 Hey, what's going on guys? Patriot Prime here once again with another episode of the Sitrep. And I'm here with Matt, aka Matteo Potato from YouTube. Matt, how are you now? I'm doing pretty good. It's a little bit later here, but you know what? I'm doing pretty well so far. Excellent, excellent. Well, first, why don't you tell my people a little bit about yourself? Well, I do transformer reviews on YouTube. I do stop motions every now and then. I film short film projects. I do Star Wars reviews. But the main bulk of my channel is basically me sitting down with a transformer and just saying my thoughts on it, talking about it. Some jokes here and there, some stop motion here and there in the review. So that's basically what I do. Excellent. And I'm going to let everybody know, I believe you are my youngest YouTuber that I've had on the Sitrep. I've got to know. How old are you, buddy? I just turned 23 last week, so. Oh yeah, you're half of me. All right, well, let me explain how the Sitrep works. It's a series of 10 questions that I ask. The first five are regarding you and your history of transformers. The last five is questions about you being a YouTuber. And I think you and I first met via a YouTube challenge through Facebook, was that correct? I believe so, yeah, from transformers and such. Although I think I had seen your work prior to, but I don't quite remember. You were one of the first guys I met when I was doing YouTube and started on Facebook. And I know you and I have been Facebook buddies for quite a while now. Yeah. All right, well, anyway, we'll get right to it. Question number one. What's the appeal of transformers for you? Honestly, it's the mind puzzle aspect. Transformers has always been, it's a toy first, it's a mind puzzle second, and then it's a robot third or a car third, however way you look at it. So I've always been interested in mind puzzles. I always had those weird chain and ball things where you always had to take the chain off the ball and it took you three or four hours to do it. So mind puzzles were really always my thing and I think the reason I got into those was because of transformers, you know, trying to figure out how they transformed. I would always buy them secondhand on a flea market. So I never had instructions. So I was always trying to fidget. You know, I didn't even know G1 Optimus Prime had ratcheted legs, you know, until, I would probably until last year when I started messing with mine a little bit more. So, you know, it's always that aspect of it. So you, excuse me, so you being a younger fan, my question number two is definitely gonna be different. Aside from G1, which is always the right answer. What is your favorite transformer fiction? But first, what is your G1? What's the transformers you grew up with? Oh man, my G1 is a mix between RID 2001 and Armada. I got into transformers right in between that sweet spot where you had the RID toys still on the shelf and the new Armada stuff was coming out. And I just thought it was also cool. You know, I had the orange bulldozer from RID 2001. I think it's Wedge from the Build King set. And I had the Bendy Prime from Armada. And those were like two of my first non-flea market acquisitions from transformers. Which one was Bendy Prime? He was the deluxe Armada Optimus Prime, the little one that came with the mix. The one that came with a little jet that turned into a gun. Yes, that one. Okay, I've got that guy. I didn't know that's what he was called. You taught me something. I know that it seems like everywhere I go, they called him Bendy Prime because he had actual joints as opposed to like the bigger one that came out later that I guess was just a brick. I thought you was talking about some kind of gumby Bendy thing. Yeah, I mean, the first time I heard it, I didn't know what they were talking about. And then people referred to my review on it and I was like, oh, I guess that's a thing. So anyway, back to the question. What is your favorite transformers fiction? I gotta probably go with either animated or Armada simply because I recently just watched animated before I moved and I really enjoyed it. I liked the different aspects of the storytelling. I liked the twists and turns that they added, kind of added to the Transformers lore along with some of a lot of the older stuff that they brought back and made popular again. But Armada was really my G1. So like there's a lot of moments from that show that I remember and that I really hold dear. So I would probably have to say Armada with that one. And I know that's a probably an unpopular opinion, but... I can't remember, excuse me, I can't remember much about that show at all. I think that came out while I was in Iraq. I remember the toys being out and I remember getting, when I was overseas, we had internet cafes and this was when I was kind of getting in collecting and I was buying stuff on eBay and sending home to my wife constantly. So I know I got a lot of Armada stuff. I know there was some Energon stuff but I just, I can't remember anything about that cartoon other than the mini-cons talked like R2-D2. Pretty much. It was in that Pokemon-esque realm where it was an anime that they brought over and dubbed and just kind of put on Cartoon Network forever. I remember, I used to watch it before I went to school every morning at about 5.30 in the morning. I would watch Armada and then I would watch that old cartoon called Zoids because I thought they were the same thing