The New ‘Transformers’ Toy Mania!



Posted: Thursday, November 01, 2007

by
21st Century Toys

The original Transformers toy line was introduced to the English-speaking world in 1984, as a partnership between Hasbro and a Japanese toy manufacturer called Takara. The toys were already being made by Takara at that time as the toy lines Diaclone and MicroChange. Hasbro bought the rights to market them in the West and renamed them Transformers. When the cartoon started airing in September 1984, there was an explosion of interest in the toys as the must-have items for Christmas shopping for the next two years. The toys came in a wide range of characters seen in the television cartoon series, from popular main characters such as Optimus Prime and Megatron, to more minor supporting characters such as the Insecticons and the Dinobots. In 1986 Transformers: The Movie, an animated film directly following the storyline of the series, was released in cinemas to poor reviews and did not do well at the box office. The important role it filled in the context of the toy line was to get rid of characters from the original series to make room for a slew of brand new characters, and thus new toys. The post-movie cartoon series was decidedly less popular than the original series had been, but the toy line soldiered on for many more years. Several new lines were rolled out with names like Pretenders and Action Masters but they failed to capture the public imagination like the original Transformers toy lines had. Production ceased for the United States market in 1990, but the UK , Canada and Japan had new lines produced continuously until 1993, based on characters from the Transformers comics.

From 1993 to 2007, the Transformers toy lines and companion cartoon series (the later ones all being animated in CGI) were re-imagined several times over in different forms one of which saw the Transformers changing into animals instead of machines. Some of the later lines grew in popularity, but not to the same manic degree that the originals had enjoyed.

In 2007 a major live-action motion picture was released. The movie was a re-imagining of the original series, which saw the Autobots and Decepticons come to Earth from their home planet of Cybertron to find the mythical power source known as the All-Spark. The Transformers seen in the movie are redesigned versions of the characters from the original 1984 cartoon series, including such favourites as Optimus Prime, Megatron, Jazz, Bumblebee and Starscream, among others. The movie was an enormous box office success, launching the Transformers back to the heights of popularity the toy line enjoyed in its early 80s heyday. With the release of the movie comes the release of a new line of toys that are some of the must-have items on this years Christmas shopping list.
Sarah Corlett runs the successful toy safety resource 21st Century Toys: www.21st-century-toys.com and the Xbox 360 source: www.xtreme-xbox.com. Offline, Sarah works in management and enjoys traveling.
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