Transformer Toy Catalogues

In 1984 a toy phenomenon was born, Transformers hit American screens and the rest is history

Transformers started out as two separate toy lines in Japan, known as Diaclone and Microman, then American toy company Hasbro got their hands on the concepts and combined them into transformers.

The Transformers animated series originally aired between 1984-1987, with an theatrical movie released in 1985. There were also a series of comics, featuring the same characters but with completely different storylines, and different timelines depending on whether you lived in America, Japan or Great Britain.

The Tv series spawned two indirect sequels, 1996’s Beast Wars and 1999’s Beast Machines. There have also now been five live-action movies and also been more than fifteen other TV and web series produced over the years.

But for all the storytelling the number one aim was to sell as many toys as possible, and in the early nineties, one of the few periods where there wasn’t a TV show to spark the imagination of the youngsters, a series of catalogues were available to in toy stores to show off the current lines.

...and so that any kids who had been two young to see the original series, but saw these cooler-than-cool toys on the shelve and wanted some backstory, each catalogue came with a brief history of the battle between the Autobots and Decepticons.

Besides the covers the 1991 & 1992 editions were very similar, the two images depicting the toys are actually from the two editions, other than a slight layout change there’s little difference. The second image is from the 1992 version where some of the larger images from the earlier version were shrunk so they cold be included, and still make space for images of the newer lines.

Lets talk Transformers. Which toys did you have growing up? Who's your favourite Transformer? Do you have a favourite episode of the original show or did you grow-up with Beast Wars? Transformer the comments section, go!