for a little while and then I would go off to school. I saw where they're making a comeback. I did see that too. My mother actually said that to me. She goes, look what I found, so. I remember having some of those as a kid so they'd been around for a while. Oh yeah. All right, sir. Moving on, question number three. Do you have a favorite figure or grail one that you will never let go of? Say you gotta sell your whole collection tomorrow. This one's not going anywhere. I would have to say that is my carded G2 Seaspray because Seaspray was my very first transformer. I went with my great grandfather who ran flea markets and did a lot of grain stuff. They just got together and did sales for the community and whatnot. So he used to take me to those and he was a big car guy. He collected model cars. He collected little hot wheels and model boats. Basically anything that was cars related. And he bought a Seaspray, a Cosmos and I want to say the other one was a G1 First Aid because he thought they were hot wheels cars. And he would always let me play with them so I was playing with them on the wooden floor and I pulled Seaspray's legs out to transform him and I thought I broke it and I was terrified because I was like he just bought this. I just broke it. What am I gonna do? And then we found out it transformed. So that was like my introduction to transformers but it was really like those fond memories of like going over to his house every weekend playing with like that Seaspray, having a fun time with him. So and a couple of years ago, I think I want to say it was last August or so. A fan was nice enough to send me a car to G2 Seaspray and they sent it as a surprise. So when I opened that thing up, I was like, yeah, that's going on my wall and that's never getting rid of. So that's probably the holy grail that's never leaving my collection. I'm trying my damnedest to find that Walmart reissued gears because gears was my very first transformers. I just want to have one on the car. I have yet to see any of those. I think I saw a tailgate once and I already have a tailgate. So I didn't bother to pick it up. But there was a huge display around Christmas time that had all kinds of, or that whole series. I actually got two bumblebees, one on card, one displayed in vehicle mode. Of course I've got an original G1 too. All right. Number four, what figure is your white whale? This is your most wanted toy. If you found this toy, you could stop collecting. This is your main figure. I would probably, it's a two-way tie. I would probably have to say it's between. Yeah, yeah. I would probably have to say it's a G1 Liokizer, the transformers victory combiner, or a G1 Star Saver. Those are my top two holy grails that I've been looking for for a very long time. And it's just really hard to find them. But if I ever found a G1 Star Saver and a G1 Liokizer in perfect condition, I would probably give up collecting transformers for a while. That's been everybody's answer. It's always for a while. I'll say, oh, you could stop collecting. I'm never stopping collecting. Well, I gotta collect other things too. So I would probably take a break from transformers and put more money towards the other collections. But those two would definitely be a stopping point for me. Mine's a G1 Overlord. I know he's just a big brick, but I've just been obsessed with this figure once I discovered he existed. I just wanna get this guy. He looks really good, so yeah. All right, number five, what is your favorite transformer character? Any fiction, any media? I would probably have to say the G1 version of Star Saver, just because he's very elegant and he's very kind and caring, but he's also very much a badass. You know, in the victory cartoon, you know, he was always an epic swordsman getting into like these really epic duels, taking on combiners by himself. And I think it's the fact that it wasn't the stoic Optimus Prime or the Optimus Primal or the Hot Rod or anything like that, because those are always everybody's favorite leaders. You know, those are always like the generic, I'll call it the generic answer, you know, everybody loves Optimus Prime. Not everybody, but a lot of people like Hot Rod. And Star Saver is kind of like the underdog of like the Autobot leaders personally, so he's always kind of been my favorite. Plus he just looks really awesome, so. And you really surprised me with that one. I was not expecting that, especially from a 23 year old. You wanna, you know, you love a classic Japanese G1 figure. That's awesome. Yeah, I mean, I almost said animated Swindle, because Swindle in the animated series, he was just a greasy slime ball of a character and he was probably my favorite part of that show. I need to watch that again. I watched it all on Cartoon Network. I didn't like it at first, but as the story progressed, I got along with it, especially with all the G1 throwbacks, and I loved their Megatron. I loved his voice. Oh, absolutely. He was awesome. Absolutely, yeah. They, I found that Hasbro has like a whole channel on like a Roku, on my Roku television. So I put that on there and they have all G1 animated and then a couple other series too. So I watched it that way. There's one on PlayStation 4 that I have. It's called 2BTV. It's got Armada, Interjohn, Animated, G.I. Joe, G1, on the Y3 G.I. Joe in there, too. All right, now we're getting onto the YouTube questions. And this isn't one of my questions that I have on my list, but this is something I