Netflix The Toys That Made Us Cast and Crew Favourite Toys Facebook Stream #TTTMU

Using that Unicron in the promos is a little weird to me. "The Toys That Made Us" just not this one, they canceled it. It's making us theoretical money, that's all.

Minor quibble, I should note. The casual viewer will see that and say "oh yeah Unicron I had that one yeah I 'member" and be none the wiser

ScottyP wrote:Using that Unicron in the promos is a little weird to me. "The Toys That Made Us" just not this one, they canceled it.

Yeah! It's "The Toys That Made Us" not, "The Toys That Never Made It".

Just curious, of the two Unicron Prototypes that have been seen over the years this one (pictured above) is the one more often seen. Appearing at past botcons etc... I wonder...does someone actually own it? Or is it part of a Hasbro Museum (of sorts) and is just featured at cons, and, of course, this documentary.

I know this is a bit OT, but I kind of wish we had gotten the prototype proposed from the Japanese BW Neo series (that never made it beyond a gray model), rather than the Armada one, that has been the template for most Unicrons thereafter.

o.supreme wrote:Just curious, of the two Unicron Prototypes that have been seen over the years this one (pictured above) is the one more often seen. Appearing at past botcons etc... I wonder...does someone actually own it? Or is it part of a Hasbro Museum (of sorts) and is just featured at cons, and, of course, this documentary.

I recall from the tour of Hasbro (what they could show) during Botcon 2007 that they have archival pieces here and there around the facility, such as one of the handmade original Monopoly boards. I've always assumed the Unicron samples (there are 2 or 3?) were like that and just kept in a case somewhere in Rhode Island. That's never been confirmed, just my best guess at its status.

If you're reading this in a timezone where it's already Friday May 25th, the tenses used in this post may not make sense, but the official Facebook page for the Netflix documentary The Toys That Made Us has sent out a reminder that the second part of the first season (though they sometimes call it second season themselves) is due on the streaming service on the 25th - so tomorrow is in fact today!

The four episodes due for upload will feature Lego, Star Trek, Hello Kitty, and the brand we've all been waiting to see on screen, Transformers! Spanning across multiple media, from the Michael Bay live action movies, the Marvel comics with Bob Budiansky, the toys over at Takara Tomy and Hasbro, and the cartoons with Peter Cullen and others, plus our very own Seibertron, the episode is looking to be extremely entertaining. Give it a look once it's live, and come back to the Energon Pub to share your thoughts!

TOMORROW!
Season 2 of #TTTMU airs on Netflix on May 25!

It;s up on my netflix right now (it's finally midnight here) so I am gonna go watch!!

Watched it, enjoyed it, though I probably hyped myself up too much for it.

There was definitely stuff I didn't know, particularly how it really all harkens back to the early G.I. Joe figures.

Now I'm trapped watching Hello Kitty ... damn this series makes everything fascinating.

Debating over whether I should go mooch off a friend this weekend, or wait till I get to Japan next week and use my partner's account to watch these.

I want that VHS transformer.

Well..... This felt like 45mins of stuff they've already explained over the years at toy fairs, comic Conventions and online interviews.

I guess I wouldn't have been so disappointed with this if it didn't take like 2 years to finally release it.

YoungPrime wrote:Well..... This felt like 45mins of stuff they've already explained over the years at toy fairs, comic Conventions and online interviews.

I guess I wouldn't have been so disappointed with this if it didn't take like 2 years to finally release it.

I mean, it is for wider public and/or more casual audience..!

ausbot wrote:I want that VHS transformer.

Same here. I never knew that even existed! . What the episode had was great. I would not take anything away from it. However they just kind of skipped from briefly mentioning Beast Wars to jumping straight to the live action film, almost a 20 year gap there, they could have filled maybe 5 or 6 minuets talking about the differences of the toys in international markets. Highlighting fan conventions etc..., after all the SW episode was 51 minuets, while all the others are about 45. Oh well, who knows, if the series goes on for long enough we may get a 2nd Transfomrers episode.

Ryan, it was good to see you. very well done .

ausbot wrote:I want that VHS transformer.

Yeah, me too, that thing looked awesome!

Loved the episode. And even though I knew a lot of this stuff, now i have it all condensed with the best visuals yet. And Ryan is a natural.

I love those Takara guys (and Larry Hama, what a champ!)

We're working on a staff roundtable review of the episode, stay tuned for more this weekend!

Felt it was overhyped (my own fault not theirs) and I was hoping it would be as funny as the He-man episode. Also I feel it could have been twice as long, but TF's are my jam so that opinion is to be expected.

