My friend Calvin recently started working at Jay's CD & Hobby in Des Moines - a place that carries tons of new and vintage action figures.  I asked him to keep his eyes open for a complete original Optimus Prime a few weeks ago.  Last night he called to tell me they had one.

I went up and bought it - it was in good condition though it could use some cleaning (it is 20 years old after all) and some of the stickers are peeling (though there are sites that sell reproduction stickers for them).

What's funny though is how much *cheaper* the original Transformers look than we remember them.

About a year ago, I bought a 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime - a deluxe figure put out designed to look as much like the Optimus from the cartoon series as possible.  You see, what most people don't realize is that the toys were out before the cartoon, so the cartoon modified the design of the toys to be more visually appealing.  As time has passed, we tend to remember the look of the cartoon as being the same as the toys, which they really weren't.

In the picture above, the 20th Prime is on the left, while the original is on the right.  It's so much simpler!  The 20th prime takes nearly 30 steps to transform, while the original is around 5 steps.  To transform the original, you actually have to pull the hands off of the figure - who remembers that?  I certainly didn't.

I've had friends over who have seen my 20th Prime out and said "Yeah, I remember having that figure as a kid!"  Nope, that's just how we remember it.

Like I said, I bought the original figure anyways.  It may not be as cool as the new figure, but I've always had a soft-spot for Optimus.  Having the figure on my desk reminds me of when I was little, putting the Optimus figure on lay-away at Richmond Gordman and waiting what felt like years to pay it off and take it home. 

The original Prime once transformed.