 Hey, what's going on guys? Patriot Prime here once again with another episode of the Sitrep. And my guest tonight is Dakota from Zero One Transfan. Dakota, how are you doing tonight? I'm doing absolutely fantastic. Great, great. Well first off, tell my people a little bit about yourself. No problem. I am a YouTuber from Nebraska. I do some small time stuff, some stop motions, a little bit of skit stuff here and there. People seem to be liking some of the stuff I do now, which is great. I'm very lucky about that. Yeah, just recently hit 500 subscribers. So I'm very grateful. Congratulations. Well, how the Sitrep works. And I know you've seen a couple episodes. And I know everyone at home watching kind of knows the deal. But I am going to ask you five questions regarding you as a Transformers collector and five questions regarding you as a YouTuber. So if you're ready to rock and roll, we'll do this thing. Let's do it. All right, buddy, starting with the Transformers questions. First, number one, what is the appeal of Transformers for you? Well, I've always been really into robots, even before getting into Transformers itself in 2007 with the first movie. I've always kind of had this thing for robotics and cool looking vehicles, just kind of add onto it as well as the feeling of I was the one who got to go from point A to B. So there's that sense of accomplishment for completing that challenge. Excellent. All right, sir. Well, I think you just kind of answered this question. So your introduction to the Transformers was 2007? It was, but that's not my favorite Transformers fiction. Excellent. So question number two, aside from G1, which is always the right answer, what is your favorite Transformer fiction? Well, I do love me some G1. I've been watching it quite a bit lately. But for a while, it was Transformers Cybertron because I was lucky enough to pick up the full series box set. But recently, I reevaluated everything. And for me, I think Transformers Animated has got to be my number one. Nice. I've had a few guests kind of dip their toes in that one. But I haven't heard anybody straight out say that's their favorite animated series. Now, I got into it when it was on TV. I mean, it was very kitty-fied at first. And I hated the animation. But I really liked it as it slowly began to pick up. And then, of course, when it got really good is when it canceled. But isn't that how it is with all of our favorite TV shows? That's precisely the point is, as soon as you're hooked, and you're like, OK, I can't wait for more. There's no more. Dang. That's what pisses me off right now. I watch a lot of Netflix and Hulu. And I'll get on these series. And like, oh, it's so good. And you realize, oh, that was the last episode. You're not going to see anymore? Well, now I need something else. Yeah, I'm starting watching one now. I cannot quit watching. It's called The Hundred. Have you heard of that one? I've heard of it. I haven't seen anything of it myself. Man, that's good. I've seen it over and over again finally the other night. Just decided, oh, let's get it started. Now I'm doing three or four episodes a night. I'm an addict. That happens. All right, sir. Question number three. Do you have a favorite figure or grail? This is your figure you will never let go of. You have to sell your entire collection. This one's not going anywhere. Oh, so everything else. I think I have a few that are kind of in that category, but one that I'll just name. I just got it recently. Friend of mine just sent me the Year of the Horse MP10. Oh, move him over just a little bit more. He's out of frame. Oh, nice. How is that thing? Well, even with the gold and the deeper reds and blues, I still am deeply in love with him and can't wait to do my own review on him. So with your fiance in your room and the fact you just said you're deeply in love with that piece of plastic, how does that go over? I mean, he's got me in the ring. And so I think that she'll be OK with it. OK. So you're walking down the street hand-in-hand with MP10 and you're something's up. Yeah, I've got MP10 that was wrapped up in my arm and cats just walking with us like, oh, my God. I just remembered this YouTube video called Me and Optimus Prime. Have you ever seen that one? Oh, God, I don't think that. This guy's like on fishing trips with Optimus Prime. And it's just he's hanging. I'm going to send it to you on Facebook. That just popped in my head. Now it's going to haunt me for the rest of the night. All right, question number four. What figure is your white whale, your most wanted toy? This is the one if you could get ahold of, you're done collecting. Honestly, for a while there, it really was the MP10. But I don't think I can just stop collecting even after picking up a grail because I have the way I wanted to do my collection was classics, generations-oriented. But I think maybe just out of that line right now, I would probably say the classics Optimus Prime because I used to have a version of it long ago, but have since had to get rid of it. I'm trying to remember if I have that one or not. People say that the siege toy is better than it, but I'm probably mostly because of the arm flaps. Oh yeah, he's up around the top shelf, I see him now. I've never really had a problem with the arm flaps, that just something about him just makes me happy. He was such a unique truck mode and I love the way the smoke stacks turn into the double barreled cannon and then his, hell I don't know what it's called, wind vane, I guess, would turn into that other big gun. He's a cool figure. That's something I like too. I love