When I was a kid, there was a show called Amazing Stories. It was sort of like Twilight Zone but not as mean to its characters. One show was a story about a kid who wouldn’t let his mother get rid of his toys. Time passed and wasn’t kind to him, leaving him homeless. But one day he discovered his cache of toys and sold them at auction, making him a rich man. Or at least that’s what I remember of it, and it inspired me to keep all of the boxes for my collection of Transformers.

Unfortunately, I played with my Transformers and while I still have all of the boxes, I’m afraid their condition considerably degrades their monetary value.

For many years, they have lived stowed away in their boxes. Finally the wife and I decided it was time to take them out and display them, so we cobbled together a couple of glass doored bookcases from Craigslist and over the course of several weeks I have put my Transformers on display. I wish I had done this years ago; there is something about seeing them all together and free that simply makes me happy.

So, here you go. My Transformers. Let me show you them:

This is the first post in a series.

I’m going to start with what I consider the holy grail of Transformers: Jetfire. He’s hiding out here with his friends on the 2nd shelf from the top.

Did you see him? He’s the dashing fellow decked out in white, red and black.

For several months, he lived in the toy aisle of the Longs store and was one of the pricier Transformers. Every time I happened to be at that store, I would look at him wistfully, wishing for the day I could bring him home and wondering how I could ever afford him.

There was something about Jetfire: he was one of the few Transformers whose transformation was complex enough that I had absolutely no clue how he could possibly transform just by looking at its pictures in the catalog, and both his robot and vehicle modes were stunning. I must have him. I must know how he ticked.

One day I came into possession of enough cash to take him home; probably birthday or Christmas money or something. I rode my bike through the paths along Contra Costa County’s canal system to Longs, praying that no one had snatched him out from under me. To my glee, he was still there, and for a few minutes I agonized over whether I really wanted to spend $29.99 to take him home. Of course I did.

He came in a big box and was rather unwieldy on my bike, but I managed the return trip without incident and soon my mind was blown by the engineering that went into his transformation. As I said, both his robot and vehicle modes were impressive, and his arms and legs had multiple points of articulation. Truly, he is one of the best Transformers ever.

Jetfire has an interesting history. All of the first generation Transformers toys were rebrands of Japanese toys. The original Japanese toys had no story or team affiliation: they were simply everyday objects that transformed into robots. Hasbro gave us the warring factions of Autobots and Decepticons and a cartoon to drive sales.

Jetfire is more recognizable from his role as a Veritech fighter in the Robotech saga. Again, Robotech was an American rebrand of 3 separate Japanese television shows. The first in the series was the Macross story whose Veritech fighter jets were the same model as Jetfire and were likewise sold as toys with different branding.

Hasbro ran into some licensing problems with Jetfire, so his only appearance in the cartoons was as the lame Skyfire. But that’s ok; Robotech was much better (see the Veritech in action starting at 5:30… and by the way, the music from Robotech was top notch).

I’ve always considered Jetfire and the Veritech toys to be rare finds, and whenever I saw a variation of one in a store I would buy it. I never saw another full-sized Jetfire or Veritech fighter but I did end up with a few smaller, kooky versions. The small, fat ones crack me up; they’re like little Jetfire caricatures but what’s cool is that they still transform the same.

At the bottom center you can see what the jet looks like: a variation of the swept wing F-14 fighter jet. Also featured in the picture are two small Alpha fighters from the 3rd Robotech series. they’re the light blue and army green robots. At the far right, in red, is the motorcycle from the 3rd Robotech series. The rider is not attached but I have since found her; unfortunately she’s missing a leg. And there are some Micro Machines tossed in there for good measure.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 22:45 and is filed under Transformers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.