couldn’t understand a thing they said

The synergetic entertainment/marketing blockbuster that is the Transformers movie opens today. While I have no desire to submit myself to a widescreen assault of Michael Bay-isms and blatant product placements, the film’s premiere does present me with the opportunity to spotlight my affection for the gloriousness that is Cosmos.

I was twelve years old when the first generation of Transformers debuted in the States, which meant I was old enough to achieve escape velocity from the multimedia hard sell surrounding the toy line. Though I didn’t care about the ready-made Transformers mythos, which seemed rather puerile even from a kid’s eye level, I was fascinated by the sleek, angular designs of the toys themselves which dovetailed nicely with my growing appreciation of giant robo anime (where many of the early Transformers designs were “borrowed” from). I was especially fond of the Mini-Bot figures at the low end of the line’s price range, which combined affordability with an inspired sense of oddness, and none were as delightfully odd as Cosmos.

The extremely retro flying saucer vehicle mode…

…the awkward-looking (Maura says “absurd”) robot mode…

…and the garish red, green, and yellow color scheme that evokes both an Eastern Bloc design aesthetic and a commitment to pan-Africanism… What’s not to love? It’s as if some cheapjack Japanese toy from the early 1960’s managed to sneak its way into a hip, happening American franchise of the mid-1980’s, and I can totally get behind that concept (being somewhat unstuck in time myself).

When I went of a vintage robot toy buying spree in the late 1990’s, Cosmos was at the top of my wish list. (My original toy had gotten lost, along with most of my childhood junk, during the Great Upheaval of 1988.) The replacement version now occupies a place of honor on my computer desk, and it occasionally moonlights as a kicky chapeau for Oscar the Pughuahua.

Concept sketches for a deluxe edition update of Cosmos were displayed at Botcon (an event I envision resembling the circle of hell reserved for thirty-something victims of arrested childhood), but the newfangled designs lacked the simple appeal of the original’s and resembled a cross between a paramilitary Frisbee and a next-gen anti-personnel mine. (I still would have bought one, though.)

Billy Lee Riley and His Little Green Men – Flyin’ Saucers Rock & Roll (from Red Hot: The Best of Billy Lee Riley, 1999) - Take me to your juke joint, earthman. I feel the urge to wail on my space-sax. Update: Because I was behind in my blog reading, I didn't realize that AM, Then FM posted Sleepy LaBeef's excellent 1979 cover of this song on July 1st. Great minds think alike, yadda yadda and so forth.

Violent Femmes – Eep Opp Ork Ah Ah (Means I Love You) (from Saturday Morning Cartoons’ Greatest Hits, 1995) - Jet Screamer! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!