The toy and packaging variation oddity, mystery and discovery thread

[Nevermore]

Here's another oooold one: The story of Blue Bluestreak. We already had Prowl's "Diaclone" stickers and Smokescreen's racing number, might as well cover the third Datsun brother as well.

Yeah, I know what a lot of you will say: That story is said and done. Everyone knows that Blue Bluestreak is a myth.

But wait! There's another myth buried within that story: The myth that Bluestreak's name had nothing to do whatsoever with his color, he's simply named that because of the antiquated phrase "talking like a blue streak".

That is all sorts of bass-ackwards.


So, here's the full story.

In their Diaclone line, Takara initially released No. 7 "Fairlady Z" (aka "Fairlady Z 280Z Tbar roof") in blue, sporting a silver hood. According to Fred's Workshop, this version came out in November 1982.


In January 1983, the figure was given a running change to silver, now sporting a black hood.



Then Hasbro got involved, created "Transformers" along with Griffin Bacal and Marvel, and Marvel's Bob Budiansky created names and personalities for the characters.

The foreword for Volume 8 of IDW's "Transformers: Classics" reprints of the Marvel comics quotes Budiansky as follows:

My primary inspiration for the Transformers characterizations I created were the toys themselves what they looked liked, what they transformed into, were they good or evil, etc. Once I had that information, I would play word association games in my head to generate possible character names. The names themselves would often suggest personalities. Sometimes I would associate a character with a fictional television or movie character to come up with some personality traits.

So toys first, then names, and then personalities.

So what did the toy Bob was supposed to create a name and personality for look like?

Bob himself had this to say last year on Twitter:

Blue Streak must have been blue in the early stages. The painted art on the original toy box shows him as having blue components, even though the toy is grey. So I worked with whatever I was given, even though Hasbro apparently changed color scheme later.

Bob is of course referring to the packaging art, which was recycled from the original "Diaclone" release:


Though the Hasbro briefing binder (which can be found at the Sunbow Marvel Archive) is in black and white, it's still evident that the toy shown features a hood in a lighter color than the rest of the car.


So following the mental process as outlined above, Budiansky decided to call the blue figure "Blue Streak" (initially spelled in two words), and then crafted a personality based on that name that described him as a fast talker, based on the (now antiquated) phrase "talking like a blue streak". In other words, the idea for the character was that he would have been blue and a chatterbox, thus making the name "Blue Streak" a literal pun.


The spelling of "Blue Streak" as two words still appears in issue 1 of the Marvel comic (which even references the "talking like a blue streak" phrase), as well as in issue 1 of Marvel's "The Transformers Universe" profile series, which features Budiansky's original full-length bio for Bluestreak.

 

[Nevermore]

The toy is thus depicted in its blue "Diaclone" colors (with a silver hood) in the 1984 pack-in catalog, the toy's instructions and even on the toy's packaging itself, which also reuses the "Diaclone" version's packaging art:


Surprisingly, the plans for the blue color scheme went far enough to even be incorporated into the character model that was being developed for the cartoon, with a color guide being created, as discovered by James Eatock aka cerealgeek77:


But then Hasbro made one of their infamous last minute decisions to change the toy's color scheme. Even though all the toy's paperwork had already been produced, Bluestreak was no longer supposed to be blue. Why? I don't think we ever got an answer to that question.

Instead, Hasbro decided to use the other Diaclone color scheme, the silver version with a black hood. This color scheme is depicted in the 1984 Hasbro Toy Fair catalog (which can also be found at the Sunbow Marvel Archive):


This color scheme was then adopted for the cartoon's animation model (courtesy of D.M):


The aforementioned Hasbro briefing binder also depicts the "Blue Streak" character model in this color scheme, with the color change specifically dated to May 1984, the same month the toyline was launched in the United States:


But then Hasbro made yet another last minute decision to drop the black hood and make it silver again, presumably to give the car mode a more cohesive color scheme. After all, the mis-matched hood color made the car it look like it had been involved in an accident and had been given a new hood from another car of the same model, but in a different color. Never mind that this is how quite a few Datsun 280Z cars actually looked in real life:

 

[Nevermore]

So the toy became entirely silver in car mode instead, which initially wasn't reflected anywhere in marketing.


