Fair Enough

Another Toy Fair has come and gone, and with it, a lot of retweeted tweets of the same tweet. As I've admitted prior, I usualy get lost in the flury of news mid-Saturday. Which wasn't as bad this year as most of the news I saw was more info into the info put out earlier in the week. There's a lot I missed, but I saw enough to form some opinions. Actually, I spent all of Satuday stuck in a shut down innerstate on the way to visit my Mom. That was the first time I've even been diverted onto the opposite side of a highway after a bullzoer created a path. We got close enough to the wreck to witness something out of a disater movie. Yikes.

The Transformers talk I did last week got more insight at the show. I was already sold on new Earthrise and Cyberverse offerings, but the new Netflix series looks great and the Walmart exclusive toy tie ins look pretty great too. I'm reminded of when Hasbro released repaints of Beast Wars toys when the show got reran on Fox Kids. While these are repaints of Siege toys, they do have some new characters and show specific repaints. So, that's pretty dang neat. The picture I'm using at the top of the post is from this, and while the toy is a repaint of Refracktor, the character is a new guy named Scrapface. Who's seemingly a homage to the GIJOE character Scrap Iron. Neat!

Speaking of GIJOE, while a few more news bits about the new Classified line was spoken. Most interestingly to me was the news of Jada Toys releasing die cast toy of the various GIJOE vehicles in multiple scales. GIJOE has always had really cool vehicles and little die cast versions would be much more managable to keep up with as an adult. Not to mention, litle diecast toys are always awesome. I'm pretty excited for this new GIJOE relaunch and look forward to getting the figures. There's plenty of folks out there making flipant comments about it and I'm not one. Even if it fails, I'll be happy to see it back while it's here.

Jada's set of Nano Metal Power Rangers are showing at stores recently as I've been told. There was a bit of Power Rangers news at the show as well. Most exciting to me is a new version of the classic Megazord by Hasbro. Releasing in three different retail packs at $14.99 each, it's a fully transforming and combinable Megazord. Really happy for that and hope I don't have too much of an issue buying the entire thing. Hoping the Dragonzord follows as well as more Megazords. Ironically the second season of Beast Morphers premired Saturday as they announced it's succesor was announced to be based of the Ryusoulger Super Sentai series. I haven't watched much of it, but I have liked what I've seen of the designs. Hoping it's a good follow up.

Mattel showed upcoming Masters of The Universe product with looks at upcoming Orgins and MegaConstrux figures. The toys look really great and while I'm more looking forward to the Megaconstrux figures, I'm definitely buying my share of Origins toys. It's a little hard to beleive so much cool He-Man stuff will be at my local Walmart soon.

There was more talk of the upcoming Ghostbusters toys from Hasbro which includes reissues of The Real Ghostbusters toys. If I'm understanding right, the first wave will be exclusive to Walmart. Honestly I wouldn't mind if the entire line is Walmart exclusive. While others may not like such a thing, I have two really good Walmart stores within 20 minutes of each other. Not to mention I like the limitation of only one store carrying something, so I don't have to look everywhere. Really looking forward to the Ghost Gushers and Fright Features figures still as well. This looks like a lot of fun that's right up my alley.

There's still a ton of news I haven't sorted through yet. Like I've said, it's literally a ton of news that's hard to keep up with. Here's a good catch all for most of the information though. I'll definitely be sorting though it over the next few days as I play catch up. I somehow missed news of a cool Godzilla board game from Funo that will definitely be bought on sight. Due to my situation of being stuck in a one hell of a car wreck most of the day Saturday, the news was read mostly after getting back to my town and eating a western burger at Ihop. I did pre-oreder the Hasbro Selects cassette pack. How could I not? I'm still heartbroken from not finding the last wave of Siege Micromasters including those tape molds. That was a really good burger too.

Not Yet Fair

Toy Fair is this weekend. Which pretty much means an insane amount of toy news is going to be spewing out from every seam. Early looks and leaks from the days leading up help some, but there's just going to be a ton of news over the weekend. It's fun... and a little overwhelming. Like always, I plan to give my thoughts on some of the stuff. Thing is, this is a fan blog, not a news site. I'm enjoying the things I like with you here. We're enjoying things together. Not to mention, I generally don't post a lot over the weekend. So I figured it'd be a good idea to post my early thoughts here from those early leaks and leaks and follow up Monday with post con thoughts. Cool?

GIJOE Classified is actually happening. A new line in the partnership between Jazzwares and Hasbro is giving us new high quality 6" figures of classic characters. I am stoked. I love GIJOE and am really glad to see it come back. Jazzwares is on a roll lately, their Fortnight figures have been really impressive and they've even got a collector line for AEW Wrestling coming as well. I'm all up for getting these guys at my local stores and just ecstatic over them in general.