However I was surprised how much was in there that even I didn't know. I'm no Sabre, but I think my knowledge is pretty extensive. It was great to see the Takara guys, and Cullen. And one thing I love about this show is their ability to find the people who were the inner workings of these creations.

I think what I like most about it, is this is something I can really simply point to to explain my obsession to outsiders. I sat down and watched it with my gf last night

I enjoyed it a lot. Ryan's story with the go-bot was probably the best part. I think that they focused more on a lot of the things that I already knew about the design process but that is perfectly fine. I think that newer fans or people who just didn't know all of the details of how Transformers came to be probably got a lot out of watching and that is important!

I do wish that they gave us more insight from fans and collectors about their favorite pieces. I would really like to know what being a TF fan in the 1980's was like. I wish that there was more talk about bot con and the effect that the fans had on Transformers to keep things going.

WreckerJack wrote:I do wish that they gave us more insight from fans and collectors about their favorite pieces.

I'd rather see that as it's own series. This is more about how the toys came to be, with a balanced contribution from the fans on how it impacted them.

It was an entertaining show, but I noticed that Marvel took all the credits. They totally ignored the contributions of Toei Animation, AKOM, Nelson Shin and Shoji Kawamori while they showed their creations: the commercial animations, the cartoon and Jetfire. Sunbow was also missing. I also felt like Hasbro tried to take credit for TF by linking G.I. Joe to TF because of that toy mold, which was intentionally too far-fetched. They talked about the Michael Bay stuff, but didn’t mention the MP figures and the G1 reissues.

huryochagi wrote:They talked about the Michael Bay stuff, but didn’t mention the MP figures and the G1 reissues.

They skipped a number of lines to bring up the live action movies, and even then, that was brief just to say how far Transformers had come since Hasbro made a licensing deal with Takara in the 80's

The Toys That Made Us - the Netflix original documentary series focusing on 80s toys and franchises - aired its second tranche of episodes on the streaming service on Friday 25th May, and several fans and collectors tuned in to check out the Transformers specific episode (two years in the waiting, after all) but also the Star Trek, Lego, and Hello Kitty episodes that accompanied it.

As such, we sat some of the staff down and had a chat about what we thought about the way our favourite transforming robots were treated, and how it lived up or not to our expectations! Read along below to find out more, and join the discussion with your own thoughts in the thread on the Energon Pub discussion boards!



Introducing: the participants

Va'al - I have watched entire series out of interest, and in anticipation for the Transformers episode in particular, of course, so I can also see and compare this episode in the frame of the whole documentary. People who know me are aware of my stance and position towards toys, in that I don't really collect them but am fairly invested in the fiction surrounding the characters - but have gone through the motions as a kid who grew up in the 1990s, so Beast Wars and what followed were definitely a thing until the toy buying died down!

william-james88 - This was the first episode I watched of the series so far and I thought it was an excellent look at the toy brand and the best piece yet relating its history. Transformers are my very favourite toys, always have been, ever since I was 8 and discovered Beast Wars toys. I have been buying figures here and there ever since and went deep down the rabbit hole in 2014 where I have yet to emerge. I love all transforming toys, so I collect a few more franchises as well (e.g. Power Rangers, Voltron, Japanese 70s Super Robots) but my favourites are still Transformers, simply due to the Takara workmanship, which I was very happy this episode highlighted.

Qwan - I don't have Netflix myself, so this episode (when I managed to bum a friend's account) was my first chance to watch the show. Bearing that in mind, I don't have anything to compare this episode to in the show's broad scope, but hopefully I at least have enough perspective on the Transformers franchise to judge it in that way. I've been into Transformers since Cybertron (I was only 6 when it caught my interest!), and though I care most about the toys, it's the fiction and characters that keep always me wanting to buy more. I collect a bunch of other stuff too - Gunpla, Bionicle, other Lego mechs, basically anything with big robots; and then anything else with characters that catch my interest - but in the end it's always been Transformers that stands out as the one that matters most.

Cobotron - Being born in 1975 put me right at prime demographic for every toy brand this series has covered. And boy did I play with a lot of if not all of these toys! So needless to say the entire series not only hits my nostalgia button, but also covers a subject that is still near and dear to me 42 years later. I've been playing with and collecting Transformers since even before 1984, as I had friends with Diaclone toys. My love for Japanese robots grew from playing with my older brother's Micronauts, and Shogun Warriors, but really found it's focus with Transformers. To this day I still have my childhood collections, and/or actively collect not just Transformers, but Star Wars, GI Joe, MASK, Lego, and more. Transformers makes up a majority of my collection, but first and for most I consider myself a toy collector, and specifically a collector of these very toys that made us.