wanna know personally. Madio Potato, where'd that name come from? Well, there's actually a really funny story about that one. So I was not the popular kid in school at all. Like I was the kid who kept to himself and I kind of like shied away from, I had friends, but like I would shy away from being in like big groups of people, right? And all through high school, I had, there was two friends, or all through elementary school, sorry. I had two friends and I didn't get to see them very often because we had different classes or whatever. And this one girl, I won't say her name, but like she would always shout out in the hallway as I cross by, hey, it's Mateo Potato. And I think she only started saying that because Matthew in Spanish is Mateo. And the only thing she could think of that rhymed was Potato. So like anytime I would walk through in the hallway, you know, that's what I would hear if she was crossing or like three or four other people would call me that. And then they pulled a prank and over the intercom one day, instead of, you know, saying my name, they're like, can you come down to the office? They said, Mateo Potato, can you come down to the office? So that kind of ended up being a thing. So when I made a YouTube channel, I was trying to think of something really obscure because you know, everybody does like their first and last name or thinks of like a username with numbers and whatnot in it. So I was trying to find something that would be kind of unique, but at the same time really simple and really familiar once you've heard it a couple of times. So I just ended up going with that. It works, it works. Yeah. All right, so on to the real questions now. What possessed you to do toy reviews on YouTube? I think it's the fact that honestly up here in Maine, we don't have a lot of collectors or I don't know a lot of collectors, you know, I know there's some down in New England, farther south and there's collectors all over the country, but like up here in Maine, it just feels like I'm honestly the only one because I've never run into another one ever, you know, anywhere. So me kind of being by myself was, it kind of felt lonely at times. You know, I would have my collection and I would look at it and I'd be like, wow, I really wish there was a way that, you know, I could embrace this with other people and kind of nerd out a little bit with other people. But then that's actually when I discovered toy reviews and at first it was like my little brother was watching him and he was watching like, oh, McDonald's toy reviews. And I'm like, no, I'm not gonna bother with that. But then I think I stumbled across evangelists and few Adams and Piaw were like the first Maine three that I stumbled across. So I watched their videos and I was like, no, I don't have to like meet up with people in person, you know, I don't have to go to try to go to conventions and arrange these meetings. I can just do it on here and people can see like my passion for it. And, you know, I was really, I'm an, I'll say an aspiring filmmaker because that's what I would like to go to school for. So, and I had done some classes in high school. So I thought, you know what, why don't I take that and then apply some of my filming techniques that I've learned and kind of like mesh the two together. So that's kind of why I started it. And if you watch my first couple of reviews, they're really got awful. I just point a toy at a camera and talk and make dumb jokes. But yeah, that's what I meant. Can't talk today. I like that point a toy at a camera. Let's get. Yeah, right? No, I just put the camera at the toy and I rambled on for a bit. I made a stupid joke about a girl punch instead of a girl walk, but I have transformed Starscream and then people just kind of liked it. So yeah, it's funny when you go back and look at your old stuff. It's like, you're so trying to find yourself. I think I've went through a couple of different phases before I think I've got to lock in on how I want to do what I do now. But it's always funny to go back and watch some of your old stuff and go, yeah, I did that the other day. I was uploading a video and on my phone, I got to try and keep my phone awake while I'm doing it. So I scrolled all the way down to the bottom. I'm like, oh God, here's the old stuff from like two or three years ago. So I was looking at it and I'm like, this is really bad. I should probably go back and redo some of these. But then I figured that's part of the charm of the older videos is they're not done very well and you can kind of see the progression. I like how the Collector 75 is one of my favorite reviewers. I mean, yes, this was the guy I always went to for G1 and he would do that. He, I think one of the reviews he did cause when I was wanting to buy my G1 Thunderway, I watched one of his reviews and then I think it was a few months later, he redid it once he, you know, you start to get a little better. He redid the review again. He calls him his G1 Redoes, R-E-D-U-X. Yeah. There's another shout out for you Collector 75. I want you on here. So. I watched that shit rap because that's it rap cause, you know, it. Shit rap. There's, there's. I told you, I can't talk today. I'm sorry. Hi, this is Patriot Prime and welcome to a new episode of the shit rap. You youngins. Yeah. All right, buddy. What keeps inspiring you to get in front of the camera? Honestly, I'll use my latest video as an example. I found a figure that, you know, I thought I would