Voltron Central :: A Voltron Fan Site and Fan List

My Voltron Journey

I've got a how-I-became-a-fan page on my Thundercats page, so I figured...why not do that here, too? Well, this is it!

FAN LONGEVITY

As if you can't tell by my age (if you've checked my personal site) I'm one of those "first gen" fans. In the mid-80s I was just on the cusp of junior high school and was into all sorts of toons. Certain ones stuck with me and Voltron was a big one.

I was in the fanclub (still have some of the letters and stuff), had many of the toys & books, and was one of few kids who actually LIKED vehicle voltron ;) I don't know, I liked VV's storyline better for some reason.

Time, puberty and life took its toll and Voltron was forgotten during the drama that was high school. It wasn't until 97 or so when USA was showing re-runs - and I was digging my old toys out of my parents' attic - that I got socked with a flood of nostalgia. Not much happened at that point other than watching like a junkie in secret hoping nobody would discover my embarrassing "habit" (much like my Thundercats awakening, I felt ridiculous being all grown up and getting that darn excited over a kid's show!)
If I did get "caught" I had the plan to blame pregnancy hormones for the insanity. It also seemed a lot cheesier than I remembered it, but darnit...nostalgia is a high you can't match! I also remember hoping really super hard they would show just ONE rerun of the vehicle eps...just ONCE. But alas, they never did : / It would be a few more years before I'd ever see that show again. I never did catch the V3D wave, either.

Twasn't til years later, in 2001, that I got on the internet and started looking up my old fave toons online. Voltron was among them and I hit many fansites around at the time. Dave Bingham's Stellar Ship Explorer site rocked my socks because he was among very very few at the time who gave poor VV not only two cents of attention, but a whole lotta love. God bless ya, Dave! It was my first taste of that series since the 80s. I started making my Thundercats site, which was mostly fan fic and my crappy art at the time, but also included a sidenote on Voltron and MOTU. It was all LV oriented back then (mostly scans from my old memorabilia I'd saved and dorky observations), because I hadn't seen a VV ep in almost 20 years and didn't remember squat about it to include much more than a mention and link to Dave's site.

It wasn't til 2004 that I moved the Voltron content off the Thundercats site and into a home of its own and started expanding it. That was also the time I got to the official site, joined the board, and started really doing the fandom thang. I actually didn't start learning about the finer points of Voltron trivia and the anime it was based on til this point. A lot of the initial re-interest, however, was inspired by my friend cheezey (whom I'd already known from our mutual strong Thundercats interest) getting back into Voltron and making her Cossack site, and the rest of it was inspired by the fact that I was buying bootleg VV eps and finally had some info and other material to make a more comprehensive classic Voltron site that included both olden teams. I'd eventually even get interested in the original animes (and get my paws on more bootlegs) and try to incorportate trivia and clips from that onto the site as well.

Er, longer story shorter, it's been full on fandom madness since, even surpassing my Thundercats obsession in some aspects. Although this site will probably never be as large as the Thundercats one got (that one is at several gigs of info and counting!). Voltron just doesn't seem to have the materials available for collectors - probably because it was originally a Japanese series and/or much of that kind of documentation I collected for Tcats (like character sheets, ad copy, sketches, and so on) were lost or destroyed. Mostly all I see are toys on ebay for Voltron. But besides that...I don't have TIME to maintain two sites of that size O_o No foolin', it's work. So I just try to cover the basics and have some fun here. If it interests me, though - that's key.

Although - I still have never seen V3D, for the record. I'm old school classic all the way.

FAV/LEAST FAVE PAIRINGS

I'm a self-admitted hero worshipping romantic fool, but you know what? I'll get into anything so long as it's not convoluted half-assed crap. Oh, and it's not incomprehensible. That's as plain as I can say it :lol:

FAVORITE EPS

LV: Sleeping Princess
VV: all of it except Coconuts, Hazar Gets Demoted and freakin' Super Deer ep. I actually like Jeff stabbing the Explorer in that one ep, Nerok Scores Big, because face it - it was the GOOD kind of funny! And Nerok is one of my fave baddies ;)

LEAST FAVE EPS

As if you can't tell by my totally unbiased reviews of the episodes! har har
See above "except" notations for VV, and let's just say where LV is concerned....I loathe season two. One, I don't remember it as a kid so no nostalgia value. Two, it was badly animated, the writers were on crack....and if it wasn't for Cossack and Merla as characters, it'd been a total wash. Trust me, as a goodie cheerleader, it hurts me to actually admit that, too.

