Masterpiece Cassetticons: Rumble, Frenzy, Ravage & Laserbeak

Way back in July 2014, when I decided to write about the Masterpiece Soundwave set in three parts - based on the way he was packaged in G1 and according to the split Takara Tomy releases - I figured I was being terribly clever, and honestly thought I'd get to the remainder of the minions a bit sooner than this. Then again, there's not much to them, so they're fairly easily dismissed considering some of the drafts I've had lying around in Blogger for substantially longer.

Still, I figure it's about time to get on to them but, rather than split them into two further posts, I've decided to lump them all together in one, just for (my) convenience.

And, just so there are no surprises, the characters are named per their G1 toys rather than the G1 TV show, so Rumble is the red/black one. I don't care about the arguments - to me, the toyline (and Bob Budiansky's bios) are correctly assigned (though I concede that Sunstreaker and Sideswipe's bios were switched, most likely because their Diaclone colourschemes were switched). Others are free to name them as they see fit...

Go-Bots/Robo-Machines Night Ranger/Harley Robo

I mentioned ages ago that there was a time I collected both TransFormers and their main rival, a toyline by Bandai called variously Go-Bots, Robo-Machines and Machine Robo. Their vehicle modes tended to be better, particularly at the smaller end of the scale, but the robot modes tended to be floppy, jumbled messes. Even when the line went a bit weird and introduced monstrous robots that transformed into monstrous vehicles, I carried on collecting... though it wasn't long after that I decided to focus on TransFormers.

Interesting as they were, the toys just didn't have the longevity of Hasbro's adopted toyline. Aside from a brief and apparently unsuccessful reappearance in the 90s - which I wasn't even aware of until I started looking into Go-Bots for this post - the toyline died completely, and now only occasionally exists as a subset of the TransFormers brand.

Masterpiece Soundwave (& Buzzsaw)

This is another one I teased ages ago, and meant to write about more fully soon after but, for whatever reason, didn't get round to. Part of that, I guess, was that it was a rather daunting prospect to write not only about Soundwave and his accessories, but all five of the cassettes packaged with him and all their accessories too.

I'm going to make life (slightly) easier on myself and deal here with Soundwave and Buzzsaw only, since they were packaged together in Generation 1. The remaining cassettes will be dealt with according to their G1 pairings as well: Rumble (red) & Ravage, Frenzy (blue) & Laserbeak.

'Shackwave' (aka ToyCo 'Astro Magnum', aka Tandy/Radio Shack 'Galactic Man')

In celebration of passing the 1,000 pageviews milestone in the month of June, here's a real treat...
This model needs no further introduction, not least because I teased it almost two full years ago. It has a strange history, having been drafted into the ranks for Generation 1 TransFormers from ToyCo, where most of G1 was repurposed from Takara's Microchange/Microman and Diaclone toylines.

I may well be misunderstanding what little I know of its origins, but it seems that Shockwave was originally released only in the US and Korea, with Japan picking him up later... And he never arrived in the UK.

So when, browsing through my father's catalogue from Tandy (being the UK name for Radio Shack), I found this very familar-looking toy, and saw my chance to have one of the coolest characters from the Marvel comics at the time... And I really wasn't fussed about the colourscheme.