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[Fighbird]

When we left off last time, I - that is, my 8-year old self - had come to the conclusion that I wanted/needed more Transformers. Seaspray was tons o' fun, and I knew that there were more toys out there curtosy of friends and relatives.

As I remember it not long passed before I got my 2nd Transformers, namely Targetmaster Blurr. Now, being a 1987 release and with the earlier-metioned short time frame I seem to remember in regards to getting these, this would put my Seaspray as a late 1986 purchase and TM Blurr as an early 1987 purchase. That's at least how I remembered it when I some 15 years ago sat down and tried to make a timeline of my childhood collection. I used that timeline when I was whipping together my first "for sale"-lists all those years ago (yes, I started selling toys pretty early on). Wow, has it been 15 years? I feel old... well, older now...

Targetmaster Blurr, robot mode and vehicle mode, respectively.

Back on track: These days the "Cybertronian" look of the '86 Movie characters is not considered anything spectacular, but I remember being really taken with the sleek design and the lack of (visible) wheels on him in his box back then. I remember wavering between TM Blurr and TM Kup at the store, but decided on Blurr in the end because Haywire looked cooler in gun mode, and - which kinda disappointed me once I found out it wasn't possible - it looked like Haywire could ride inside Blurr's cockpit.

Like Seaspray, Blurr got a lot of play time. Another "quick pull" transformation made him fun to change back and forth all the time, and even though the shield was a bit in the way all the time (he looked dopey holding it and it couldn't really be stored elsewhere in robot mode) I still made a point of using it for vehicle mode. Haywire was pretty neat in himself. I remember using him as a mini-tank (riding on the black leg parts in gun mode) and storing him in Blurr's backpack like a toddler on a parent's back. Good fun.

My home-made "tank mode" for Seaspray. Has a tendency to topple over, but at least he got a vehicle mode of sorts.

I don't know if I knew that these were sentient robots or even if Haywire was a robot or an organic being. I just remember that I thought Haywire was the cooler in the TM Blurr package for his size and cool armour. My original Blurr was traded off a few years back after I found a minty one in a big lot of loose G1 toys locally, but if I had had the original he would have been quite worn to look at: Heavy yellowing, missing stickers, broken rub mark (I was very interested in how those worked, but didn't know they would be destroyed when trying to pry them off...) and loose joints. Like Seaspray he had a regular visit from the screwdriver, and those parts that wouldn't dislodge easily were forced off with plyers. Yes, I was pretty hard on my toys back then in a "not play-related" kind of way... I guess that was what laid the foundation for my kitbashing ventures years later.

Starting with TM Blurr I started saving the boxes and paperwork. TM Blurr contained the very first TF catalog I had ever seen, and it was thoroughly perused at any given moment. A very weird selection of toys were on it, covering 1984, 1985 and 1986, and the Blurr in it neither looked like my Blurr ('cause the catalog one was a prototype I later learned) nor did he have Haywire with him ('cause I wasn't aware of the pre-TM version of Blurr). Heck, since he differed that much I even contemplated if TM Blurr was a "fake" Transformer, even though he had the rub mark and all.

I've been looking through my stuff to find that catalog, but I think it's in my storage facility so I won't be able to get to it for now. I can't find any online sources for it either, so once I do find it I might make a dedicated post about it with nice and big scans to look at.

Either way, I went over that catalog again and again and again and studied each teeny-tiny image of each toy several times mainly to see if I could figure out their transformation. Bumblebee and the Autobot cars were immediate hits with me (Prime not so much - I knew he was the leader and all, but his transformation looked "boring" to me from the images), and I vowed to myself back then that I would try and get one fo each "type" of mold of those cars. Little did I know that the original Autobot cars were long gone from store shelves and that I had to wait 'till the late 80s when the Mexican imports started and later Hasbro started their Classic line. Oh, the hours spend looking at that catalog...

