Autographed Vinylmations

First of all, I just want to say a big thanks to all those who read and retweeted my last post on Podcasts. This was my most read blog post since the Muppets blog post and I also got a lot of great feedback from the hosts of the podcasts that I talked about; so thanks. It means a lot whenever I get feedback or a retweet, so please feel free to do either or why not be adventurous and try both!!

Now back on subject, how many of you Disney fans have a bunch of these?

And hands up, who has them shoved away in some drawer somewhere, never looked at again, because despite having carried them and pens around for the entire vacation, once you have gotten home, there’s not a whole lot you can do with them.

Unfortunately, while collecting autographs on a Disney vacation is fun at the time, the format for doing so is pretty boring; the books are pretty generic (a few here are the same book bought years apart), you rarely if ever look through them again and unless the character you meet makes an extra effort in the signing, the signatures are pretty standard and could be from any of the 5+ time you’ve met Mickey that trip. Most of all, because they are not really displayable, other than stacked up on a bookshelf, they become forgotten about very quickly. In fact, if it weren’t for the little clues here and there (or proper labelling on the “my details” page), I would have a hard time working out which book was from which holiday; they have no charisma and little individuality.

I first tried something a little bit different in 2006 on our first family trip to Walt Disney World. Gage still had his autograph book, but I went with a pack of scrapbook background cards. Tara, at the time, was operating a scrapbooking supplies home business, so I knew we would be making a scrapbook of this holiday; and having the autographs directly on the right papers meant they could be added straight in. While this doesn’t get looked at a great deal either, because the scrapbook too just sits on a shelf with a bunch of them; at least when looked at, the autograph can be easily linked to the picture and some memory of obtaining it.

It wasn’t until the summer 2010 Disneyland Paris trip that I got experimental again. At a recent WDW Radio event, a whole bunch of fans and friends had signed a plain white 9” Vinylmation figure which was given to Lou as a memento and I thought it was a cool idea; so why not try it in the parks with characters.

For those who have no idea, I should explain what a Vinylmation figure is. Basically it is a vinyl figurine in a caricature shape of Mickey Mouse; however it is rarely painted to feature Mickey himself and is instead used as a 3D canvas for other art and designs. Usually 3” tall, these are released in themed collections as blind boxes, to add the element of luck and to encourage trading. The original Vinylmation shape design was very Mickey orientated, however recent changes to the design have taken out some of the elements that were being a bit pesky for the designers such as his nub nose and shorts buttons as well as indented lines that shaped around his face and separated his shorts from torso; while still obviously Mickey (because of the ears), it is now a far more generic canvas than previously. To learn more about Vinylmation you can check out the wiki page or these Vinylmation orientated websites:

Now I should give a spoiler alert here; I will be breaking kayfabe, so if you believe everything in Disney park is real, please stop reading here.

Still with me?

So its August 2010 and we have just arrived at Disneyland Paris. We check in at the Newport Bay Club and I buy a 9” plain white Vinylmation from the gift shop; I had brought a nice selection of coloured sharpie markers with me in preparation. From there we head off to Café Mickey where we have a birthday meal booked for Gage. As the characters come around I present them with the figure to sign rather than the standard book, and while there is some hesitation on their part, the experiment is under way. Now I should say from the start, that if you are a perfectionist, then doing this isn’t for you. The 3D shape of the object makes it hard for characters to both hold and sign, especially for those with gloves or mittens; and with the vision impairment there will often be clashing of signatures as misjudgements of size or direction are frequent. I think it is mostly a case of practice; character performers are so used to the standard flat book of a certain size for holding and signing, that they can do it without proper vision, much like typing on a keyboard; this changes everything. But while the signatures are usually not perfect, it is their imperfection that makes them and the finished keepsake both unique and memorable. Unfortunately, some characters, sometimes, either cannot or will not sign a Vinylmation; this can be because they do not feel confident enough to do it and themselves do not want to give a non perfect signature, because they cannot hold it themselves (Eeyore being a prime example), or because they usually use a stamp (like Buzz Lightyear) and you can’t stamp a 3D object. The key is persistence and good humoured begging, either with the character to solve the problem (such as holding it for Eeyore in his vision line so he can sign it); or to try again the next time you meet the character as it often comes down to performer capability or willingness.

And so here are the results of this first experiment and I was very happy with them. Yes, it’s was harder to carry around and it takes a little extra care as you don’t want to get it dirty or smudge the wet marker pens; but the end result was so much more charming than the book. Whenever a character handler would see us with it, they would comment on what a wonderful idea it was; people in line with us would also often comment, and those characters that could communicate would see it being signed by others and actually ask if they could sign it next with genuine excitement. Snow White kissed him on the nose; hence the pinkish smudge.

