BW, BM & RID: Poor Distribution and Grey Imports

[The Doctor]

Apr 19, 2014 8:56:50 GMT Philip Ayres said:

Nightcruz was sold in a non UK distributed Mega 3 pack with Scavenger and Mirage GT.

That 3-pack was in the uk! Got it in Glasgow. Nick guarded it for me while I ran off to the cash machine to get dosh to pay for it!

-Ralph

[Philip Ayres]

Where from?

None of the Mega series got anywhere like a decent distribution over here. But there's reports of trainbots showing up in odd places so I can believe that some leaked out or could be had on grey import.

[The Doctor]

It was a shop in the Trongate area of Glasgow near where C&A was. Buggered if I can remember what is was called. Odd things used to turn up from time to time there in the early to mid 2000's.

-Ralph

[Jaymz]

Forbidden Planet in London had a large supply of that 3 pack. When they moved to their current location, the old one stayed open as an outlet store and had a pile of them for £5 each.

[Philip Ayres]

But very much the exception to the norm? Generally I don't remember seeing the Megas anyway on a regular basis.

[blueshift]

Yeah, the UK definitely didn't get the megas as a matter of course, I imagine after the horrible BW/BM Mega sales. I believe it was Toymaster who got in the trains, but I never saw any round mine.

[Bogatan]

I remember Woolworths having the trains I think.

[The Doctor]

Jenners in Edinburger had the trains in briefly.

-Ralph

[Jim]

Apr 20, 2014 19:05:45 GMT Jaymz said:

Forbidden Planet in London had a large supply of that 3 pack. When they moved to their current location, the old one stayed open as an outlet store and had a pile of them for £5 each.

That's where mine came from.

-Jim

[kayevcee]

I think you're talking about T.J. Hughes, Ralph. They used to be mad for grey imports.

I saw the trains in Toymaster in Paisley once, naturally after I had splashed out on the Japanese versions.

-Nick

[Philip Ayres]

Here's what I remember getting an official UK distribution during RID:

Leaders: Optimus Prime & Ultra Magnus
Ultra: Megatron
Deluxe Wave 1: X-Brawn, Prowl & Sideburn. 2 of X-Brawn and 3 each of the other two IIRC
Spychangers Wave 1: Crosswise/W.A.R.S., Hot Shot/R.E.V. & Ironhide/Mirage

These all came out at the same time. The Leaders and Ultra assortmets never got updated in the UK.

Spychangers Wave 2: Daytonus/Side Burn (Spychanger) & Prowl 2/Side Swipe + carry over from wave 1

Quite a quick update IIRC

Deluxe Wave 2: Wedge, Grimlock, Heavy Load, Hightower & Mega Octane.

Effectively, be it intentional or not, this wave was effectively a Woolworths exclusive, but see bellow. Mega Octane sat cos the Combaticon limbs weren't anywhere in sight.

Spychanger Wave 3: Armorhide, Movor, Rollbar & Ro-Tor

Deluxe Wave 3: Super versions of X-Brawn, Prowl & Sideburn.

And just as the Combaticon limbs hit their leader vanishes!

Spychanger Wave 4: Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, X-Brawn vs Scourge plus carryovers.

Of course by this point there were no Mega Octane's on the shelf. So the Combaticon limbs sat big time.

---

If it were up to me I'd have tweaked the distribution for the deluxe waves

Wave 1: 2 each of the Car Brothers, 1 each of Tow Lie/Sky Fire and Skid-Z/Windsheer who's moulds have never had a UK distribution.

Wave 2: 2 each of the Build Team

Wave 3: 2 each of the Super Car Brothers and 2 of Mega Octane

Even numbers of each toy on the shelves. Mega Octane available at the same time as the Combaticon limbs.

---

We've recalled above how the Trains and the BM repaints got a grey distribution but my recollection is that sometime after the last official RID Waves that TRU also got some grey import waves.

One was a Spychanger/Basic wave containing a mix of the still shelf warming UK Waves 3 & 4 and the BM Obsidian repaint.