never find in Studio Series Scrap Metal because distribution here is absolutely terrible. I just watched that one yesterday. Oh, thank you. But I found it and I'm like, oh man, I gotta do a video on this. Cause, you know, I'm, as somebody who's kind of, I'll say kind of excited for the Studio Series Devastator, just how big it's going to be and the fact that they all combine. I'm kind of super excited to at least see how it turns out. So I wanted to like, kind of sink my teeth into that review-wise and be like the first person to get out a scrap metal review and get all the, you know, get the first takes and the fresh hot news on it, you know what I mean? So that was kind of my aspiration for that one. But just about every single review that I do is an older figure. Like I did animated sound wave a couple of months ago. And it's basically just, I just want to say my opinion about the toy. You know, I'll take a toy off the shelf, mess with it, be like, oh, I wish I had somebody to talk to you about this cause I think this toy is really good. Oh, wait a minute. And then I'll set up the camera and I'll just talk about it for half an hour, 45 minutes, edit it and pop it on the computer. Nice. All right, where are we at now? There are thousands of toy reviewers on YouTube. What makes you any different from the rest? I personally, I would say I'm the average Joe Schmo. You know, I'm not, I was never like big into toy collecting. I wasn't a big toy enthusiast kind of guy. I don't know engineering in and out, but I do know what I like. And what I like is a good simple mind puzzle that I can sit there for a couple hours, mess back and forth with and enjoy. And after seeing like reviews on YouTube and whatnot, I figured I would take what works for me and kind of take tiny elements of what works for other people and mix it all together and just bring you this average guy who doesn't know a single thing about, you know, toy collecting or engineering or the whole process. But I just know what the character is. I know that the toy is enjoyable for me and here's what I think about it. So it might be enjoyable for my viewers. And you have a great sense of humor. You cracked me up with some of the stuff you did. This video is, I love it. That's a lot of years of ad lib and a lot of years of improv, so. All right, number nine. What's your thoughts on the Transformers social community? IE, YouTube, Facebook, et cetera. And do you have any special shout outs? Oh man, well, I know that the YouTube community from what I've seen, there's like one or two bad eggs here and there who try to go at each other's throats. But other than that, a lot of like the YouTube community is really, really humble and really kind and accepting, you know, super supportive of brand new fans. I remember my first video I did. I had Adam from Transformers and Video Games when it was on the old channel. He was probably one of the first people to comment on my video way back when. From the Facebook page, we've got the people from Transformers and such, you know, that whole Facebook group is filled with nothing but kindhearted people. And, you know, you've got Twitter who's just about everybody on there is so kind and, you know, well-meaning. I can figure Twitter out. I've had one for about a year and I just for a life, I cannot figure Twitter out, which it may be a good thing. I just post what I think every now and then or post a picture or two and then people seem to like it. So I just keep doing that. Well, like back on the topic of like Facebook groups, you've got Transformers and such, which is an awesome Facebook group. You've got the New England Transformers community, which is a really awesome group. You've got the Transformers YouTube community Facebook page on there. And like I said, you've got a couple of bad eggs here and there with people with like like pages who are like, oh, everything that's not G1 is garbage or dog shit, you know, but, and if you think otherwise, you're a dumbass, but you know, you've got those kind of pages, but I try to stay away from those because it's nothing but toxicity. But yeah, for the most part of the entire community across the board is nothing but kindhearted, well-meaning individuals who really just want to share their love of Transformers and collecting with other people. Yeah, prime example right here. I mean, this is awesome. And we met via YouTube and Facebook. Yeah, exactly. We were two dudes that probably just passing a toy aisle wouldn't even look at each other. Yeah, you know, we met Transformers and such and then I watched a couple of your videos, commented, subscribed to you, and that's pretty much how we met. That's how I met one of my good buddies. I'm gonna kind of move into the shout-outs. Shout-outs to Zero One Transfan, my buddy Dakota, who I met because somebody posted in Transformers and such. I think it was Chris and Natalie from Six Shot, All in a Blur Reviews. Shout-out to them as well. But they posted, they found, they were like, oh, here's our monthly challenge where we find a very small YouTuber and share their page. And I think I had to be like under 200 or something like that. And I went and found the channel. That was the one where I met you, you shared me. That was the challenge. Yeah, because you were the, I think you were the newest channel that I found. And then I shared your page and then they shared Zero One Transfan and I watched his stuff, subscribed to him. And now we've become good