Optimus Who? Take That, Michael Bay
Are you heading to the movie theaters this weekend to catch giant angry robots smashing puny humans and their puny infrastructure? Tribune Media Services humor columnist Mark Bazer, a friend of the Bastion via Schadenfreude, probably is not. He never got the hype the first time around, but then again, he admits he was a little distracted in the early 80's with some other, less-than-cool plaything obsessions.
"...to my ears, the name 'Optimus Prime' sounds like a character a third-grader might create for a fiction-writing assignment that he'll years later dig out of the closet and laugh with slight embarrassment. Unlike, say, the name Boba Fett, which clearly sprung from the mind of a fully grown genius.
"When the Transformers first hit it big, my friends and I were too busy playing with those troll dolls known as Norfins, even going so far as to dress them in clothes we ripped off stuffed Garfields and stole from Spencer's Gifts. But that's a story for another time. Suffice to say, if you're a boy playing dress-up with dolls, one way to save face is to shoplift the outfits.