D-Maximal_Primal - This is a show I have been interested in watching, but this was the first chance I have gotten to see an episode, thanks to my girlfriend's Netflix account. My journey with Transformers began with the 2007 movie, and I got my first toy on Christmas eve of that year, which was movie 1 voyager Megatron. I started collecting a bit more around Revenge of the Fallen, and my collecting really took off in 2013 after I started college. I am 23 now, and still vastly enjoy the brand all the different aspects of it. I also enjoy the Marvel Universe, particularly Iron Man, Gundam, and Voltron.

With the backgrounds set out and the cards on the table, let's dive in!



What did you enjoy the most?

C - Every episode in the series has offered something interesting about each brand they've featured. With the Transformers episode I was delighted to gain more insight into the early days and the designers at Takara. In fact, Transformers humble Japanese beginnings is probably one of my favorite aspects of the brand. While this history is not new to me, I'm so happy they focused a lot of this episodes on the prehistory of Transformers, because now there is this nice, comprehensive source, wrapped in a fun to ingest package, that sums up their origins for even the newest collector to learn about how it all began.

D - ...seeing all the old Takara stuff was so neat and also incredibly informative to see where Transformers came from, what all Takara did, what Hasbro did without them for a bit, and then how things have progressed since. It is especially interesting to see how the toys changed from being good guys to bad guys and viceversa between the original Microman/Diaclone and the Transformers versions.

WJ - I agree, my favourite part of this episode was how we spent a lot of time with Takara. I liked how humble everyone was and how these men were just glad to know that what they created brought joy to children and keeps doing so as the brand evolves and grows. I also loved learning of Takara's reaction to Hasbro's take on their product, which was something I had oddly never considered.

V - Yeah, I think that was the most enjoyable part of the episode, mostly also due to the tone of the entire series: the switching between different speakers to gauge the reactions and reception of the brand initially - the history is a well known mismatched one in the fandom, and the editing of Takara vs Hasbro, toy vs marketing, with the almost flippant narration, was entertaining (though I know this is not the widespread reaction to the series).

Q - That mismatched history stood out for me. I thought it was great seeing the process leading up to the brand's creation and introduction to the Western market. All too often the background of Transformers is given as "GI Joe then Microman and then Transformers happened" with about that much detail, so I loved how much time was dedicated to seeing exactly how this brand we all adore came about, from early cultural and media influences through to actual licensing.


What do you think was missing?

Q - Since I'm a little baby boy who missed out on the whole G1 and Beast Wars scenes, I would've really liked to see even a bit of screentime dedicated to the post-BW pre-Movie stuff; Car Robots, Unicron Trilogy, Animated, anything like that. Heck, even Beast Wars got the shaft a bit in terms of its importance. Things still happened between 1996 and 2007, guys! (I also sorely felt the lack of any G2 raps: easily the most artful creations to ever come out of the brand.)

D - Yeah, I really missed seeing more of the toyline past G1 though. As a big Animated fan, movie fan, and now a Beast Wars fan, I missed seeing more of those guys, and seeing some of the newer toy designs that came from the original 80s toys. Other than that bit of oversight, I really enjoyed the episode!

C - I do wish they had spent a little more time covering the post Beast Wars era toy lines. They had Aaron Archer as an interviewee, but really just dusted over the huge contribution he (and his team) made to the brand. The Archer led era of Transformers was an important time that produced some of the toys that are to this day among my very favorites.

V - I mean, the series is dedicated to the 80s, of course, so we knew all of the toys some of us grew up with were going to be only briefly featured from the start - but for me the Italian perspective on the brand, with the GIG licensing, naming, and branding situation, essentially the creation question about the Transformers (or Trasformers on my side) would've been fun to see explored too! (That, and some issues with framing the Japanese perspective from a production point of view.)

WJ - On that last point: Since we do spend a lot of time on the Japanese side of things, with the creators and designers, I would have really liked to have the option of their speech subtitled rather than dubbed. This brand is so deeply rooted in Japan that it would have been nice to have this episode fully embrace this idea of two worlds and give us two different languages at least. Also, while the episode looks great and seems to have a budget on par with any other documentary, that intro feels like it comes from Newgrounds circa 2001 and feels off compared to the rest of the episode which has a rather decent quality.




What is one new thing you learned?