transformable weapons that they can actually store on the figure. Yeah, or at least something that has like decent storage underneath the figure instead of just going on a peg hole on the outside. The obligatory cannon attaching to the top. All right my man, last Transformers question. What is your favorite Transformer character? Any fiction, any media? Honestly, it really does have to be, this is gonna make me sound like a broken record. It's gotta be Optimus Prime just because I love that he goes from an archivist on Cybertron as a Ryan and then puts in his amount of work to be worthy of the title of Prime and earn the matrix of leadership. To be honest, that type of characteristic is something that I would strive for when I was younger and something that honestly could be looked up to. It's funny the way your webcam is when you're talking to me and you just said somebody to look up to and you're just looking straight up. It's kind of making me feel high and mighty. Well, I mean, you are like up here in my corner. That's just great. Somebody to look up to and you're like, it's just, it's shit, I notice, it's late. Well, I mean, you'd soared past me and you've been on YouTube for less time than I have. I'm very happy for you. I would, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little jealous though. Well, thank, it shocked me. I really honestly didn't think I would do what I'm doing. So I don't know what my secret was, but I mean, the last few months just, bam, shot up there and I'm tickled to death. I've had quite a few people say, hey man, what's your secret? And I'm like, I honestly don't know. Luck. I'm very happy for you. You definitely deserve it. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. I'm digging your new stop motion stuff. Your last one with the old ass, Optimus Prime. That was funny. That was like me talking to kids at the park. Anyway, well, that is the end of the transformer questions. And now we're going to get into know you as a YouTuber. So question number six, what possessed you a grown ass man to do toy reviews on YouTube? Probably just the fact that I never really grew up and I just like making video. I like getting in front of a camera or putting something in front of a camera for an audience and hoping to God that people enjoy it. It is fun. It's definitely, I've discovered it. It's like another hobby into itself. I mean, there's a lot of work involved, especially like with you in the stop motion. I dabbled in it. I think the most stop motion I do is I have a head turn. And I know that's so tedious with a little frame by frame. So kudos to you guys who do that. I've debated on it, but I just don't have the time. Not with a four year old little hellion running around. Your son is, Kat loves your son. She's loved watching videos that you do with your son. Oh, he is a hoot. He keeps wanting to sit down and do a review on the rescue bot that he got the other day. And every time he sits down, something else sidetracks him and he's off. He's got the attention span of a goldfish. All right. But he is a hoot. I was so lucky when he came in my office the other day when I was getting ready to do that unboxing because I had no idea that he had stuff in there. So it just worked out perfect. Yeah, I saw that. That was really cool of that guy that sent him stuff. Oh, it's awesome. Very generous, very generous. We've got a good community. You know, we got the shitheads, but mostly it's a good community. It really is a nice community. Just like there are obviously some exceptions that that comes with every type of community, every band-aid, so rather than keep our head above water. We're at least not as bad as the Star Wars and Marvel communities. That's for sure. All right. All right. Number seven, what keeps inspiring you to get in front of the camera? Well, you know, honestly, it's, well, it's Kat telling me that she won't let me stop because she knows that I want to keep going. But it's honestly the people who watch, like when you left a comment on one of my Battlegrounds videos saying that it was really good, I was like, wow, that hit me there. And it's like, I gotta, I really gotta keep going now. But it's- And it's hard to do. I try my best to answer every comment and comment on every video that I watch because I know I love getting the comments. Maybe it's because I've been on Facebook for so many years. You know, I know YouTube's all about the views, not as much the comments, but I love people commenting on my videos. Granted, I get some bad ones because of this and the whole patriotic thing that I do. But hell, that's what the band hammer's for. Or getting mistaken for a site that sells things and then just steals money. Dude, that hit me because the last question I got was this, or what the question was a message. I got Sunday morning. And that's when that woman goes, your company is taking $20 out of my account every month. I needed to stop. And I'm like, what? Then I actually got her on the message and we went back and forth and I said, and I told her flat out, I said, have you even looked at my Facebook page, the page that you're commenting on? It's all transformer toys. I am not who you think I am. And a little bit of research, we figured out who it was, especially when I combined it with the guy who asked me if I was from Woodlands, Texas, but that was nuts. I mean, she was ready to file a suit. Yeah, the way that you described it in that video, just like, dang, she seemed like she was ready to go off. Yeah, it was nuts. I mean, that's why I screenshot the actual conversations. You know, just to