The Montreal/Quebec Local Fans Banter Thread

[dabra_dmp]

My story kinna sucks because I actually became fan of transformers in 2007. I'm 26 and I was a tmnt, batman, Spider-Man, power rangers kid. I became fan of transformers after seeing the first micheal bay transformers movie. At the time I was finishing school and I started to work and since I was still living with my parent, all the I was gaining was mine. So one time I decided to go at toys r us for a gift for my little cousin and I saw some of the 2007 tf toy so I decided to buy one "just for fun" and I bought Landmine. I was so amaze by the engineering of the toy that I decided to buy more. So after that I started to watch all the old transformers cartoon. And now I have over 300 figures....but lately I quit my job so don't have anymore money for toys.....been looking for work since April 2012. That's it my story kinna suck I know.

[SMOG]

Wow, nostalgia time!

My childhood collection was pretty piecemeal. My parents weren't big on buying dropping a lot of money on toys, so most of my childhood Transformers I either bought with allowance money (usually at yard sales, occasionally new) or ended up trading for with other neighbourhood kids.

Also, Charlottetown being such a tiny, homey place, all the department stores were located right downtown... which was like, 2 blocks from my house, and on my way home from school... so all the Transformers I couldn't own, I spent a LOT of time studying on she shelves, memorizing those Tech Spec bios, even drawing little sketches of their faceplate designs so I'd remember them later.

Weird story... an old friend of mine had a broken Optimus, and wrote a nasty letter to Hasbro (here in Longeuil) complaining and saying he'd never buy TFs again, etc. They actually replied, informing him that they would send him one of their "new Triple Changers" free of charge... which was pretty exciting, because at the time we had NO IDEA what a Triple Changer might be! Instead, however, a whole new Optimus Prime arrived in the mail.

Of course, my buddy Ben never cared much for Optimus. He wanted to be a pilot when he grew up, so when another kid at school was selling Jetfire for $14, Ben sold me his still-new Optimus for exactly $14.

Of course, although Megatron was one of my first Transformers, he was stolen by another kid within the first year I had him. THEN I got Optimus Prime. TRAGEDY! With no Megatron, and limited funds, I ended up buying a "Galactic Man" from Radio Shack for $13 instead (yes, the notorious grey "Shackwave"). My slightly miscoloured Shockwave became the regular adversary of my comparatively diminutive Optimus for the rest of my childhood.

I also had a Construction Robot gift set (KO of the Diaclone version) I'd bought at Zellers for $20 (because REAL Constructicons were $7 each!) so I even had a rainbow Devastator for a while, though I later traded the set with another kid for Tracks, Sunstreaker, Inferno and Super Gobot Defender... which I considered to be a pretty good deal at the time.

For the sake of recollection, I think this was my old collection by the end:

Optimus Prime
Sunstreaker, Tracks, Inferno, Prowl
Windcharger, Brawn, Yellow Cliff, Red Bee, Powerglide, Huffer
Protectobots (gift set)
Snarl
Gobot Defender (rechristened "Roadbuster")

Shackwave
Rumble, Ravage, Frenzy, Laserbeak
Kickback, Bombshell, Shrapnel, Barrage
Thundercracker
Combaticons (purchased separately)
Gnaw
Soundwave and Buzzsaw

I think Soundwave was my last TF purchase of that era... it was the rerelease, languishing in some Woolco in Halifax, unsold... for a hefty sum of $23.99! I was getting a bit old to buy Transformers (ha! if only I knew!), but after owning all the Decepticon cassettes for years with no Soundwave, it felt like an appropriate way to close the collection. To this day, I think that Soundwave is in the best condition of all my remaining TFs.

Of course I had a much younger brother, so I still got to experience new Transformers through him. Naturally they were all inferior to MY Transformers though.

Originally Posted by Pascal

Narrowed down my choice to Apeface and Scorponok, went for Scorpy because he was bigger, but somehow I regretted it later, I hated how the city mode on Scorpy wasn't really functional for little cars and thought Apeface was a much cooler triplechanger.

Yeah, bigger isn't always better. I hated the city modes too.

I also remember my grandmother giving me Grimlock and Hoist at school during lunch for my birthday (she also was my teacher) when I was 11. Over the years I got the following:

Your grandmother was your teacher? Where did you grow up? I'm picturing some tiny little community one-room schoolhouse!

Originally Posted by Hhai

I think my first Tf was Snarl, but I broke it pretty fast.

I'll bet it was one of his "wings" (tail-halves).