The other was a Deluxe wave cotaining one each of the wave 2 & 3 deluxes, but no Mega Octane ?, with the addition of Storm Jet, the BM Jetstorm repaint

EDIT: Having checked These would appear to be US Basic Assortment 5 and Deluxe Assortment 6 listed at www.ridforever.info/toys/robots-in-disguise-toys/rid-case-assortments

---

Very few of the RID exclusives made it to the UK. But some did: TRU got the Destructicons: Bludgeon & Scourge repaints of the G2 Combat Heroes, and Dreadwind and Smokejumper. The Entertainer had some Tiny Tin Spychangers. But I don't recall anything else.

---

So does anyone remember seeing anything else out there? Did the Predacon 3 Pack, Sky Byte, Bruticus, the Flipchanger vs packs or Galvatron make it out here in any form?

EDITED: it appears I got the wave order for the Combaticon Limbs and the New Spychangers the wrong way round!

[blueshift]

Oh yes, I remember how they released Mega Octane and the limbs at completely different times. Ridiculous!

[Philip Ayres]

Apr 20, 2014 20:43:38 GMT Jim said:

Apr 20, 2014 19:05:45 GMT Jaymz said:

Forbidden Planet in London had a large supply of that 3 pack. When they moved to their current location, the old one stayed open as an outlet store and had a pile of them for £5 each.

That's where mine came from.

-Jim

www.ridforever.info/toys/robots-in-disguise-toys/rid-case-assortments thinks they were solid cased in the US which would explain that!

[Philip Ayres]

Apr 21, 2014 7:42:45 GMT blueshift said:

Oh yes, I remember how they released Mega Octane and the limbs at completely different times. Ridiculous!

One of the biggest cockups Hasbro UK ever made. And they've made a few!

And then Hasbro US did the same thing during Energon where not all the limbs for each combinbers were on sale at the same time!

[The Doctor]

TJ Hughes had the Predacon three-pack. Piles and piles of them.

The BM Obsidian repaint did indeed turn up in TRU.

-Ralph

[Jim]

Apr 21, 2014 7:28:35 GMT Philip Ayres said:

Deluxe Wave 2: Wedge, Grimlock, Heavy Load, Hightower & Mega Octane.

Effectively, be it intentional or not, this wave was effectively a Woolworths exclusive, but see bellow. Mega Octane sat cos the Combaticon limbs weren't anywhere in sight.

This wave was in Hamley's for aaaaaaages. Of course they were probably charging twice what Woolworths was - it was still cheaper for me to import them from the US (I never actually saw them in Woolworths).

-Jim

[blueshift]

Apr 21, 2014 7:43:53 GMT Philip Ayres said:

And then Hasbro US did the same thing during Energon where not all the limbs for each combinbers were on sale at the same time!

I remember that with Energon, but at least they were multicompatable. The main problem with Energon was the limbs were easy to find, but the bodies were very hard to find!

My favourite SNAFU was during Armada when they let Woolworth's buy a year worth of deluxe stock at the same time, consisting solely of Blurr and Supercon Prime. Why did noone think 'wait, this is an awful idea, lets take their money but give them a selection'

[Philip Ayres]

I had been thinking Armada was quite good and got a generally OK distribution.....

..... but Matt's comments has brought the horrors rushing back.

That Op/Blurr assortment was the third deluxe one. And it did hang around for ages.

Wave 4: Not Sideswipe and Green Thrust. With more of the above mixed in IIRC.

Wave 5: Terrorsaur, Rhinox & Hoist but no Wheeljack. Inexplicable.

Wave 6: Airazor, Powerlinx Cyclonus,Powelinx Hotshot and the name your price Powerlinx Red Thrust. Turned up a year or so later in The Entertainer. Great day when that showed up :-D

We missed Wheeljack, "Dirge" coloured Powerlinx Thrust, Cheetor, Powerlinx Demolishor and Nemesis Prime.

