If any budding pop-culture historians are interested in exactly how this discovery slowly unfolded over the years, here's the scoop: - We first learned about the mysterious "Mysterions" from Jim Shooter's blog post back in 2011. He told us they were transforming robot toys from Knickerbocker, but we didn't know anything else about them! jimshooter.com/2011/06/secret-origin-of-transformers-part-1.html - Then, the 2017 publication of "Toys That Time Forgot" set things rolling. As a Kickstarted book it wasn't widely owned or known about in the fandom, but some select images made their way online showing the "Mysterians," and revealing they were the Autobot Mini-Vehicles. We were able to immediately connect these "Mysterians" and Shooter's "Mysterions" and realise they were the same thing, but the initial assumption - without the text of the book to read - was that they were just an early attempt by Knicerbocker to import Takara toys. twitter.com/chrismcfeely/status/904829034676318211 - The "eureka" moment came in 2019, in a thread on the TFW2005 boards started by poster ClunkerSlim, who had heard about the book and its Mysterians content in a then-recent video from Toy Galaxy. In this course of this thread, the actual text of the book was unearthed, and it became apparent that the toys might have been designed by Knickerbocker after all! See Toy Galaxy's video here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/etx2bNqjutfSmac.html and read the thread that put it all together here: www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/new-theory-after-35-years-brawn-g1-was-not-originally-a-microman-or-diaclone.1179378/

Marvel Productions: Man, these comic people are hacks, these ideas are garbage! Why can't they come up with something unique, like teens having wacky adventures with their dog?

MUFFY AND THE MYSTERIANS sounds like something out of Hanna Barbera.

The whole Minibots being designed by Nickerbocker felt like suddenly learning the earth is flat or some other insane perception shattering thought

'A robots best friend is his dog'. I'm sure Thundercracker approves.

The lore of the actual creation of this franchise is starting to rival the lore of the aligned continuity in terms of confusing elements.

“Mom, can we see transformers?” “No, we got transformers at home” *transformers at home*

Dennis Mark's family must think he's insufferable too. "Do you have to bring your dog with you to Thanksgiving?" "He's family!" "He's been taxidermied"

"Did you get any answers, Optimus?" "Yes, and they only led to more questions!"

That early Cliffjumper design kind of looks like his Animated incarnation... and that early Bumblebee’s head looks like Waspinator!

The purple colour and Prowl-like shadow in the Muffy cartoon, could retroactively be Barricade. That Bumblebee design with the insect looking head really gives an Animated Wasp vibe.

I've always loved the messy, jumbled nature of the origins of Transformers as a franchise. A handful of separate Japanese transforming robot toy lines, each with their own unique and weird origins, all thrown in the same boat and shipped off to America, eventually becoming a nearly four decade global phenomenon with six Hollywood films, a dozen or so television shows, hundreds of comics, and *thousands* of toys.

So wait. Does this mean that the characters that would become Huffer, Brawn, Gears and Windcharger were originally created in America for Mysterians before being sent to Japan to be used for Micro Change and then back to America again for the Transformers?! Wow. My brain is numb.

That explains why only *some* of the Autobot mini-cars look like Choro-Q / Penny Racers.

I'm not going to lie, that thing about the "M" blew my slagging mind. Really questioning my entire reality now.

I feel very proud to be a part of a fandom that can boast academics like Chris McFeely. Truly, you are the best of us!

Speaking of the Godzilla connection with the name "Mysterians," it's actually kind of funny that the Dave Cockrum comic was renamed to "Futurians," because that name would later be used by Toho as the name for a group of time travelling antagonists of 1991's Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, and even more so when later in that film series, the Futurians' technology would be reverse engineered to create that continuity's versions of both Mechagodzilla, and (drum roll please) Moguera, the giant robot originally controlled by the titular aliens of the very film from which Knickerbocker had ripped off the title for their canned transforming robot toys that were the focus of this episode! XD

The lighter had his own anime. Of course he did.

Now I cannot unsee. Even when we do not see Chris's face or body actions. We all know for a fact. Even doing all other Transformers basics. He is talking with his hands.

Me:"Mom can we get g1 bumblebee" Mom "No we have g1 bumblebee at home" G1 bumblebee at home:

This was an incredible look into the formerly unseen "Pre-History" of The Transformers. Thanks for compiling all of this information into one convenient source. Also, the dynamic between DC and Marvel even as far back as the late 1970s is comical. Marvel Productions was completely obsessed with goofy kids and dogs, while DC entered the 1990s early, and apparently never left with how "dark," "brooding" and otherwise "edgy" they keep trying to make their movies.

