#pre-tf

1984 French TV commercial for Turbo Magnum by Ceji Revell. Legend has it that this was what Hasbro was keen to license from Takara at Tokyo Toy Fair in 1983, and the Microchange / Diaclone toys that would become Transformers were simply there to sweeten the deal. Evidently Hasbro quickly reassessed things. Between how successful GI Joe had been, what Tonka was doing with Gobots, the addition of the designs acquired from Knickerbocker, and Joustra/GIG introducing Diaclone to Europe, the building blocks for TF were all there. Takara managed to secure licensing deals for Turbo Magnum with Hasbro, Ceji Joustra and GiG but Hasbro never did never did produce them for cost reasons. As a means of making it up to them, Takara was given the rights to use the Transformers IP in Japan. There's a great blog post by Maz on this if you want to learn more, which helped me fill in some of the blanks (like why no Hasbro Turbo Magnums exist!) It's mind-boggling to think so much of TF as we know it has its roots in this silly little car.

One last observation based on the George Dunsay TF Archive excerpt: the reason Takara started working with Hasbro in the first place (initially on Turbo Magnum) was because Mattel "did not treat [them] well". i.e. It's kinda Mattel's fault Transformers exists. THANKS GUYS.