One of the best memories I have from my childhood is getting Powermaster Prime for christmas. I still have that scene on videotape. You know that viral youtube video where you see some kid being hysteric after getting a Wii console? Well, my reaction was exactly like that!

I think you need to put that on Youtube! Watching some little girl in the 80's freaking out over Powermaster Prime on Christmas morning sounds like an instant classic!

Originally Posted by gericault

I remember religiously leafing through the Sears catalog to see new transformers.

Those old catalogues really put some effort into their toy sections back then! Funny to think now, how that was pretty much our SOLE window on cool new stuff coming out!

I remember spending hours one xmas having to decide whether to ask my parents for Blitzwing OR Astrotrain. Damn that was a hard choice. And xmas morning, I discover they got me BOTH!! Happiest day of my life, I can tell you!

Happiness used to be so easy to buy back then, eh?

I'm 39, not married and no kids, with a VERY patient girlfriend. I mean, really, she thinks my love of transformers is sweet! That's patience for ya!

Hear hear! I mean, when you come from a fine arts background, you can talk a smokescreen of material culture artifacts and personal affective meaning... but it's nice when you don't have to.

Originally Posted by SHCKWAVE

Man,these dicussions are making me think of all the various stories connected to my TF purchases.One memory that comes to mind was shopping with the folks at Canadian tire of all places and they had the frikkin Predacons.My mother said I could choose ONE as it was Christmas time and I already had "way too much" and it was difficult because I knew they all formed Predaking so my Dad was getting annoyed and finally said "Choose one NOW or nothing at all" so I chose Gnaw.LOL

haha! I think we all got that ultimatum from a parent at some point, and ended up with some weird choice because of it... my Gnaw was a Zellers open-box special. I found him rolling around the aisle loose (but with his tail) and a price tag stuck to his back for $6. He looked kind of goofy to me, but for $6, he was a pretty big Transformer, so I bought him.

When I showed him to my mom, she said "Pretty colours." and that was it. Feh. Girls.

Originally Posted by Buhawi

My best purchase memory was Hasbro MP Grimlock. We had to go drive 45 minutes to meet up a board member here right after church. My mother, my daughter and the wife were all there and since it was very nice day and we just bought a new car, we all decided to go all the way to Ottawa. We ended up in the natural history museum and saw my first dinosaur bones. That was the best day for hunting TFs for me.

MP Grimlock, a spontaneous family outing, AND dinosaur bones? That's pretty awesome!

Originally Posted by MaxArel

So yeah, I've been a fan my whole life. I lost it when BM arrived, come back with the movies and learned the wonders of G1. That's about it...

Haha! Kid!

I always find it sort of odd when youngsters are into G1, especially when they weren't really there for any part of it. Vain falls into that category too. I mean, that's cool and everything, but somehow I always assume the GeeWunners are all old cranks like most of us here.

Originally Posted by Protoman

I asked my father to get me Hot Rod, when I described him, I told him he was a red and yellow robot. My poor french Canadian dad came back with Blaster..... and THUS MY FIRST TF WAS ACQUIRED!

Wow... history almost took a dramatically different turn there. Imagine if you were the world's biggest Blaster fan instead!

Of course, now that I think of it, frustration over not getting Hot Rod that one time was probably the catalyst for you becoming such a big Hot Rod fan. Those things we always wanted but couldn't have always seem to be the biggest motivators in this fandom.

zmog

[Protoman]

Originally Posted by SMOG

Wow... history almost took a dramatically different turn there. Imagine if you the world's biggest Blaster fan instead!

Of course, now that I think of it, being frustrated from getting Hot Rod that one time was probably the catalyst for you becoming such a big Hot Rod fan. Those things we always wanted but couldn't have always seem to be the biggest motivators in this fandom.

zmog

Truth be told, I would not get G1 Hot Rod till 1998 (and he was broken at the roof too, I would not get a mint COMPLETE one till 2001) and I got a G1 Rodimus Prime mint in box in 1999. By then my collection had grown so much but those were 2 pieces that were painfully missing (This is all during the Beast Machines era were the list of toys to be a completiest was still modest).

Also due to Blaster being my first Transformers, the character has a special place in my heart and being a TF completiest, I kinda go out of my way to get all his stuff, WHILE GETTING EVERYTHING ELSE LIKE ALWAYS.

Despite my crazy huge collection, I actually have this little box in my TF room that is a reminder of the simple times.

It's a old box for some drum brake shoes for my grand father's car. In it is the first Transformers I ever had. All beat-up from sandbox adventures and bathtub battles. Sure on my main shelving I have a minty perfect Blaster and well as perfect copies of the Micromasters, but these beat up ones are more important and I keep those in this box to remind me of how little I had before.

