Joustra
Joustra was a French toy company, a subsidiary of Ceji, that held the license to market Diaclone and Micro Change toys in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. In 1985, Hasbro Bradley introduced the Transformers brand to continental Europe through their subsidiary Milton Bradley (MB), including the countries where Joustra had been the Diaclone licensee. During 1984 and 1985, Joustra continued to sell toys under the Diaclone brand, but by then Takara was mainly focused on producing Transformers-branded toys for the North American market; as a result, some toys with factory-applied Autobot or Decepticon stickers were sold in Joustra Diaclone packaging.
Joustra and Diaclone
Joustra and Transformers
Connection between Milton Bradley and Joustra
A theory (based on hard evidence) suggests that most, if not all of the second wave of the MB-branded Transformers toys were originally intended for Joustra.
Because Joustra's parent company, Ceji, was in financial trouble in 1985, Hasbro/MB acquired Joustra's existing Diaclone stock and had Joustra put the toys into newly created Transformers packaging, which would then be distributed by MB. This would explain why the second wave of Joustra Diaclone toys (which became wave 2 of the MB-branded Transformers toys) is so rare compared to the first one. It also explains why Optimus Prime was originally absent from the MB line-up, as any toy released by Joustra was off-limits for MB due to Joustra's exclusive contract with Takara until the Joustra/MB deal allowed for those toys to be released as Transformers as well. This resulted in several oddities, such as the MB version of Tracks being red (the toy's original Diaclone colors) instead of blue (the regular Transformers version's colors), Thundercracker being sold in Starscream packaging with Starscream's sticker sheet, and, most bizarrely, Sunstreaker (whose toy, in its yellow Hasbro Transformers color scheme, was part of Joustra's Diaclone line-up), being sold in Sideswipe packaging with Sideswipe's instructions and sticker sheet.
The same theory also suggests that several MB toys (in particular, Optimus Prime and Megatron) were explicitly manufactured by another Ceji subsidiary, Revell, as part of the same deal. Ceji continued to manufacture toys for Hasbro/MB, such as the Insecticons and unique yellow versions of the Constructicons (not to be confused with the later, non-combining European releases of the Constructicons or the Generation 2 versions), which were released in Europe in packaging sporting Hasbro's rather than MB's logo.
External links
- Overview of Joustra's iteration of the Diaclone franchise at TF1.com (archived)
- Articles on various Joustra Diaclone toys at TF1.com (archived)
- Articles at 20th Century Toy Collector: MB Transformers part 2, MB Transformers part 4 (including the MB/Joustra connection), part 5, part 6
- French Connection
- French Transformers
