Commentary Post – I HEART Cassttes and the Origin of my Collection

So this won’t necessarily be a “review” post, more of a commentary about a subject in Transformers that is very near and dear to me:  Cassettes.

You see, when I was a kid, I had two older brothers and was subjected to whatever they liked, so that is how I was originally introduced to Transformers.  But being the youngest, I rarely got my own toys, so when I was allowed to actually get a new toy, I had to be sure I knew what I wanted.  I remember being taken to Toys R Us with my brothers and my Dad told me if I wanted to pick something out, the other boys were so I could too.  My oldest Brother picked up SunStreaker, my middle brother got one of the Constructicons, but me…well, I always liked smaller toys (probably cause I was a tiny little dude) and saw this:

Well..not exactly that..it was Rumble and Ravage actually, but you get the idea.  I thought to myself “that’s TWO different toys!”  And because G1 Cassettes were packaged with two very distinct cassettes, I was actually right on.  They were literally two different toys for the (cheap) price of one!

Now, the other thing I always wanted, besides toys, was my own pet.  We had a family dog, but he was really my Dad’s dog and just counted the boys as another member of the pack.   Ravage became my pet.

I carried him with me everywhere.   Literally everywhere.  Even when I got into new toys, I would still always have Ravage close by.   I liked Frenzy, but his leg broke and I pretty much lost both sets of weapons on day two – but Ravage I held on to with a passion.  My middle brother actually started liking the tapes as much as I did and we ended up with quite a few, including Beast Box/Squawk Talk, Raindance/Grandslam and we even split the Overkill/Slugfest set; I got Overkill…not sure how I lucked out on that…and to this day, I still have my actual G1 Overkill from that set!

Eventually, of course, I lost Ravage.  It must have had a bigger effect on me than I though because for YEARS and YEARS I would have the same dream of walking into a store, seeing a “clearance bin” full of stuff and finding the Ravage/Frenzy set in there.  Let me tell you, waking from that dream sucked.  Lol.

My interest in Transformers subsided for a while, until, feeling nostalgic, I Googled Ravage and came across this:

(obviously, not exactly this – I’ve painted the legs and applied the Reprolabels set since)

I did a double take – the Black and Silver, the small cassette shape, HOLY CRAP! It was a NEW version of Ravage.  I immediately picked him up on Ebay…and thus, my Transformer collecting began, slowly at first, very slowly, a used G1 Soundwave here, a Fansproject figure there, but in the last 2 years I have been running on full throttle.  All thanks to little Ravage and the Cassettes.

While I have sold off my old cruddy G1 Soundwave and G1 Blaster that I picked up on ebay, my collection of cassettes continues to grow:

From my Decepticons:

To my Autobots:

I have nearly every MAJOR Cassette Character, except for the Dino-set Graphy and Noise, which I’ll end up probably getting via KO production.

I have third party stuff too – my Eject and Rewind are actually represented by Perfect Effects Ejector and Rewinder.  I had the original cassettes but sold them with Blaster.  These guys look way better anyway, but I may end up getting them again just to complete the set.

I even have Shapeways Purrdator, Thugger w/ Slammers and Snitch (Ravage, Rumble/Frenzy/Laserbeak Buzzsaw) for United Soundwave, but seems the others aren’t painted, Here’ Ravage, he’s tiny:

Ravage of course, is always my number one favorite.  (Stripes is an AWESOME re-paint of the original too!)  and here’s my Ravages, sans BTS version seems he’s in box:

Speaking of BTS – I do, of course, have the original releases, none of the limited edition stuff, but that’s because I’m slightly less enamored with them – I love that Sonicron Soundwave uses Guido Guidi’s unused Soundwave concept from All Hail Megatron, but the execution of all the figures is somewhat disappointing, so I just keep them in their boxes like a good collector:

 

Cassettes will always have a special place for me, that’s why I simply can’t wait for Master Piece Soundwave and Laserbeak and then the subsequent Master piece cassettes!  I’m also excited for Fall of Cybertron Voyager Soundwave, Soundblaster & Blaster.  I know they aren’t cassettes per-se, but the idea’s still there so I say “yes please!”

And, what spurred this post, I’m also going to pick up ehobby’s SG release:

 

Until then, I’m off to Toys R Us to see if I can track down a MP Thundercracker, or perhaps the Combaticons (but I highly doubt I’ll find either…)
Stay Tuned!