The 1984 Hasbro Toy Catalog part 3: THE LEAST LIKELY CAN BE THE MOST LEAST INTERESTING

After seeing the mock up of the black hooded Bluestreak in the Autobot car section of the 1984 Hasbro catalog I was wondering what surprises may lie ahead with the minicars. Would I find official Hasbro names for the red Bumblebee and yellow Cliffjumper? Could there possibly be either a white or yellow Hasbro mockup of the Microchange MC-04 Mazda Familia 1500XG "Bumblejumper"? It was fun to dream but I realized if those things existed in this catalog someone would've already exposed them by now. After 25 years of Transformers I'm sure that if there really were an official name for any of those guys it would be well known among the fandom, or at least the part of the fandom that pays attention to this stuff. Sure enough, there was really nothing new or special in the minibot section of the catalog that the rest of the Transformer fandom would care about. Thankfully I am a special kind of robotarded and thanks to my background in toy robots newspaper ads collecting I found something really interesting anyways. Well maybe it's not really that interesting and it's actually kind of dumb, but in a field like Transformers archaeology where everybody's figured everything out already the key to sounding smart is tricking other people into thinking the dumb stuff you know is interesting.

Lionel Playworld 11/01/85	Don's Toys 11/22/84	Longs Drug 12/06/85

HERE'S ANOTHER LINE MESS I'VE GOTTEN MYSELF INTO

I noticed that something interesting almost instantly after looking at the way the mincars were arranged on the page. It has to do with the line art in the newspaper ads for the 1984 minicars, which I found was unique among line art used in ads for the other 1984 Transformers. Although it's derived from photographs used in the 1984 Hasbro toy fair catalog like other Transformers ads, minicar line art differs from the catalog in that the poses in the ads are mirror images of the poses in the catalog. So while the bottom of page 67 of the '84 Hasbro Toy catalog shows all the minibots except Brawn facing right, the ads always have all the minibots except Brawn facing left. I thought it may have been possible that the ad line art comes from a different photoshoot where the photographers posed the toys facing the other direction, but Windcharger proves their ad drawings are mirrored from the catalog (or the catalog image is mirrored itself). Not only are the drawings in the exact same poses just flipped horizontally, but the biggest clue lies in how Windcharger is the only minicar with an asymmetrical vehicle mode. In the catalog his hood has a scoop on the passenger side. In every ad with Windcharger line art the hood scoop appears on the driver side. In real life Windcharger's scoop is also on the driver side and the scoop is usually the place where his Autobot sticker is placed. Why the picture in the catalog is a mirror image of the '84 Autobot minicar newspaper ads I have no idea, but hey I'll bet just knowing that is a great icebreaker at Transformer parties. It would make you sound interesting.

UPDATE!
I was unpacking my stuff and noticed that the interior of the octagonal 1984 Transformers Jumbo collectors case uses the toy catalog pages for the Autobot minicars and Decepticon jets. This version has what I believe to be the unedited version with the minicars unmirrored and no name labels by each figure.

The Prince of Macrocrania starring in:

We're living in a second golden age of Transformer popularity because I don't remember there being so much great Transformers related kids' clothing available since the early eighties. There's tons of Transformers Animated shirts and underwear and shoes and all sorts of other things that make it a lot of fun to be a robot nerd dad. I thought all I was going to get to do was put my kid in that Soundwave onesie and that'd be it because for a while there the only Transformer clothes being made were for the real Transformer target demographic-30 year old guys who buy retro tshirts at Hot Topic.

Thankfully there's a lot of Animated stuff out there but so far I've only really liked the clothes that feature Bumblebee prominently. My sister bought us this green hoodie at a discount store in El Paso for $2! The gloves are part of a set I found at K-Mart in November. They go with the bini hat he's wearing in the very first picture at the top, but we lost that in Houston on the downtown bus. I like the Autobot sigil bini and glove set better than the Bumblebee one but now I really miss the Bumblebee bini especially since K-Mart has long since sold out of them.


Possibly the most horrible and terrifying Transformer tie-in merchandise ever are these Transformers Animated Bumblebee slippers. Holy crap they're awful but when I saw them I knew we had to have 'em. At first I thought they were bootlegs (bootslippers?) but they had the official tags and packaging and everything. They're quite frightening with the big horned Bumblebee head poking out of the front and four oddly protruding puffy tires. If they made Bumblebee gloves that covered your hands with Bumblebee heads he could look like some sort of Voltron that was made out of Bumblebees instead of space lions. Or BeezulBumblebBub, Lord of the Banana Robots.

Death by Styrofoam OR: I don't want my only enduring mark on this world to be an indestructible shrine to hermetically sealed toy robot Volkswagens

I am a toy robot volkswagen
laying buried in a junkyard, abandoned
Many parts missing, rusting away
Enchanted nonetheless
by a past where I've been blessed
Reflecting on my glory days
Played with and bruised and very well used
My life-a tribute to fun and abuse
My legacy-a childhood well played

I am a toy robot volkswagen
sitting on a shelf, still in my package
Accessories in baggies sealed within
Still decaying nonetheless
from the pvc decomposition process
In my inner packaging styrofoam coffin
Never played with or abused, sitting here all unused
My life-a tribute to secondary market value
And I'm wondering what might have been

I am a toy robot volkswagen collector
self appointed toy robot volkswagen protector
My incredible collection would make you go WOW
But I look up at my shelves
And I wonder about myself
Why having fun is something I can't myself allow
Overcompensating for the day
I broke one and threw it away
and I'm wondering where that first one is now