But the Voyager assortment. Oh dear lord. This was so bad it eventually killed the Voyagers in the NEXT line. (kind of how some BW decisions meant that RID Megas didn't happen)

Wave 1: Red Alert & Starscream: OK

Wave 2: Scavenger. Shelf warmed like nothing before or since.

Wave 3: Thundercracker. Nice to see something new but some mix on the shelves would be nice

Wave 4: Overload. I saw this on the shelves precisely ONCE and that wasn't in my usual SW London search aera but the Woolworths in Abingdon. Our Scots contingent recall seeing many in Asda

Wave 5: Skywarp

Wave 6: Predacon & PL Red Alert.

Scavenger was still shelf warming a year or so later. When Energon Voyager wave 1 came out. Now remember in the rest of the world they short packed some repaints in the first wave of Energon - we got em generally available

Wave 1: Ironhide and ..... Treadbolt, a Scavenger repaint.

This subsequently shelfwarmed which meant we didn't get the case with Jetfire and, I think, Mirage in. Ironhide didn't have anything to combine with for ages and so shelf warmed more than he should.

Wave 2: Shockblast and Cliffjumper - fair enough

Wave 3: Energon Ironhide. Solid Packed. While the original was shelf warming. And that was that for the Energon Voyager size. No Wing Sabre, Beachcomber, Mega Dinobot, Skyfire or Alpha Q. All effectively due to one solid casing decision in Armada!

[The Doctor]

Armada Overload was everywhere round my way. I recall piles of them shelfwarming besides piles of the also shelfwarming Energon repaint

RID Mega Octane and the limbs were easy for me to get. Scooped them all at once from Woolies Argyle St.

-Ralph

[Philip Ayres]

I recall you saying about Overload: proof of regional distribution differences cos we had F*** all of them in London!

You got lucky with the Combaticons!

EDIT:

Having checked it appears I got the wave order for the Combaticon limbs and new Spychangers the wrong way round meaning there was a brief overlap in the UK availability of Mega Octane and his cohorts.

Still think the Mega Octane name belongs better on the toy we call RID Scourge.

[Pinwig]

I've got Overload, that's the red truck thing with the tiny Minicon pulling it? looked ridiculous in truck mode but the robot was quite nice. I like the way the minicon slots into his chest. I was living in Edgware at the time, I think I'd have got him in Woolworths because I absolutely hated being stuck there and used to nip out of the office every Friday lunchtime to pick up a new Transformer as an end of the week treat.

[Jim]

Never saw Overload in London either, eventually imported a Japanese one; actually really like the vehicle mode as well as the robot just for being a big red lump of tech! (Good interaction with Op and Jetfire, too)

Used to go to Edgware Road Woolies for the occasional hunt, distinctly recall them having a lot of Powerlinx Optimus Prime reduced to £15 by the end. Didn't much like that shop though, always far too busy and somehow a bit too "slick" for a Woolworths - the one near Ladbroke Grove had more of an old-school charm to it.

-Jim

[blueshift]

I only ever saw one Overload in Toymaster and passed it up, to my eternal regret. I never saw one again.

[Philip Ayres]

What's people's memory of the horror that was Beast Machines UK distribution?

[The Doctor]

It seemed ok in Glasgow.

-Ralph

[Philip Ayres]

Your mind has evidently wiped the worst details from it.

Here's what I remember, coupled with what I've been able to prove with a bit of archive and ebay/Interweb searching.

---

So around mid year in 2000 Beast machines arrives in the UK. These, as per the US, are the launch assortments:

BASIC: Buzzsaw, Mirage & Scavenger

DELUXE: Optimus Primal & Jetstorm

MEGA: Cheetor & Tankor

These didn't sell.

The Beast Figures weren't nearly as good as the previous Beast Wars ones, with Cheetor and Optimus Primal being prime offenders. They sat on the shelves big time..... and no new waves turned up.

It's a bit hard to say for certain what happened after that. And to do so I've had to gen up on how to tell the variations in Beast Machines packaging apart. Just as there's three main types of Beast Wars packaging (US, Biocombat and AniMutants) there's three types of Beast Machines packaging for carded toys:

US: Has a Fox Kids logo prominantly on the front of the cards. Has the words "Ages 5 and up" in white print at the top.