Signed by: Mickey, Jack Sparrow, Captain Hook, Mulan, Jasmine, Aladdin, Snow White, Eeyore, Dopey, Tigger, Winnie the Pooh, Cinderella, Emile, Ariel, Tiana, Minnie, Goofy, Woody, Aurora, Chip & Dale, Tic & Tac, Pluto, Scrooge McDuck, Stitch, Lilo, Mary Poppins, Bert, The Genie, Price Philip, Smee, Daisy, Donald, Jessie, Remy, Pinocchio, Geppetto, Naveen & Belle

Most of all though, this didn’t come home and get put in a cupboard with the other autograph books. I decided at the beginning to write the holiday destination and the date in the front facing ears and also to have it hold a pen from the park which features either the year or the celebration theme of the time further identifying it; and so this became something that could be displayed and would stand out as a constant reminder of the trip. The only rule I had about it, was that I would only get one signature from each character; otherwise it would end up having lots of Mickeys, Goofys and Plutos on it and not much room for others (although in France I have gained two autographs from characters with French and English names)

A few months later, over Christmas and New Year, we went on a trip that involved a few days at Walt Disney World and a trip on the Disney Wonder cruise ship. Again I went with the Vinylmation to get signed, and again we were told time after time what a cool idea it was; apart from one CM on the ship who every time he saw me getting it signed said that I should hand it in to guest services and it would be signed and returned. While I understood his point, as obviously not rushed and out of costume the signatures would come back in a much more perfect condition, to me it was not the point as the whole point was to have this as a memory maker, not just something that was delivered completed; besides, that same handler had no qualms with signing it himself while in costume as Captain Jack Sparrow on Pirate Night.

Signed by: Mickey, Minnie, Woody, Pooh, Tiana, Thumper, Ariel, Eeyore, Mr Incredible, Goofy, Captain Hook, Belle, Jack Sparrow, Daisy, Handy Manny, Peter Pan, Snow White, Stitch, Pocahontas, Pluto, Duffy, Donald, Jasmine, Aladdin, Tigger, Lotso, Chip & Dale, Buzz, Lilo, Aurora, Piglet, Miss Bunny, Mulan, Frozone, Marie & Cinderella

By the end of this trip, it had become obvious to me that, for us, this was the preferred way of collecting autographs; it was fun, different and most of all memorable and had an a place after the trip; the autograph book was a thing of the past.

2011 saw our mammoth Disney adventure and given that this was my first real trip to Disneyland, and with the only one signature from each character rule, I didn’t want to go there with full Vinylmation and not make any memories there. So the only alternative was to split this trip up, a Vinylmation for Walt Disney World, one for the D23 Expo, and one for Disneyland; thus growing the collection by 150% in 3 weeks.

The WDW vinyl from this trip is probably my favourite looking of all them, it’s full, it’s colourful and features a lot of autographs that feature on no others.

Signed by: Mickey, Donald, Buzz, Cinderella, Daisy, Tinkerbelle, Rapunzel, Alice, Snow White, Tigger, Duffy, Belle, Jessie, Pluto, Phineas, Ferb, Pooh, Jasmine, Thumper, Oso, Minnie, Pocahontas, Marie, Angelica, Leo, June, Eeyore, Mary Poppins, Terk, Ariel, Eric, Frozone, Mr Incredible, Miss Bunny, Woody, Stitch, Lilo, Mrs Incredible, Tiana, Brer Bear, Aurora, Jiminy Cricket, Goofy, Chip & Dale, Handy Manny, Piglet, Rafiki, Fairy Godmother, The Genie, White Rabbit, Pinocchio, Aladdin, Vidia, Peter Pan & Yehaw Bob

The D23 Expo vinyl is special because it’s full of friends and celebrities that we had the chance to meet while at the event. The only character signature on this one is Mickey Mouse and this was the living character version and our first chance to interact with him (you can see the video of it being signed here). Others included voice actors, artists and Disney Legends.

Signed by: Lou Mongello(podcaster, author, hobbit), Beci Mahnken (MEI Mousefan Travel), MoJo Collins, Ricky Brigante (podcaster), Vicki Damanti (MEI Mousefan Travel), Annette Owens (podcaster, MEI Mousefan Travel), Jessica Clawson, Noah (Artist), TonyCaggiano, Jim Valeri (lead Vinylmation designer), Mickey Mouse (Icon), DaveSmith (Disney archivist), Scott Otis, Henry Work (former podcaster), PaigeO’Hara (voice of Belle), Marc Lorenzo (Disney Dad), Amy Mebberson (cartoonist), Stitch Kingdom (Disney news site), Alex Maher (artist), David Koenig (author), Sean Astin (voice of Oso, Goonie, Hobbit), Big Momma, as well as actors from Phineas & Ferb, Pair of Kings, Handy Manny and Fish Hooks; and many more.

