 Hey, what's going on guys? Patriot Prime here once again with another episode of the Sitrep. And my guest for this episode comes to us from across the pond. This is Andy from the YouTube channel, Transform and Tell. Andy, how are you doing this afternoon? I am excellent. Thank you. How are you? I'm doing very well. I had the day off at West Virginia Day. It's our state's holiday and I happen to be a stand-up. Oh, mountain mama. Excellent. All right. Well, first off, welcome to the Sitrep. It's really hard for me to get guys who are overseas because of the time difference. And this just worked out perfect for us. I think I just contacted you two days ago. Yeah. I've got to admit to being a little bit starstruck. I feel like I'm talking to one of my favorite YouTube shows right here. It's great. Thank you. I appreciate that. I've had so many people contact me and say they cannot wait to meet me at TFCon. I mean, this is so funny that just something I've done as a little added bonus to appreciate my own collection has blossomed into this. It's similar to how Transform and Tell came about because you probably know I do a podcast, just a general chatty nerdy podcast with my friend Aaron, the smorgasbord. And in order to stop me from just rattling on about Transformers every episode of the podcast, he said, why don't we do a video section where you can bring along a Transformer and talk about it. I was like, yeah, I'm cool with that. Well, what's wrong with rambling on about Transformers? Oh, nothing at all. I just, I think sometimes it's, it's kind of nice to give it its own place though. Exactly. Exactly. Well, for those of you who do not know or on the Sitrep for the first time and just as a refresher for those that you that do, the Sitrep is a series of 10 questions that I have for my guest, five questions regarding him as a Transformer collector, and five questions regarding him as a YouTuber. Andy, if you're ready to rock and roll, we will go ahead and do this. I am ready to roll out. Yeah, I love it. All right, sir, question number one, what's the appeal of Transformers for you? Well, for me being, you know, because I'm, I'm fairly old. I come from the mid 1970s when everything was in black and white and dinosaurs ruled the earth. So Star Wars, science fiction, robots, all of that stuff. It was a perfect confluence. And for me, I always liked toys that could be something else. I loved Lego. I love the, like the microman and micronaut stuff that I could get a hold of back in the day. And then when Transformers happened, it was just as Star Wars was kind of starting to die off a little bit. And I wanted my fix of robots and spaceships. And then along came these adverts in my Star Wars comic showing these robots in disguise. I remember like the full page ad showing the blue, blue streak and all the various cars you could get. I was like, okay, I have to look into this. And it's the fiddle factor of them. And then seeing the cartoon that gave them all voices and personalities. And everything kind of, it was a big snowball effect really. So Transformers has always been my perfect fiction because it represents just everything that appeals to me all in one smush. And they have the best fiction too. It's funny that you mentioned, you know, the Star Wars comics, because you can see behind me is a lot of Star Wars back there, big fan also. But my introduction to the Transformers was the Transformer comic itself. I saw the comic way before the toys. So that's what started me going issue number three, hanging up there. If you can see him right there up there. Yeah. Yeah, the, for me, I was very much a Marvel kid growing up. I used to read a lot of all sorts of different comics, but the Marvel stuff was what got me following all the various different Star Wars stories that they'd done. And then that got me into the wider Marvel superheroes to the backup strips. So when the Return of the Jedi comic finished, naturally the comic that I was going to go for was going to be the Transformers one. And I absolutely lapped it up. It was fantastic. Well, so funny. When I was collecting my comics in the mid 80s, the one that I got religiously was V. Do you remember that with the lizard people? I do. Yeah. I never saw much of it. But it's always something that I've been meaning to kind of do a box set binge of. Do it. I mean, it's hard to watch today because the effects are, well, they're horrible. But the story is still fantastic. But DC Comics had a series, a V series. And that's what I followed religiously. When the Transformers came out, I was getting those periodically. And then once the story, well, V, I think, ended at issue 18. And then that's when I picked up Transformers and really, really got into those stories, because I didn't have cable where I live. So I didn't catch the TV show. And so I think after V died is when my Transformers interest really boosted because that was the next follow up series that I got into. And then I had to go back and I forget what the old comic book stores you had to go to to find back issues to catch up on everything. But yeah, comics is how I got into it. Excellent. Yeah, the Marvel obviously were instrumental in giving the Transformers their personalities anyway. So reading all the tech specs on the backs of the boxes in the in the toy shop, and then going home and reading those those same personalities in the comic book. I think they really nailed it in some ways more than they did in