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On this very special episode it’s our pleasure to bring to you Mr. Aaron Archer, former Hasbro toy designer and later Director of Global Design and Development for Transformers and G.I. Joe, and eventually Vice President of Intellectual Property Development! We discuss with him all the different aspects of designing and producing Transformer figures, and what the future might hold for the brand. We have all this, plus Aaron’s views on GPS (gold plastic syndrome, not the other GPS), his Napkin of Revelation, and Darryl even broached the subject of the third party Transformer toy scene, all on this episode of TransMissions!
Want to see a new IDW comic set in the G1 cartoon universe? Sign our petition and make your voice heard!
Today’s podcast is brought to you by 80stees.com. 80sTees has an incredible selection of Transformers Shirts and Hoodies including some amazing Transformers costume hoodies. Please support TransMissions and check them out at 80stees.com!
Today’s podcast is also sponsored by TransFormerLand.com. Check out TransFormerLand.com for everything from G1 to Transformers Prime and every bot in between!
Show Notes
- Intro [0:02:21]
- Aaron Archer Interview [0:02:57]
- Aaron Archer Online
- Follow Aaron Archer (@archermonster) on Twitter
- deviantART Page
- tumblr
- Aaron Archer on the TF Wiki
- Background [0:03:30]
- Toy Development & Production [0:07:43]
- Gold Plastic Syndrome (GPS) on the TF Wiki
- Future of Transformers Toys [0:32:06]
- Transformers Live Action Movies [0:39:07]
- Darryl’s Question About Excessive Bumblebee Toy Production from TFcon Toronto 2014 [0:45:30]
- Masterpiece Transformers [0:48:56]
- Combiners [0:53:05]
- Hasbro and Third Party Transformer Companies [0:55:20]
- Darryl’s Question About 3rd Parties from TFcon Toronto 2014 [0:56:06]
- Cartoons [1:06:51]
- Aaron’s “Napkin of Revelation” that was the genesis of the Transformers Cybertron cartoon
- Comics [1:24:11]
- Aaron pledged to sign our Bring Back G1 petition!
- Aaron’s Thoughts on the Evolution of the Transformers Brand [1:32:59]
- Convention Stories [1:39:03]
- Rapid Fire Questions [1:44:00]
- Aaron Archer Online
- Closing [1:49:13]
- Many Thanks to Aaron Archer for joining us on this episode and sharing all his knowledge and insights!
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- Website transmissionspodcast.com
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Nice show and interview this week guys. I always love hearing Hasbro employees squirm and not want to talk about how third party TF designs are often times leading the market.
I heard an interview with former Hasbro emplyee Rik Alvarez recently, and he admitted to owning the Perfect Effect Warden figure. Rik is starting a new independent (third party?) toy company that has some transforming robot figures called Play With This Too. Do you guy plan on interviewing him? I’m told his company will have big reveals at TFcon Chicago. The company is made up of mostly ex-Hasbro and ex-Funpub exployees.
I picked up some Bukiborg figures a couple months ago, and they are not that old. One had GPS! Every gold piece on the toy shattered when you assembled it.
I’m glad someone at Hasbro noticed the “wall of Bumblebee” pictures that were going online. I posted a lot of them myself. There were even fan charities last couple years where people would go into stores they wanted to get rid of Bumblebee, buy as many as they could, and drop them in Toys-For-Tots! Kids get figures, and we get rid of the yellow plague at the same time!
Still seems like Hasbro still becomes focused on a couple characters for each line. No where near the variery in AOE we even saw in previous movies. There are like THREE Decepticon characters – Galvatron, Lockdown and Stinger. 2007 movie has like 30+ different Decepticons, with all the movie and non-movie characters.
Great episode guys. Gotta be honest and say I did not know if I would sit through and listen to the whole thing, but Aaron Archer made it interesting with his responses to your questions. In particular it was interesting to hear about the issues facing the size and pricing of figures, which took me down a rabbit hole of searching online about plastics containing hydrocarbons and their use as recycled fuel. Who knows maybe in the future old broken Transformer toys will be turned into diesel fuel.
Wow what an awesome interview. It’s great to see Archer out and being honest about how things work and his thoughts on things.
I agree with Mathew about the Hasbro empolyees squirming when the 3rd party topic comes up.
Darryl….I’m disspointed that you think Hasbro’s Generations Springer “blows” FansProjects Defender out of the water. Both are great, both have strentghts and both have weaknesses. I enjoy both and both are equal to me.
I also never got why some people go all in on a 3rd party figure like Defender (springer) and Smartrobin (Brainstorm) but the moment Hasbro announceS they’re dumping that 3rd party figure like a hot potatoe. I’m not taking financial reasons for selling either cause that can strike anyone anytime.
Other then that, it was really nice to have someone from the toy creation side of things on the podcast.
