Twincast can bust it better than Blaster ever could!

Ah, the eighties; when people walked around with huge boomboxes up to their ears and no one said boo about it. Today it's all Ipods and...well...Ipods I guess. This behavior was so pervasive there's even a Transformer commercial showing Rumble walking around this way, it's quite hilarious. Of course this is the commercial highlighting Blaster, the transformable boombox. I can't think of any other transformer that so uniquely personifies the eighties in his alt-mode better than Blaster. I guess Swindler might be a good contender but he really doesn't count because (1) he's a micromaster and not very well known and (2) he was released at the very end of the eighties.



But we're not really talking about Blaster here, we're talking about his remold: Twincast. By now, everyone should know who Twincast is from his multiples re-releases and The Headmasters being released for American audiences on DVD recently. But just in case for some reason he's slipped under the radar, Twincast is (spoilers!!!) Blaster's reincarnated version after he was destroyed in the epic battle with Soundwave during The Headmasters TV show (end spoilers). The toys are virtually identical with the exception of being different colors and Twincast sporting the ability to hold two cassettes at once rather than just one. And of course because The Headmasters was a Japanese TV show Twincast is another Japanese G1 exclusive. He was reissued once in 2006 by E-Hobby with a new cassette (Flip-sides) and again in 2012 with two new cassettes (Nightstalker and Stripes). Fortunately due to the influx of reissues the price on the original Twincast has plummeted in recent years but it can still be difficult to find one in nice condition. During the hoopla that was Botcon I was able to snag one from a fellow TFW member at a very reasonable price. The box has seen better days but the figure looks great.

Twincast was originally packaged with Steeljaw who was unaltered from the American release. However as a G1 cassette completionist I'm happy to add the little guy to my collection.

You can barely tell the chest is slightly bigger on Twincast.

So how do I know I didn't get swindled with one of the re-issues? There are a few telltale signs; the 2012 release comes with tampographs instead of stickers and the 2006 version has a darker shade of red throughout the figure. It can be tough to photograph, but when you get them in person the differences are obvious. Since I already had the 2006 version I was able to compare them directly:

The differences are small, but they are there. With Twincast obtained, my quest to replace all my reissues with originals continues! More to come soon...