GB: No FK Logo. Has a white box at the top with a boy & girl symbol and "5+" in Black Text.

Ani Machines: French. Has the words Ani Machines under the words Beast Machines. Same "5+" Logo as GB packaging.

Boxed toys is *much* harder, especially for the Megas. Compare this UK Mega Cheetor with the packaged picture for his US counterpart found on TFU.Info's BM Cheetor page. The only difference is the 5+ Logo in the top corner.

The only thing we can be certain of is that the initial release did have a follow up in a new class:

ULTRA: Jetstorm

If you'd like some evidence then look at This image I took from an eBay auction. 5+ logo in the top right and distinctly less clutered than the US box

Here's what else is believed to have come out and where it came from:

DEPLOYERS: Rav, Dillo & Mol

BATTLE CHARGERS: Che & Mechatron

SUPREME: Cheetor

Wide distribution on both these sets of toys including Woolworths and Toys R Us. However I can't find any evidence that what was released was a UK version.

DEPLOYERS: repaints of Rav, Dillo & Mol

BASIC: Obsidian, Longhorn, Geckobot, Quickstrike, Night Viper, Silverbolt, Hammerstrike, Tank Drone

Deluxe: Blackarachnia, Thrust, Triceradon, Striker, Airraptor, Dinotron

ULTRA: Nightscream

SUPER: Primal Prime

US stock, with the Logo covered by a Chinese sticker.

Primal Prime was an exclusive to Woolworths sold at cheap prices.

MEGA: Megatron & Rattrap

ULTRA: T-Wrecks

US Stock sold through TRU. Included previous UK released toys in the assortments.

Deluxe: Snarl, Skydive, Sonic Attack Jet & Blastcharge

Deluxe: Sonic Attack Jet, Blastcharge, Beast Changer, Strika & Night Slash Cheetor

Ani-Machines cards. Sold through TK Maxx and other discounters during early 2002 after Robots in Disguise had hit.

If you add all these into the official releases the only Beast Machines toys that were never available in the UK in any form appear to be:

BATTLE CHARGERS: repaints of Che & Mechatron

BASIC: Cycle Drone, Spystreak & Battle Unicron

DELUXE: Terranatron & Rapticon

MEGA: Blast Punch Optimus Primal

EXCLUSIVE: Magmatron

[blueshift]

I bought the deployer recolours in a store in the UK. They were grey imports, I THINK they had a chinese sticker on.

[Philip Ayres]

I was dodgy on those having reached the UK but thought they probably had. Ta for the correction!

Does anyone have a UK Tankor box they can scan the front of for me?

[Philip Ayres]

Forgot I had the Beast Wars part to this:

---

To understand some of the odd decisions made during Beast Wars UK's life you need to understand it's release history before it got to the UK.

In 1996 Beast Wars was released in the USA.

In 1997 Beast Wars was released in Europe on TWO different cardbacks.

Here's how to tell all three apart:

US: just English writing

Ani-Mutants: French/Dutch/German cards, initially branded as Kenner then Hasbro

Biocombat: English/Spanish/Italian Biocombat cards, initially branded Hasbro & GiGi and then just Hasbro.

The only problem is that Hasbro UK didn't take the toyline in 1997. You could go to France and buy it, as a friend of mine did which is how I came to own an Animutants boxed Optimus Primal before it's UK release. It's not the only odd decision made by Hasbro UK that year, they were busy mucking up the distribution of Star Wars to the UK and the rest of Europe too with vast ammounts of absent toys!

The initial European Beast Wars releases appear* to be:

VS Pack: Optimus Primal vs Megatron

BASIC: Rattrap, Razorbeast, Terrorsaur, Iguanus, Armadillo, Snapper & Insecticon

DELUXE: Cheetor, Dinobot, Waspinator, Tarantulus, Rhinox & Wolfang

MEGA: Polar Claw & Scorponok

ULTRA: Optimus Primal & Megatron

These correspond to the character groupings on the back of the cards.