And then we come to Disneyland; and this is where this blog is about to become a rant. First things first, when we got to Disneyland, finding a plain 9” Vinylmation was bloody hard work. In all other parks I have been to, the Emporium on Main St is loaded with them as are many other places; but I drew a blank in all park shops at Disneyland. Eventually on the first evening I was able to find the couple I needed at D-Street in Downtown but for a while I didn’t think I was going to find any at all anywhere. 

Our Disneyland autograph collecting started at the Storytellers Café the next morning where we had a character breakfast. As I usually do, I had the Vinylmation on the table along with an assortment of coloured pens and first out came Dale; but when asked to sign he turned me down. Now, in my experience, the turn downs usually happen when the vinyl is new or near empty and as soon as it starts to populate, the characters are all much more willing and eager to sign it; so a single turn down like this didn’t really bother me. Next up came Terk who signed and it seemed like things were back on track, but we were then turned down by Rafiki, Koda and Brer Fox in quick succession; which was disappointing because I hadn’t met Brer Fox since childhood and don’t have his or Koda’s signatures on a vinyl.

So we left the breakfast with just Terk and Chip’s autographs and headed to the park where we got in line for Alice and the Mad Hatter in Town Square. Hatter at one point started making his way down the line and I presented him with the vinyl; he hesitated before saying something like “I’m not supposed to but….” and then he signed it hurriedly; but on the bottom base rather than the visible area. When we got to Alice she started signing it too, but her handler got her attention to which she replied “oh, well, I’ve started it now”. This was getting weirder and weirder. So next we lined up for Mickey Mouse and we did the photo etc and then I presented the vinyl; and not only did he gesture that he wouldn’t sign it; but I could actually hear the female cast member inside the costume saying “Sorry, I can’t sign that”; the first time I have ever heard a masked character break kayfabe in such a manner and communicate with a guest verbally.

As this was the end of a character cycle, there were quite a few handlers milling about, so I asked one of them what the deal was with characters refusing to sign my Vinylmation to which he answered that they had received a memo basically saying that Vinylmations were not to be signed. I first said that it seems odd seeing as I have seen characters signing anything before, be it books, maps, tshirts, even books from other parks such as Universal to which the guy said he understood but couldn’t tell me any more. Not one to back down too easly, I then scrolled backwards through the pictures on my camera to one I had taken the day before of my signed Vinylmation from WDW, from the previous week, and showed it to the cast member countering with, “well, if there’s been a ban on signing them, why is everyone at WDW still doing it?” which left him a bit speechless and confused enough to go and get his supervisor. The supervisor basically said the same thing and both cast members (who were very nice btw) said that I should keep trying with characters and those who wanted to sign it, would; but both thought it wrong and odd that Disneyland character performers had been told not to sign them when other parks were either not being given the same restraints or not abiding by them.

I was later given the reason (by Mary Poppins) that signing had been stopped on Vinylmation because they are a piece of art and thus shouldn’t be embellished upon; and while I cannot argue with the sentiment behind this, because I too consider them a piece of art, this is wrong because this is a blank one that is for the sole purpose of embellishment. In this case the signatures I get turn this blank canvas into a unique piece of art that will be a reminder of our holiday; so the argument just doesn’t hold up. Anyway, once others had started signing it, more and more characters were willing; unfortunately this was a bit too late to fill the vinyl up so it looks a little sparse compared to the others.

Signed by: Mickey, Alice, Donald, Cruella De Ville, Terk, Mulan, Snow White, Geppetto, Stitch, Pooh, Chip & Dale, Minnie, Goofy, Pinocchio, Aurora, Jessie, Pluto, Eeyore, Mad Hatter, Baloo & Tigger

Refused to sign: Mickey, Rafiki, Brer Fox, Woody, Koda, Russell, Mary Poppins, Bert, Dug & more

Honestly, I hope this whole incident was just a big misunderstanding, someone has sent out the memo saying “don’t sign Vinylmations because they are art” and not had the thought to put “apart from the blank ones, they are ok” on the end of the sentence for clarification. Since this happened, I have wanted to put the rant you have just read into a letter to Disneyland operations, maybe to at least get clarification or a proper reason, but as I wouldn’t have a clue where to send it, I haven’t; maybe someone who reads this will pass it on. I plan on returning to Disneyland in 2013, and would hate to have another disappointing experience with autographs.

Ok, sorry, rant over.

The newest member of our autographed Vinylmation family came in November while I took a solo weekend trip to Disneyland Paris. Considering I was only there for a couple of days, I am very happy with how full it is. Also, being that it was a solo trip I thought it would fun to experiment again, so this time I got a red Vinylmation rather than the usual white and went with just black ink. While I like how it came out, it seems a little less eye catching than some of the others.