I saved the box, the catalog and the instructions, but during a cleaning spree at my house around 1990, the box was cut up to save on space. One of those really annoying regrets I have with my childhood collection. I managed to save the stuff that was meant to be cut out, though, like the Tech Specs and the robot points (little did I know that those were useless in Europe) as well as the mural of the back. Again, that mural didn't really line up with anything I could see in the catalog, and as such I think I dismissed it as a "random robot space fight". Looked mighty cool, though.

Back of box mural as used on TM Blurr (actual scan here from another toy, though).

For the longest time I thought the giant hulking robot in the background was Metroplex (since he was in my catalog and looked somewhat like this one). That one (Fortress Maximus), the orange car (Chromedome) and especially the gorilla (Apeface) really captured my imagination in that mural, and I was very puzzled as to whom they were since they weren't in that catalog of mine to identify...

TM Blurr was a european release like Seaspray, and it actually benefitted me in regards to deciphering what was written on the Tech Specs and the catalog. Growing up living in the southern part of Jutland, all the TV stations I could see on my parent's television were 1 danish and 3 german stations. And since the german stations had programming pretty much all day and a lot for kids, I saw that endlessly - so much so, that I became fluent in german already at the age of 5 (thank you "Sesamstrasse"! ). With the texts on TM Blurr being quad-lingual and one of the languages being german, I was able to pick up quite a few things about my robot there.

For a long time the TM-ified Movie characters commanded a lot of money on eBay (even around $100 as early as the late 1990s) as they were believed to be rare. They might be rare-ish, but "not get-outta-town" rare - in fact, the prices on these have generally fallen (especially with the reissues) to the point of a decent TM Blurr commanding $80 or so in loose condition. Sealed versions, though, are expensive. And the european version - which would be nice to have for nostalgic reasons - is pretty much impossible to find. Granted, I haven't actively persued one in a long time, but I've only ever seen one (1) for sale anywhere ever. So even though it would be nice to have, it'd had to be really cheap for me to consider investing in one.

1987 was going to be a real eye-opener for me TF-wise, as I would soon find myself being introduced to the grander universe of Transformers throug two of my school mates. Stay tuned!

[NRJohn]

This was fun and informative to read! I do want g1 Blurr myself, the robot mode looks quite decent and the car mode looks sleek. I could almost see it next to Luke's speeder on Tatooine, has that kind of look to it almost. Somehow I got a G1 Kup in a lot recently and I don't like him at all!

It was funny to hear you received German channels on your TV, just like I got Danish channels on mine, living in Skåne (southern Sweden)! I did understand Danish very well back then and spoke some too...but sadly I've forgotten most of it now.

Also, reading this made me realize that the toys I bought never were connected to any ongoing cartoons series, for various reasons. Never got Turtle toys because my cousin had a tmnt tank that shot pizzas and, get this, my mom thought that was immoral some how! Throwing away food, how horrid! No Dinoriders either, because "humans and Dinosaurs didn't live at the same time". Yeah, and every episode started with "a spaceship went through a rift back in time and crashed on prehistoric Earth" Hello! Well, enough ranting about that. No Star Wars toys either even doe I was huge a Star Wars fan so I don't know why...I did get a huge Millenium Falcon as a gift but that was about it.

On a differnt note, if you go into a random toy store today you mostly see Lego and all those cartoon related toys, Ben 10, Bayblade, Bakugan, Gormiti etc. Cartoons sell toys! Are there any plans to air the Prime series in Scandinavia? Seems like a potential cash cow for Hasbro!

[Fighbird]

Glad you liked my post. Yeah, Kup is - to me - a bit boring as well in vehicle mode. Don't know why, really - maybe because he's not 100% "sci-fi" (like Blurr) or not 100% "realistic" (like Hot Rod had potential to be). Kup looks good in robot mode, though.

Regarding TF:Prime, last I heard, the Nordic version of Cartoon Network should be airing dubbed episodes already. I can't see that channel, so I can't confirm it, but Hasbro Nordic should really consider getting the toys out here.