D - I only know a little bit about Diaclone, So almost the entire first half of the episode was a history lesson I really knew nothing about, so that was really cool! I enjoyed seeing the ideas form and change over time, and it was awesome to get all that history and pre-history of the brand.

V - Similar for me! The original GI Joe connection was one I was not entirely aware of - the shared Hasbro Universe everyone has been griping about at IDW goes way back further than I thought, and I'll admit I had a little 'ha!' moment about that. Oh, and the wooden toy prototypes were pretty cool.

WJ - Yeah, I really liked seeing the early process as to how Transformers (Microchange and Diaclone toys) were first designed, in wood. We are used to seeing grey prototypes but seeing prototypes in wood just shows me how limited toy technology once was and how amazing it is that we got such complex toys back in the day. Also, as a Jim Shooter fan, it was really cool to learn that he came up with the story of the Autobots vs Decepticons.

Q - Shooter yes, but also it was really interesting to hear how Budiansky ended up writing for the original Transformers; I never really stopped to think about how he got the job, only that he did it (and did it well). I've always loved behind-the-scenes stories, so learning more about how the very original TF fiction was created was fascinating to me!

C - I'll stand out on this one: I was surprised to learn that after Transformers: the Movie, Takara stepped out of the picture completely. I thought for sure the "Masters" eras of the brand were still created in tandem with Takara. In fact I've always thought that the likes of the Head Masters were so awesomely silly and original that they had to have come from the Japanese designers. I would have liked to learn more about the design process during this time frame.




What was your personal highlight from the episode?

WJ - The highlight is everyone they got to interview, including seeing our own site owner Seibertron being rather eloquent, with a contagious enthusiasm for the brand. You did us proud buddy! Oh and probably the major highlight was seeing all those gorgeous Diaclone toys. I was watering at the mouth watching those beauties transform onscreen, what gorgeous toys.

Q - Yes, seeing Bossbot represent us so well was great! That aside since it's almost cheating to pick it, I thought the moment at the end with Yoke's Perceptor was incredibly sweet and a heartwarming note to end on. (More lightly, I got a good chuckle out of the observation that even whoever was in charge of the Transformers displayed in the episode couldn't get MPM Optimus' truck mode to cooperate either!)

C - I think the biggest highlight for me was the interviews and insight into the original Takara team. Especially Yoke-san! That moment where he started to get emotional showing off the Perceptor that Hasbro had given him kicked me right in the tear ducts too. Everything I love about all Takara toys, not just Transformers, can be linked to him. And, he seems to just be such a nice and kind person, not to mention a design genius. I'd like to thank Yoke-san for giving me and so many others the fuel we needed to drive our imaginations to the farthest reaches and back, for all these many years.

V - I really want to say something else other than seeing Ryan / Seibertron on screen, as you all did. I do. So I'll go with Bob Budiansky's entertainingly dry humour, and Hideaki Yoke calling Bumblebee 'a sweet boy'.

D - The whole naming and personality part from Budiansky himself, and how it took so long to get to him and how fast he put everything together. "High Beam" huh? Guess the person who vetoed that name wasn't around when Erector came out! But really though, seeing the toys take on their personalities that have helped endear them to all of us was really awesome, and it's amazing how fast it was all done too.




All in all, we thought this was an great look at the franchise, covering the early major beats and giving us our best and most accessible version yet at the story behind these magnificent toys - it's a fantastic primer about this huge universe and the wonderful people that made it happen, even with the sometimes goofy, forced humour (to some).



Oh, and one last thing from Cobotron, before we hand the thoughts over to the rest of the community:

I watched the episode twice. The first time I was at work, and while I was looking down at my work I heard a very familiar voice. It was a true delight to look up and see the old Bossbot himself, Seibertron. It's so great that such an important and long time contributor to the fandom got recognized in such a wonderful way. You deserve the acknowledgement Ryan. Thanks for giving us Transformers nerds a place to hang out and be ourselves!

The Toys That Made Us is now streaming on Netflix, with all 8 episodes available.

I thought it was a terrible episode and didn't talk about why the brand is so huge now.

I thought it was a fun episode! To my understanding, this series was never about showing why the toylines are successful nowadays but are instead meant to be retrospectives on how they came into existence, and perhaps a touch of "where are they now". From that perspective, the episode did a great job - I think a lot of us learned at least a detail or two about the line's creation that we didn't know before! (Like how sweet a boy Bumblebee is )

I understand that they only have limited time in each episode, and overall I did still enjoy the episode, but I couldn't help but think that they left a lot out.