friends. You know, I've been on his show a couple of times. He's been in a couple of my stop motions. And that's kind of how I met like that side. And then just basically anybody in Transformers and such, you know, Chris and Natalie from Six Shot, All in a Blur, really excellent people. And they were the tight ship. That is one of my favorite Transformer Facebook pages. I love that when I spend more time on that page than I do any other. So, definitely shout out to you guys. And I'd like to get you on here too, so. Yep. And I think the last shout out I've got for the night or a couple, I've got two more shout outs. I've got Larry Arts Production, who I kind of met through Zero One Transfan, who does like these stop motion, kind of Transformer comedy shorts. They're really good. And then, ah man, I literally just had it in my head and I just lost it. You're not that important. Yeah. But no, those are the shout outs. Excellent. All right, last question, buddy. Do you have any channel goals for yourself and where can our viewers find you? This is your chance to plug yourself. All right, basically for the channel, what I want to do this year is kind of just double the amount of subscribers that I have now. You know, I think that's a good yearly goal, double what you started with for the year before. You know, just, I plan on doing more stop motions because those are always really fun to make. More videos like my isolation video, I think would be really fun to make, more short films like that. Because that's kind of stuff that I just thought off the top of my head. I didn't make a script for it, didn't write it. I literally just sat down and was like, what would be a good film idea that would kind of be out of the blue from the normal stuff on my channel? So I made it over the course of a week, put it on there, and it was a lot of fun to do. So I was probably in that one. I didn't realize that was a short film. I just saw it pop up, so I clicked it. I'm watching going, this is the weirdest Transformer review I've ever seen. I didn't know what it was. Yeah, no, I was, somebody had asked me prior to that video coming out, oh, when's your next Transformer review? What figure are you gonna do next? And it was because we were starting to pack up and starting to move that most of my collection was put away. So I'm like, a lot of the stuff that I still had out was stuff that I already done videos on. So I'm like, I need something to kind of keep my channel alive for a little while longer while we're getting ready to move and what's something weird and different that I can do. So more videos like that, I probably wanna do later on this year once this place is kind of put together. And basically just expand my, I'm gonna say group of friends as far as like Transformer community friends go. I know I am trying to get on more talk shows or podcasts with Steel City Bots. That's a podcast that goes on. That's actually a bunch of younger, I think I'm one of the older ones on that podcast because I think Eric is the guy who runs it is a couple years younger than I am. So, but yeah, more podcasts, more videos, more short films, and that's basically it. Maybe try to double my subscribers but we'll see how that goes. Well, hopefully I can help you out with that because I will put a link to your channel in the description of this video. And at the very end, when I do my little Optimus Prime with a flag waving, I will have a link to your newest video and a subscribe button to you as well. And also, didn't you just recently get engaged? I did, yes. Back in December, that's actually a funny story too. My great-grandfather who I was talking about earlier, when he passed away, we had a memorial brick engraved with his favorite saying, now take your time and hurry up. We had that engraved on a brick and that's actually at Fenway Park. So what we did was we went down to Boston and hung out with her grandparents and her mother and stepfather for the weekend. So we went to Fenway tour, we went to all these restaurants. So I took her to his brick because she never got a chance to meet him and I had never seen the brick in person. So we went there and it was a complete surprise to her. Like she actually had no idea. And she's been pestering me for a year. She's like, oh, I'll do that when we get married, whenever that is. And she would always give me like the glance. So I'm actually surprised she didn't catch it ahead of time. Well, congratulations on that. Oh, thank you. Well, that's pretty much it. That wraps up our sit-wrap. I appreciate you coming on with me tonight. I know you've been pretty excited about it. I hit you up Monday, right? Yeah, I think it was like Monday or Tuesday. Yeah, thank you so much for having me on here. You know, it's really fun to just sit, chat with you. A couple of buddies are sitting here talking about Transformers and our hobbies and what we enjoy doing, you know? That's why I love it. I have met so many great people doing this. And I want to thank you guys for watching. Once again, this is Matt from Mateo Potato. Check out his link in the description and we'll catch you next time. This is Patriot Prime, signing out. Ho-wah! Hey, I really appreciate you guys stopping by my channel. Don't forget to like and don't forget to subscribe. Also, check out some of my other videos that I've done on Generation One Transformers, Modern Era Transformers, and Toy Hacks Reprolabel sets. Once again, this is Patriot Prime. Ho-wah!