Siged by: Mickey, Chip & Dale, Tic & Tac, Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum, Minnie, Donald, Tigger, Rafiki, Baloo, The Genie, Winnie the Pooh, Timon, Gedeon, Eeyore, Pinocchio, Mad Hatter, Goofy, Dingol, Woody, Friar Tuck, Wendy, Pluto, Duffy, Geppetto, Jack Sparrow, John Darling & Captain Hook

And so that is our current collection of autographed Vinylmations. There will be 3 or 4 more added this year; hopefully each as individual and full of memories as these. If any of you have tired of autograph books, why not give this a go; it’s much more fun and I’m sure will give you a treasured keepsake of your visit to the parks.

Speak Soon :)

Cirque Du Soleil - TOTEM-ly Awesome!!

I know I said that my next blog would be about my history with Disney, and that piece is progressing nicely, but I'm going to digress tonight to write about the Cirque Du Soleil show Totem; currently playing at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

I should say two things to preface this piece. Firstly, big thanks and kisses to my wife who not only got me the tickets for Xmas, but was more than willing to spend more of my money in order to get a absolutely awesome centre stage box seats with a just fantastic view. Secondly I should say that having seen nine Cirque shows internationally, some several times, I would consider myself a fan of their work; so this wasn't some kind of revelational experience for me.

So, onto the show. Three words. Go See It. OK, should probably give you a bit more than just that.

Firstly, the set. For a travelling show made to be stageable in any location and not inside a Cirque custom tent; I thought this set blew all the others I have seen away. The scorpion arm was a fantastic feature that was used extremely well for transitions and entrances and coupled with the interactive projections on it and the back stage, it lent so much towards setting the scene for the story. The front stage was a typical Cirque stage with numerous trap doors, lighting and hidden trampoline; but was accessorised with an encompassing turtle shell cage that was used or manipulated throughout the show.

The music for this show was a very cool modernised mix of Native American, Flamenco and Indian beats and rhythms. It wasn't a hugely lyrical show like Alegria, and this helped to not think you were missing something because you can't understand a word of it; but what singing there was, was all excellent. It is certainly a soundtrack I will be listening to again in the near future.

All Cirque shows have a story or theme that is portrayed via performance and music; sometimes it is very obvious, sometimes hugely interpretive. Totem demonstrates the evolution of mankind from amphibian to monkey to man to space with the feeling that you are being told the story by Native Americans symbolism rather than speech. The overall theme is very obvious in Totem with much of the story being told by the extras between the main acts. Some of the acts are obvious of what they represent in the theme of Evolution, others not so much; and some, after looking online and finding out, I still don’t see it. This one probably isn't for the scientologists out there.

LOL! 400 words in and I haven't even mentioned the acts or acrobatics; I guess that shows how total to the senses the experience of a Cirque should be.

As anyone who has seen a Cirque show knows, the clowns are one of the most integral parts of the show; not only providing the laughs but also transitioning the acts. What usually becomes very apparent too is that the term "clown" is very underselling as they are incredibly talented. In Totem there are 2 main clowns and a further 2 (the scientist and the tracker) who are of the clown role but also have a specific act of their own. I thought the clowns in this show were very good, I wouldn't say they were the funniest I've seen but they did make great use of the fantastic set.

The show starts off with a piece combining the normal Cirque trampoline track and a pair of parallel bars. I really enjoyed the combination and while what they did was fantastic, I would have loved to see this act go a few minutes longer and a few more wow moments thrown in. But it was a really good opening act.

Next we were introduced to the Native American side of the story telling with a hoop dancer who used a combination of four hoops to mimic various animals. With this not being the main instance of the act, it didn’t last very long; but the manipulation of the hoops and his body through and around was very impressive.

After our first real introduction to one of the clowns (they appeared throughout the audience for 10 minutes before curtain as they often do), there was a rings duo which expanded to a trio act. While entertaining, this was probably my least favourite of the acts, it didn’t have much in the way of wow moments nor do I have any idea where it fits in with the show’s theme. It did have a cool Bollywood rift though.

After the first showing of what the scorpion arm could do, a troop of five girls on very high unicycles came out balancing bowls on their heads and while riding around and keeping the unicycles moving with one foot, they then started launch kicking further bowls from a standing foot start up and into the bowls on their own and each others heads. The mixture of timing, accuracy and balance in this piece was stunning and as I said to Tara at the time, “you don’t f*ck with Chinese girls at Cirque”; they will invariably steal the show. Absolutely awesome act, although not sure what it had to do with the theme of Evolution.