The only piece of 1984 marketing that did depict Bluestreak in his actual toy's colors was the pack-in catalog included with the toys available in the United Kingdom:


Of course, by 1985, the US catalog depicted him in the toy's actual colors as well:


Somehow, even though the cartoon used the second Diaclone color scheme sporting a black hood for Bluestreak's character model, Marvel ended up with a color scheme that more closedly resembled the final toy:


While Hasbro's "Transformers" line was still in development, Italian Takara licensee GiG released their own version of the "Diaclone" line in Italy, named "Trasformer", spelled without an "n" and without a plural-"s". There's a theory which I won't elaborate on here which suggests that GiG pioneered the use of the Italian term "trasformazione" in reference to the toys' physical conversion in an older "Diaclone" ad, then Hasbro or Griffin Bacal were "inspired" by that old GiG ad to call the US toyline "The Transformers", while GiG themselves turned that term into the name "Trasformer" completely independently from Hasbro.

In any regard, because of some production overlap between the toys Takara produced for Hasbro and those they made for GiG, the Italian "Trasformer" release of the Fairlady Z figure ended up with the unique Hasbro Bluestreak color scheme, with an all-silver car mode. Also, because of crazy Italian toy safety laws at the time, the familiar missiles normally included with the figure were replaced with unique safety "bopper" missiles that were common for GiG.


Still, the instructions included with the GiG release, despite being in black and white, again depict the blue version with a silver hood:


When Takara released their version of the "Transformers" line in Japan, they decided to rename the figure into "Streak", thus dropping the connection to a specific color entirely. Still, the packaging art featured on the Takara release's box was once again the blue version taken from the original Diaclone release, as were the photos depicting the toy:


Fast forward to the 1990s, when the early Transformers fandom started to form in usenet groups such as alt.toys.transformers, and the "Blue Bluestreak in a Hasbro box" myth we all know and loathe got started, borne out of fuzzy childhood memories and further fuled by various fakes and scams such as a blue "Diaclone" Fairlady Z shoved into a Hasbro "Transformers" box, or even custom-painted "Blue Bluestreaks" sold as the genuine article.

Eventually, both Hasbro and Takara reissued their versions of Bluestreak in the early 2000s. Takara released their version in December of 2002 as part of the "Collectors Edition" range, exclusive to e-Hobby. Surprisingly, this version (also known as "Anime Streak") featured the cartoon-accurate "Diaclone" color scheme with a black hood, even though the "Fairlady Z" stickers had been replaced with "Streak":


Though the toy came in standardized "Collector's Edition" packaging without individual packaging art, it did include a character card that featured, for the first time ever, an officially recolored version of Bluestreak's packaging art in a cartoon-accurate color scheme:


Hasbro, meanwhile, reissued their own version in 2003 as part of their Toys"R"Us exclusive "Commemorative Series" line. Renamed into "Silverstreak" because the name "Bluestreak" wasn't available to Hasbro at the time, this version featured a silver hood like the original 1984 toy, though it retained the Takara reissue's "Streak" stickers and even made use of the same recolored packaging art (which was therefore not 100% accurate to that particular toy):

 

[Nevermore]

Of course, in the years since, we have gotten quite a few new "Silverstreak"/Bluestreak toys that alternatively featured the G1 toy's color scheme (completely silver car), the cartoon/second Diaclone color scheme (silver car with a black hood), or even the original Diaclone color scheme (blue with a silver hood).

The character's name became all sorts of messed up: Hasbro couldn't use the name "Bluestreak" between 2003 and 2010, therefore any toys released during that time were named "Silverstreak", while all Hasbro-released toys from 2010 onwards were back to being named "Bluestreak", with only one exception.

Takara, meanwhile, continued using the shortened Japanese-market name "Streak", but then in 2008, they released a blue redeco of Binaltech Streak under the name "Bluestreak".


In 2014, they then released a redeco of Masterpiece Streak (who featured a cartoon-accurate silver car mode with a black hood) in the all-silver colors of the G1 toy under the name "Silverstreak", followed in 2015 by yet another redeco that homaged the legendary blue Diaclone version with a silver hood, again named "Bluestreak".


In 2022, Hasbro then confused the hell out of everybody by releasing a redeco of Earthrise Bluestreak (sort of; he features Smokescreen's front bumper) under the Target exclusive "Buzzworthy Bumblebee" line that again featured a color scheme inspired by the blue Diaclone version with a silver hood... named "Silverstreak". So now there's Bluestreak, who is silver (with a black hood), and Silverstreak, who is blue (with a silver hood).

