TRANSFORMERS: Robots in New Jersey! Part 2 – The Meadowlands

Posted on by sexyarmpit
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When you think of Transfomers, New Jersey more than likely DOESN’T pop into your head. But on the contrary, as I’ve detailed here at The Sexy Armpit in the past, there’s more reasons why it wouldn’t be totally crazy to mention Transformers and New Jersey in the same sentence. When I come across obscure NJ references, obviously it excites me, but when I find them in toys and comics that I loved as a kid in the ’80s, well that’s just even more awesome. Read about some more Transformers/NJ goodness.

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a mysterious storm, an incredible creature, and it all begins in the swamps of Jersey

I really struck gold when reading the pages of Transformers #54 from July 1989. The story KING CON (clearly a King Kong ripoff) opens “somewhere in the swamps of New Jersey.” There’s some guys on the hunt for a “creature” that they claim the cops were too afraid to come check out. Keep in mind that we aren’t about to read a Jersey Devil story because he hangs out in the Pine Barrens and the Transformers visited the Pines before. You can read about that via this post.

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You know how much those bears in the Ramapo Mountains like to 
travel down to the Meadowlands and bathe in the sludge.

After several “creature” sightings at the Meadowlands, Cecilia Santiago, a reporter and host of New York Talks, decides to take matters into her own hands and investigate. There’s a bad lightning storm on the horizon and it’s intensity is increasing.

Meanwhile, in the Meadowlands, the Decepticons have constructed a new base under a garbage dump. Naturally, whenever building a villainous secret underground base in NJ, it MUST be under a garbage dump. Where else would it be? Their plan is to use a “storm maker” that they created to convert the energy that they harness from the storm and then by using a giant converter they will turn it into Energon cubes – the source of energy for all Transformers. Getting all this so far? And Megan Fox is nowhere to be found 🙁

While Cecilia the newswoman is nosing around with her camera crew in the Meadowlands swamps looking for the creature, she winds up getting taken hostage by the Decepticon Pretenders.

For those who aren’t up on their Transformers terms, this issue introduces the Micro Masters (smaller and more fuel efficient Transformers) and also features the Decepticon Pretenders. On the Transfomers Wiki, the Pretenders are defined as “Transformers fitted with special external armor shells that can disguise their very nature as robots.”

Iguanas, a big purple lizard looking Decepticon Pretender, is put in charge of running the cables from their equipment in the NJ swamp across the bottom of the Hudson River and connecting the final piece to the lightning rod at the top of the Empire State Building.

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After escaping the clutches of the Decepticons, Cecilia hitches a ride with the Autobots (the good guys) and has to head into the Lincoln Tunnel to make it into Midtown Manhattan before the Decepticons destroy half of New York City. Notice that this was ages ago, back when the toll for the Lincoln Tunnel only cost $3 dollars. Today it’s $13 freaking dollars during peak times!

Other Transformers Links from The Sexy Armpit:
Read More about this issue of Transformers via the Transformers Wiki:
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R2D2 is now an Awesome Astromech Aquarium!

Posted on by sexyarmpit

I just read about an R2-D2 aquarium on Boing Boing that’s available at Hammacher and Schlemmer. I hope R2 doesn’t forget about the fish he’s storing in his “rusty innards!”

here’s the item summary from Hammacher and Schlemmer:
Modeled after the most well-known astromech droid in the galaxy, this R2-D2 holds a 1 3/4-gallon aquarium tank in his central compartment, ideal for a small freshwater family of goldfish, gouramis, or tetras. The domed head rotates with any vocal command you issue and he utters his familiar “bleeps” from the Star Wars movies. His radar eye houses the eyepiece to a built-in periscope that provides an intimate view of the aquatic activity below, allowing you to watch your charges swim towards the food you’ve dropped in from the dome’s removable feeding door. Includes filter and overhead LED tank lights that randomly morph between red, blue, and green (lights can be disabled). Includes a two-sided waterproofed cardboard insert depicting scenes from the movie as a background.

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Knockoffs in Disguise

Posted on by sexyarmpit

With the hysteria of the new Transformers movie and living in a world of constant nostalgia, I wanted to share a revelation that I came to recently. It had nothing to do with the meaning of life, or the fact that I feel I was meant to finally bring Dingbat and the Creeps to the Broadway stage. This is one of those little mysteries that I was bent on solving.

I got into a conversation at work about Transformers. Believe it or not, it was about the fact that I didn’t have too many Transformer toys as a kid and rarely watched the show that much. I did catch the show on occasion and I did have the original, awesome Optimus Prime figure/truck. It was a killer toy. For my taste, I was never too intrigued by the Transformers. I was more of a fan of the Go-Bots for some reason even though robots in general never did it for me unless it was C3PO, R2D2, or Vicki from Small Wonder.

The Go-bots were basically a knock-off of Transformers. They road the wave of popularity that transforming robots created in the ’80s. I mentioned in this nostalgic powwow that I had one Go-bot figure whose name escaped me but I remembered what it looked like. It was then my mission to scour the Internet for the exact figure I had. Luckily I found this site that had a list of every Transformer and Go-Bot toy ever made. I checked each and every one of them twice with no luck finding my old toy. It was frustrating to think that the mighty Internet couldn’t solve this mystery for me. It shows how reliant I am on the net, but there really isn’t any other way to find this kind of thing out easily. I figured if it wasn’t a Transformer and it wasn’t that specific Go-Bot that I thought then what the hell was it?

My friend Steve sent me a link to check out in hopes that I may get to the bottom of this.
http://www.toyarchive.com/Gobots/StoreDisplayShellConvert.html

I’m sure it was my birthday or Christmastime and an Aunt, Uncle, or cousin actually drove up to get gas at Shell and remembered that they didn’t by little Jay a gift! Oh crap! Luckily they are selling these knockoff Go-Bots aptly named CONVERTIBLE ROBOTS, and you can get one when you buy some gas. I can honestly say that I had alot of knockoff toys in my childhood because the real ones were always more expensive and sometimes harder to find. This knockoff, even though generic, was more convincing as it took me over 20 years to figure out that it was a ripoff and not a real Go-Bot or Transformer. It was perfect for kid who wasn’t a huge fan of either of the shows because I had no idea that it wasn’t even a real character. It truly was a robot in disguise.

There aren’t many things in life that are worse than knowing you had a knockoff of Go-Bo figure as a child. What a sad memory to hold in my heart! I owned a knockoff of a knockoff. I think falling into the toilet and getting your ass all wet just after you took a shit might be the only thing worse.

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