the cartoon as well. The cartoon, I always love for the voices, but the the comic book, I think the personalities they everybody got like, like a real sort of highlight or spotlight in the comics, which I absolutely loved. Of course, you can tell how much I love the comics because every G1 review I do. Let's do that Marvel comics background. Hell yeah. This guy didn't have much one. No, I do. I do love the trigger box and trigger cons though. I'm enjoying getting triggered with you at the moment. It's cool. I don't know why it took me so long me being the way I am and making fun of people that get triggers like that's like the perfect the perfect series to come up with. All right, my friend question number two. Aside from G1, which is always the number one answer. What's your favorite Transformers fiction? I'm going to say that the Transformers fiction, which I absolutely rejected on the backs of the boxes when I first saw it, but then really got me back into Transformers and I haven't stopped collecting since it's got to be Beast Wars. Beast Wars all the way. There was there was I remember and it was round about the time I'd sort of slurred down buying Transformers apart from like the odd action master here and there. You know, I picked up action master Blaster because he was a character that I'd never had a toy of before. And then these animals started showing up in the shops and I read the back of the box and it said some blurb about Optimus Prime and Megatron breaking to a genetics lab and then they come out with animal skins on because it makes them more powerful. I was like and then the TV show started showing on I think it was a Sunday mornings in the UK and my mother and I used to sit and watch Beast Wars and really enjoy it. And it got to it was round about when the Transmetals were hitting the shelves. And I saw Transmetal Optimus and Transmetal Megatron in a shop locally. And I thought, you know what, I haven't bought a Transformer for a couple of years. I'm going to buy Optimus and Megatron because it's Optimus and Megatron. And if they're good, that's cool. And if they're not, it's fine. I haven't wasted much money. And I absolutely loved them. The just the articulation that kind of carried on from Generation 2, the ball joints, they weren't just a robot in a clunky disguise. They were actual action figures. Again, the poseability of them was just gimmicks crammed into those. I mean, the Optimus Prime, what you had, the mace, the swords, the rocket launcher, the flipping wrist. I've got that guy. I need to pop him in front of my camera. I just recently got the original Optimus. But he's a beauty. The first one that I got was the Transmetal one, which was smaller. And then later on, well, once I discovered that, I loved the Beast Wars so much. Thankfully, by that point in the UK, a lot of the previous sort of waves of Beast Wars had hit a lot of like bargain and discount stores. So I just swooped up everything I could. I remember getting polar claw from like a pound land or pound shop. It was where everything just you have a store called Poundland just made my entire day. That is jokes on top of, I'm writing it down, Poundland. It definitely, yeah, it doesn't translate well across the Atlantic, doesn't it? Well, then you got a military veteran. What did you get at Poundland? Well, horrible significance. What did you get at Poundland today? Well, I got pounded, yeah. Oh, I'm going to get this one to monetize. But yeah, Beast Wars all the way, the acting as well as the action figures. Again, it was the fiction and the figures in perfect synergy for me. That's what did it. Excellent. That's a great answer. Beast Wars. Yeah, that's what did it for me, too. Number three, I see somebody there. Do you have a favorite figure or a grail one you will never let go of? You got to sell your whole collection. What's not going anywhere? That is a tricky one. I have a real hard time picking favorites. I only have one kid. Otherwise, how do you even pick names? You just start giving them numbers after that, right? It's like you're Dylan and then there's number two and number three and TK421. And if I had to keep one figure out of my entire collection, I'm probably going to say, because it's a figure that would be really hard to get anyway, especially to get through customs, I think it was the year 2000 reissue of G1 Megatron. I have the Japanese Walther P38 Uncle special year 2000 Megatron and he's just beautiful. He's so chunky with the die cast. He's got the sword. He's got all the sights and stocks and things. Is that the one that comes with the bullets? Yes. He's got the little BB-type things that clip in and he's got the firing mechanism intact, which is just yay. I saw your review of him, the little teeny weeny little mega gun. He's great. He's got a rub sign. You've got to love the rub signs. Yeah, so I think if the house was on fire and I had to get one transformer out, I'd maybe reach for Megatron first and then I'd probably burn to death trying to rescue the others. So what are you going to do? I have my collection on top floor. Oh, shit. Time to start tossing them out the window. Good call. Mine are in the attic and I've got like a Velux window, so I'll just start flinging them out there into next door's garden. Love it. All right, sir. Now, what figure is your white whale? This is your most wanted toy. This is the one that has eluded you, but you would be, you know, you could stop collecting if you got