Anybody else really dig this format? Chris should do a TED talk.

The fact that bee's design is a literal bee robot, not just a mecha like takara's design, makes me think the micro change line in it's entirety was derived from the early Muffy, Mysterians, ect. The engineering, physically as in the toys themselves, being japanese designs, hence why credited as being takara designs. But the concept and appearance being that of US creation, i',m guessing takara saw the designs as reminiscent of their ChoroQ line (Penny Racers in the US) And decided to license and market them in japan as a choroQ Spiritual successor.

I had "Enforcer" as a kid, and I loved that transforming black box. I used to stare at the card back and pine away for the other characters, but my folks could never find more. The one I had came out of a Canadian discount store. I have been searching for 20 years now, ever since I became a collector to find it and the others and I always came up with nothing. Shrugs and empty stares when I would describe a black box to other collectors. THANK YOU FOR THIS.

THIS IS THE VOICE OF THE MYSTERIANS. WE KNOW THAT YOU CAN HEAR US EARTH MEN.

just when toy think you know everything about Transformers, Mcfeely pulls something weird out of the bag!!!

Great stuff, Chris. Never been to TFNation, but I feel like I've sat through a panel for real!

I knew a fair bit going in from tfwiki and the like, but this was totally insane. Every twist had me going "THEY DID WHAT?". I only managed to catch the first half, so I'm excited to see what's to come.

Chris McFeely of Transformers: The Basics and Dan Larson of Toy Galaxy know each other! I would be excited to hear a crossover or a discussion between these two toy enthusiasts.

This looks like the Go-Bot/Micronaut crossover that nobody asked for.

All roads will lead to dogs. - Dennis Marks, enthusiastically.

McFeely needs to be brought on as a consultant for future shows, movies, games, comics, etc, its wild how well educated this dude is 👌

It's amazing....we didn't realize it at the time, but the late 70s/early 89s were a true cultural renaissance. Think of what came out of it....Star Wars, Transformers, GI Joe, He Man. Name me one person on this planet who doesn't know Optimus Prime and Darth Vader. Never will there ever be a better time than then.

"Mysterians" turned out to be a rather prophetic name, it seems.

Just when you think the origins of this multi-generational franchise couldn't get any stranger, it gets a whole lot stranger and THIS is not only strange but it's incredibly insightful. A shame this never happened even if it does come across as a tad "of the time" phase especially the inclusion of a dog buddy. But man, Muffy and the Mysterians sounds like it should have been a thing, probably not associated with Transformers but purely on it's own as there is some kind of unique if not weird charm to it that feels like it would fit right at home with every other cartoon of the 80's. As ever Chris this is amazing stuff!

they look like characters from Cars, but just transformers

“Okay did you get the story we sent for you to make an animation of?” “Yes but i can do way better” Thats not what we asked but okay, tell me about it.” “So it’s about these kids and their dog” “God damn it”

Hasbro: can we see your pitch Marvel productions: sure Hasbro: . . . This is the EXACT same pitch as the last two times, and both times we said no Marvel productions: actually we’ve tried making this for other toys too . . . Hasbro: I’m burning this pitch.

It's amazing how much of the Bumblebee movie resembles all this new information about the origins of the franchise, even more so if it's all by pure coincidence. Muffy and Bee being VW Beetles; the focus on a girl, two boys and a dog; Bee's battle helmet being surprisingly similar to his face on that 1983 concept art; and even the irradiated electronics on that deleted scene that look somewhat more like retro-styled robots, just like the Mysterians did! And I really hope to hear more from you about this subject once new discoveries are made about it!

Woah - the sculpted M suddenly makes so much sense now

Imagine having a character called Muffy. That's gotta sell well in the UK.

DePatie: These ideas are all trash! also DePatie: endlessly recreates the Scooby Do formula; tries to turn Transformers into Speed Buggy.

I actual watched the live stream for this, never seen Chris before... he's too beautiful for this world.

I'm a huge Transformers fan, and I'm trying to learn more whenever I can, and this was so fun and educational, about something that I never knew that I wanted to learn about. Thank you for this awesome segment, and please do make more content like this, along with MORE BASICS😅 I've watched through all of them and I'm thursty for more

The information about Murphy and the Mysterians is very interesting. I hope we can get a "Nintendo Gigaleak" version of Transformers and the secret that Hasbro locked away someday.