There is a ton of new Transformers coming this year. I've already talked about Earthrise, but more of it keeps pouring out as well as Cyberverse, BotBots, and Studio Series. As the owner of a site named after a Micromaster Base, I don't have to tell you how thrilled I am for even more Micromasters in Earthrise. I probably already have and probably will a million more times. The fact that most of the larger bots have a base mode and the Battlemasters have a third mode which is a base connector piece is just... Know when something you like is made even better? That, that's what's going on here. I like that. A whole freaking lot.

Masters Of The Universe has all sorts of cool stuff coming this year. This sneak peak image of the upcoming MOTU Orgins Sky Sled with Prince Adam is great. It's nice to see all the He-Man love from Mattel recently and I hope they keep it up.

The new Ghostbusters toys from Hasbro look amazing. Among all the cool stuff on the way, what I'm really excited for is the Fright Features figures and the Ghost Gushers toys. The Fright Features figures are modern day The Real Ghostbusters figures (speaking of) and there's not one thing I don't love about that. The Ghost Gushers are outright Maba Zombie style toys of classic Ghostbusters ghouls and I'm completely amazed at them for existing. Ghostbusters and slime go hand in hand, but this is legit awesome. I can't wait for the Maba tag to explode on Instagram this summer when these are released.

That's it for now. Like I said, I'll have a follow up post likely Monday with my post show thoughts. Also like I said, the glut of news can be overwhelming and I might miss a few things between the more shared news posts. It's a good thing I'm going to have a somewhat busy weekend, so I can spend time looking through news later after the end of reporting and not try to keep up with it as it seeps out. Good thing I don't pretend to be a reporter, I don't see how those who do can keep up with it all. It's exciting though, a lot of the stuff I really like is getting stuff I really like this year. Who could complain about that? Well, buttholes I guess...

Mighty Owning Hassenfeld Brothers

Following up on the news from this years Toyfair when it was announced that Hasbro has acquired the master toy license for the Power Rangers brand, this morning news of the outright purchase of Power Rangers by Hasbro. This isn't much of a surprise as the details of the intended purchase was released with the initial toy license announcement (though most fan news sites seemed to have forgotten). What is surprising is the turn around on the news, I was under the assumption that the deal wouldn't go through until next year. Which could be a misunderstanding on my behalf or the deal went through faster than initially reported. Considering some of the casting sheets for Beast Morphers has Hasbro listed in the producers section, there's no telling just how along the process was during the Toyfair reports.

I'm very excited about this news as I've said before. Hasbro sings the songs I like to hear and having them produce Power Rangers is a very positive thing. I do wonder though if my theories involving Transformers obvious slow down is in part of this. Not because of resources, but the Transformers brand going through a bit of a shake up (diminishing returns, smaller lines). Maybe Power Rangers will be sort of a stop gap in that particular market (look, Transformers has slowed down before, it just seems more abrupt because of a decade of money printing movies). Either way I'm excited. I like Hasbro robots and action figures, so a line that utilizes both is a good thing. I see a lot of fans debating if this will mean potential crossovers with the brands. It could, I'm sure, but I foresee design technology and engineering benefiting from this more so than a fictional crossover.

Boom

More information from Toyfair has news on Transformers multimedia which addresses the news that the Transformers movies will reboot after the Bumblebee movie. While I wonder if this reboot will be a total overhaul, or following in Bumblebee's lead, that's yet to be seen. Another neat bit of information is a Chinese exclusive Transformers series to coincide with Cyberverse. I think the most interesting I found was the focus on themed entertainment. There is mention of neat digital centers (AR/VR type entertainment) which I most certainly am interested in. I'm obviously a big fan of the Universal Studios ride and more things like it the better IMO.

While I wait for news to come forth from Toyfair, I take these tidbits and get excited. I'm honestly really pumped for Cyberverse.

Go Go Hassenfeld Bros!

As Toy Fair begins rearing it's mighty head and roaring out news, one of the first bits of information was when it was revealed last night that Saban and Bandai of America have parted ways. Many speculated as to who would take over producing Power Rangers toys, and there was plenty of evidence that it could be Hasbro. By this morning it was revealed, Hasbro is INDEED taking over the Power Rangers brand. Not only in toys, but the possibility of Hasbro BUYING Power Rangers from Saban is a reality that could happen as soon as next year. Right now Bandai of America will be producing PR toys until April 2019 when their contracts expire and Hasbo's products begin rolling out. If Hasbro does indeed buy Power Rangers, I see this as a good thing.

Hasbro has a good record with taking Japanese assets and making a much more successful property with it (hello, Transformers). Not to mention, they make good toys. Power Rangers is an ideal fit for Hasbro. Now I wonder how this would effect my beloved Imaginext Rangers, but thinking if it did go to Playschool, there probably would be a more expansive selection of toys to choose from. I could easily see Zeo, Dino Charge, or whatever appear in the selections.

