The first wave of Transformers Prime toys gets a November release date, but case packs carry just one Bulkhead for every three Optimus Primes. This August 31, 2011 Radio Free Cybertron also covers SavCon 2012 with Gregg Berger and a third-party Sixshot. The crew discusses Amazon’s sold-out 2010 Unicron and Zobovor’s fake Beast Wars names showing up on Shout! Factory’s DVD. Aimee brings comic news, and the chat picks the rest of the topics, from collecting milestones to favorite commercials.
News
Transformers Prime Toys Get a November Release Date
The first wave of Transformers Prime toys is due the first of November. Deluxe cases pack four Bumblebees to two each of Starscream and Arcee. Voyager cases pack three Optimus Primes for every Bulkhead, and the Entertainment Battle Packs come two to a case. The crew expects Bulkhead to be hard to find. They also agree the actress who voices Miko is annoying in a constantly airing Target commercial. [Source: not found]
SavCon 2012 Announces Gregg Berger
Sean Casey, who threw a huge Dark of the Moon launch party in Savannah, Georgia, is holding a convention next year called SavCon. Gregg Berger will attend, and the crew plans to be there. [Source: not found]
Third-Party Sixshot Revealed
New images and 3D models show a third-party Sixshot with several deco variants, including a Grandus-style version. The crew is fuzzy on the details, at first mistaking the figure for a Quickswitch remold and joking about “Ninja Consultant from Cybertron.” Brian dislikes the anime-style, ball-jointed look and later confirms on TFU.info that it is based on Sixshot. [Source: TFU.info]
Amazon’s 2010 Unicron Sells Out Repeatedly
Peter updated TFormers’ post three times in two hours as Amazon’s Unicron listing flipped between in stock and sold out. One reseller then listed his copy on Amazon for $300. [Source: TFormers]
Shout! Factory DVD Used Zobovor’s Fake Beast Wars Names
Art on Shout! Factory’s Beast Wars Season 1 DVD showed first-year Beast Wars characters with G1-style names. At the time, it was explained as early placeholder names. Zobovor has shown it came from a 2008 Photoshop he made, imagining Hasbro reusing G1 names for Beast Wars. The crew suspects Shout! Factory found it through a web search and plans to talk to Zobovor about it. That leads to a long look back at alt.toys.transformers as the centralized fan community of the 1990s, its flame wars and how message boards split the fandom. [Source: alt.toys.transformers]
Comic News
Aimee reports that IDW’s Ongoing #25, “The Last Story on Earth,” arrives next week. A Livio Ramondelli sketchbook exists but is going only to shops that order heavily, and it is already on eBay at high prices. Amazon lists a hardcover collection of Last Stand of the Wreckers. Inker Andrew Griffith is selling pages from the series. Aimee is also giving away signed comics to people who like her Facebook page.
This Day in Transformers History
JD Church notes that Paul Oakenfold, who composed the Transformers Cybertron theme, was born August 30, 1963.
Twitter Theater: The Parasites Are Coming
Rob’s pre-recorded Twitter Theater is a Halley’s Comet-era Matchbox Parasites commercial about creatures hiding inside cars, starting a run of holiday-themed picks.
DeathAdder Mouse Giveaway
RFC is giving away two Dark of the Moon Razer DeathAdder gaming mice, one Bumblebee yellow and one Megatron silver. Listeners enter by telling RFC their favorite Transformer and why, on any of its social channels or by email. The winners will be announced on the September 14 show.
Chat’s Choice
When did the hosts become collectors rather than buyers? One host says it was when packages arrived daily, another when he needed shelves, and one says he hasn’t crossed that line yet. For the ideal Transformers game, the crew wants more of War for Cybertron with more characters and customization.
From third parties, Aimee wants official comic-accurate head swaps like the third-party Sergeant Kup head. The crew hopes Hasbro avoids third parties’ tiny production runs. Brian would buy Hercules if it weren’t so expensive. He loves G2’s awkward commercials, such as Bruticus as “Doodicus” and Quickswitch as Sixshot’s son, and the Action Masters ads. The crew recalls Transformers merchandise from childhood, from Find Your Fate books to an Enemy voice changer. They also look back at BotCon 2001’s Nightbird story and the more secretive, unpredictable BotCons of that era.
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.