Bumblebee-otch wrote:6? 7?
i actually first saw the optimus prime/gorilla toy at TRU and it was love at first sight. then i found out there was a SHOW about em and there are more "robo-animals"!!! one of my favorite memories in my life

I actually have a similar story to that extent:
Back when Beast Wars came on, I had no cable/satelite(lived to far away for cable), only two local channels(the equivalent of CBS and NBC). However, my brother would go to college during the week, and stayed in an apartment that DID have cable. So he was nice enough to tape me stuff like Batman, Power Rangers, Spider-Man, X-Men, G.I. Joe, and that stuff, and brought me a tape home almost every weekend. Well on one of these tapes there was the first commercial for Beast Wars toys, and that's how I learned of it. I was ten at the time I believe, going on eleven.
Anyway, before he found out that one of his stations was airing Beast Wars(which he eventually taped some for me, first season stuff), I had gotten the McDonald's Beast Wars figures, Dinobot, Snapper(love turtles), and the Bat Optimus and Gator Megs. This is how it ties into the quote above. One day at Wal-Mart I saw that there was a gorrilla Optimus and T-Rex Megatron. My initial reaction was "What? But they're supposed to be a bat and an alligator!" I of course later learned that it wasn't the case in the show.
I never got to see the entire series until a few years later. We got satelite in '97, but we didn't get Beast Wars(if we did, I never found it, save for the week that Cartoon Network showed the last five of Season 2. Great episodes!). And when Beast Machines started airing, Fox aired Beast Wars, and I finally got to see it all.