* Some versions of the VS PACK & ULTRAS depict a 4 character assortment for Basics & Deluxe: This would match the assortments initial US Releases but there's no trace of this actually having happened in Europe.

These cases were distributed throughout 1997 but at the end of that year/early on in the next the Deluxe assortment recieved an update:

Cybershark & Jetstorm + Cheetor, Dinobot, Waspinator, Tarantulus & Rhinox.

The update makes sense. The non show character is dropped, the show characters are retained. Evidence and reports at the time support a 2 x Cybershark, 1 x everything else case assortment. Cybershark & Jetstorm's cardbacks show the updated deluxe assortment with the original basic assortment but, as with all following Basic & Deluxe updates, the cards for the carried over characters remain the same.

---

At this point at the start of 1998 the UK picks up Beast Wars, using the Biocombat carded stock, at the begining of 1998. So the UK launch waves are:

VS Pack: Optimus Primal vs Megatron

BASIC: Rattrap, Razorbeast, Terrorsaur, Iguanus, Armadillo, Snapper & Insecticon

DELUXE: Cybershark & Jetstorm + Cheetor, Dinobot, Waspinator, Tarantulus & Rhinox.

MEGA: Polar Claw & Scorponok

ULTRA: Optimus Primal & Megatron

Unhelpfully this shows a character on many cardbacks that was unavailable in the UK and wouldn't be sold here. Biocombat Wolfang do exist and some *may* have crept into the UK on grey imports. But not many.

However the UK was now two years behind the US. But the UK had a ready supply of show characters long absent from US case assortments which started a roaring transatlantic trade in Beast Wars toys. Valuable show characters went east in return for yet to be released newer toys. I can remember doing a trade at the end of the year for several then UK unreleased Transmetal and Transmetal II toys.

Not long after UK release the Basic, Mega & Ultra releases get updated

BASIC: Airazor, Clawjaw & Razorclaw + Rattrap, Razorbeast, Terrorsaur, Iguanus, Snapper & Insecticon

MEGA: Inferno + Polar Claw & Scorponok

ULTRA: Magnaboss & Tripredicus

The original Ultra wave continus to be available alongside this one.

The basic wave retains all the launch characters, apart from Armadillo.

Later during the year the three smaller sizes have another assortment update:

BASIC: Drill Bit, Lazorbeak, Powerpinch, Snarl and Spittor + Clawjaw & Razorclaw.

DELUXE: K-9, Bonecrusher, Manterror, Retrax + Cybershark & Jetstorm

MEGA: B'Boom & Transquito + Inferno

Unfortunately this update removes all the show characters from the carded sizes. Airazor, the show basic introduced in the second basic wave only appears in that wave. More importantly the toys that aren't selling that well, Clawjaw, Cybershark and Inferno, are carried over into the new waves.

An oddity here is that Spittor swaps sides from the Predacons to the Maximals for his European release.

Significantly the deluxe wave doesn't include the repaint chracters released in the USA: Tigatron and Blackarachnia, who were in the cartoon, Buzzsaw, who wasn't and Grimlock, a fan favourite character and the first confirmed original Transformer in Beast Wars.

Christmas 1998 Beast Wars was doing so well that some stores acquired some "grey imported" American Stock from toy importers MBC. Beatties had stock of earlier basic waves while Toys R Us got in several sets of toys including the unreleased in the UK deluxe character Grimlock and the now missing Cheetor. You can have a reasonable stab at which US cases these were. Toys R US also recieved basic assortments containing the first TWO waves of Fuzors, so almost certainly the second US Fuzor case, as then unreleased in the UK. And right before Christmas Toys R Us gets in stock of the brand new deluxe Transmetal Wave on Biocombat cards.

So from having no Beast Wars toys on our shelves in 1997 and being two years behind the US at the start of 1998 we now have a huge hit that's just one year behind the US by the end of 1998.