Will say, I woke up at 4am on a Sunday morning (where I am) just to see Chris present this live at TF Nation. Totally worth it and now I want some of those blocky bots!

This has been eye opening chris, cos incidently not that long ago toy galaxy did a video about that show where a teen turns into a car (turbo teen i think it was called), and i could swear dan mentioned that muffy was an early concept of that cartoon

A part of me wants to see “Car and Cable” revisited in a future TF series. Maybe if it was an alternate universe, or a goofy show that humans watched based on the transformers within that series. I dunno, maybe Muffy could be best friends with Bumblebee if that happened.

Aren't the Mysterians those space incels who tried to conquer the world with giant mole robots? Edit: It's more pronounced Maw-gir-uh, from what I recall P:

Can I just say, as someone who lives in a country that doesn't have any Transformers conventions, how awesome it's been over these last couple of days to engage, at least in some way, in an actual convention. Thanks Chris and everyone else involved for all the work you've put into making this happen. There's still the issue of time zones, but hey, that's life in the southern hemisphere for you.

This does raise other questions, such as how is it that these minibots scale so exactly with bumblebee and cliffjumper, and were they ever intended to be deformed ‘penny racer’ style toy cars like the Takara toys or are they meant to depict full size vehicles in their alt modes..

I had "Major Repair" as a kid. It was a surprisingly fun toy considering it turned into a box. Kind of an old school Wall-E.

This is all really interesting stuff. I like it a lot. It really changes how I look at Brawn, Huffer, Windcharger and Gears. And yeah, I think the M on them stands for Mysterians.

Good God you just solved a decades old childhood toy mystery for me. I had two of the Marchon figures as a kid (the black sphere and the yellow box). They have long since disappeared from my possession, but I still remember them. I’ve thought about them and searched for information about them from time to time but have never been able to find a name to associate with them. Until now. Thank you, sir!

I remember the yellow Mysterian. Several kids had it. They were sold at Family Dollar.

Transformers the ever growing patchwork quilt of toy ideas and concepts. Always nice finding more details on the inner workings behind the scenes. Didn't realize we came so close to having something completely different to what we got, or at least another Scooby clone. As always another great video. :)

I guess maybe it wasn't a coincidence that MOGUERA could transform when it was brought back in Godzilla vs Spacegodzilla

17:51 I had to pull out my Gears and you've just blown my mind. So much for M standing for Microchange.

There's a universe out there where this was the big hit of the 80s, revived in the 90s, 2000s, and so on. Michael Bay presents Car and Cable!

I actually had one of these toys in my mix of G1 Transformers ...Gobots...McToys ....and Zybots. I had the triangular shaped one...interesting info on the mini cars...yea as far as I knew it was supposed to be from microchange but that is an interesting take the M may be for Mysterians. Hmmm another thought....is that why IDW had included a dog companion for Thundercracker in their series.

Mysterians! Oh my gosh, Chris, you've unlocked a long-discarded part of my memories! I owned Blastar/Bomber... the red one with the face... and used to use it in my childhood TF games all the time. I have a feeling he often played the role of Death's Head, believe it or not, post "Wanted: Galvatron - Dead or Alive!". This was, as always, a great video. Thanks for your hard work and insight.

I must say, "We Don't Know" is starting to feel like a catchphrase

Meanwhile, on Earth 2, Warner Bros. is about to release the 7th installment of the critically panned but multi-billion-dollar Mysterian film franchise started years ago by director Joel Schumacher. (too soon?) ;P

Wow Chris. I was fascinated by this and caught myself going "Wow!" a few times. But the end, when you showed the released version of the Mysterians my head almost exploded. I had that blue one in the bottom center as a kid. I never knew what it was. I had forgotten about it until I watched this. I always thought it was supposed to be a garage door opener! Thanks for that bit of nostalgic rush.

Brilliant, when you think you know the history of your favourite toy line, this throws it up in the air, excellent video.

Whenever I think I already know too much about Transformers, Chris is here to shove more info into my brain. Great video I really enjoyed it a lot.

If it came to pass, we could be calling Bumblebee as Muffler and he alone might take the spotlight instead of Optimus and the rest of the Transformers cast. But i think making Muffler have a separate cartoon is not a bad idea.

This was a really interesting episode. You think you know your toys, but then you see things like this. Wow, wow, wow! As a kid, you just enjoyed the adventures your Transformers went on. As adult, you enjoy learning about the adventures in market and development. Thank you so much for the time and effort you put into this.

