Trans Formers 40 - When Did You Start Watching Trans Formers

[Donocropolis]

I was, like Cybersnark, born in '79 (mid-December '79, but it still counts!), so I was watching it from the get-go. I'm 90% sure that my parents didn't take me to the movie in 1986, so I missed out on that experience, but I do distinctly remember going to see Gobots: Battle of the Rock Lords in the theater.

 

[ZacWilliam1]

I was 8 when Transformers launched in 84 and you can bet I watched it. I remember catching a mention of it when my Dad was watching the evening news and they had a brief blurb about a new cartoon based on the robot toyline. I already knew about it at that point so I was in early. I started my collection with Brawn and Laserbeak/Frenzy before the show aired. Quickly added Bluestreak, Ironhide and Diakron Sunstreaker. Got Optimus Prime for Xmas that year.

Later I had planned to see TF:TM with my best friend but when I called him the weekend it came out he had already seen it with his Father Friday night, so I bugged my mom into taking me and my siblings to the theater even though the only place it was playing was a decent drive away at a theater we never went to.

After the movie I missed the premier of Season 3 starting but heard about the first episode at school and started watching with FFoD episode 2.

Saw Rebirth when it aired and for a long time catching another airing of it was the Jackpot of Transformer reruns.

When the first animated Action Master commercial aired with the cartoon bit at the beginning I was convinced that animation meant they were going to bring the show back. I don't know why. I knew how toy commercials worked. But... I guess the idea was just too cool.


-ZacWilliam, (I also saw the GoBots-Rock Lords movie in theater. The same best friend talked his dad into taking us. Me and him were the only people in the whole theater, even his dad and little brother bought tickets to something else.)

 

[Exatron]

I was born in '79, and my oldest reliable memories are from circa 1985, so I was a fan for literally as long as I can remember.

I remember having to set the VCR to record episodes because of church functions that my parents dragged me to.

I was, like Cybersnark, born in '79 (mid-December '79, but it still counts!), so I was watching it from the get-go. I'm 90% sure that my parents didn't take me to the movie in 1986, so I missed out on that experience, but I do distinctly remember going to see Gobots: Battle of the Rock Lords in the theater.

'79 here, too. I know I watched the cartoon on TV, but I couldn't hope to pinpoint exactly when I first saw it. I remember frequently renting VHS tapes from my local rental store, especially MtMtE, Heavy Metal War, and TFTM. I didn't get to really watch the full series until downloading them via IRC in the late '90s.

I had a few of the Marvel mini digest books, just enough to know it wasn't as good as the cartoon. It would be many years before I'd force myself to read the full run and realize just how much worse it was.

Can't remember for sure which was my first toy, but I've long believed it was either Cliffjumper or Windcharger. I know I had OP, Cliffjumper, Windcharger, Bumblebee, and Megatron from the '84 lineup. Kinda became the theme for the next few years. I'd get the biggest releases each year for Christmas/birthdays, then maybe a few others. E.g. also got Omega and Devastator in '85, along with Swoop, Blitzwing, and Shrapnel.

Stuck with the line all the way through G1 and most of G2 before losing interest for a few years. Got back into it after randomly catching Other Voices on TV while the last of the TM1s were still on shelves.

 

[Gizmoboy]

I was 12 years old in 1984 and can remember watching all of G1 as it aired back in the day it was on in the afternoons along with G1 Joe. Plus, my local station aired Robotech at 6am so I could watch that before school.

 

[DefaultOption]

I got my first Transformer (Gears, hence the avatar) in late spring of '84. I remember taking it in for show-and-tell at some point before summer vacation that year, which is how I at least have a rough approximation of the timeframe. I probably got it from my grandmother, because she used to love to buy me stuff like that. I was instantly hooked. Then over the summer for my eighth birthday, I added a yellow Cliffjumper, Bluestreak, and Sideswipe, along with a couple of GoBots, to my collection.

When the fall rolled around, one of the local TV stations started running GI Joe and Transformers in the hour before the network Saturday morning cartoon block, which they had advertised fairly profusely beforehand, so I knew it was coming. I was less interested in GI Joe, but you could bet that by 7:30 on a Saturday morning I would be parked in front of the TV with a bowl of cereal ready to watch my favorite cartoon robots.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

Count me in among the '79ers. May.

Think my memory might have kicked in earlier than Cybersnark's, though.