Other episodes (such as Barbie and Lego) really seem more comprehensive in talking not only about the origins of the brand, but also in where the brand has gone from its beginnings through to today. The Transformers episode focused hard on G1, and barely scratched the surface on what followed. Watching this, you would think that the only post-G1 properties there were were Beast Wars and the Bay films.

Even as someone who's own fandom is highly G1-based, it would have been nice to see even brief mentions of things such as the Unicron Trilogy or Animated. And especially as someone who's fandom is highly G1-based, I thought it odd to omit the two toylines that most pay homage to the G1-days, namely Classics and it's followers through to Generations, and the Masterpiece line.

That all being said, I did really enjoy the episode, and it is an excellent look at the origins of the brand. But it isn't the comprehensive look at the brand as a whole that other episodes seem to be...

My thought is that we will have a part 2 episode on transformers. Thus brand is too much to put into one episode.

That said, I did enjoy this episode very much.

Does that VHS transformer have a name or is it some unique custom job? Can't seem to find any info on it.

huryochagi wrote:It was an entertaining show, but I noticed that Marvel took all the credits. They totally ignored the contributions of Toei Animation, AKOM, Nelson Shin and Shoji Kawamori while they showed their creations: the commercial animations, the cartoon and Jetfire. Sunbow was also missing. I also felt like Hasbro tried to take credit for TF by linking G.I. Joe to TF because of that toy mold, which was intentionally too far-fetched. They talked about the Michael Bay stuff, but didn’t mention the MP figures and the G1 reissues.

This series is more about the toys, not the brand itself. So the animation angle wasn't as crucial to the discussion. Same with bottom and other fan related aspects.

Ralstotron wrote:Does that VHS transformer have a name or is it some unique custom job? Can't seem to find any info on it.

I'm guessing the VHS bot was a prototype or test sample of some kind. In all my years I have never seen that toy either, but MAN was it COOL!

And, welcome to the pub, Ralstotron!! Grab a pint of energon, and pull up a chair!

Ralstotron wrote:Does that VHS transformer have a name or is it some unique custom job? Can't seem to find any info on it.

Yes, please - if anyone recognizes that thing, I really want to know what it is, or anything about it!

Cool. Thanks for the quick and friendly reply/welcome.

I guess I'll just have to hope that someone watches this, sees the interest in that VHS guy, and makes one I can buy!

I'm still feeling a disconnect. I'm probably wrong about this, but I was surprised that the episode said that Takara didn't have much involvement post-movie but that seems odd given that the toys used for Rebirth were also sold by Takara and used by them to make the Headmasters cartoon. Then powermasters and pretenders were used to make the Masterforce cartoon. It seems more like the break was at the introduction of micromasters and action masters, but that's just me. With the introduction of micromasters and action masters, Takara went a completely separate direction with Victory force.

Then they also mention the reintroduction of Takara for Beast Wars, but wasn't Kenner the primary designer for Beast Wars which was based in Cincinnati (mentioned in the episode) whereas Hasbro has always been in Rhode Island.

At this point, I'm not sure of the completeness of their facts at the end of the episode which leads me to question any information from the rest of the episode that I wasn't already familiar with.

kurthy wrote:I'm still feeling a disconnect. I'm probably wrong about this, but I was surprised that the episode said that Takara didn't have much involvement post-movie but that seems odd given that the toys used for Rebirth were also sold by Takara and used by them to make the Headmasters cartoon. Then powermasters and pretenders were used to make the Masterforce cartoon. It seems more like the break was at the introduction of micromasters and action masters, but that's just me. With the introduction of micromasters and action masters, Takara went a completely separate direction with Victory force.

Then they also mention the reintroduction of Takara for Beast Wars, but wasn't Kenner the primary designer for Beast Wars which was based in Cincinnati (mentioned in the episode) whereas Hasbro has always been in Rhode Island.

At this point, I'm not sure of the completeness of their facts at the end of the episode which leads me to question any information from the rest of the episode that I wasn't already familiar with.

Yeah, I am not super sure about Takara's involvement with the Transformers line post movie. I was under the impression that Takara at least handled engineering. Though some of the most popular pretenders were only ever released by Hasbro (such as Bludgeon) so that probably explains it.

And yes, Kenner came up with Beast Wars but Takara handled all the engineering so I think thats what the show was referring to when discussing their involvement.

Ralstotron wrote:Does that VHS transformer have a name or is it some unique custom job? Can't seem to find any info on it.

I was wondering the same thing!