this guy. I know nobody I've interviewed is actually going to stop, but this is the one this would make your entire year if you found. Oh, really, really difficult. I think maybe something really that I never would have seen as a kid, but always kind of had heard of and wanted maybe something like like a minting box Deathsaurus or Lyokaiser gift set, something something really far flung and Japanese that I would never get my hands on. I think my really my most wanted figures are ones that they just haven't made yet because there's always a chance that something will get reissued. But I really want to see I want to see like an emirate Xyron figure, little golden autobot governor guy, you know, something really obscure like that. But this I think somebody has, bro, he's going through all the old comics and all the old figure catalogs and slowly ticking them all off in generations and going, who haven't we done yet? Who will Andy pay big money for next? You just triggered a thought in my Marvel Comics knowledge here. I want a hook line and sinker. Remember them? Oh, hell yeah. Yeah. Well, they kind of did those with one of the Botcon the Botcon recolor of it was Astro train, but done from I'm out of jet fire. He came with the three mini cons and they were called Astro hook Astro line and Astro sinker. So you can kind of get them, but not quite. I always have the TF wiki up when I'm kind of doing my reviews. I can always remember the G one stories by usually can't remember the numbers that what number it was because all my comics they're gone and I have everything in trade paperback and you mentioned it and I just looked over and there's a picture of hook line and sinker right there on this page. I'm like, oh, they haven't thought of those guys. They've been great toys. Awesome. Another one that I would really like an official figure of which there has been an official like a one of the smaller Marvel Legends figures of I would like one. I'd like a like a kind of like almost like Voyager class height figure of original green armored interchangeable weapon deaths head to go with my Transformers collection. Because who else is going to kill shockwave? And yes, I know a lot of the UK. I never talk about them in my videos, but I I know quite a few of the UK stories just not as ingrained in my knowledge as Marvel G one. Yeah. All right, my friend, this is your last Transformers question. What is your favorite Transformer character, not figure, your favorite character, any fiction, any media? That one is one that I've actually thought about before. And albeit it's really hard for me to pick favorites again. I'm going to have to go with the most Machiavellian grinning rubber duck using brushing his left hand's teething Tyrannosaurus badass Beast Wars Megatron. Yes. Yes, I was by David K. And done perfectly. Oh, yeah, I love that guy. He's so good. I'm not the KOMP of him. I'm not paying 300 bucks for old crack crotch. Yeah. Oh, man, I can't I can't believe that it has that many issues. And it be that price. It's terrifying. I'm not much of a masterpiece buyer. And I was sorely tempted by it. But have you seen that there's a couple of companies have done some slightly differing versions of the Transmetal Dragon Megatron, some third party ones. There is one coming up which absolutely just nails the show look. Is it make toys? I think maybe. But it just looks beautiful. It's about 200 or so books, but I might have to go there. Might have to do it. Fantastic. All right, here we go. Here's you as a YouTuber. What number six? What possessed you a grown ass man to do toy reviews on YouTube? Since you're assuming you're assuming I'm a grown up. It's like in my head, I'm still like I'm 14 years old in there still somewhere. I think the thing that I mentioned earlier doing the podcast with with my friend Aaron doing the smorgasbord. He suggested doing the YouTube videos and it just it felt really comfortable. It was a good fit. And I just I like it. I like to have an outlet. It's kind of nice to just kind of throw it out there. And it's it's really good to see people enjoying it and, you know, getting some positive comments on it. And the fact that it's grown into its own channel now, it's kind of I'm trying not to get too big headed about it to be honest. It's just kind of cool. Yeah. And not to mention the people. Well, this leads into another comment later on. So we'll leave that alone. Number seven, what keeps inspiring you to get in front of that camera? And I think you kind of hit that with the comments. Yeah, I think being being a part of a bigger community, I first started discovering sort of the wider Transformers community when I it was probably about 16 years or so ago when I started discovering the forums TFW 2005 and Cybertron common places like that. And and realizing that this this thing was still big, you know, people still loved this even before it came back with the movies. So being a part of that is amazing. And also the fact that right now, it's such a good time to be a Transformers fan. They're releasing so many beautiful toys, both Hasbro and Takara and then all the third parties. It's there's an non ending plethora of stuff to talk about. So there's there are a lot of people doing Transformers YouTube shows, but there's so many different things to talk about that it kind of it never gets old really. I love that. It's great. That's like mine. You know, I started it's all G1 G1 and then wait, these new modern