Transformers “creator”

Anonymous

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Dec 19, 2021, 1:37:08 PM12/19/21

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ATT,

Anyone buying that this guy created transformers?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2021/12/17/transformers-poker-henry-orenstein-dead/

I’ve never heard of this guy before, and I have seen many articles claiming
he created the toy line. (The article above gets it right.). Seems like
his role is being wildly overblown by the media for some reason. Seems
like we have had far more important people in the franchise pass away with
little to no mention.

-Banzaitron

Anonymous

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Dec 19, 2021, 1:51:08 PM12/19/21

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Here is one example of fake news on this topic:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/18/us/henry-orenstein-holocaust-transformers-tv-poker-died/index.html

-Banzaitron

Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats

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Dec 19, 2021, 6:44:20 PM12/19/21

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The WaPo article is very clear about the limited nature of his role (pitching to Hasbro that they should bring these toys over) -- and spends a lot more time on the fact that he was a surviver of the nazi concentration camps (and has some funny anecdotes about that, along with the whole "his parents were executed and thrown into a mass grave" stuff). Overall, a nice article. Plus, his story allows them to write things like this:

“The Nazis took away his childhood,” a cover story for Newsweek magazine declared of Mr. Orenstein in 2016, so he “taught the world how to play.”

As far as why he is getting so much notice for "some reason" -- I suspect it is simply that he knew people, and they knew they had a moderately interesting story, and the Transformers are a minor element of the story, but a hook. (Or the Jews run the media... "some reason" always seems suspicious). Why did the dude get a cover story in Newsweek is 2016? Who even knew that Newsweek still existed in 2016?

CNN chops the story way down, and loses chunks, leaving Transformers as the opening of the first sentence with little nuance, and spends the rest of the smaller article on everything else.

Anonymous

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Dec 19, 2021, 7:39:47 PM12/19/21

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https://youtu.be/OrjmeGKoR1E

-Banzaitron

Zobovor

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Dec 19, 2021, 8:26:15 PM12/19/21

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On Sunday, December 19, 2021 at 11:37:08 AM UTC-7, Anonymous wrote:

> I’ve never heard of this guy before, and I have seen many articles claiming

> he created the toy line. Seems like his role is being wildly overblown by the media
> for some reason.

Sometimes I think the Associated Press comes up with a hook for a story, and everybody else basically parrots it. I don't really know how accurate this is, but it's harmless. Either he was the guy who suggested Transformers or he wasn't. He can have his posthumous fifteen minutes of fame.

Zob (Inspector Gadget had a transforming car in 1982... just sayin')

Evil King Macrocranios

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Jan 16, 2022, 12:49:01 PM1/16/22

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The way I understood it and the canon I had in my head was that Orenstein was in Japan for Tokyo Toy Show '83. There he saw all the toy robot lines and then came back to the US and pitched the idea of acquiring those licenses to Hasbro. But now in some of these press articles I'm reading he got the idea at the New York Toy Fair, which drastically deflates his legend in my eyes. Instead of traveling across an ocean to combine the forces of toy companies half a world apart, he went across an aisle? Heck, anybody could have done that.