show I wasn't making that up. I mean, that floored me. So lady, I'm a 45 year old man talking about toys on YouTube. I am not taking your money. Just like what company? I'm just a dude in the office with a bunch of toys. All right. Yeah, we got sidetracked there. Question. Hey, that's what these do, man. These things, who knows what's gonna happen. You saw the one with Tony, right? From Toast and Toys? Yeah, yeah, that one went off the rails quickly. That was so much fun. All right, where are we at? Question number eight. There are thousands of toy reviewers on YouTube. What makes you any different from the rest? What makes you the guy that's gonna get 501 subscribers after this is over? Nothing at all. Mr. Gloria's hair. Yeah, yeah. As one of my friends put it years ago, my majestic lion's mane. I honestly, just with my reviews, I like to just make it funny and give my honest opinion and hopefully give a different point of view for figures that people don't even like. Like, I did a review a few months back on the universe ironhide and ratchet figure. Two of the most hated figures of the universe classics lion. I still really enjoy them. Like, yeah, they're kind of flabby and have some issues, but it's like, I found reasons to buy them. I found reasons to like them. So I figured I would tell people about it and hopefully people would see it, at least see where I'm coming from. That's kind of how I started with my G1 reviews is the ones I started reviewing first and actually still are, is the line from the late 80s because most everybody in the G1 days, they were done with transformers by the time these oddball figures came out. So those are the ones I kind of focused on and I've had a lot of people say, thanks for going over that. I never knew that thing even existed. So it's nice to go over the stuff that people can gain a new appreciation for now. I mean, pretenders, when I was a kid, I was just getting out transformers then, but these guys suck. They just weren't what you expected with the transformers. But now as an adult collector, I kind of understand the science fiction behind them. I mean, think about, they're terminators in a way. They really are, if you think about it. Of course, I like the Decepticon ones a lot more in the Autobots. I dig the monsters opposed to the humans in fat spacesuits. Just... Yeah, the Decepticons really had some really outlandish designs. Even some nowadays, like there were some from the, that Rolex in the sky's line from a few years ago that were really outlandish and... All the animal-based ones, like the Wolf and the... Yeah, like Bisk and Thunder Huff and all that. The only character I liked was Thunder Huff. I thought he was pretty cool with... He looked like a Viking with the big horns. But then when I realized he transformed into a tractor, I'm like, hell yeah, he's from West Virginia. Well, with that show, I was never able to get into it, especially I couldn't get past episode one, but it's like some of the toys though, however. Some of the toys are really good. I only had a few. It was at a time when there was nothing new on the shell. So I was buying them just, you know, when you just have that itch, you have to scratch. It was like, I need figures and this is all that's here. Fine, I'll take it. This thing is goofy as shit, but I'm gonna buy it anyway. And it's all on eBay. If nothing else Dylan, can I at least get a couple last episodes? He's got quite a few. Those are Dollar General, Dollar Tree Transformers I reviewed. Those are in his collection, I think I'll bust it to help. Oh yeah, I think I saw those at our Dollar Tree out this way. God, this thing is... I saw somebody had posted on one of our transformer groups that there was a new batch out, and I actually went to our Dollar Tree yesterday, but it was still the same old ones I had from before. So I was hoping to do a cheap ass robot reviews part two. That'd be really cool. All right. Number nine. Oh, we kind of touched on this a while ago. What is your thoughts on the transformer social community? IE, YouTube, Facebook, et cetera. And do you have any special shout outs? I, like I said, a lot of the community is gray. There are obviously some people that's like, okay, well maybe there's not really a point in talking to you. Cause like some people just have some really strong opinions. Like for example, I'm not a huge fan of the last night or age of extinction. I know that there are definitely some fans out there. That makes you an exceptional person. Normal. It just didn't do it for me. But like I know that there are some people that even I'm friends with that would like a continuation for the last night. Like there was a rumor for that guy shut down, but My biggest issue with that, not mean to jump in, but what I'm thinking about right now is everybody, I mean, I've seen the complaints too. They want the continuation. They want a closure to the original series. But none of those, there was never any cohesion, cohesion, you know how the word I'm talking to say, they never really lined up, except maybe the first three loosely. I mean, each one it's like episode one. Oh, we're after this cube that's going to save the universe. Episode two. Oh no, it's the sun needle thing. Oh, nevermind. It's the seeds of Cybertron. And then you go age of extinction where they forgot about everything else. And then the last night, Jesus Christ. That, that one just like, whew. That was probably the first Transformers movie I just turned off. I think I watched 40 some minutes of it and then I went back, it took me like three days to watch it. I just could not