The next act is called Foot Juggling, but I do not think that explains what it was. This was a pair of sisters using some chair apparatus and spinning square clothes with their hands and feet. They then proceeded to start flinging, tossing and catching them in all kinds of weird and wonderful ways. This was one of those weird acts, technically very well done, but not stunning in what is happening. However, with the laser lighting and music added in, the act worked really well with a great finale trick.

The finale of the first half was called Perches. Proceeding this however told the story of Ape to Man with the Perches performers coming out in business suits before being stripped off by the remaining monkeys. This was a tough one for me, there is obviously a lot of skill, balance, team work and strength involved in the act; however, I truly wonder how much the safety wire was just for safety or if it was also instrumental in the ability to do what they were doing. The finale trick of the act was very impressive and off centre to the safety wire it also put it all down to skill; a near slip showing how ready to jump they were.

After the intermission the Tracker character did his main act called devil sticks. This was basically the intricate manipulation of a third stick by using two being held. Much like the start of the first half, this act was mainly to get the audience back into the mood; but was very entertaining as the Tracker and one of the clowns interacted.

Following was a male and female duo act on a fixed trapeze which for me this was the act of the night. The story being told of flirting, attraction and playing hard to get was very obvious in the movements, attitudes and facial expressions; but the intricacy in all the movements timed to perfection and executed perfectly to a piece of beautiful music made the entire act incredibly enjoyable.

Next it was the scientists turn to show his main act. At many points before this, there had been interaction between the scientist, the tracker and monkeys with balls of light. This time, after some very clever box stacking and bowl spinning, the scientist entered a test tube like cone where we found out he was a very clever juggler who used the cone to send light balls spinning around at all kinds of angles and speeds. A very enjoyable and unexpected act; certainly nothing I have seen before.

We then were treated to the full version of the Native American hoop dancing, now with two performers manipulating the hoops. Like the first time, this wasn’t something that made you go wow, but with the tribal music, it was very entertaining.

The penultimate act was a couple of roller skaters which on a very small platform performed a series of extremely fast spins and lifts that you could only compare to ice skaters; only faster. Truly a mixture of beauty and speed.

As the finale to the show we had the Russian Bar, a Cirque classic. This was a three bar version of the act where acrobats use very bendy and springy bars supported on other performer’s shoulders like a trampoline in order to somersault; half the wow factor being the very precise landing, often not on the bar from which they left. As always, a very enjoyable act.

Overall, this was a great Cirque Du Soleil show with very few low points; and those were probably because I have high expectations having seen so many other shows; I’m sure even my low points wowed newbies. I would recommend seeing this show to anybody, it was a great mixture of act, music and artistic interpretation and thoroughly enjoyable. As a Cirque fan, I can honestly say that this show compares very well against the others I have seen; I don’t think it ranks as my favourite in categories (other than the travelling stage), but it ranks very highly in all for an all around great experience.

Go See It!

Speak Soon :)

Robots In Disguise!!

Continuing the “getting to know me” theme, I’ve decided to do this weeks post on my history with the Transformers. While my love of Transformers doesn’t go back as far as some of my other interests, after the rather large Muppet blog last week, I figured something a little less in depth was required for this week. Again, I am going to try and throw in a few facts and pieces of, what I think, interesting information to pad around the story of Transformers and me.

The origins of the Transformers are quite different to most other cartoons with accompanying merchandise. Normally speaking, a new cartoon will be made and, if successful, will be followed by lines of toys or action figures. The Transformers were quite the opposite where the toys existed first, although mostly unknown, and the cartoon was used as a specific marketing tool to sell them; hence when new toys were developed they were added to the cartoon and as we will find out later on, when toys are discontinued, they get killed off from the cartoon. For this to make sense and the origins understood, we have to go back in time and to Japan.

In 1974 Takara, a Japanese toy manufacturer released a series of toys that could transform from one thing to another. These were called Micromen and some of the initial toys included a blue cassette player called Recorder Robot and three cassettes which would both fit inside him and transform themselves between a cassette and either a robot, jaguar or bird. Eventually, after several versions, this line was renamed to Microchange and by that time there were also figures that changed from robot form to other things such as a series of small cars, including a little yellow beetle, and a series of guns.

In 1980 Takara released a second line of toys called Diaclone, the storyline behind the toys being that they were the protectors of earth from the evil Warader Empire. These toys were all the same size as the lagest of the Microchange toys and included a large truck called Convoy, some dinosaurs, and a series of cars such as a fire engine, ambulance, a Porsche 935 Turbo, a Lancia Stratos and a Ligier F1. The toys representing the evil Warader Empire in the story looked like insects.