figures are awesome. Let me talk about those. Oh, hell, what's this toy hack stuff? Yeah. Yeah, I'm really enjoying because I I'm always terrified of putting labels on stuff. I I like to leave a lot of mine just kind of naked out of packaging. I still haven't labeled up my fortress Maximus or tripticon. Yeah, I'm terrified. But seeing you turn one. Oh, yeah, that's going to take me forever to do because I'm such a perfectionist. And I'm just terrified of sticking one on wrong. And then that's it. Burn it all. But seeing you do I have the old surgical tweezers here. Yes, that's what you want. You've got to have the surgical tweezers. I've got thankfully my father did a lot of ethics models and military modeling and stuff. So in terms of I used to customize my Transformers when I was a kid, I used to do dry brushing and painting the highlights and details and stuff on them when I was a kid. I just became more afraid of that as I got older. I think it's because you know, I know how much money they cost now. I didn't really care so much when I was a kid. But now I think I just spent 30 quid on that thing. I'm not going to ruin it with bad stickers or paint. So I'm sorry. I was tempted to do some customing and painting, but I just can't bring myself to yet. I mean, I have a great idea to custom my Titans return Megatron. Of course, this one's all toy hacks up, but I have this idea in my head and what I would love to do with this guy. I'm just I don't know how to start. Oh, I mean, I'm intrigued now. Can you tell us or is it a secret? It's going to be offensive when I'm done with it. Okay. Just because I want to take a Megatron and turn him into Magatron. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, you know what kind of comments you got from somebody who got the wrong channel asking you for hats and stuff. What the heck? He's got that would make my good jazz look like nothing. That got turned around. And actually when I discovered that page is Facebook page. Now anytime anybody blasts me, I'll meet we go there. Hey, it's not me. Check these guys out. Look at their comments. They're the ones screwing you. Just look at my page, man. It's all transformer toys and a lot of everyone who's messaged me angry about that realize their mistake and they apologize. They say, you know, I'm having all this money taken out of my count. I punch in the name Patriot Prime. You popped up and I just messaged. She said, I apologize. And I send them on their way and every week or two I'll hop on their page and I love reading the comments where people are just tearing them apart. And I think Mike Case posted a video of mine on their page saying, I love your transformer reviews. Just nice. But man, let's realize how many subs I probably lost saying Magatron. You're such a nice guy. I don't think anybody would would be smirking you for it. All right, we're all here. Question number eight. And you kind of touched on this. There are thousands of toy reviewers on YouTube. There are thousands of toy reviewers on YouTube. What makes you any different from the rest? YouTuber. It's like the internet, but with a potato. What makes me different than the rest? I think it's a pound store. Yeah, go and get pounded at Poundland. I think for me the thing that it's kind of what draws me to to kind of to YouTubers like yourself, it's kind of it's the presentation aspect of it. I think because I've got I've been a transformer for a number of years. So it's kind of it's all crammed into into my head. So there's partially there's the kind of the indelible knowledge aspect of it. I'm like Perceptor for these things. But also the like my I've got a bit of a theatrical background. I do sort of amateur theater pantomime. I've done musicals and things. So there's that kind of that you know the way to present it. Because what keeps me watching transformers guys on YouTube like yourself and like Theo Adams and there's a few others that I like to watch myself is that it's not dull. You know, I don't want to see just hands in front of the camera. I don't want to you know tune in and just have it be like some guy who sounds like he's just working up. Oh, what's up, YouTube? It's I'm here with another transformer review. So my first one's I was reading something. Hello, this is Patriot Prime today. We're reviewing Megatron. But we all get better as we go along. I think that's the thing when you watch a lot of people's early reviews. There's this kind of there's always a little room to grow. You hit your stride pretty fast and I think transform and tell I think we started having a bit of fun with it, you know, and doing slightly different things now and then my mate Aaron is really, really clever. He's he's great with like the editing and the producing side of things. He's as nerdy as I am just not with the robot. So he tends to film it and just let it run and he edits it to make me look really good. That's all I can say is he makes me look great is fantastic. I must watch that thing three or four times. I finally commented on it just so out there and you laying on the floor with all them boxes. I lost it. Yeah, that was his idea. Yeah, it's he wanted to do an attic dive video for a while since since I got house moved and started getting all the robots in one place. And I'm surprising myself that you know, I'm delving through boxes and finding stuff that I haven't seen for like 15 20 years. It's crazy. I love it. All right. Here we are. This is a good one. Number