VOLTRON STUFF I STILL OWN FROM BACK IN THE DAY

*The big plastic VV...it has survived me and my son beating the snot out of it with moderate damage - generations of abuse. Father time rotted all the rubber off the wheels though. I won't take responsibility for that. And I bet my parents are still harboring hate for WEP, with the way I begged and begged til I got that toy for Christmas one year. It was pricey for the time!

*Because I begged my ass off for the VV robot, I was denied the matchbox LV and had to go with the chintzier plastic model. But hey, you can fit the figures in that one. It's in good shape considering, other than Blue Lion has one loose/lame leg. We'll have to shoot it, I guess. Oh and the blazing sword got snapped in half in the last year or so. Quick Zarkon, now's your chance to attack! XD

*I had two littler Voltrons too...one metal LV that didn't come apart, and that goofy hard plastic VV that did at least disassemble. I tried to buy everything VV they had back then, but it wasn't much.

*I have the LV figures - all but Keith because he was always sold out, dammit. No helmets or other accessories left and definitely nothing MIB or mint. Are you kidding? My parents bought toys for me to PLAY with. And I did. Roughly.
I've also got several Doom figures - Haggar (her staff, miraculously, still with her too), Zarkon, a robeast that's far too teeny (wtf??) and Lotor. Lotor had his head snapped clean off by my son. So I make Lotor carry it around like some kind of macabre freak show. haha.

*I've got a load of coloring and paint books...much of it scribbled in or with childish MST-like captions written under the pics. oh har har

*The panini sticker book. Don't have all the stickers and it's likewise drawn and written in. I had issues with that apparently. Still have the poster, but it is in baaaad shape.

*The Modern comics and the 4 story books.

*I've still got a few letters from the old fan club, too.

RECENT ACQUISITIONS

*The run of DD comics & poster.

*The VV vhs tapes from WEP and the VV t-shirt that came with it. yay, VV lovin'.

*The complete Aussie set of DVDs. Finally got to see all of VV again. I can die happy.

*The bootleg un-subbed copies of VV's parent series, DXV and LV's parent series, GoLion.

*The boo-boo release out of the UK, whose DVD actually contained the first four eps of VV despite having LV on all the labels.

*Began collecting he US dvd release of LV, and hopefully onto VV and the anime subtitled ones we're told are in the future.

*Various other printed items, games and other memorabilia I've bought off ebay and most of which I've shared on the site. The majority being LV-related, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled for some VV or DXV goodies, too.



