Transformers Outlast the Cassette Tape

If at some point in the 1980's you had said the title of this post, I think most people around you would have thought you were crazy. At the time, cassette tapes were still unfortunately the most popular form of music around. Transformers on the other hand were just the silly toy flavor of the month (a month which somehow ended up occupying nearly all of 1985/1986 for me).

Fast-forward to the crazy futuristic year of 2007. An inbred monkey is the president, and while cassette tapes are as dead as Micheal Jackson's career, Transformers are heading back to the box office in CGI goodness. There are product tie-ins galore, lots of toys, and a blockbuster movie. At this point I declare that they have successfully outlasted the tape.

Lending more evidence to that fact was a conversation I had with my son today. First, after teaching him the finer points of Autobots vs. Decepticons, we were looking at a picture of Optimus Prime. So, of course I had to show him my original. Yeah, there it is, first generation goodness. You know you're jealous...



Now, along with Optimus Prime I had some other pretty cool transformers. They were cassette tapes that transformed into animals and robots (ahh, now you see the tie-in coming...).



I showed them to him, and after showing him how they transformed asked: "Have you ever seen tapes like these before? Maybe at Grandma and Grandpa's house?" (there was no way he would have seen one at our house). His answer was a resounding "no". Thus, he had no idea what cassette tapes were even used for, but he knew about transformers starting several years ago (thanks to my toys), and now was even interested in getting some of his own.

Now, just for the heck of it, here's a picture of another favorite kids toy (one that's been well-played with since 1982).