 

[Sciflyer]

I'm July '76. I was a very interested day-oner for Transformers. Really hit their stride in Season 2 and I held on for the rest of the series. I've seen each subsequent series in real time, up through Animated (at which point my interest in the fiction was waning). I've heard that Animated and even Prime have some good stories, but eh, maybe someday.

 

[TheSupernova]

I only would have been two when G1 first kicked off. I honestly don't know when I started watching it, but I HAD to have watched it at some point to get an interest.

It's a weird blank spot, especially for something that I've been very interested in ever since.

 

[wentwood]

I was sort of taking into account the comics.

I was 10 when they started but at that time He Man and She Rah as well as Thunder Cats was running so that was part of it.

Also Voltron was on which I'd only seen a few episodes.

This morning I had just finished Series II and am watching The 5 Faces Of Darkness.

 

[Donocropolis]

I only would have been two when G1 first kicked off. I honestly don't know when I started watching it, but I HAD to have watched it at some point to get an interest.

It's a weird blank spot, especially for something that I've been very interested in ever since.

I have a similar blank spot for anything past Season 2. I have definite memories of Season 1 and 2 episodes, but anything post-movie I don't recall at all. I know we moved right around that time as well as it was when I started school, so I don't know if it was a timing issue or what, but apparently I stopped watching then. It's really only recently that I began full-on watching the post movie episodes on Tubi.

 

[TheSupernova]

Yeah, I don't think I saw anything beyond FFOD until I torrented everything G1 in the late 2000's. We have it much easier now.

To be honest, most of my Transformers media consumption during my childhood ended up being from the Marvel comics that I slowly collected from the used book stores. Though my memories of the G1 cartoon made up what I had always considered the "proper" representation of the characters. Marvel Prime, in particular, always rubbed me the wrong way.

 

[abates]

The original show didn't screen on TV here in NZ in the 80s as far as I know, so the only way I had to see the cartoon was to rent VHS tapes from the video rental store. They had names like "Destination: Cybertron", "Dinobot Danger" and "Insecticon Insecticon" and I still don't know which company was producing them down here back then.

 

[Anonymous X]

That reminds me, I did see some season 2 episodes (the one with the origin of the Aerialbots, Dinobot Island, Megatron’s Master Plan, few others) on various rental VHS tapes that got released over here during the ‘80s. Which would’ve been the only way to see those episodes, until G1 Transformers turned up as cheap filler on satellite television channels in the early ‘90s.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

Yeah, I don't think I saw anything beyond FFOD until I torrented everything G1 in the late 2000's. We have it much easier now.

To be honest, most of my Transformers media consumption during my childhood ended up being from the Marvel comics that I slowly collected from the used book stores. Though my memories of the G1 cartoon made up what I had always considered the "proper" representation of the characters. Marvel Prime, in particular, always rubbed me the wrong way.

Everybody blames Hot Rod for killing Optimus Prime when this fool's over here doing it to himself.

TBH, though, I feel like he felt more like the cartoon version to some degree -- at least, the post-movie version -- when Furman took over.

 

[The Predaking]

I watched G1 season one with my older brother when I was 3 when it aired. Watched the first three seasons of the show in front of this old RCA wood grain console TV in our parents' living room. The last episode of G1 I saw as a kid was the end of season three's Return of Optimus Prime two-parter, as we moved and I didn't get to see season 4 Rebirth series until I was in college when I picked it up on VHS. If you are going to end the series though, that is a great episode to close out G1 with. The hate plague is stopped, the Decepticons have stepped down, and Optimus Prime is back.

I started watching Beast Wars when it started airing on Fox Kids while I was high school. Such a great show that made me Happy to be a TF fan again. Beast Machines not so much, but it was the toys that really disappointed me more than the show. The show was harder to watch though as it aired just on Saturdays here and had a lot of competition with the Xmen series.

I started watching RID 2000 on Fox Kids, and it really got me back into both the toys and show. Loved the dynamic between Ultra Magnus and Optimus Prime in it.

I have been watching the TF shows ever since, with the exception of the RID 2015 series, and have enjoyed them all (Except Armada. That show was so poorly done Hooks had to edit it down to make it even watchable).


My overall TF Series Rankings:


1. TF Prime
2. Beast Wars
3. G1
4. Earthspark
5. TF Animated
6. RID
7. Cyberverse
8. Beast Machines
9. Cybertron
10. Energon
11. Armada


Not going to include the mini-series Machinma shows or anything that was a full-on series.