It was good but Of course Beast Wars got only 5-10 seconds worth of screen time

So, cheesy intro is cheesy.

First off, I find it interesting that as a Netflix product, this is edited down to the 46 minute window of a typical TV show, (the remainder of the hour being Commercials), and not a full hour like a lot of them. (The Marvel stuff). Were they planning to possibly export the series to someone like PBS or RFDTV?

The “False Starts”in the opening act feel like a need to create hype that didn’t need to be done. Maybe I am wrong, since I was excited for this already, but I feel like if they had cu those out and told the story straight, we coulda gotten 5 minutes to dash through RID01 (Car Robots) and then on through the Unicron Trilogy. Beast Wars was a much needed Second Beginning, but Car Robots really brought the focus back to the Spirit of Transformers. It was MY jumping on Point, and introduced me to these old G1 designs like Bruticus/Ruination, G2 Prime as Scourge, and the Beast Wars series Predacons, but also new and exciting Transformers Toys like Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus, Team Bullet Train, and more. It was both new and familiar at the same time. Armada really impacted the toylimne for Play Value, incorporating the Minicons Micromaster Style, as well as the Collectability of them. I remember the Fandom using “Gotta Catch Em All” in regards to the Minicons as a Slam, but Dog-gone if it didn’t sell toys. And Minicons were cheap, you could buy aa lot of them and get a lot of cool Transformers.

Classics/Generations needs a Nod too.

And while the criticism of the Micheal Bay Movie are warranted, the Sa,/Makayla stuff is not the only part of the Transformers Movie. The Fandoms Jaws hit the floor when we saw Blacvkout Transform for the first time. And Barricade’s Transforming in front of Sam was a HUGE deal for us. He made the Decepticons Terrifying for a moment, however Brief. Sector 7 was a dropped ball, but take away Seymour Simmons and they could’ve easily been a frightening Government entity.

——-
There was an interview in a FunPub comic that I really thought was interesting It was with one of the Japanese Designers, who commented on how Hasbro made some of the cool gimmicky guys like Devastator Bad Guys first. He said that in Japan, they had a hard time selling “villain” toys. Everyone wanted the Heroes. So Hasbro forced the issue by saying Oh, you want Triple Changers? Their Bad guys. You want a Combiner? Here’s Devastator, the Decepticon. We got the Decepticon Househoold Gadgets before the Autobot counterparts.

Flashwave wrote:So, cheesy intro is cheesy.

First off, I find it interesting that as a Netflix product, this is edited down to the 46 minute window of a typical TV show, (the remainder of the hour being Commercials), and not a full hour like a lot of them. (The Marvel stuff). Were they planning to possibly export the series to someone like PBS or RFDTV?

The “False Starts”in the opening act feel like a need to create hype that didn’t need to be done. Maybe I am wrong, since I was excited for this already, but I feel like if they had cu those out and told the story straight, we coulda gotten 5 minutes to dash through RID01 (Car Robots) and then on through the Unicron Trilogy. Beast Wars was a much needed Second Beginning, but Car Robots really brought the focus back to the Spirit of Transformers. It was MY jumping on Point, and introduced me to these old G1 designs like Bruticus/Ruination, G2 Prime as Scourge, and the Beast Wars series Predacons, but also new and exciting Transformers Toys like Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus, Team Bullet Train, and more. It was both new and familiar at the same time. Armada really impacted the toylimne for Play Value, incorporating the Minicons Micromaster Style, as well as the Collectability of them. I remember the Fandom using “Gotta Catch Em All” in regards to the Minicons as a Slam, but Dog-gone if it didn’t sell toys. And Minicons were cheap, you could buy aa lot of them and get a lot of cool Transformers.

Classics/Generations needs a Nod too.

And while the criticism of the Micheal Bay Movie are warranted, the Sa,/Makayla stuff is not the only part of the Transformers Movie. The Fandoms Jaws hit the floor when we saw Blacvkout Transform for the first time. And Barricade’s Transforming in front of Sam was a HUGE deal for us. He made the Decepticons Terrifying for a moment, however Brief. Sector 7 was a dropped ball, but take away Seymour Simmons and they could’ve easily been a frightening Government entity.

——-
There was an interview in a FunPub comic that I really thought was interesting It was with one of the Japanese Designers, who commented on how Hasbro made some of the cool gimmicky guys like Devastator Bad Guys first. He said that in Japan, they had a hard time selling “villain” toys. Everyone wanted the Heroes. So Hasbro forced the issue by saying Oh, you want Triple Changers? Their Bad guys. You want a Combiner? Here’s Devastator, the Decepticon. We got the Decepticon Househoold Gadgets before the Autobot counterparts.

