I was recently approachedby ABC Radio National and asked if I would be a guest on the show Life Matters, hosted by Jacinta Parsons. They were doing a story on Kidults – adults who still enjoy the passions they had as a child. They were familiar with the extent of my Transformers Collection and the Transformatorium from my appearance earlier this year on Channel 10’s The Project and thought I would be perfect for their show.
The other guest on the show was to be Dr Katriina Heljakka, a researcher in the toyification of culture, toy design and the hybrid and transgenerational dimensions of ludic practices.
Despite being on the radio weekly on The Big DJ Trev Show, I was a little nervous about going on National Radio live on air across the country, especially since I was battling a headcold and didn’t want to sound sick. However my family assures me I did ok 😉
Click on the link or the image below to visit the ABC Radio National Website to listen and enjoy!
Hope you enjoyed my latest interview about my collecting. Are you an adult who collects something from childhood? Tell us about it in the comments section below!
This question comes from master filmographer Pieter:
If The Transformers never existed do you think you would you have become a die hard collector of anything else like perhaps Robotech, Star Wars/Trek etc?
I’m going to have to give a big YES to that, though I’m sure never to the extent I have Transformers. I’ve collected various other things over the course of my life, and if I didn’t have Transformers I think my collections of them would be a lot bigger than they are. Given how much I spend per month on Transformers, the rest of my nerdy passions don’t get much of a look in.
Mid 90’s: Home Improvement Merchandise
Remember the 90’s sitcom Home Improvement? Back in the day I LOVED that show! Maybe it was because from 1987 onwards I lived away from my father, who had tried to be a good Dad in his way, but was 50 when I was born and already suffering from Paranoid Schizophrenia and Manic Depression. Thus he wasn’t a father who was overtly loving or would play catch with me at the park. So watching a TV Dad who openly loved, played and did activities with his sons, as well as being funny, perhaps was a substitute for something my own life was missing.
During the 90’s I wasn’t collecting Transformers as I wasn’t a big fan of Beast Wars, so for a while I collected Home Improvement merchandise. This included everything from collector cards, posters, jumpers, t-shirts, socks and even a board game.
Mid 90’s:/2000’s: The Tick
I love The Tick! He is by far and away my very favourite super hero and has been since the cartoon came out in the 90’s. I don’t have a great deal of The Tick merchandise, but truthfully in part that’s because there isn’t that much out there, as super heroes go he is on the obscure side.
Late 90’s: X-Men Comics
I used to collect X-Men comics in the late 90’s. Sadly when I moved in with a girl I gave a ton to a mate to hang onto who subsequently lost them, and now only have the special edition ones I kept for myself.
Early 2000’s: Men’s G-Strings
Wow – the ‘Censored’ sign somehow makes this photo look way worse than it actually is, you’d see worse at any swimming pool (maybe).
Hold up! This isn’t as pervy as it sounds! And they were all mine, not someone else’s!
When backpacking around Europe in my mid 20’s I had to lug all the clothing I had in my backpack and didn’t get to wash clothes that often. And two or 3 thongs would take up the same amount of space in my swag as one pair of boxer shorts would. So by wearing mens g-strings I could triple the amount of underwear I had before I had to find a laundromat in whatever country I happened to be in – now that’s just good common sense for a world traveller. As I traversed Europe I would occasionally pick up a new one at places like a fancy men’s underwear store in Florence.
When I arrived back in Australia I found I had accrued quite a few. The oldest have been tossed now. Back then I was young and very fit, these days it would look like wrapping a rubber band round the bottom of a pear. Ah but back in the day, it was amazing how many bar patrons across Europe would buy drinks all night for a Mad Aussie dancing round in a blokes thong – a great money saver!
90’s/2000’s: Star Trek
Yes, VHS Tapes. Yes, I am that old.
I’ve seen most everything made in both franchises, though admit to being far more of a Trekkie than a Star Wars fan. I bought nearly every Star Trek book written by Shatner, but never collected Star Trek merchandise in a huge way. Back in the 90’s I collected the ‘Star Trek Fact Files’ that came out each week for $5 and could be put into associated binders. Considering that there were a bit over 200 issues I guess that was a thousand bucks over 4 years which was a decent bit of cash. Sadly I had them stored in a shed and mice got into them so they are pretty wrecked now.
They’re from Japan – that makes them cultural instead of pervy.
For a while about 15 years ago I collected Anime Statuettes from some of my favourite Japanese cartoons and ended up with maybe a couple dozen. However parenthood changes ones perspective, and given the… ahem… proportions of many anime girls, they didn’t seem appropriate to have on display anymore, so I stopped collecting and those I had got packed away and have spent a decade in a box in the storage shed. I might get around to selling them off one day as I don’t think I’ll really ever want to display them again.
2010’s: My Little Pony
When I was the househusband and not working for 6 months when we first moved to NSW I used to watch My Little Pony with my young daughter each morning, and found it to be very entertaining and something we could share! So both she and I started collecting MLP figures, myself specializing in Rarity figures since I found her hilarious!
However the cartoon came to an end and she got older and lost all interest. She actually donated her MLP toys to me and I was a bit sad to see something we had enjoyed together cast aside. I kept a bunch of the Rarity ones, the rest went to goodwill as the joy for me came from collecting them with my daughter and sharing the hobby rather than the figures themselves.
‘Who ya gonna call? A middle-aged man cosplaying!’
If I didn’t collect Transformers, I think this would be mainly what I would collect now. I adore Ghostbusters, it is definitely my No.2 pop culture love. I’ve got a full uniform (gets busted out once a year to take my kids Trick’or’Treating), a few toys, DVD’s, video games, a board game etc.
Though nothing will ever equal the the first two movies for me, I love that the franchise is still kicking strong today.
