Toys I used to love: Part 1

The Transformers were a seminal part of my childhood, teaching me that there was always more than meets the eye. What fourth grader didn't spend hours wishing his school bus would transform into an evil robot and crush the school beneath his metal boots? How many times did I get up from the dinner table and make that horribly awkward transforming noise as I changed before my family’s eyes into a jet and flew to my room? They may have been separated into Autobots and Decepticons but to me they existed as air and water; two staples I had to have to make it through another day of elementary school drudgery.

We lived in Germany during the height of the Transformer craze so bootlegged copies of the cartoon had to be smuggled in by dads who had to go to the states for work. Each fifteen pound VHS tape was like a page from the holy book of the Transformomicon and I watched them over and over, wishing I could be an animated robot. The toys were also hard to come by, as I was a fourth grader with no income. A sticky situation that could only be resolved through the power of...Santa! That glorious fat man would come through in spades during Christmas '85 as my favorite transformer of all came into my possession. Through the magic of comics I had closely followed the Transformers saga and watched as all the robots ceased functioning at the end of issue four. Without new energy they were weak and vulnerable and were all quickly vanquished by the incomparable Shockwave, a take-no-guff Decepticon who only looked out for number one.



A giant purple flying space-gun who transformed into a one-eyed hulking menace with a cannon for an arm? It was love at first sight. I was so excited to find him Christmas morning I yelled so loud the people upstairs heard me. Once I discovered that my mechanical friend also took batteries and made laser noises, I transformed my clean pajamas into dirty ones.