Nasta

Nasta was a U.S. company that manufactured a number of electronic radios for licensed brands including G.I. Joe, Smurfs, Barbie and the Rockers, and V under their Power-Tronic line.

In the 1980s, they released several licensed electronic toys (and even a non-electronic product) under the Transformers brand. You clearly shouldn't take their toys to bath… except maybe for the sunglasses.

Although the majority of Nasta's Transformers toys were ostensibly based on existing characters, all of which were released as toys by Hasbro, an odd coloring choice for two of their toys, combined with an equally odd labeling decision, inadvertently resulted in the creation of a new character more than 20 years later.

Merchandise

Autobots Electronic Intercom Telephone System (Optimus Prime) Robot AM Radio (Optimus Prime) Electronic Helmet (Optimus Prime) Tech Specometer Eleven AM Radio ("Freedom Fighter") Mini Headset Radio ("Freedom Fighter") AM Personal Wrist Radio Sunglasses Pulsating Light AM Radio (Ultra Magnus) Electronic Voice Synthesizer (Ultra Magnus)

Decepticons AM Wireless Microphone (Megatron) Electronic Voice Changer ("Enemy") AM Radio & Headset ("Enemy")

Notes

• Both the Decepticon-aligned "Electronic Voice Changer" and the "AM Radio & Headset" are styled after the Generation 1 Rumble/Frenzy design, but the colors are based on the unused alternate Micro Change color scheme for the figure. This, combined with the fact that both toys were given the somewhat bizarre designation "Enemy", in the same location where Hasbro's toys would have the character's name, resulted in many fans treating both toys as representations of an actual character named "Enemy", just like the Autobot-aligned "AM Radio" and "Mini Headset Radio" toys were both given the designation "Freedom Fighter". In 2012, TakaraTomy canonized Enemy as an official character that has two toys released thus far, both of them redecos of existing Rumble/Frenzy figures. However, it's not entirely clear if it was actually Nasta's intention to have those toys represent a separate character named "Enemy"—after all, the "AM Wireless Microphone", which was very unmistakably supposed to represent Megatron, was also identified as "Decepticon—Enemy", although in that case, that entire designation was treated as its faction (or faction/function, just like the actual Hasbro Megatron toy is labeled "Decepticon Leader" in the same manner), whereas the "character" was simply called… "Microphone". Yeaaaaaah.
• Aside from the microphone, both the "Pulsating Light AM Radio" and the "Electronic Voice Synthesizer", which are both clearly designed to represent Ultra Magnus, don't identify the character by name either, and neither does the "Robot AM Radio", which is clearly designed to represent Optimus Prime. All of them are simply given the faction "Heroic Autobot", with no character name given. In fact, the only Nasta toy that actually does feature an existing character's name is the "Electronic Intercom Telephone System", which identifies the character as "Optimus Prime".
• RadioShack released a slightly-modified version of Nasta's Robot AM Radio, as originally patterned after Optimus Prime, named the "Radio Bot AM Robot Radio". Changes from the Nasta release included a white robot head with no antennae, a "Radio Bot" sticker in place of the Transformers logo sticker, and an altered pattern for the large Autobot symbol on the figure's chest.<ref>Comparison between Nasta's licensed and RadioShack's unlicensed Robot AM Radios</ref>

References

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