In the end, I'm excited about this development. I know some people have a grudge against Hasbro for whatever reason, but I don't. They've been steadily selling me toys for my entire life, obviously I like what they do.

Living in the past

It's silly how my mind works. I often think of older Transformers conventions as better automatically. Which isn't fair to newer shows, but I guess that's just me doing a stereotypical "things used to be better" and feeling all smug. Though, those older BotCons had something that the later ones didn't have and it's extremely hard to describe if you were never there. A vibe, a mojo, a something. Not that's not saying newer shows don't get it, Charticon in 2013 had it. My friend Don compared Toylanta (the show where the Botlanta panel track I organize is) to the most similar any con he's attended to the first BotCon (he went to the first and yes that was flattering). Not to mention, I see pictures online of smaller TF shows around the world, and they seemingly have it. I don't know if it was just a moment in time, or me being younger, but there was a certain something about those older shows that I've never let go.

BotCon 01, the hair since has migrated from my head completely to my face

So, if I may relish a bit in old convention videos I found on Youtube. Wait, I can. I totally can. So I'm going to do that. If you follow the links on the video, you can go to the respective poster's page and check out their other work. That's my way of giving a catch all credit to the content. But really, go check them out.

BotCon 1995, the second BotCon. I would have loved to go, unfortunatley I was just a kid in high school and only knew of them from ads in Lee's toy magazine (or was it Tomart?). I used to love that old back section full of classifieds. Pre-internet, that was the main way for people to advertise their toys stores, or zines, or fan clubs, or conventions, or really anything that we easily do on Facebook now and take for granted. I'd often see them in toy, video game, and horror magazines. I'd regularly send in an envelope with a few dollars and enjoy the onslaught of random catalogs and various zines and pamphlets I'd get in return. You'd be surprised at the amount of detail that goes into a book  made at a local copy center.

At about 5:59, that's me in the fire bowling shirt walking up to a table. Oh yea, that's also the same shirt I'm wearing in the pic a little up at BotCon 2001. It was the first BotCon I was able to go to. As a broke community college student, they all seemed so far away and out of touch. Though in 2001, I was on my own and just barely making ends meet. 2001 was in Durham North Carolina, which is about 4-6 hours away from here. My Mom called me one morning to check on me, and while we were talking I brought it up as I was trying to figure out how to go.  She actually woke me up and the Toyfair issue opened to the page with the ad was open laying right next to me. When I asked her how far away Durham was, she offered to take me. We went Friday night, and came back Sunday with the main day of fun being Saturday. Of note, we hit every difficulty imaginable and the trip there took over 12 hours. I wish I was kidding.

OTFCC 2003, despite all the organizers drama that led to the 3H split, I went to OTFCC 2003 (there was a name change) and had a great time. It was a really good show and if you watch that video or as you can see in the preview there was a dance party. I was there a few minutes when some friends and I went to discover it after the line died down. I fondly can remember Brian Kilby making a nervous smile that pretty much said it all and Ant not appreciating the remix of Metallica and TFTM audio clips. This was just before Hooper X launched from our group and started punch dancing to the derision of others.

The following year was OTFCC 2004 and BotCon 2004. I wanted to go to both, but could only go to one. So I went to OTFCC 2004 and had a great time. It really was a good time and the last 'old style' BotCon. Outside of the at show memories, and not in this clip, was Ruben Studdard. There was a wedding going on in the convention center (as well as a few other cons) and they apparently hired him to sing at it. Later in the hotel, I got to witness a drunk Ruben Studdard in the hotel resturant, a well as his entourage get into a fight with the bridesmaids in the lobby.

I didn't get to go to BotCon 2004, I could only choose one, and OTFCC was closer and a lot of my friends went as well, so the draw for what makes a con fun was there. I did order a non attendee pack though, really wish I could have went. I couldn't find a video of the 2002 show which was also a great deal of fun. I'm not doing any travel this year for conventions, I'd love to check them all out though. Hascon is coming up and it looks neat. There's TFCon of course and I've enjoyed those a lot. Pete Sinclair has his new Robot Convention I'd like to check out, ignoring any drama (I try my best too, it has zero to do with why I'm going to a convention anyway), there's going to be some cool displays there and I'd love to go to Fort Wayne again. Botlanta was earlier this month which makes the year wait until next year feel like an eternity. I went to a good deal of the Fun Pub BotCons and always had a good time, though eventually got priced out as the costs started going over what I could justify. There's just something special about these older shows. That's what I want to do with Botlanta, and I hope I can find at other shows. That vibe. It's hard to describe, but once you feel it, you know it.

I could go on and on, but I figure now's a good time to stop inserting videos and help the wife make supper. I've got some TF's to open, I should get to that.