---

1999 in the UK mirrors 1998 in the US. It's one of the few years when nearly all US standard release stock is released in the UK.

The first first UK Fuzors waves have an oddity about them: they contain carried over 1997 Beast Wars toys:

BASIC: Airhammer & Quickstrike + Snarl, Spittor & Powerpinch *

DELUXE: Silverbolt & Skyshadow + Retrax & K-9 *

*I can't remember exactly which toys were packed in these cases but I suspect they were the same as the US waves listed at Fred's Workshop.

The follow up waves eliminate the carried over BW toys but include toys carried over from the previous Fuzors

BASIC Wave 2: Noctorro & Terragator

DELUXE Wave 2: Injector

BASIC Wave 3: Bantor & Buzzclaw

That leaves just one fuzor deluxe toy:

DELUXE Wave 3: Torca

I honestly thought this had shipped properly to the UK. But having read back through TMUK Chat archive there's mentions there that he only appeared in the UK as an import on an Ani-Mutants card.

---

As we saw, the initial Transmetal Deluxe Wave had hit the previous Christmas. These waves would be updated throughout the year:

Wave 1: Cheetor, Rhinox & Tarantulas

Wave 2: Rattrap & Waspinator + Cheetor, Rhinox & Tarantulas

Wave 3: Airazor & Terrorsaur + Cheetor, Tarantulas, Rattrap & Waspinator

But the UK had already had a supply of later Transmetal toys long before wave 2 hit! In January the new Argos catalogue was released showing the Transmetal toys but when the stock was brought out from the stockroom it turned out not to be Biocombat wave 1 but US carded versions of later characters!.

Rhinox is the only deluxe toy to disapear from assortments during the year. This makes sense: the Transmetal form of Rhinox wasn't seen in the show.

Mega toys were released in two waves:

Wave 1: Optimus Primal & Megatron

Wave 2: Scavenger + Optimus Primal & Megatron

The Ultra size had one set of releases as did the Supreme size:

ULTRA: Depth Charge & Rampage

SUPER: Optimal Optimus

The only toys we didn't get in the UK that year were the video recolours of Airazor and Razorclaw, which each contained an NTSC videotape of the first two episodes of BW Season 2: Aftermath & Coming of the Fuzors (Part 1) . What we got in return were European exclusive recolours of Spittor & Clawjaw. Clawjaw came with a tape of Aftermath, the only way to obtain this episode in the UK, while Spittor, having reverted to being a Predacon, had Coming of the Fuzors (Part 1).

---

2000 is where it all goes very very wrong for UK Transformers fans.

The initial Transmetal 2 releases follow the US waves:

BASIC: Optimus Minor, Sonar & Scarem

DELUXE: Cheetor, Dinobot & Ramulus

MEGA: Cybershark (possibly with Transmetal Scavengers packed in)

The Ultra wave followed later in the year at the start of June:

Tigatron & Megatron

However it's appearance on UK shelves was brief and that effectively was the end of the UK distribution of the Beast Wars line. Two waves of basics & deluxes plus a Mega remained unreleased:

BASIC Wave 2: Stinkbomb

BASIC Wave 3: Spittor & Nightglider

DELUXE Wave 2: Prowl & Scourge

DELUXE Wave 3: Jawbreaker & Iguanus

MEGA Wave 2: Blackarachnia

Transmetal II Blackarachnia was a famously hard to find toy in the USA.

Some of these would later worked their way into the UK as grey imports on Ani Mutants cards while the UK would later recieve a large stock of Blackarachnias in Chinese stickered boxes! An extensive trawl of the TMUK Chat Message archive indicates that there were a few sightings of these toys on Biocombat cards during 2001 long after the line had finished at around, or just before, when Robots in Disguise was starting.

Transmetal 2 was always a small line caused by Hasbro US concentrating it's 1999 efforts into the Star Wars Episode 1 toy range and reducing it's output elsewhere. I suspect the plan all along had been to get Transmetal 2 over and done with quickly in the UK and to move onto the current US line Beast Machines. It's just the cut came sooner than expected.