The Energon Pub

Nope! Not a thread about the various incarnations of TF's (though it does come into play a little), but rather how Transformers, being 25+ years old is now spanning multiple generations.

See, I was 9 ... 10 or so when Transformers first came out. So I was in that age group where the little blighters were aimed solely at kids like me. The fact i'm here is a good indication they got me hook line and sinker.

I've seen younger folk join the forums, brought here by a rekindling of interest in TF's after they were exposed to Beast Wars, or young folks joining up because of the movies.

But there's another generation out there that I want to discuss. The kids of us old farts.

Now I don't have any kids of my own, though I have a four, nearly five year old nephew who's lived in the same house as me for all his life.

Suffice to say, he's had exposure to transformers for as long as he can remember.

I haven't forced G1 onto him though. No, his first real exposure came from the first movie. Once that was released on DVD it was watched numerous times each week. Heck, he dragged it out just last week to watch it again!

His first trip to a movie theatre was to see RotF. Now my sister and I were worried that he wouldn't sit still. By the time those big ass robots hit the screen though he didn't shift one bit. Though he got a little fidgity towards the end.

He's seen all of Animated, his first few TF's were Cyber Slammers and Bumper Battlers. He's since moved up to Human Alliance figures (does a damn good job of trying to transform them too) and is always waiting for me to get home to find out what's in the box for me that turned up in the mail (generally it's a new TF so he wants to see it).

I'll pick up some junker G1's, clean 'em up for him. They may be missing parts but he doesn't care, they're Transformers and his imagination fills in for the missing parts.

So at the age of four and a bit, he's had a massive exposure to Transformers, in part to me, but a large part is his own interest.

I love sitting there explaining who my new TF's are to him, they're names, showing him how they transform. I love giving him the old G1 figures and telling him who they are, and my reaction when I was a little older than him when I got my minty version.

Now that's my story, I want to hear from you guys, whether you've got kids of your own, or they're your nephews or nieces, I want to hear stories about how you're introducing the next generation to Transformers.

I wear my movie faction symbol shirts a lot, and have had many conversations over them with people of all ages. and I LOVE getting to tell 7-12 year olds about how there was a movie when I was their age... they are always surprised and interested!

Besides my Decepticon tattoo on my left calf, both of my daughters have been around my transformers for all of their lives. Both have watched on numerous occasions the movie and the TV show.
My 17 year old has a couple of her own, her boyfriend is big into them as well. My 5 1/2 year old has a couple of my extra G1's (Guzzle and the duocon battletrap)..

My wife even is into TF's...

Cyber Bishop wrote:My 5 1/2 year old

Every time you mention her I feel older because I remember your thread announcing her birth.

We're getting so old.

Found out my cousin and his wife are expecting twin boys early next year. Guess what Uncle Skyfire plans on getting them for birthdays and Christmas? That whole side of the family is crazy about aviation too, which doesn't hurt.

Burn wrote:

Cyber Bishop wrote:My 5 1/2 year old

Every time you mention her I feel older because I remember your thread announcing her birth.

We're getting so old.

Yeah bro, we are getting old.. Hell I make 40 in December too..
The oldest one graduates high school this year and the little one graduates Kindergarten and will start 1st grade next year.

Nice post.

I don't purposefully buy TFs over something else for anyone but I have at times. Mostly, I just take the kids to the Toystore, say "I have this much" and let them go nuts, and often give away TFs of mine that ppl like to them.

However, when my cousin got divorced I took her son to the Toystore and did the above.He specifically asked me for a Transformer and I let him choose, telling him all about what was on the shelves as he made up his mind.Eventually he chose Classics Jetfire, and when we got back to his place he opened it, transformed it, stood it up and stared at it until, like, 2 hours after bed time.

I'm like "Little Dude, PLAY with it, Man! If you bust it,who cares, we'll get another one!"

He's Like, "Aw, I just wanna LOOK at it! Nobody ever got me a toy this cool"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another scenario: Some neighbors had a little son and I was doing a cleanout, so I gave him Supreme class Jetfire from the Unicron show.It was OVER half as tall as him, and he could be seen dragging it everywhere. His Ma said later that his old Teddy bear had been kicked to the corner and he slept with his new robot teddy.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My wife demands a toll for each Tf I buy: she gets to shoot me with their missiles. I used to buy her TFs when we courted, and she's like "I can see why you like them so much,but...meh!."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm going to be an uncle for the first time next week and my other sis in law is due with twins next May.

Looking forward to bringing them to toyshops in years to come and hopefully get them into the Transformers as well despite both sets of expectant parents telling me to keep the TF's away from them

Great post.

My boy loves TFs already and he only turned two in May.

I can actually remember his first introduction to them as well, its almost like it was yesterday.

He woke up late one night after having a nightmare, needless to say he was inconsolable, so my wife and I decided to let him sleep in our bed for a bit to try and calm him down. Anyway neither of us could really sleep, so after my wife nodded off I decided to put my G1 collection on, naturally starting at the beginning with 'More than meets the eye' pt1. well to cut a long story sideways, we ended staying up to about 3am, after up watching the entire disc he finally fell asleep. The next morning when he woke up the very first words out of his mouth were "Daddy Transformer"

I now consider the baton to be well and truly passed, much to my wife's annoyance!

I have 3 girls, 2 in there 20's and my youngest will be 16 next month.

While the older 2 never had an interest, my youngest loved watching G1 with me on Tape/DVD's.

She enjoyed the Beast shows but lost interested with the rest.

She does like the live action films....for the popcorn fun of it.