Agreed it was too much of a sucking up to Generation 1 and ignoring the other versions of Transformers.

It was MEANT to ignore the other iterations though!

This series is about how a toy line came to be. That's what it concentrates on and then briefly touches on the current/last stuff.

If you guys were expecting the entire history of the line, then you set your expectations way too high, that's not what this series is about.

Burn wrote:It was MEANT to ignore the other iterations though!

This series is about how a toy line came to be. That's what it concentrates on and then briefly touches on the current/last stuff.

If you guys were expecting the entire history of the line, then you set your expectations way too high, that's not what this series is about.

I hadn’t watched the series, so I guess I wasn’t sure what to expect. (probably, the fact that G1 was 15 years before my CHildhood nd I grew up with RID skews my outlook a bit) I knew it would be predominantly G1, that IS the foundation, and I knew there would only be so much you can cram into less than an hour, but those were important landmarks that were impacted by G1 if nothing else, so its a bit glaring that they were left out, with Beast Wars going straight into the Movie with not even a blink and you’ll miss it nod to 10 years of stuff. The Legacy of G1 has impacted not only its own Generational Childhood, but the second and third to follow, and is well on its way to a fourth with no signs of stopping. Isn’t that more worthwhile than a bad joke about the Microman theme?

Burn wrote:If you guys were expecting the entire history of the line, then you set your expectations way too high, that's not what this series is about.

Have you watched any episodes of this series besides the Transformers one? Other ones such as Barbie, Lego, and Star Trek did exactly that which you just claimed this series is not about. I'm not saying that I expected post-G1 to be as exhaustively detailed, but it was a little too sparse. Watching the documentary, you'd think the only thing going on today was the Bay films, and the only thing in the interim was Beast Wars. That's a huge mischaracterization that I would be more forgiving of if other episodes had been similarly less comprehensive through to today and focused solely on the various toy lines' early days.

I still say I enjoyed the episode as an exploration of G1. But compared to other episodes of the series, it could have been so much more, and it is a shame it wasn't.

Yotsuyasan wrote:Have you watched any episodes of this series besides the Transformers one?

Of course I did. But each series was different, each toy line had it's own history. Not to forget that whole series is intended to concentrate on the toys that were big in the 80's, and that's where the emphasis was.

But as Flashwave said, you can only cram so much into one episode. Each series has had it's own high and low points and they were all touched on. Transformers hit it's high in the late 80's, then drifted off until Beast Wars, which saw a revival that carried through to the live action movies.

Would more have been good? Sure. But that's where a second episode can come in, how after fading out at the end of the 80's / early 90's, all was quiet until the BW revival and then they can discuss each subsequent line.

P.S. You might want to go have a read of the signature guidelines, yours is in major violation of them.

Plus, each toyline is different. Barbie is baiscally only 1 toy so showing how she evolves through the ages makes sense. But Transformers is a line full of different characters. If the show was about Optimus Prime, then sure it could look more in depth at different eras. But with this being about the toyline and since it has such a cool backstory with contributions from tons of people and ideas, it made sense to focus on what it did. We can say it focused on G1 all we want but the truth is it focused on the creation of the toyline.

william-james88 wrote:Plus, each toyline is different. Barbie is baiscally only 1 toy so showing how she evolves through the ages makes sense. But Transformers is a line full of different characters. If the show was about Optimus Prime, then sure it could look more in depth at different eras. But with this being about the toyline and since it has such a cool backstory with contributions from tons of people and ideas, it made sense to focus on what it did. We can say it focused on G1 all we want but the truth is it focused on the creation of the toyline.

And that’s a point I thought of but didn’t want to be too generalizing against the other Brands. LEGO has definitely refind and expanded over the years, but the basic blocks are all pretty much the same since the jump. Whaeas Transformers has reinvented itself and its play pattern over and over again many times.

Some of the expectations in here

"But it should've talked about the colour app differences between Combiner Wars and Unite Warriors wave 2!!1!!". At least it covered some of the 21st Century, the GI Joe episode's narrative stopped dead at '94.

It was a good ep, not the most interesting of the series but fairly entertaining nonetheless.