In 1983 a Hasbro product developer discovered these lines of toys at the Tokyo Toy Fair and it was decided to take the toys from all the various lines Takara had created and merge them into a single brand and storyline for worldwide release. The final piece of the puzzle fell into place when the US regulators removed the restrictions on the placement of promotional content in children’s television, and the rest is history; Hasbro created the Transformers, a line of toys which would be marketed through both an animated cartoon and a comic book produced by Marvel (yet another instance of where my loves as a child have folded into my current love of Disney). This origin explains why, especially with the Decepticons, there is such a range of alternate modes that don’t always fit together cohesively. The wide range of already made cars, and later dinosaurs, all became the Autobots; while the remainders, which included the guns (although only the Walther P38 was kept), the tape player and cassettes, the insects, and a series of jets and construction vehicles, became the Decepticons. The somewhat unusual mix of different alternate modes was explained in the first episode where, after crashing on earth, the Ark’s computer, Teletraan-1, repaired the Transformers to change into compatible things that it found on earth.

On the toy front, the change to a single brand with defined characters created some very strange anomalies in some of the early releases as, before they produced more, Takara just repackaged the already produced toy stock. This meant that there were a few different versions of some toys as production was changed in order to be either standardised or to match the characters on screen look. As the original Takara toys were not specific characters, they could produce them in various colours; and thus at the start there were some red Sunstreakers, various Bumblebees and even blue Optimus Primes. This also explains why on many of the early models, you had to put the Autobot or Decepticon logo sticker on the character yourself, because they were produced without them.

In 1984 the Transformers hit the airwaves and I was watching and hooked from the beginning. The show was aired at the weekends in full episode form and also serialised throughout the week in a 5 – 10 min slot at something like 7am on TV-AM (morning television news and entertainment show back then). At the age of 8, my day always started with my morning few minutes of Transformer action.

On a side note, Takara were not the only people producing toys that could transform in Japan; Popy, better known as Bandai, also had a line of their own which debuted in 1982. After seeing Hasbro move in on the Takara products, Tonka did the same with this line and thus 1984 not only brought us the Transformers, we also got the Gobots. It was the equivalent of iPhone Vs Driod for a generation of 8 year olds 25 years ago and thankfully I backed the winning team as the Gobots didn’t last very long.

For the next couple of years, Transformers were my main “thing”; whether it was a birthday or Christmas, Transformers were what I wanted. I wasn’t spoilt as a child toy wise, so my collection wasn’t huge, but I had a pretty good selection. I had the video tapes which contained three or four episodes and my mum subscribed me to the weekly comic which had the always great “Grim Gram” page (after he took over from Soundwave as the comic’s Agony Aunt). The first Transformer I got was Sunstreaker; it was bought for me as a present and wouldn’t have been my first choice as he was a minor role in the cartoon, but I didn’t care. Like most of the kids at school I had several of the smaller Autobot cars, the most popular being Bumblebee; mostly because they were so much cheaper and thus easier to get the parents to buy us. I also had Thrust pretty early on; and when the Dinobots came out I had Grimlock; who was by far my favourite to transform back and forth and show off to the older generation who stared on with fascination and then fiddled with themselves for 10 minutes before declaring that they couldn’t work out how to transform the thing. A couple of my major occasion presents over the period were the complete Aerialbots box set which combined to form Superion and the huge Metroplex city figure.

I never had an original Optimus Pime or Megatron :(

After the first, and best, two seasons of the cartoon came The Transformers: The Movie in 1986. This was a pretty big deal back then, with characters voiced by Orson Wells (recorded mere days before his death), Leonard Nimoy, Judd Nelson and Eric Idle. Whereas nowadays its quite common for a successful cartoon franchise to produce multiple feature length movies, if not for cinema, then for direct to TV or DVD, in the mid 80’s Transformers, Care Bears and My Little Pony were amongst the first children’s cartoons to be elevated from a TV series to the big screen. For anyone local reading this, I saw it in the huge Screen 1 of the Waltham Cross Odeon; before it became a bingo hall.

Many of the toys I had were from the movie. I had Hot Rod and Rodimus Prime, Galvatron, Wheelie, Wreck-Gar and Springer. However, while the movie was the pinnacle of my love for Transformers, it was also the beginning of the end of my love affair with them as a child. The movie took place 20 years after the end of season 2, in 2005, which gave the writers a lot of room to introduce many new characters who had never been seen before; roughly translated to introducing all the new toys that Hasbro were just releasing. At the same time, the movie also had the job of killing off all the characters that Hasbro were taking out of production; thus at the end of the movie the ongoing cast would reflect the toy lines for 1986/87. In the first act of the film alone we saw the deaths of Brawn, Prowl, Ratchet and Ironhide; in the aftermath we also saw the dead bodies of Wheeljack, Windcharger, Mirage, Tailbreaker, Smokescream, Red Alert and Huffer. And a little later we had the death of Optimus Prime and several of the Deceptions reformatted into new characters including Skywarp, Thundercracker, the Insecticons and Megatron (who later, as Galvatron, disintegrated Starscream).