nine is what's your thoughts on the Transformers social community, i.e. YouTube, Facebook, etc. And do you have any shout outs? Well, first and foremost, I should probably shout out to the Transformers UK TF UK Facebook group who are a great bunch of people. They don't put up with any nonsense. There's no flame was in there. Sometimes when you go into the forums now, there's often quite a divide between you know, somebody will say something about like the the Bayverse, the movie stuff. And I don't particularly like the movies, but hell it gave us some great toys. The 2007 movie I enjoyed the Bumblebee movie I really enjoyed all the stuff in between was too long and involved Stanley Tucci trying to sell me Chinese soft drinks. I don't need that. But the the forums can be great. They're a really good source of information. But sometimes the, you know, people people tend to go wild. We can't always agree on things. But one thing that we should always agree on as a community is to be nice to each other. You know, we should Jerry Springer it be excellent to each other and party on dudes. No way that was that was Bill and Ted. Jerry Springer, you know, you're pregnant with your father's daughter's boyfriend while you're getting hit in the head with a racist he was take take care of yourselves and each other. That was his thing. But yeah, we should as a community. I think we can do that. It's just sometimes personalities can clash. But thankfully the TFUK Facebook group, there's there's always very little of that. If anybody, you know, kicks off any major stuff, they'll get the boot. You know, they don't put up with any nonsense there. And I don't tell anybody, but I got made an admin there. I don't know how that happened. So I've got like God like powers to join you guys be a little bit American blood in there. Yeah, come on in. I'd let you in. Awesome. Awesome. I gotta give a shout out to you know, groups like transformers and such. They're one of my favorites because it's a great group that's where I met most of my transformer friends. And they're the same way. You're not going in there starting crap. They'll boot you in a heartbeat. And you can always go on there for good conversations and meeting good people. So Chris and Natalie, good job. Been trying to get them on the show. They're over in your neck of the woods, but damn ocean. Yeah, it's like, why does the world have to be so big? Honestly, we can make it small with technology, but living this computer. Mine too. Mine too, buddy. I love you, man. Man, people watching this like this shit just got weird. Oh, there's nothing wrong with a good hug. Yeah. That's freaking international relations right there. Too right. I'll think some plastic robots. All right, buddy. This is last question. This is your chance to plug yourself. Do you have any channel goals and where can our viewers find you? I don't know if I've got anything to plug myself with. I think I left it in the bathroom. Oh, you didn't mean that. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, I just broke the Patriot Prime. I broke him. Are you okay there? I was not fucking expected there. I'm sorry. You can never let leave a Dublon tondra dangling. You can't leave it dangling. I'll just slip it right in. I'm sorry. Okay, I'll let you compose yourself. So you can find me, he's still going. You can find me on YouTube on the smorgas pod. Think of a smorgasbord but with a pod. We do a podcast twice weekly now in sort of half hour or so segments talking about everything nerdy. Transform and tell of course has its own YouTube channel now that was birthed from the smorgas pod. You can also find the smorgas pod podcast itself on SoundCloud and iTunes and Stitcher and wherever you get good podcasts. Oh, nice. And there's also the transform and tell Facebook page. And we've got now a Patreon if you're feeling particularly flush and want to throw as a couple of books to keep my content going. Then there's patreon.com forward slash transform and tell I'm on there as well. Nice. Exclusive content, nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Be very careful with the content you got on there though. Usually fairly family. And for you guys watching just to let you know I will have links to Andy's channel and some of his videos in the description of this video and they'll be linked at the very end. Well, you'll see that brand new Patreon logo with the saluting prime. I'll have links to his videos there as well. Andy, I can't thank you enough for stopping by and chatting with me today for freaking cracking me up and bringing tears to my eyes. I enjoyed it. This was so much fun. Excellent. We'll have to get you on. We'll try and get you on as a guest on the smorgas pod at some point as well and chat about. I love it. Excellent. And guys, I want to thank you. You still got me floored on that joke. And I want to thank you guys at home for watching. If you like what you see, don't forget to like, don't forget to subscribe. I try to put out new contact man. I'll know if I'm not even going to edit this. Like, subscribe, watch for my new content. Look for different episodes of the set rep. I've been interviewing people from all over the world. All walks of life. Great guys like Andy here. If you would like to donate to my channel and help me grow, I have a PayPal link in the description of this video. Guys, I love each and every one of you. You are why I do this. This is Patreon Prime signing out. Hula!