Does anyone else remember the Commandrons??

[JosephBardsley]

I was at a pop-up TF event today in Vancouver - the local hobby store,
Ages Three and Up, had a pop-up weekend sale with Cherry Bomb
Collectibles, based in Victoria.

The purposes of such events are mostly cross-pollination of customer and
audience bases between the two stores, which serve overlapping markets
thematically, but not geographically: Victoria is about 90 minutes from
Vancouver via ferry.

Vintage G1 is getting expensive nowadays! I saw a Cliffjumper (loose
joints, chewed tires) for $60; a Weirdwolf (complete, loose) for $185, a
Spinster for $100, and an Action Master Krok for $75. Over and above
those and other items, I happened to zero in on and find a loose set of
the "Commandrons" - this strange set of four cream, blue, and red
colored plastic robots with pull-back motors, simple transformations,
and random chrome parts.

Evidently, they were McDonald's Happy Meals toys back in 1985, and were
originally made by Tomy.

This article reveals that they may even have a direct TF connection, and
that there also was a supporting comic for a time:

https://screenrant.com/dc-comics-transformers-rip-off-mcdonalds-canon/

I ended up grabbing the set of four of them - the race car, the F-15
jet, the shuttlecraft, and the hovercraft - for $10, which felt like an
OK deal. (Evidently, price creep has not caught up with this particular
line).

More on them here:

https://www.the-liberator.net/site-files/robot-toys/commandrons-super-alternators-tomy.htm

Does anyone else remember this line at all? Did you ever find them on
the resale market, or simply out in the wild?

They're fun toys, and I'm curious. Glad to have them now!

Hope everyone's having good respective weekends,

JB

[Zobovor]

Post by JosephBardsley
Vintage G1 is getting expensive nowadays! I saw a Cliffjumper (loose
joints, chewed tires) for $60; a Weirdwolf (complete, loose) for $185, a
Spinster for $100, and an Action Master Krok for $75.

Are those Canadian prices? Even after converting to USA dollars (a
currency I'm more familiar with) those prices still seem a little steep.
I got Spinister complete for $50 USD a few years ago, and I'm currently
going down the Action Masters rabbit hole on eBay and most figures can
be found complete and in good shape for $50 USD or less.

I wonder if people charge a bit more at conventions so they can cover
the cost of transportation and the cost of setting up a dealer's table.

Post by JosephBardsley
Does anyone else remember this line at all? Did you ever find them on
the resale market, or simply out in the wild?

So I have seen these on eBay quite a few times (people often erroneously
try to sell them as Transformers or GoBots) but mentally I just sort of
filter them out and I move onto more interesting things. I was still
keeping track of Happy Meal toys in 1985, though, so I'm kind of
surprised I missed them. I remember the GoBots promotion that Wendy's
restaurants did, but I have no childhood recollection of these guys.


Zob (now if anybody wants to talk about McDonald's Changeables, I'm all
about that)

[JosephBardsley]

This is super helpful, Zob - as ever!

It's funny, because these particular toys seem extremely plentiful on
the secondary market - and cheap, too. I've seen bags of them go for $5
- 6 in places.

Knowing that Tomy is behind them lends them a strange air of legitimacy,
at least to me, but it's good to know how they have been viewed and
considered historically.

JB, who, speaking of "marginal" TFs, just got his first Minispy this
week ...

[JosephBardsley]

The more i read about them, the more I wonder if they were in fact
Canadian only, or at least in specific areas of North America. I have
never seen them for sale, for example, in Asia or Europe. They were huge
in Alberta and Ontario. Perhaps it's a regional thing?

Does anyone here not based in Canada remember seeing these figures
locally?

JB

[CodigoPostal]

Post by JosephBardsley
Vintage G1 is getting expensive nowadays!

Vintage G1 is aging, and I wonder if the demand will still be there for
toys where the rubber is cracking and the plastic is cracking...wouldn't
a reissue made with modern plastic and tech be more appealing to most
consumers?

[Optim]

Post by CodigoPostal

Post by JosephBardsley
Vintage G1 is getting expensive nowadays!

Vintage G1 is aging, and I wonder if the demand will still be there for
toys where the rubber is cracking and the plastic is cracking...wouldn't
a reissue made with modern plastic and tech be more appealing to most
consumers?

I used to collect all the reissues and knockoffs that came out from
Hasbro/Takara in the past 25 years. Hasbro/Takara has steadfastly
refused to continue to reissue them for at least 10 years. They have
only done some of the 1984-1985 line which they started over THREE times
in the past 25 years.

Thanks to Zhong Jin, a knockoff company, we were able to complete the
1984 line, all of the Dinobots and most of the 1986 line. They started
on the 1987 line with the big Decepticon Headmasters. Unfortunately,
Zhobg Jin seems to have stopped since then. I think Hasbro or Takara got
to them. Since they refuse to reissue all of G1, they should let Zhong
Jin continue to do it because it would not cut into their profits if
they let Zhong Jin continue the reissues.

I don't like Zhong Jin reissues compared to Hasbro/Takara reissues. My
two Zhing Jin Optimus Prime toys, (one with regular colors, one with
clear plastic) both broke at the elbows. The Dinobots have stiff joints
such that they are hard to transform. I'm afraid if I apply force, I
would break them. The missiles that go to Swoop's wings don't fit. I had
to file them down. I did a terrible job and so they loosely fit on the
wings. But at least I got to experience Swoop because I never had him as
a toy when I was a kid.

The 1986 line is missing reissues of prominent characters: Blurr,
Wreck-Gar, Sandstorm, Broadside and the Battlechargers. I know they are
considered terrible toys but I would have liked to experience them so
that I can see for myself if they are truly terrible toys. I would liked
to have finished off the 1986 line and the 1987 line of big Headmasters
and Targetmasters. The 1987 line was the best in G1. The Headmaster and
Targetmasters toys were big and fun to transform back and forth.

Then there were the toys that suffered from Gold Plastic Syndrome like
the Mega and Ultra Pretenders and the g2 toys. Reissues of them would be
great. I especially would like to have the Mega and Ultra Pretenders.
They semm like fun toys judging by the pictures. Both robots and shells
are transformable and they combine. That seems like fun.

Heck, I would have liked to have reissues of every G1 toy.

If Hasbro/Takara does continue the reissues for ALL of G1 it would
probably take at least 10 years to finish. Some of us, including me,
would be in retirement age by then. Man, I feel old all of a sudden.
Time really flies. It's depressing.