get invested in that movie. It was all over the place. Granted it had some good toys. The Megatron figure that came out, the Nitro Zeus figure that came out. Oh, I love that. Good toys, shitty movie. Especially with like, not only was the story bad, and like this has kind of been a joke that's been going through it as well. The editing in that movie with like the aspect, aspect ratio, it was, it's worse than all the other ones. And even when I noticed it in the first, in Revenge of the Fallen, where it's like, oh, like there's some black bars I keep like going away. That's weird. It was so horrendous. And then the last night, it just bothered me. All right, we got sidetracked again. Yeah. All right, social community, YouTube, Facebook, any special shout outs, part two, go. There are some people in the community where it's like, you know, you have your opinion on mine that we'll just leave it at that. There are lots of parts where you can actually talk with people and get different sides of things. And I really like that. I can't really think of many shout outs. I, you know, there's a group that I'm in, the Transformers Insane Asylum with T-Fan page one-to-one lyrics production and all of them. I love doing stuff with them and it's nice to get more people to make jokes with and talk about things, even if we disagree. Nice. Is that a Facebook group? I've never heard of them. The Insane Asylum, it's a YouTube podcast. We recently, not recently, we haven't done a live show in a while, but there's like a hundred or so videos on it. We're hoping to go live again sometime soon. Oh, nice, I might have to look it up. I'll share with you that Optimus Prime musical and you can share that with me. No problem. I do have some animated highlights on my channel from those podcasts. So it's mostly just like the funniest bits that we have. So if it interests you, you can check out the whole podcast. We mostly just talk about like news and stuff, stuff that's been released to the media. 10-4, I will, I will. All right, last question, brother. Do you have any channel goals for yourself and where can our viewers find you? This is your chance to plug your channel. Well, I'm hoping to at least get a video or two out on a third stop motion series that I'm doing called Transformers Resolve. I've did a live stream about it once Battlegrounds ended. It's going to round out this trilogy I have going on and I'm running it with more of my friends. So hopefully we can get a video out this year of some kind for it. But other than that, just I want to keep making the silly videos I do, all the fun stop motions, all the live streams with my friends. I want to keep engaging in the community with you and Mateo Potato and all those other people and all that because it really- I think you were one of the very first people I met via as a YouTuber on one of our Facebook pages. When I first got started- It seems about right, because I've been following you at least since you did your MicroMaster Month last year. Yeah. God, you're the second person to bring it up. I will never do anything like that again. Well, I mean, I remember once you said it was over, it's just like, June's going to be jump stars month. It's just like, okay, let's have a jump start. Just two figures, that's it, that's all I'm going to review. Yeah, that was insane. I was rushing home, just trying to get these things. I mean, I do them back to back. And you know how I like to do the, let's look at me, then look at the figure, then look at me. So that was so hard to do. That's a long day being involved in that, especially with how you deal with your transitions and all that. I love the editing. I mean, a 10 minute video can take me two or three hours because I'll just come up with stuff. And of course, you know, I like to put the images and video clips and all that. And I started something early on that I just can't stop now. When you've got something funny in your mind, it's like, oh, I should put up a graphic to show what I mean if people don't get it. It's like, that can be pretty fun, especially when you think about it yourself, just like, that's really funny. Oh, it's like the, my pride and joy, as far as comedy is concerned, my Naga Hat video. When that hit me, I wrote it down and I went to, I mean, it took me a week to plan out exactly how to do that. Oh, God. Cause I had to have that Sarah McLaughlin style sad music playing. Oh, yeah. Well, Dakota, that is it for all my questions on the SIT rep. I thank you very much for taking the time and wanting to speak with me. And for everybody watching, I will put Dakota's channel in the description of this video and I'll link his channel and one of his videos at the end of this as well. So once again, brother, I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate you having me. I'm very thankful that I got to be on this because I don't know, I just like talking with you. Good, I think this is one, this, I'm getting all tongue down here. This has been one of my favorite things too, as I've known you guys for over a year, but a lot of times it's just commenting back and forth on Facebook, getting to see you guys and talk to you face to face has been awesome. It was really fun for me as well. Good deal. Well, guys, if you like what you see, don't forget to like, don't forget to subscribe. I try to put out a SIT rep episode at least every Monday and Friday. Also look for other reviews of mine where I go over generation one transformers and modern figures. This is Patriot Prime, signing out. Hooah! 🎵 Through me and often it's right 🎵 🎵 Yeah, such a real good time 🎵