The Trials of Monday

It's the beginning of a new week of content for your eyeholes here on Zone Base! I hope you all had a great weekend and hoping this week will be a good one as well. I spent most of my weekend playing Astro Bot on my PS5. I discovered the little guy on Astro Bot's Playroom and have been in love ever since. Such a cute little robot starring in some really great games! Aside from picking that up from my local Target, I also grabbed Hordak from Turtles of Grayskull and a great set of Peanuts Halloween mini figures at Five Below! Walmart hasn't gotten any of the Transformers Star Raiders collection in yet sadly, but my Thundertron 3-Pack came in during the week.

Between this collection and the Transformers One toys, I'm having a lot of fun! Speaking of Transformers One, the release date is around the corner and I'm PUMPED! This looks like a great movie and I've been seeing a lot of cool sneak peaks online. Here's hoping it's a success. I also spent some time sorting through older toys my Mom had in her storage. It was fun repairing Starriors and looking at my old school supplies robots by Mark. Speaking of robots, I managed to get Transformers Studio Series 86 leader class Springer and Swoop over the Labor Day weekend. Aside from recolors, I now have all the leader sized Dinobots! Not to mention, my Mom wouldn't approve of me missing a Springer.

We're firmly in the 2nd month of Halloween and now that it's September the cool Autumn air if filling my lungs with joy. I really do love this time of the year. Are you enjoying the annual Halloween party? It's just getting started and the spooky season is really shaping up to be a special one! Neon colors are huge this year and I love it. Being a child of the 80's, those bright colors were a big part of Halloween that hasn't been around in a long time and it does my heart good to see them again. 

It's time to get this week started. I've got some household work to do and pictures for future toy posts to take. We've got a fun week planned for you all. Even more looks at Transformers One and Turtles of Grayskull are in store for you all Zone Base readers, please look forward to it. Thank you all for reading Zone Base. Please don't forget to share the site with your friends!

Beetras don't bug me

Zone Base readers know of my affinity towards insect based robots. Which is funny, since I don't like real bugs that much, I mean they look kinda neat, but gross. Regardless, you make that bad boy a robot and there I am. With Halloween around the corner (I'm not sure if you've noticed, I kinda like the holiday) nothing seems more appropriate than bugs... ok, I'll talk about insect robots whenever but... so...

Beetras are a robot line of particular note for me. Most Transformers fans recognize the use of the molds as the Deluxe Insecticons, maybe in Convertors, or even odd discount store bootlegs. The toys are just good looking. My favorite is Beet-Gugal/Chop Shop. Just a sharp robot who looks super tough. Even his newer toys manage to capture the essence of the original (but now with knees!) proving you just can't beat a good design.

Beetras was originally a line by Takatoku, who previously had made some pretty successful robot lines, but by the time Beetras was coming out, they were pretty much on the way out closing the business soon after. Mark had made some budget versions of Beetras, those are the molds used in Convertors and probably most bootlegs. Bandai eventually bought out Takatoku and Hasbro licensed the molds for the Deluxe Insecticons. Sometimes you'll see odd budget insect robots that kinda work alongside whatever Beetras uses you may own, but sadly there wasn't anymore new molds. I think Hasbro's use of them are the most famous, as most folks instantly recognize them.