There the cousins no one talks about at the family reunion

The man behind the ICONIC voice! 😘💕🇵🇭

Me as a kid in the 80's: all these transformers are soooooo cool Me now looking back at the same toys: man, these are godawful

Chris, this was absolutely fascinating! I've no idea how long this took you to research but bravo sir, bravo!

I was so surprised when your Face Cam was shown cause I've never seen your face before.

These seem like knockoffs but were probably almost licensed

Is the volkswagen beetle robot supposed to be bug bite? Also, are the tiny orange squares supposed to be eyes on the windshield just like the movie "cars"?

Mind. Blown. Unbelievable how these toys which have become iconic still have secrets hiding in plain sight..

I hope Hasbro will make Figures of Muffy and The mysterions in their Vision of the Transformers.

I could listen to this all day. In fact, so far I have!

Man I love this kind of obscure history. I wish we knew more about the history of these two projects. Great “panel” Chris!

Oh my head hurts! Muffy?! How utterly fascinating! Thank you for putting together!

If anyone is searching for a Synthwave retro 80s band name, here's your sign.

Gold Lightan... I remember him from Tatsunoko vs Capcom on Wii. Fun game.

I was gutted when I got back to the big broadcast half way through this presentation, so thank you loads for putting it up so quick.

I still have 4 of these figures. It's nice to learn the history behind them. The link to Transformers is amazing. Muffy looks a bit like the Gobot Bug Bite too.

Thank you Chris, this was some of your best work and a real highlight of ‘The Big Broadcast of 2020’! 🙂

This is extremely fascinating to a long time Transformers fan like me. Thanks for sharing the story with us!

This begs the question of how many product lines we think as knockoffs at the dollar store are in reality prototypes, abandoned, side product lines from beloved franchised. I remember having some of these that my grand father found in god-knows where discount bin in the early 80’s.

What amuses me throughout this whole lost period was how the two Marvel companies were not getting along at all and that it was this primary internal conflict of interest that determined whether or not Car & Cable or the Transformers as we would know it would come to pass. Hasbro was pretty much at the mercy of Marvel here, a far cry from these days when Marvel practically no longer has a say in Hasbro’s workings. That said it would be neat if Muffy and the other characters would be incorporated into Transformers proper. Like make Muffy a full Autobot to be part of the young child crowd of the audience or something.

I absolutely love the incredulity in his voice every time the dog thing comes up

I love it when Chris does the real-world history/behind-the-scenes videos. He's like the cool teacher we wish we had ❤ Side note; Does anyone else want a third-party company to make Mysterian toys?

Chris - This is really amazing work! Great job! 👍🏼 The M one the Minibots blew my mind.

That bumblebee sketch looks like Waspinator

That is so crazy. I clicked on this video because I recognized the toy designs. I had two of them that I got for my birthday one year. Probably 1985. I had the Tank commander and the one that was Goldar. Amusingly they found their way back into Transformers lore as part of my childhood play pattern where they served as either cannon fodder Decepticons or more of Wheeljack's crazy inventions. Back then, I also noticed the similarity of the "M" on their sticker and the one sculpted on my Autobot minibots. Fantastic video.

Could you do a video on the action masters, there's probably nothing their, I just think a video about the series of toys conciderd the toys that "killed the original transformers franchise" would be interesting.

Wow. That's an amazing deep dive on the early days of the transforming toy craze. I acutely had one of those Mysterians the Secret Force toys (the black sphere) shown at the end of the video. I just assumed it was another of the deluge of cheap transformer knock-offs that cropped up back then, like the Converters or the Parasites from Matchbox. Wish I'd hung on to it, now.

I was watching this on my Amazon Fire TV but I hopped on my laptop just so I could comment on this. This video was fascinating, Chris. Started out interesting but when you started talking about the tie-ins to TF history, blew my mind. Thank you for putting this together!

Thank you for this interesting transformers lore! Great Stuff as always!

Absolutely loved this little documentary! Well done, Chris.

Digging the deep dive you did in the history of transformers . Very cool information and thanks for this panel

Yay thank you for putting this on KZfaq! I knew i'd forget to check out the live stream. This is mind-blowing stuff! There always seems to be a clueless executive in these origin stories. Writers: "So these everyday objects turn into evil robots, and these vehicles turn into heroic robots, and they're all from space and are at war and..." Executive: "Mm hmm, mm hmm...but we need a funny dog"