 

[Andrusi]

So following the mental process as outlined above, Budiansky decided to call the blue figure "Blue Streak" (initially spelled in two words), and then crafted a personality based on that name that described him as a fast talker, based on the (now antiquated) phrase "talking like a blue streak". In other words, the idea for the character was that he would have been blue and a chatterbox, thus making the name "Blue Streak" a literal pun.

Ever since I learned about the expression, it's seemed obvious to me that this was the case. He's called Bluestreak because he's blue (though he isn't), and he's talkative because he's called Bluestreak.

 

[Haywire]

What a great exploration of the history of Bluestreak!

...although you did remind me that we never got an all-silver toy deco version of the ER Datsun mold, and now I want one...

 

[Nevermore]

Okay, this is not a toy mystery, but I didn't want to start a separate thread just for this.

Anyone remember "Bald German Guy", that seemingly random-ass dude who semi-blocked the fandom's first look at Combiner Wars Devastator from Nuremberg Toy Fair back in 2015?


That picture, as well as the bald guy in it, have become the stuff of memes.

But who was this guy? Was he simply some random German who just happened to be in that photo? Or did he actually work for Hasbro?


I actually solved this mystery more than three years ago, when I met him at Dortmund Comic-Con 2019.

Wait for it...



He's a pretty chill dude, and he does indeed work for Hasbro. His name is David Möller, and he used to work for Hasbro Germany's marketing department for years, but later moved on to the distribution department. He was actually one of the panelists, and therefore I have some genuine photos of him thanks to Star Wars Figuren:


He's also a member of the managing committee of a non-profit association for the integration of disabled people.



I don't remember if I actually told him that he was the subject of memes, but I did definitely tell one of his associates.

 

[Sabrblade]

Well what do you know. Over at Seibertron, he was lovingly nicknamed "Hans".

 

[Nevermore]

After some brief discussion, he now has his own, well-deserved TFWiki page.

David Möller - Transformers Wiki

tfwiki.net

 

[Stepwise]

I remember this guy - I also remember everyone's avatar being half-covered by his picture on April Fools one year.

Fun story, and it's cool to hear about his non-profit work, too.

 

[Nevermore]

The gun used by Bumblebee in the season 1 episode "Fire in the Sky", and the recurring "generic Autobot gun" used by Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Beachcomber, Powerglide, Sunstreaker, Ironhide and Ratchet at various points throughout season 2 as well as in TF:TM:

The guns included with the Pretender and Action Master Bumblebee figures, as well as various modern-day toys of Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Ironhide and Ratchet:

 

[NovaSaber]

Did Bumblebee (or maybe someone else) ever use a a different, more rounded one that the MP-45 one (and the Core and Origins ones) is based on?

 

[Andrusi]

The "Buzzworthy Bumblebee gun" seems to have also gotten associated with Sunstreaker at some point. I don't know how, but MP Sunstreaker's smaller gun seems to be based on the same design (which I remember because I subsequently used that design as the basis for one of my Shapeways guns and then I was surprised to see Cybertronian Bumblebee had a similar one).

 

[Nevermore]

Instructions variant alert!

My Breakdown's instructions came in vanilla Legacy fashion, matching the packaging's branding.


Hoooowever, TFW2005 member O.Supreme shared a different version of Breakdown's instructions that feature the "Evolution" branding and color scheme:

 

[Donocropolis]

I got the Evolution version as well.

 

[Nevermore]

Which date stamp does your Breakdown have? Mine is 22781 for the toy itself, but 22911 for the packaging.

 

[Donocropolis]

Which date stamp does your Breakdown have? Mine is 22781 for the toy itself, but 22911 for the packaging.

I've got V-2976B on the figure (if I'm looking at the correct stamp (underneath the 2023 HASBRO/TOMY MADE IN VIETNAM)).

The package is 22621

 

[Nevermore]

I've got V-2976B on the figure (if I'm looking at the correct stamp (underneath the 2023 HASBRO/TOMY MADE IN VIETNAM)).

No, check the other leg. On the inside of the thigh, underneath the product code number #7187.

 

[Donocropolis]

No, check the other leg. On the inside of the thigh, underneath the product code number #7187.

I'll check it when I get home this evening. Blame my old eyes, I looked everywhere and had a hard time finding the codes.

Keeping track of date stamps is, apparently, a young man's game.

 

[Donocropolis]

No, check the other leg. On the inside of the thigh, underneath the product code number #7187.

Found it! 22531.