Beast Machines toys are popping up sporadically across the country ahead of their official launch, and one fan found Optimus Primal at a local five and dime. This December 24, 1999 Radio Free Cybertron also features an interview with Picard42, co-founder of Transformers World’s Worst. Brian Kilby scores the Beast Machines season one finale with a new point system, and News from Cybertron covers a holiday truce on Cybertron.
News
Beast Machines Toys Turn Up Early at Retail
Beast Machines toys have popped up sporadically across the nation. A friend of Brian’s found an Optimus Primal at a local five and dime. Brian finds it dumbfounding that the store had it, and wishes he had been there instead. [Source: not found]
RFC Update
Brian thanks Turin for filling in as host for the last couple of weeks. His PC was down with a faulty power supply that had to go to Texas for repairs. Turin is absent this week, hiding in his Y2K shelter.
News from Cybertron
Cybertron enjoys the holidays under an official, temporary truce. Megatron gives Optimus Prime a Sega Dreamcast and suggests a friendly game of Soulcalibur, to the death. An intoxicated Beast Wars Megatron, now a New Age thinker, then ruins the party by liberating everyone’s sparks.
Interview: Picard42 of Transformers World’s Worst
Picard42 explains that Transformers World’s Worst began about two years ago as a parody of Warren Feld’s famous fan saga, written in the TFU IRC channel. The site also hosts a newspaper, screenshots, Ask a Transformer, a drinking game, a BotCon photo album and Fanfic Universe entries. He has mixed feelings about unapproved World’s Worst fanfics, since some just aren’t funny. In the five questions, he names Beast Wars as his favorite to watch and the G1 cartoon as his favorite to write. Blaster is his favorite character, and his favorite toy is a toss-up between Transmetal Cheetor and Megatron. He would send Nightscream to suffer eternally.
New on the RFC Website
The site has Brian’s Christmas story, Brian’s Christmas 1985, and the very first RFC episode, which predates the first broadcast by almost a month. The original promotional ad and its corrected version are also up. The new poll asks which Transformer you would rather spend the holidays with, and the guestbook and link exchange are open. The fanfic review is missing this week, and Brian urges listeners to send fanfics to Alex for review.
Trivia
Last week’s answer was Dark Awakening. Jay Foster got it, and Zobovor got it on the second try. This week’s clip is “I’ll meet them there,” and it is also on the RFC site.
Episode Review: Beast Machines Season One Finale
Brian awards and subtracts points as the episode goes. He gives credit to Tankor’s scheming through the Oracle and the Megatron line about the Doomsday Weapon. He docks points for the Vehicon chase, the plasma energy chamber plot and a level-headed Cheetor. The recycled techno running song, slow-motion action and a cliffhanger built for new character designs also cost points. Megatron duping Tankor earns ten points. The episode averages a negative two, which Brian calls not bad for Beast Machines, on the level of a Beast Wars season three episode.
Radio Free Cybertron is the world's first and oldest toy and action figure podcast — broadcasting from the heart of the Transformers fan community since October 1999. What started as a scrappy fan show has grown into an institution, with nearly 1,000 episodes and over 25 years of coverage. Every week, host Brian Kilby and the RFC crew dig into the latest Transformers news, toy reveals, collecting, and everything hitting shelves from Hasbro, Takara, and beyond. No fluff, no hype — just informed, passionate collectors who have been doing this longer than anyone else on the planet. The original. The longest running. Till all are one.