I honestly don’t remember if I cried during the death of Optimus Prime, I probably did. Back then I would forward the cassette soundtrack through song 3 which was the music from his death scene and pretty much tells the story of Prime dying; and if I’m being honest, when listening to it on either CD or electronic format now, I still do skip that track. Optimus Prime WAS the Transformers, he was the figurehead, the hero, and as much as we all had our favourites other than Prime, his death was a major event for a generation of 10 year old boys.

And it proved to be too much. By the end of the movie, the only true classic “A list” Autobots still alive were Jazz, Bumblebee and the Dinobots; pretty much all the others were gone to be replaced by the new heroes (including the first female Transformer – die Arcee!! DIE!!); and it was too far. As fans we always enjoyed a new transformer being built or coming to earth from Cyberton (and of course the release of a new toy), but to have everyone we loved wiped out and expected to just take this new cast into our hearts as a replacement in an instant; it wasn’t going to happen. It would be like the entire cast of Friends all dying in a car crash and then the next episode starting with another group of six and expecting everyone to keep watching. If it had been just Prime that had been killed, or everyone but Prime, things may have been different; but the suits in charge of marketing the toys wanted all the old toys out and all the new toys in and that’s what happened; all our favourites apart from a lucky few; gone.

While I loved the film (and still do), when series three of the cartoon started later that year with this new cast, I wasn’t that bothered. As much as the cartoon had been about good Vs evil, Autobot Vs Decepticon, it had really revolved around Optimus Prime Vs Megatron; and while the movie had their greatest and final battle; once they were gone, we had lost a HUGE chunk of what made the series so great. To make matters even worse, half of the series was given to a Korean studio named AKOM to animate (who have since gone on to animate the Simpsons) and the drawing/animation quality was terrible compared to the first two seasons and the very artistic movie.

While the executives soon realised their mistake (the letter campaigns by parents and media reports about upset children probably gave them a hint) and Optimus Prime was brought back to life in the final two episodes of the third season, it was too late and from an English standpoint, the show was cancelled at the end of a three episode series four which introduced one final line of toys called the Headmasters. I had already stopped watching by this point; I didn’t even know Prime had been brought back until I saw these episodes over 15 years later. As my love and interest faded I would see all these new Transformer toys hitting the shops called Headmasters, Targetmasters, Pretenders and more; but I didn’t care about any of them. In fact, in 1987 there were almost 200 Transformer toys available but I thought they looked cheap and plasticy; and without the interest in the cartoon, I had no interest in the toy. Oddly, as it turns out, I was a bigger fan of the marketing material than the product it was advertising.

And so that was the end of my childhood with the Transformers; by 1988 I had given all of my toys away to a family friend who was younger and, as far as I was concerned at the time, I would never think of them again.

Yeah right.

Something about Optimus Prime and the Autobot logo stuck with me and when the G1 Transformers (Generation 1), as they became known, hit that acceptable point where they became “retro”, t-shirts started popping up here and there and I would pick them up. In fact, whenever I saw anything that was related to the era prior to the end of the movie, I was interested. I would love reading reprints of the old comic books or the newer comics using the G1 universe that had such amazing art work. I also got the toy history/pricing books by J E Alvarez which I highly recommend and used a lot while writing this piece for information or memory jogging.

I was vaguely aware of what had been going on with Transformers throughout the years after I stopped being actively interested in them. I saw the ghastly looking G2 toys in stores which were just crazy colour versions of many of the original toys and an Optimus Prime that, to me, was almost blasphemy as it wasn’t a flat front truck. I saw a few episodes of Beast Wars here and there but didn’t know what was going on; and later on I saw a few episodes of Transformers Robots in Disguise.

In 2000 the movie was released on DVD and I really enjoyed seeing it again for the first time in many years. Like the Muppets discussed last week, things that I had dropped as I moved into my teens were suddenly enjoyable again as I moved into my 20’s. Then between 2002 and 2004 all the G1 cartoons were released on DVD and I really enjoyed watching the first two seasons again; remembering quite a lot of them. This was also the first time I saw much of series three and the short series four that I never had as a child. The Japanese series of the cartoon which followed series four, and never translated into English, were also made available on DVD; these were the series which featured the Headmasters, Targetmasters and Pretenders characters. I also, thanks to ebay, got my hands on the Canadian VHS release of the movie which was classed as a “Directors Cut”; it contained 2 extra words that the original release had cut out.

