Sunday, March 18, 2001
CTLP Updated
Bigbot.net added lots of new pages to the already massive listing of fan sites.
-Zac

Saturday, March 17, 2001
Beast Machines Toyline NOT Canceled in the UK
Apparently, someone at Hasbro UK was extremely mixed up. The Beast Machines: Battle for the Spark figures will indeed be shipping over to the UK, but all Beast Wars shipments have been canceled- so basically, the only things that won't be getting over to the UK are a few repaints. Someone within Hasbro UK had the lines mixed up. Thanks to the Matrix for informing us of this retraction.
- Jim

Friday, March 16, 2001
Car Robots Episode 32 Available For Download
Episode 32, The Final Key? Sayonara Ai, is now available for download at Transformer World 2005. Thanks to Tony Bacala once again for getting the episodes up in a timely manner.
-Tim

Friday, March 16, 2001
Apelinq's Journal
Entry number 5 has just been added to the continuing story at Botcon Beyond.
-Zac

Thursday, March 15, 2001
TF Tribute at UGO?
C16LioConvoy of the AllSpark stumbled across some TF related UGO banner ads. The second one can be found here. The first one seems to be for a tribute, and the second one seems to reference ToyFair. It's not clear what this is about just yet, but we'll keep you posted as we find out more.
-Dru

EDIT - Capt Canuck of the AllSpark has informed that the tribute referred to can be found here. And as it turns out, it isn't all that new either. In any case, this is what the advertised tribute is all about.

Thursday, March 15, 2001
Prime NOT Reinstated at UGO
Unfortunately, voting has opened for the latest round at UGO, and Prime is nowhere to be seen. Instead, the lame li'l dwarf guy is still in the voting. It seems that the promise to reinstate Prime as the winner of the voting never went into action. This is a shame, and if you have a complaint to offer, please do so in a civil manner to webmasters@UGO.com.
-Dru

Thursday, March 15, 2001
Robots In Disguise case assortments
Wondering which figures will hit retail first and how many will be there? Mr Ghoul has got you covered. Nice to know the odds before going to every toy aisle in the state trying to be the first to find a new figure...
A minor note is that Blast Punch Primal is included in the Mega assortment. Will he be an RID figure, or simply the last Battle For the Spark? Only time will tell.
-Zac

Wednesday, March 14, 2001
Transformers Statues on the way!
Hasbro has licensed a series of statues directed toward the collectors market. Yes these are official and endorsed by Hasbro. No Kidding.
Not a whole lot about the series thus far. The obvious first bust is of Optimus Prime. No release date has been given, but they promise to release characters from all generations.
-Zac

Tuesday, March 13, 2001
The Return of Optimus Prime....at UGO
UGO.com has realized their error in allowing the Sweet 16 round of the Underground Open to continue after the deadline passed. UGO has decided that whomever was ahead at midnight the final night should have been the winner. Thus, Optimus Prime has won! The greatest Autobot ever DEFEATS Hank the Angry Dwarf. Here is a letter Tony Bacala received from the webmaster at UGO:

Tony,
I got in touch with the IT Department as I was not aware of the rules in terms of when the polls are supposed to close for the fifth round of the Open. It seems that this should have happened hours before it actually did. The end result is that Optimus Prime, your icon, was the winner at the time the polls were supposed to close; thus, we will be reinstating him as soon as possible (this should be done by tomorrow.) Good luck throughout the rest of the race- I hope you will alert Optimus fans that this has taken place. Thanks so much for bringing this to my attention.

Thanks again,
Harris Gazis

Keep your eyes on the Underground Open and help Optimus Prime (when he's finally put up) reign supreme over Jennifer Lopez's butt in the next round.
-Tim

Monday, March 12, 2001
Macromasters at Unicron.com
One of the more creative fans out there, Don Figueroa, has had his creations moved to Unicron. A brand new cover for the web-only comic book is now available.
No new stories or figures as far as i can tell, but if you've never seen these things before, you owe it to yourself to click. His homemade figures make Fortress Maximus look like a midget.
-Zac

Monday, March 12, 2001
Optimus Prime Robbed of Victory?
Tony Bacala at Transformer World 2005 reports that Optimus Prime was cheated of victory against Hank the Angry Dwarf in the Sweet 16 of UGO.com's Underground Open. As the polls were to close on March 11th, Prime was ahead 51% to 49%. Without reason, the polls were kept open today until the afternoon. During his morning show, Howard Stern asked his listeners to log on and vote for Hank. The combination of Stern's promotion and UGO's failure to close the polls have resulted in an undeserved defeat for Optimus Prime by several percent points. If you believe Prime's defeat to be unfair, please lodge a civil complaint to webmasters@UGO.com
-Tim

Monday, March 12, 2001
Beast Wars arrives on DVD from Alliance!
Today is the day we've been waiting years for. The first 7 episodes of Beast Wars are now on DVD. This is a Canadian exclusive, but will work in all Region 1 DVD players. Thats all of North America for the DVD illiterate.
Rhino recently got the US production rights to Beast Wars and Beast Machines. We can't yet say which disc will be better because nothing has been announced just yet. However, it is a safe bet that the US version will at least be closed captioned, as its required by law. This Alliance release has no subtitles, English or otherwise.
-Zac

Disclaimer: TFNews does not endorse Videoflicks, they are simply the only known web retailer to offer this product. But dont buy it because we say so. Buy it because Burt says so.