Two times the fun, wrapped up and rolled into one!
So while I may not be able to afford to collect much outside of Transformers, luckily there are Transformer Crossovers! Between comics and toys Transformers has crossed over with the likes of Star Wars, Star Trek, Jurassic Park, Avengers, X-Men, Mr. Potato Head, Ghostbusters, Street Fighter, Back to the Future, Terminator…. heck, even Angry Birds!
So these crossovers have enabled me to dip my toe into other sci-fi genre’s without having to compromise my Transformers budget.
So yep Pieter, I would definitely still collect something. And maybe its in the blood because my son also collects Transformers and my daughter collects Stuffed Animals & Stich merchandise. But would I have a Ghostbustertorium Shed or MyLittlePony Stable? Probably not. Transformers have been producing toys for the last 40 years and never so much as in the past 20, and with dozens of different cartoons and movies, hundreds of different characters and thousands upon thousands of different toys, I don’t know how many other passions could have offered so much variety – it’s a lot of fun! But there will always be one small cabinet in the corner of The Transformatorium for those little extra’s from my other nerdy loves.
Thank you Pieter for your question.
If you would like to see some of Pieter’s great work, check out the short film he did about my Transformatorium!
This month – January 2021 – marks 20 years of me being an adult collector of Transformers.
It also marks the 20 year anniversary of my first (very short lived) marriage. And the two are not unconnected.
As a kid we didn’t have a great deal of money, though I never went without a roof over my head or food in my belly so we did OK. I’d get a few transformers each year with my bit of pocket money I earned mowing the lawns at home or turning in rabbit skins when visiting my dad. And I sometimes got a Transformer for a birthday or Christmas as well.
My collection circa 1987
In my teens G1 was coming to an end. However this was also the time that my mother began running a small Toys & Gifts shop. This meant that I could get my Transformers wholesale! It was also the time of reissues so as well as being able to purchase Micromastersand Action Masters at cost, I was also able to grab theCombaticons, Arielbots, Protectobots and even a few bigger figures like someDinobots & Autobot Cars. Yes sir, it was a golden time.
Primus bless reissues!
Sadly I strayed in my late teens as so many young men do. G2 didn’t hold much appeal for me and suddenly beer and girls were very interesting. So my collection, which at the time equalled 1 gross – 144 figures (if you counted individual bots such as Micromasters and Target Masters) – was put away in a box and did not see the light of day for many years.
I never stopped loving Transformers, even when I moved to Melbourne to go to Uni. But once again partying, friends and girls seemed somehow more important. I hated BeastWars (I appreciate it now but back then thought it was an abomination) and sometimes my mates used to get me liquored up and goad me into a ‘trukk not munkey’ rant. To be honest to this day organic alt-modes still do little for me. So Transformers stayed waaaaay in the background of my existence.
Now comes January 2001
I got married. Stupidly. It was partly as I’d always been too lazy and cowardly to break up with the girl and partly because she had a balcony you could do Shakespeare from (I was young, shallow and dumb OK – a large chest seemed more important than a pleasant personality!). A couple of dear friends of mine were filming the wedding for us and asked what present we would like. I replied filming was more than gift enough. When they persisted I said jokingly ‘Get me a G1 Optimus Prime’.
Well the night of the wedding we are unwrapping gifts. I’m trying to stifle my boredom as they are mainly ‘grown-ups’ gifts like linen and breakfast trays (once again – I was 23 and immature). Then I unwrapped the gifts from Tammy & Michael.
And there… lo…. was a loose GENERATION ONE OPTIMUS PRIME!!!
Me on honeymoon with Optimus Prime. I swear he got more action than I did
There was also a Wreck-Gar(whom I already had but now they could ride each other!) and a Chop Shop. I squealed like an excited schoolgirl! For me it was the highlight of the night!
And thus after nearly a decade away, I came back to Transformer collecting. I discovered eBay and found so many G1 toys that my ranks quickly swelled. With a new career I had more money, and from big toys like Omega Supreme, Metroplex, Sky Lynx & Trypticon, to smaller figures like the Throttlebots, those G1 gaps were filling fast!
7 months into the marriage it ended. Shan’t go into details but let’s just say my ex worked in education and I discovered she was doing some very ‘private tuition’ with one of her teen students and leave it at that. So the marriage died which in the long run was one of the best things that could have ever happened to me; I ended up moving in coincidentally with the friends who had given me Optimus. But though my marriage was dead, my love for Transformers was thriving! I continued to buy G1 stuff online, and the new Robots in Disguise toys hit the shelves in Australia, bringing back all the concepts I loved like vehicular transformers and combiners.
My G1-cartoon cast in the early 2000’s
My collecting has continued ever since. By the end of 2001 my collection, which had stagnated at a count of 144, was over two hundred and I had no inclination to just how far it would end up going! I’ve continued amassing Transformers right through all the cartoons from Armada to Cyberverse, throughout all the live-action movies and especially the G1-inspired toylines such as Generations, right up to the latest Earthrise figures. I’ve travelled many parts of the globe and brought back figures you couldn’t find in Australia. I got married again 12 years ago but this time it was for all the right reasons and I couldn’t imagine loving my wife more. If I’m 100% honest the fact that she is so tolerant of my hobby makes up a small part of that (only a small part, there are a plethora of wonderful things about her to love!). And my kids love to play Transformers with their Dad!
They even have their own playtables set up – bless their hearts
Now 20 years on I’m sitting at around the 3500 figures mark along with about another thousand pieces of TF merchandise, have my own Transformatorium shed and indeed this blog where I often share my love of the hobby. So I’m a pretty damn lucky guy!
“Who says I have an obsession?!”
I can’t even remember the exact day in January 2001 I got married on, but I damn sure remember getting that G1 Optimus Prime.