My Voltron Journey I've got a how-I-became-a-fan page on my Thundercats page, so I figured...why not do that here, too? Well, this is it! FAN LONGEVITY As if you can't tell by my age (if you've checked my personal site) I'm one of those "first gen" fans. In the mid-80s I was just on the cusp of junior high school and was into all sorts of toons. Certain ones stuck with me and Voltron was a big one. I was in the fanclub (still have some of the letters and stuff), had many of the toys & books, and was one of few kids who actually LIKED vehicle voltron ;) I don't know, I liked VV's storyline better for some reason. Time, puberty and life took its toll and Voltron was forgotten during the drama that was high school. It wasn't until 97 or so when USA was showing re-runs - and I was digging my old toys out of my parents' attic - that I got socked with a flood of nostalgia. Not much happened at that point other than watching like a junkie in secret hoping nobody would discover my embarrassing "habit" (much like my Thundercats awakening, I felt ridiculous being all grown up and getting that darn excited over a kid's show!) If I did get "caught" I had the plan to blame pregnancy hormones for the insanity. It also seemed a lot cheesier than I remembered it, but darnit...nostalgia is a high you can't match! I also remember hoping really super hard they would show just ONE rerun of the vehicle eps...just ONCE. But alas, they never did : / It would be a few more years before I'd ever see that show again. I never did catch the V3D wave, either. Twasn't til years later, in 2001, that I got on the internet and started looking up my old fave toons online. Voltron was among them and I hit many fansites around at the time. Dave Bingham's Stellar Ship Explorer site rocked my socks because he was among very very few at the time who gave poor VV not only two cents of attention, but a whole lotta love. God bless ya, Dave! It was my first taste of that series since the 80s. I started making my Thundercats site, which was mostly fan fic and my crappy art at the time, but also included a sidenote on Voltron and MOTU. It was all LV oriented back then (mostly scans from my old memorabilia I'd saved and dorky observations), because I hadn't seen a VV ep in almost 20 years and didn't remember squat about it to include much more than a mention and link to Dave's site. It wasn't til 2004 that I moved the Voltron content off the Thundercats site and into a home of its own and started expanding it. That was also the time I got to the official site, joined the board, and started really doing the fandom thang. I actually didn't start learning about the finer points of Voltron trivia and the anime it was based on til this point. A lot of the initial re-interest, however, was inspired by my friend cheezey (whom I'd already known from our mutual strong Thundercats interest) getting back into Voltron and making her Cossack site, and the rest of it was inspired by the fact that I was buying bootleg VV eps and finally had some info and other material to make a more comprehensive classic Voltron site that included both olden teams. I'd eventually even get interested in the original animes (and get my paws on more bootlegs) and try to incorportate trivia and clips from that onto the site as well. Er, longer story shorter, it's been full on fandom madness since, even surpassing my Thundercats obsession in some aspects. Although this site will probably never be as large as the Thundercats one got (that one is at several gigs of info and counting!). Voltron just doesn't seem to have the materials available for collectors - probably because it was originally a Japanese series and/or much of that kind of documentation I collected for Tcats (like character sheets, ad copy, sketches, and so on) were lost or destroyed. Mostly all I see are toys on ebay for Voltron. But besides that...I don't have TIME to maintain two sites of that size O_o No foolin', it's work. So I just try to cover the basics and have some fun here. If it interests me, though - that's key. Although - I still have never seen V3D, for the record. I'm old school classic all the way. FAV/LEAST FAVE PAIRINGS I'm a self-admitted hero worshipping romantic fool, but you know what? I'll get into anything so long as it's not convoluted half-assed crap. Oh, and it's not incomprehensible. That's as plain as I can say it :lol: FAVORITE EPS LV: Sleeping Princess VV: all of it except Coconuts, Hazar Gets Demoted and freakin' Super Deer ep. I actually like Jeff stabbing the Explorer in that one ep, Nerok Scores Big, because face it - it was the GOOD kind of funny! And Nerok is one of my fave baddies ;) LEAST FAVE EPS As if you can't tell by my totally unbiased reviews of the episodes! har har See above "except" notations for VV, and let's just say where LV is concerned....I loathe season two. One, I don't remember it as a kid so no nostalgia value. Two, it was badly animated, the writers were on crack....and if it wasn't for Cossack and Merla as characters, it'd been a total wash. Trust me, as a goodie cheerleader, it hurts me to actually admit that, too. VOLTRON STUFF I STILL OWN FROM BACK IN THE DAY The big plastic VV...it has survived me and my son beating the snot out of it with moderate damage - generations of abuse. Father time rotted all the rubber off the wheels though. I won't take responsibility for that. And I bet my parents are still harboring hate for WEP, with the way I begged and begged til I got that toy for Christmas one year. It was pricey for the time! Because I begged my ass off for the VV robot, I was denied the matchbox LV and had to go with the chintzier plastic model. But hey, you can fit the figures in that one. It's in good shape considering, other than Blue Lion has one loose/lame leg. We'll have to shoot it, I guess. Oh and the blazing sword got snapped in half in the last year or so. Quick Zarkon, now's your chance to attack! XD I had two littler Voltrons too...one metal LV that didn't come apart, and that goofy hard plastic VV that did at least disassemble. I tried to buy everything VV they had back then, but it wasn't much. I have the LV figures - all but Keith because he was always sold out, dammit. No helmets or other accessories left and definitely nothing MIB or mint. Are you kidding? My parents bought toys for me to PLAY with. And I did. Roughly. I've also got several Doom figures - Haggar (her staff, miraculously, still with her too), Zarkon, a robeast that's far too teeny (wtf??) and Lotor. Lotor had his head snapped clean off by my son. So I make Lotor carry it around like some kind of macabre freak show. haha. I've got a load of coloring and paint books...much of it scribbled in or with childish MST-like captions written under the pics. oh har har The panini sticker book. Don't have all the stickers and it's likewise drawn and written in. I had issues with that apparently. Still have the poster, but it is in baaaad shape. The Modern comics and the 4 story books. I've still got a few letters from the old fan club, too. RECENT ACQUISITIONS The run of DD comics & poster. The VV vhs tapes from WEP and the VV t-shirt that came with it. yay, VV lovin'. The complete Aussie set of DVDs. Finally got to see all of VV again. I can die happy. The bootleg un-subbed copies of VV's parent series, DXV and LV's parent series, GoLion. The boo-boo release out of the UK, whose DVD actually contained the first four eps of VV despite having LV on all the labels. Began collecting he US dvd release of LV, and hopefully onto VV and the anime subtitled ones we're told are in the future. *Various other printed items, games and other memorabilia I've bought off ebay and most of which I've shared on the site. The majority being LV-related, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled for some VV or DXV goodies, too.	Where To? LV Central VV Central Site Newsletter