I think one of the main factors of TFs doing badly in the Nordic toy stores is in fact due to the shows usually not being on an easy-to-recieve station, but rather on "pay only" channels - unless they wait so long that the toys are long gone from toy shelves anyway (I'm thinking "Energon" here mainly). But this isn't Hasbro Nordic's fault, though. It's the various TV stations', as they - I presume - wait for the new shows to be hits or misses before they buy them in for local broadcst, and before the shows have been re-dubbed, a year might have passed, and the toys are gone. I know Hasbro Nordic usually pushes very hard to get the current shows out there on our stations, but there are rarely takers.

[Tformer]

That was a great read, Martin.

Man... Those catalogues! I have fond memories of going through every advert that I got my hands on back then. My favourite being what must've been a G2 catalogue of sorts (those were the first toys that I got brand new from the packaging). Just like you said I kept staring at the pictures to try and figure out how they transformed. Especially the Constructicons!

Oh, and since it was brought up. Cartoon Network is at least airing Prime here in Sweden, and I do recall DKConvoy mentioning that it's airing in Denmark as well. So it's been picked up at least. Though it's being treated horribly over here. Awful timeslots, horrible dubbing and if the on-demand service is anything to go after, the episodes have been aired completely out of order.

[Thunderclash]

That was a great read, Martin.

Man... Those catalogues! I have fond memories of going through every advert that I got my hands on back then. My favourite being what must've been a G2 catalogue of sorts (those were the first toys that I got brand new from the packaging). Just like you said I kept staring at the pictures to try and figure out how they transformed. Especially the Constructicons!

Hm... I have all my US and Euro catalogues in a bag in the closet. I don't currently have a scanner, but the SLR camera should be able to take good pictures with the right amount of lighting. A small project for the weekend, perhaps ?

Oh, and since it was brought up. Cartoon Network is at least airing Prime here in Sweden, and I do recall DKConvoy mentioning that it's airing in Denmark as well. So it's been picked up at least. Though it's being treated horribly over here. Awful timeslots, horrible dubbing and if the on-demand service is anything to go after, the episodes have been aired completely out of order.

Yes, TF Prime has been bumped around slightly. It originally aired between 19:00 and 19:30 on Cartoon Network (also in Norway), but it's now been pushed back to be shown between 20:00 and 20:30 (no airing on Tuesdays). It's also airing on Saturdays and Sundays between 13:00 and 13:30. The episodes currently shown on weekdays (truce between Optimus/the Autobots and Megatron, seeking out Unicron's whereabouts on (or rather in) Earth etc.) have already been shown a couple of times before, I think, so we are already getting reruns.
PS! You don't have a receiver/tuner that allows you to switch spoken language to English? Had I not been able to do this, I wouldn't have bothered to watch .

[Tformer]

Hm... I have all my US and Euro catalogues in a bag in the closet. I don't currently have a scanner, but the SLR camera should be able to take good pictures with the right amount of lighting. A small project for the weekend, perhaps ?

I'd love to see that! Although I'm afraid I'll end up in a nostalgia induced comatose state as a result if you do.

PS! You don't have a receiver/tuner that allows you to switch spoken language to English? Had I not been able to do this, I wouldn't have bothered to watch .

Sadly not, and if there is I haven't managed to find it (not that I watch nearly enough TV to actually find it. I find myself mostly just tuning in to classic Doctor Who on the sci-fi channel these days. ) So I'm doing the next best thing for the time being. Getting the episodes from the US each Sunday and I'm just waiting to invest in a blu-ray player before buying the season one boxset.

[Fighbird]

Hm... I have all my US and Euro catalogues in a bag in the closet. I don't currently have a scanner, but the SLR camera should be able to take good pictures with the right amount of lighting. A small project for the weekend, perhaps ?

That would be severely (trying a somewhat different adjective for fun here) appreciated - some of those European catalogs are pretty much non-existant out on ye olde interwebs; I'd love to do a spotlight post on those in the future. There are a lot of fun and interesting "secrets" to be found in them.