This is the main event for the toy industry every year. For weeks now, companies have been blitzing us with reveals and teasers in a PR campaign to gain position in the minds of the public. I’ll be attempting to cover as much news as I can this weekend. This post will be preserved as an index for all Toy Fair related news. As I write and update articles, this post will be updated with a link to each story.

Toy Fair 2011: NECA debuts Gremlins 2, Gears of War, Bioshock, Duke Nukem and more
Toy Fair 2011: Mattel’s DC products; DCUC, Young Justice, JLU, Batman Legacy Line
Toy Fair 2011: Barbie and Ken back together again
Toy Fair 2011: Thundercats from Bandai
Toy Fair 2011: Masters of the Universe Classics (MOTUC)
Toy Fair 2011: Optimus Prime gets a parking ticket
Toy Fair 2011: BifBangPow! teases new Venture Bros. figures and more
Toy Fair 2011: GI Joe SDCC 2011 Exclusive Starscream Skystriker with Cobra Commander
Toy Fair 2011: Hasbro Event Presentation

Pre Toy Fair Announcement and News
Toy Fair 2011: Pre Toy Fair reveals for Hasbro’s Transformers
Toy Fair 2011: Pre Toy Fair Announcement of Walking Dead action figure line
Toy Fair 2011: Bandai press release for upcoming Thundercats products

After polls were taken on many fan message boards over the past week, Dragstrip has come out on top to become the next figure revealed in the exclusive box set for this year’s Botcon. I did not see this coming, but Dragstrip uses the Animated Arcee mold. So yes, Dragstrip is female. The Arcee head in the correct Dragstrip colors looks strangely right.

The Botcon twitter feed also added this quote:

“Think the names funny?One more crack and I’ll DRAG you out in to the street and STRIP you down to your motherboard, one slice at a time!”

  

In a wave of multi-site reveals on Monday, many of the new figures for Transformers Prime debuted along with the next Optimus Prime figure based on the franchise’s forthcoming third movie, Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

Clearly capitalizing on the buzz from the premiere of the Transformers 3 trailer during the Super Bowl the day before, Hasbro gave Brian Truitt of USA Weekend the exclusive on the first figure from the Transformers Prime toy line, Arcee. Arcee will be a deluxe figure and should be hitting retail at the beginning of October. This tends to guarantee the summer releases will focus on the movie, but will not be dragged out quite so long as the Revenge of the Fallen line had. (But I’ve been wrong before!)

 

Continue after the jump for many more revelations!
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As in “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”.

Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

Who would have thought a My Little Pony show could be good? Well probably a bunch of little girls, but I’ll tell you who didn’t expect it was this 32 year old man who was already into more girl shows than he should, but in 2010 Hasbro’s new channel The Hub put a new twist on My Little Pony with the new Friendship is Magic series. After playing only 14 episodes the show has gained quite a following from viewers far outside of it’s target demographic of 5 year old girls.

It’s hard to describe just what makes this show so great, but it is instantly recognised when watched. The visuals are top notch. The show is animated in flash, but unlike what many have come to expect from flash animation, it does not do so to render cheap looking visuals, but has top notch animators putting a great deal of work into making it look great.

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When Transformers Prime finally premieres on February 11 at 6:30PM on The Hub, it appears we will be meeting a new character named Skyquake. Of course all characters in Transformers Prime are new characters with this being the start of a new continuity possibly involving the events from the Transformers Exodus novel and War For Cybertron game (despite numerous contradictions in story). Skyquake isn’t a new name in Transformers history though. The most significant role of Skyquake was leader of the Predators, a faction of Decepticons. He made a brief cameo in IDW’s Last Stand of the Wreckers before being killed by Overlord.

His one-line bio reads: “Entombed in stasis on Earth until exhumed by Starscream; however, pledges allegiance to only his ‘one true master,’ Megatron.”

I’m glad to see more actual characters being added to the cast. I’m not sure how many more scenes of mute Decepticlones I can take.

TVShowsonDVD is reporting that the tv series Challenge of the Gobots is being worked on as a future release from the Warner Archive group. According to the site, a fan named Nick Simmons asked some pretty direct questions on the Warner Archive Collection (WAC) fan page on Facebook. Here is what was said:

Nick – Do you own the rights to Hanna-Barbera’s Challenge of the GoBots cartoon series or its movie GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords? I’d really like to see both on DVD some day.
WAC – The GoBots are heading your way soon!
Nick – Sweet, both the series and the movie then?
WAC – At this point, just the series…..

So why is this significant? This is the main series that went head to head with Hasbro’s Transformers in the 80’s. While Transformers was first with their Marvel comic, GoBots managed to premiere its animated series before the Transformers. Several years ago Hasbro acquired Tonka, the company who brought Bandai’s Machine Robo toys stateside and developed the line into the GoBots brand. It was believed that acquisition included the rights to the animated series, but in recent times that has been brought into question with the possibility that Warner Bros. might actually own those rights since they acquired Hanna-Barbera, the animation house who developed the cartoon itself. No details regarding time frame, pricing or really anything else are known, but the news is sure to please fans.

Here he is, making his fourth Botcon exclusive appearance. Breakdown uses the Animated Rodimus mold with a newly retooled head. I’m hoping we get a G2 version in a souvenir set or attendee exclusive!

  

Looks like I was wrong about Transformers in 3-D. The Botcon website has just revealed the first figure in the 2011 Exclusive Box set. It will be a repainted Animated Jazz as Stunticon Dead End. The theme of the set looks like it will be all five Stunticons in Animated form. Derrick Wyatt, the lead designer on Transformers Animated has assisted greatly with art and design for the site.