While some people say Generations Voyager Springer was Hasbro’s attack on third party Transformers, you should remember that it was like the 4th attempt by Hasbro to make a Classic Springer figure, and it only came onto market 2 years after FansProject made Defender. By the time Springer was available, FansProject had sold of out Defender and made all their profit. The only place to buy Defender was on the aftermarket. So it didn’t hurt FansProject one bit.
Very Awesome interview!!! It was great to hear from Aaron Archer about the transformers figures and stories over the years. And I am glad he is behind the petition for a new G1 comic.
I argree that the Unicron trilogy has been acknowledged for what it was. That being that Armada and Cybertron were the better 2 of the series. In both cartoon and figure wise. Though Cybertron had the help of it being the dubbed version of Galaxy Force. Some of the best figures in my option came from those lines. My own personal favorites being Optimus Prime from both Armada and Cybertron and the Galaxy Force Prime as well.
I do would like to know you guys opinion on the Dreamwave comic series. The War Within and Generation One stories. I personally like the stories in both sagas. I would have loved to have seen them through to the end. I have read comments and other things online about how the stories should have ended and all. Which I believe would have been very good endings if they had been able to have been produced.
But also on that I wonder what you guys would think on IDW taking and either completing the story of War Within and all or even taking a new spin on the story that DW produced. Would you guys like to see this happen?
I also hope this once again gets me on Yoshi’s mighty list. If it does it will put me on a 7 show streak. I love listening to the show I wait for it’s release each and every week and can’t wait to hear what Yoshi has to complain about. what Darryl picked up from Value Village, what Jeremy managed to pick up with a low budget ( in this not I know the feeling having 2 girls and a small budget to buy any figures or comics with mostly due to them and me being on disability) , and how many of the current comics that Big C managed to pick up ( even though we all know he gets them all).
The later stories in Dreamwave were pretty awesome. Despite mismanagement in the company, the stories got pretty good. I wish they had continued. I even liked the Dreamwave versions of Armada and Energon, which while short, were much better stories than the TV series. I highly recommend people read that final Energon story with the return of Megatron, and his right with Scorponok and the Terrorcons. I actually own some of Milne’s art for the unproduced Energon MTMTE biography comics.
I enjoyed the Galaxy Force stories subtitled in English more than Cybertron. Most of the changes for Cybertron were not good. Perticularly the changes in the human and female characters were bad. I liked Aaron’s explanation of the story as it was originally conceived. It sounded like G1 Jazz and Beast Wars Dinobot ended up becoming Override and Snarl in the Cybertron.
I know it was the voice actor who did Dinobot , Rattrap , Silverbolt , and Waspinator from Beast Wars who did Snarl. That is Scott Mcneil. He has done a lot of voice over work over the years. I personally would love to meet him one day and get his autograph and even his voice.
I do reviews on comics and figures on Youtube and use the namesake DinobotMaximize . I would be honored to get to do a cool intro for my videos.
I also have to admit that pretty much all anime shows are better with the English subtitles. The sroty and all are normally a whole lot better. Not to mention that they don’t cut out anything from the Japanese shows.
And Matthew I own over 600 Transformers comics. I have the entire series of most series that have been released over the years. I am currently in the process of going back and trying to get the extra covers of most of them. If I do I know my collection will double if not triple in size. Though there are many I know I more than likely will not be able to get.
ill be here to play later, started to play the episode and all but its been a long day so ill start fresh tomorrow taking notes and all that good stuff…
DMG
Ok heres the DMG POV skinny on Ep #70
(I do love that number in part)
The interview (and I don’t normally do this for these types of podcasts) was good , BUT…
I did love hearing about how the toys were made and the turnaround time from 11-14 months from start to finish for a toy to be produced, I had always heard it was two years.
He seems like a nice enough guy, but a tad bit of a creepy laugh for me.. maybe its me, would not surprise me in the least..
How the micron/mini con start was neat, but I guess that was known to a degree…
I do wish there were more talk on the armada unicron fig, I wish there was more insight on it, but he had the “neocron” fig for months!?, I do wish there were a 86 movie accurate (looks and transformation) toy, now if there was a masterpiece fig on that….
I do wish that we could find out what their plans are combiner wars, but If he was not there,well…
I do want to know how far they will take that, EX: the trainbots, breast force…(stop laughing yosh!)…but we’ll have to wait and see…
But in the end I do feel C beast did have a point about third parties come out with combiners, and three years later here comes Hasbro with there’s…defender, and then springer (I did not know about sandstorm and then springer, thought it was the other way around…) I do have to see a hasbro broadside as of yet….
“Dual Mirrored Gridwork”
Awesome interview guys! I know how long Aaron Archer was involved in transformers but I didn’t realize just how much he actually did for the brand. Dare I say he started Masterpiece? Keep up the good work and I’m looking forward to meeting you at TFCon Chicago.