedy and embezzling hundreds of millions from his partners cut of the money which caused them to go out of business and put hundreds out of the job overnight.

When I was a kid I also would love to look through Sears and Penny's catalogs those were so cool with all the stuff they carried in them around X-Mas time. I guess as alot of people have heard that JCPenny Wishbook from 1984 was where the original three Decepticon jets got the name "Seekers" was from the add in there selling them mail order. I'll bet were not the only ones on here that did.

That's funny how that is ScottyP how certain stores seemed to carry certain lines of Transformers or atleast that is how we remember them. I forgot to mention Ben Franklin's I used to get some Transformers from there as well back in the late eighties early nineties. I remeber them for having the Protectobots and Stunticons. First I got Wildrider there then I got Deadend (my favorite of the Stunticons) and Motormaster. I still don't have Breakdown and Dragstrip which I am thinking of maybe getting one of the reissue Menasor giftsets that are floating around since I am missing a couple of accessories anyway like Motormaster's sword that broke shortly after I got him back in 1988. I have the Protectobots as well but I got them as a set years ago in bad shape so I might get a repro Defensor giftset as well. There were two Ben Franklin's not far from me I would hit. One that I usually hit with my parents when we would visit my grandmother in Carolton Ohio and another in New Wilmington Pennsylvania that I got in Blitzwing, Headstrong and I think Slag in.

I was in the same boat as well Sideswipe79. I watched the show first and couldn't bleieve how different the Ratchet toy looked from the show or the comic book for that matter. Glad they didn't draw him that way on the show or comic. Never the less the the toy was still cool anyway. I would say Ratchet will always be one of my favorite toys along with Optimus Prime, Prowl and my favorite 1984/85 Megatron and Shockwave and many others.

That's a shame what you said shajaki. Did you ever get a vintage Hotrod or reissue? Or are you still without him to this day? I always wanted one as a kid myself and never got him. My parents got me both Blurr and Kup but no Hotrod. Years later though I think in 2002 if I recall I got him as a reissue at TRU. Hot Rodimus I think is what his package said since at the time Hasbro lost the trademark. I think they got it back later but at the time they didn't. That was just before all they realized that there was a big market for reissues. I myself always liked the Throttlebots even though they were extremely basic they were still cool. Freeway was probably my favorite. He had a cool robot form and really cool Corvette mode and I have always liked blue anyway. I would say Chase was probably my next favorite. He was cool as well.

Thanks once again everone for the responses. Anybody else want to talk about there memories feel free to post.

"Sleep Tight Earth Creatures. Your Awakening Shall Be Rude."

LongHaul in Five Faces Of Darkness

Mon Feb 16, 2015 1:56 pm

LongHaul wrote:
I was in the same boat as well Sideswipe79. I watched the show first and couldn't bleieve how different the Ratchet toy looked from the show or the comic book for that matter.

If I am not wrong in the first USA classic comics appearance (I bought the IDW volume one in E-book version) Ratchet looks exactly as the toy. After some pages he changes and get the cartoon look.

News Credits: 1 · Mon Feb 16, 2015 3:14 pm

I used to eat Firecons.

Mon Feb 16, 2015 3:57 pm

Sideswipe79 wrote:
LongHaul wrote:
I was in the same boat as well Sideswipe79. I watched the show first and couldn't bleieve how different the Ratchet toy looked from the show or the comic book for that matter.

If I am not wrong in the first USA classic comics appearance (I bought the IDW volume one in E-book version) Ratchet looks exactly as the toy. After some pages he changes and get the cartoon look.

Right you are. Yeah the first issue he did look like his toy and second issue possibly. I think the third is where he was drawn up to look like he did in the show. With a slight difference in color on the head but pretty much the same.

"Sleep Tight Earth Creatures. Your Awakening Shall Be Rude!"

LongHaul in Five Faces Of Darkness

News Credits: 60 · Mon Feb 16, 2015 5:12 pm

Gawd, also remember the time when I'd ask my well too do friends/school buddies if I can get ahold of their TF catalogs. Just having one would tide me over until the next 8 years.

News Credits: 25 · Mon Feb 16, 2015 9:20 pm

Sadly, I'm old enough to remember when transformers first came out. For me, KMart was the place for toys. This was back in the days before Walmart owned everything. Maybe once or twice a month, mom would take me to the local toysrus. That store was ski ferment back n the day. There used to be just so many toys. Shelf after shelf of toys. Granted, these memories are thirty years old, but still, that store seemed magical.

Anyway, my first transformer was Sideswipe. Many would follow after that, but he was the first.

Mon Feb 16, 2015 10:59 pm

LongHaul* wrote:
Sideswipe79 wrote:
LongHaul wrote:
I was in the same boat as well Sideswipe79. I watched the show first and couldn't bleieve how different the Ratchet toy looked from the show or the comic book for that matter.

If I am not wrong in the first USA classic comics appearance (I bought the IDW volume one in E-book version) Ratchet looks exactly as the toy. After some pages he changes and get the cartoon look.

Right you are. Yeah the first issue he did look like his toy and second issue possibly. I think the third is where he was drawn up to look like he did in the show. With a slight difference in color on the head but pretty much the same.

"Sleep Tight Earth Creatures. Your Awakening Shall Be Rude!" LongHaul in Five Faces Of Darkness

Yeah, in the earliest issues a lot of the characters look much different from their eventual character model sheets from the cartoon (which clearly hadn't been designed yet, as the comic came out much earlier). And even after the character models came along, they were often still slightly different (but that happened in the cartoon as well from time to time) and colors could be way off, Ratchet sometimes wound up with blue and a lot more red than usual. I did like that early comic Bumblebee had a faceplate like the toy.

News Credits: 6188 · Wed Feb 18, 2015 3:35 am

fenrir72 wrote:Gawd, also remember the time when I'd ask my well too do friends/school buddies if I can get ahold of their TF catalogs. Just having one would tide me over until the next 8 years.

We would spend hours trying to figure out the transformations by looking at the pictures!

News Credits: 3 · Wed Feb 18, 2015 4:38 am

Va'al wrote:
fenrir72 wrote:Gawd, also remember the time when I'd ask my well too do friends/school buddies if I can get ahold of their TF catalogs. Just having one would tide me over until the next 8 years.

We would spend hours trying to figure out the transformations by looking at the pictures!

I still do that! Though now it's by looking at photos on the net, not a catalogue, but you get the point.

News Credits: 6188 · Wed Feb 18, 2015 4:53 am

prjkt wrote:
Va'al wrote:
fenrir72 wrote:Gawd, also remember the time when I'd ask my well too do friends/school buddies if I can get ahold of their TF catalogs. Just having one would tide me over until the next 8 years.

We would spend hours trying to figure out the transformations by looking at the pictures!

I still do that! Though now it's by looking at photos on the net, not a catalogue, but you get the point.

Tru dat.