Retro Week: A Tale of Ice Storms and Vintage Figures

Bingo Beaver, Optimus Prime, and ET are cold and wet.

As happened a couple of years ago in December, last week I got to "enjoy" a Toronto ice-storm.  While that made it hard to go anywhere, it did give me a great excuse to grab some toys from the basement and take them outside for some photos.

For this round, I brought out a larger ET figure (this one with 5 points of articulation, unlike the solid mini-figure we saw the other day), a return visit from Transformer Optimus Prime (who was one of the stars of our first Retro Week two years ago), Bingo "Bet it All" Beaver, from the Get-Along-Gang, and finally a smaller figure in the form of the Care Bears' Tenderheart Bear.

Random Toy of the Day: Windcharger (Transformers)

Robot form.

Since I'd been spending so much time in Toronto lately, I'd originally planned to attend Dollism in Buffalo (only an hour-and-half across the border!) over this past weekend, but fate intervened, and I ended up back at home in VA/DC instead.  So while that means I don't have any interesting stories to share (or new dolls to show off), at least I was able to take a few toy photos!

First up is Windcharger - a 1980s transformer who is about the same size as a matchbox car when he's in his vehicle form.  Being compact means that I frequently misplace him, but that's also the reason he's at my house rather than in my mother's basement with the larger transformers - he was an accidental stowaway when I first moved out, and he's moved around with me ever since!

In terms of display value, there's not much to him, but compared to the larger transformers of his era, he's proved to be nearly indestructible.  The big ones are all missing pieces now, while this guy still looks almost exactly as he did when he was new.

Vehicle form.

Out of the Basement: Transformers (Slag and Topspin)

Digging further into my mother's basement, I came across a couple of old Transformers - the Dinobot Triceratops Slag and the Jumpstarter vehicle Topspin.  Unlike a lot of the older toys I've unearthed, these guys actually have a decent amount of play-related damage.

I only ever had a handful of Transformers (one of my uncles noticed that my childhood self wasn't interested in dolls and sent these guys along instead for a couple of years), so they had to suffer through all sorts of adventures.

Slag: his horns are warped and part of his left hip has come off.

Slag in robot mode.  Yes, he has terribly unevenly placed stickers.

Topspin in vehicle mode

Topspin in robot mode.