[xelement24x]

Beast wars Grimlock was my first tf. I hated it at first cause i wanted Dinobot(my poor parents didnt understand the difference) but i came to love it. Later i used the sword to poke my brother in the eye. Not a good day for him.

[Kristal]

HAHAHA, I'm 17. I got into transformers from DeviantART a few months after TFA got canned and literally had a "I gotta learn them all" moment and spent hours on Tfwiki.net and watching TFA.

First TF toy was TFA Blitzwing and Starscream but my favorite has to be (Weeaboo) Drift or TFP Soundwave.

[SHCKWAVE]

What a great series of replies. Ok new topic: What ARE your views on the whole Beast Wars era? I was never much of a fan in years past but now I'm totally becoming addicted.I just recently bought the BW series on DVD that I got in Burlington and have slowly been picking up the figures.
(There were two that I wanted from your table at the last con Dan but my 2 yr old Godson had a "fit" when he saw the Jawa walking around,LOL,and we ended up leaving.We were "supposed" to come back but it didn't end up happening...*sigh*)

[Buhawi]

Hahaha. I know. What a diverse group. I had to show this to he wife.

I know what BM represents to the fandom but my initial reaction since seeing the first show still stands. OP trukk not munkie.

[Vain]

In my defence, I got to catch the re-runs of both G1 and the original Joes back to back on some station. I can't recall what station it was on, I don't think it was YTV or anything like that. Maybe Daniel remembers?

Anyways, I'm 23 which , as Zac points out, is pretty awkward to be so enamoured with G1. Well, as I mentioned, I did catch the re-runs as a child and I got a hold on the toys through my father. He's an antique dealer which leads him on trips to flea markets and shows,etc. I remember my very first toy was Astrotrain. I remember holding it in my hands and just needing to own it. It was soo heavy, it was a train, it was a shuttle, it was a robot, it was purple and it was a dream come true. So he got me it and I loved it.

A week later he purchased me an in package Perceptor and Blaster. I eventually got G2 Brawl and Spacecase and eventually got all the other Cyberjets and eventually landed a Thundercracker and a Thrust.

'Cause I was born in '89, it was a lot harder for me to get the older figures but I eventually got myself a Prime and an Ultra Magnus. I remember a lot of the animated commercials because my family had taped a lot of those shows on vhs and I got to see them through that. Most of my collection ended up being mostly late G1 and G2 stuff, which is why I really love that stuff now as a lot of you know.

ENTER THE BEAST WARS yeah forget it, Optimus Primal was a complete Badass. I never missed the show, I neglected everyone to watch it, I had to! My parents would reward me with one Beast war a week if I did well in school and behaved properly, if I didn't then I wouldn't get one. It crushed me, not only did I not get a new toy but it felt like for that week my parents didn't love me. Safe to say, I eventually owned every single beast war at one point or another except for three. Razorbeast, Rattrap and TM2 Blackaracnia. Just got Razorbeast at toycon so I was pretty hyped.

Then Beast Machines happened...

[Pascal]

Originally Posted by SMOG

Your grandmother was your teacher? Where did you grow up? I'm picturing some tiny little community one-room schoolhouse!

Yes, small village, she was teaching 5th and 6th grade. Remember that guy who killed his mother and his two little nieces earlier this year? Same school. Her mom teached me 1st and 2nd grade. We were about 60 students in that school!

Originally Posted by SHCKWAVE

What ARE your views on the whole Beast Wars era?

I remember coming across the show by accident on Teletoon (or YTV? can't remember) when I was going to university. My first reaction was "WTF? Prime's a monkey now??". I thought the show was pretty boring. Only watched a few episodes. I remember my roommate giving me that deluxe spider thing for my birthday and thinking "Gee, what a crappy toy! Transformers used to be better than that!".

I ended up watching the entire series a couple years ago and I still think the show was pretty boring and I still think most BW toys are pretty lame (although I do like some of the japanese BW2/Neo molds!).

[Protoman]

Originally Posted by Vain

In my defence, I got to catch the re-runs of both G1 and the original Joes back to back on some station. I can't recall what station it was on, I don't think it was YTV or anything like that. Maybe Daniel remembers?

It could have been either the fabled "Season 5" which was rerun episodes of G1 with new bumpers (hosted by Powermaster Optimus Prime and Tommy) which was on YTV or G2 episodes. I am thinking the later cause G2 was after school on channel 22 is ran for 3 years with a time block change during years you would have a clearer memory of it.