Do you recognise any of these guys?
I’ve been in this hobby for about 20 years already which means I’ve been around for the beginning of YouTube… and the birth of toy reviewers. Obviously, I watched mostly Transformers reviews.
Man, I remember watching some of these YouTube channels on Windows XP. The old YouTube layout looked cutting edge for the time and you could watch pirated series pretty much non-stop without any problems!
Actually scratch that because I just remembered anything longer than 10 minutes had to be cut into parts. There’s a nostalgic charm to that but it was annoying back in the day.
Enough with my old man ramblings! Here’s some of the Transformers channels that I used to watch as a kid!
1) MatrixPrime
MatrixPrime is probably the first Transformers reviewer I started watching back in around 2006… or was it 2007? His reviews on the Classics and 2007 Movie figures were detailed to the point where they’d probably be considered video essays now. Seriously, I think his 2007 Deluxe Bumblebee review ran for like 20 minutes.
The reviews that amazed me the most back in the day were his Animated reviews. I think he got them early off eBay… by about 6 months or so. His review made me get Animated Voyager Starscream as soon as he came out in my country.
Getting stuff way earlier than its official release date blew my mind as a kid… but it totally doesn’t happen anymore, right?
2) Bikertrashwolf
Bikertrashwolf was probably my favourite Transformer reviewer and YouTube channel for quite a while. His video reviews were all really entertaining and didn’t feel like reviews… they felt more like forum posts but in video form.
While I have fond memories of watching a bunch of his video reviews, my favourite of his reviews was his review on Classics Deluxe Optimus Prime. He hated that thing so much he made an extra long review and skit that had me rolling, laughing on the floor.
Come to think of it, I still haven’t gotten a copy of that Optimus for myself…
3) Nightslash2020
Nightslash2020 changed his name to TFX Productions at some point and that’s the channel’s name right now. He does stop-motion videos using Transformers and his series had some sprawling lore back in the day.
Keep in mind this was all the way back in like 2007 to 2009. That’s nuts to think about.
I stopped watching after his original series of stories finished… but I checked back and he’s been making videos non-stop to this very day. I’m probably going to go check his new stuff out when I have enough free time.
4) Peaugh
Peaugh has been and will probably always be a mainstay of the Transformers YouTube community. I’ve been watching his videos since his review on the ROTF Leader Optimus Prime which was before the launch of the movie and before the launch of the toyline.
His reviews convinced me to get the ROTF Voyager Starscream before any other figures in the ROTF line. I remember obsessively watching his videos from ROTF all the way up to when the Prime stuff was released.
He still makes videos regularly even today and his videos are useful to use as reference for any questions you have on a figure you want to buy. However, he’s usually not the first to get his hands on figures like he used to be which is a bit of a bummer.
5) Stopmotionjr
This one makes me a bit sad… the guy didn’t die or anything bad but he set all his old Transformers videos to private for some reason. Now you can’t view any of his old Transformer reviews and stop-motion series.
That’s a shame because I remember them being pretty well done and being completely finished by the time he made them unavailable. I distinctly remember one video review where he showed off a signed ROTF Leader Optimus Prime… and then proceeded to open it for his review.
The absolute madlad.
6) SEANxLONG
I’ll be honest, of all the toy review channels on this list, Sean was probably the one I watched the least. Still, when I was obsessively watching Transformers reviews, I watched pretty much everything available at the time.
Which meant Sean and that’s why he’s on the list.
He was a toy review channel more than a Transformers review channel which meant he was reviewing stuff like Marvel figures before that became popular… and frankly oversaturated. I also remember that he was the only channel that had a review for ROTF Supreme Devastator out for awhile for some reason.
7) Actartoys
Actar is a bit of a unique case for this list. He did do Transformers reviews… but I mostly watched his old Digimon reviews since they were the only ones on YouTube back in the day.
Actar is still making videos on YouTube now and he’s also an active contributor on TFW2005. Honestly, I think he’s most active there and his written toy reviews are pretty fun too.
8) My Little Transformer
I’m going to say it now, these videos are probably the reason why my sense of humour is a bit off. My Little Transformer was a series of videos on YouTube from all the way back in like 2006 to 2007 that felt way ahead of their time.
They felt like video shitposts in the best way possible.
I don’t know what happened to the original uploads but there are scattered episodes all around YouTube that you can still watch. Honestly, if they stuck around long enough for the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic boom, this series would have probably been extremely popular too.
Closing
Some of these guys are still active and some aren’t… which is kinda sad honestly. Still, it’s always fun to go back to rewatch their old videos and I hope their channels stay up for the foreseeable future.
Heh, I wonder how long I’ll keep this site and my reviews going?
Starscream's Vizier 