Over the years since its original DVD release, the movie has been re-released several more times by different distributors as the rights have moved back and forth, and I bought all of them culminating in the very nice 20^th Anniversary DVD set; it’s one of the things I will often put on if laying in bed not able to sleep. The 20^th Anniversary of the movie in 2006 had its other perks too, most notably the UK release of the Takara Masterpiece Optimus Prime figure which sits on my desk at work and is truly a work of art in its intricacy and perfect design; I just recently got the Masterpiece Grimlock too and it is just as beautiful . Also, on the 20^th anniversary of the original UK release, a cinema in Leicester Square played the animated movie for one night only and seeing it again on the big screen (surrounded by an entire audience of geeky guys in their 30s; although one guy did bring his girlfriend) gave me goosebumps.

The release of the live action movies has led to an increase in both retro G1 stuff and general Transformers merchandise which has been great for the fan in me. FCUK released a line of tshirts as did HMV and, in general, the availability of logo clothing has risen exponentially; a lot of which has found its way into my wardrobe. I bought four or five new transformer tops, pj pants and a baseball cap on our last holiday to the USA alone. Toy wise, I got the movie version of Optimus Prime and my son got some of the others. For a brief moment I was very worried that I had become an adult as I would be damned if I could transform his Bumblebee; but, to my relief, he couldn’t either. Turns out that a lot of the newer toys are just overly fiddly and don’t fit together very well.

I saw both the movies in the cinema, and each of them has their good and bad points; I don’t think this is the time for me to rant about them because I’ve already broken my “something a little less in depth” line from the start of this piece. There are things I didn’t like, most notably Skidz and Mudflap; but overall I am glad they have been made, and I’m glad that they, generally speaking, are made in the G1 universe. When Optimus Prime rolled onto the screen for the first time and transformed to robot mode, I had a tear in my eye. He wasn’t exactly the same look wise, but with Peter Cullen as the voice and the way in which he was portrayed, he was everything Optimus Prime should be; my hero was back.

I’m going to finish this post with a piece of advice. In the very first episode of the Transformers, Optimus Prime declares to the other Autobots that they need to launch a spaceship, Laserbeak records the whole thing, reports back to Megatron, the Decepticons attack and everything goes pear shaped. At the beginning of the movie Optimus Prime declares to the other Autobots that they need to launch a shuttle, Laserbeak records the whole thing, reports back to Megatron, the Decepticons attack and everything goes pear shaped. So; should you every need to launch a spaceship, make sure Laserbeak isn’t hiding in the shadows recording it all; it’s not that difficult.

Speak soon :)

So I’ve decided to start a blog……..

So I’ve decided to start a blog……..

I’m not totally sure where this will go, maybe I will be the next internet sensation, but I doubt it. More likely it will be something I use as an outlet either for general musings, expression of excitement over the release of things I like, something coming up or Disney news; or just to vent over things that piss me off. I’m also going to try and do some researched “articles” here and there so maybe when I have something that’s interesting to blog about, I’ll try and get some history or interesting facts thrown in.

But first a little about myself. My name is Mark and I live just north of London in England, I’ve just turned 34, married for 11 years with an almost 7 year old son. I work in the financial sector and my interests include Disney, Star Trek, Transformers, Gaming, Arsenal Football Club amongst other things; so expect a few topics to come up here. I know a lot of the most popular blogs are pretty focused and the advice from the good people of BetaMouse was to pick your area of passion, but I’m a pretty random guy so this will be a pretty random blog.

You can follow me on various social networks, I usually always go by the name of FuseMP (the origin of which may end up being my first blog post), so friend me on FaceBook, follow me on Twitter etc etc.

Sorry Blackberry and Droid users, I’m an iPhone user. As a principle, I HATE Apple and always have done (which I know is a severe conflict of love and hate nowadays with Steve Jobs position in the Disney company) but I really cannot knock the iPod/iPhone/iTunes systems. I tried to avoid it, I got an mp3 player rather than a iPod and ended up getting an iPod. I got a different smart phone (although not a top of the range one) and ended up getting an iPhone as it couldn’t compare. Much like with Beta Vs VHS and BR Vs HDD; the other systems may be technically superior; but that doesn’t always decide the winner and as I look around on the train twice a day, its pretty obvious that the iPhone is the one to have. I will not, however, EVER get a Mac (he says for now).

I think I’ll probably start over the next week or so by explaining some of the basics about me, how I got into things and what keeps me ticking on them; especially as many of which have lasted with me for so long. We are going to Disneyland Paris at the end of July, so there will probably be some build up posts and some stuff while there. I would love to be able to tweet and ustream vidcast direct from the parks, but unfortunately, while I have the tech, the cost of doing it outside of England would be through the roof. It can only be a matter of time until the parks have free wifi or they work out international free 3G roaming on contract.

Ok, that should do it for my intro; now I’ve written this I guess I better decide which blogging site I’m going to use and set myself up.

Speak soon