One of the highlights was seeing Bob Budiansky seethe as he's forced to talk about a job from 35 years ago in which he clearly retains little to no interest

The 1st half was really good explaining how the bots made their way from Japan to the States and how one man at MARVEL Comics had to name and give bios to 26 figures over the course of a weekend.
The second half seemed to skip around all over the place like they realized they were running out of time and just threw in some stuff.
That could be too because I am so well versed in the history of these toys that nothing really was new to me.
It was nice to see G1 getting love and some time in the spotlight again.
Folks curious about the history of Optimus and company are going to love it, if your a Hardcore fan you're gonna be left wanting more.
One things for sure...I'l never look at a can of Tuna the same way again.

Ryan's part is starting to make the screenshot rounds on Facebook.

I've watched the TF episode twice now. Though, admittedly the 2nd time I was doing other things, and it was my kids who were primarily watching. When they talked about the Valkyrie used for Jetfire. I know they used the word Macross, but it occurs to me now, that I believe they were very careful not to use the word "Robotech" or show any footage form the animated series...or even mention the controversy. Good call, HG is probably shaking their fists, but there's not a darn thing they can do .

I finally got around to watching this. Was very interested to see how they were going to pack decades worth of toys into such a short amount of time. to be honest, I respect how they managed it, even if the toys they focused on weren't the toys that made me, personally.

I grew up on Beast Wars. Those toys made me. However, it was the G1 toys that made the way for the beast era toys, so with regard to myself, I guess I'd simply refer to the episode as The Toys That Made the Toys That Made Us. There wasn't a whole lot from the beginning that I didn't know, but it was entertaining how they built it.

I imagine they had a choice: 1) Make it primarily G1 with a nod to the bigger brackets (movieverse, Beast Wars, etc) and just make the first part clear and entertaining, or 2) Give a very minimal section for a lot of different things. If I'm to be honest with myself, the few seconds that they could have taken away from jokes regarding the Microman theme or replaying the same animations to reiterate information, clearly, would still not have done the rest of the lines justice. With that in mind, I appreciate that they stuck with the same line and made it both clear and entertaining for those who might not have been as well informed as I was.

Just recently, Anthony Brucale of TFU.info sat down to talk with Brian Volk-Weiss, the creator of everyone's favorite toy-history Netflix show The Toys That Made Us. Brucale served as Consulting Producer on the series, so has some interesting behind-the-scenes questions for Volk-Weiss along with more standard curiosities. Check out some highlights below, watch the full interview embedded beneath that, and discuss anything you find interesting on the Energon Pub Forums!

Reception of Season 2 overall: Even better than Season 1! More positive reviews, and no negative ones. The 'complaints' Volk-Weiss has noticed seem to be mostly wishes for even more content or depth, which he understands and sees it as a good thing that these are the biggest complaints about the new season.

Biggest challenge in making the Transformers episode? Some former Takara engineers were new to being interviewed, so that initial footage wasn't very good. According to Volk-Weiss many of them later grasped the idea better, and took their own initiative to re-shoot better interviews.

Why a lack of more "in-depth" material about Transformers? The Toys That Made Us aims for a "middle ground" sort of approach to their episodes; some things that fans might find interesting would lose non-fan viewers. This is why some things exciting to fans were glossed over, and why only Peter Cullen (arguably the most "iconic" Transformers actor) was interviewed for the episode.

Any cut material you wish you could've kept? The original cut for the Transformers episode was 90-100 minutes long, and among cut footage was an eight- to nine-minute segment on Beast Wars. Mentions of much of this cut material potentially being available on a DVD of the series, if/when that comes to pass.
An interview with Michael Bay was also filmed, but wasn't included in the final cut for various reasons, which Volk-Weiss can't elaborate on further (though he stresses that Bay was fantastic to talk to and nothing went wrong in the interview).

Season 3: Volk-Weiss hopes to end up getting to make around 20 episodes! The chances of, in those 20 episodes, coming back for another pass at a brand (like say, Transformers) are estimated at "0.001" but it's not impossible. Subjects for Season 3 will be revealed at The Toys That Made Us panel at San Diego Comic-Con... it's hinted that Power Rangers and Gundam may be among them!

I wanna know why the decision to cut to the 44 minute TV format when the VAST majority of Netflix stuff goes the full hour. Are there potentially palans to air this somehwere?

I'd definitely support a DVD purchase if it had the 90-100 minute length version of the TF episode.

I just now got around to watching the TF episode. Above all, it made me wish I was back then in the room with Budiansky when he wrote the bios or with the Japanese designers when they first came up with Diaclone. Otherwise, it was nice to see the beginnings of the franchise laid out. Honestly, though, a documentary covering the 35 years of Transformers could easily be either around 3 hours long, or even have its own series, with each episode focusing on a different era.