Following on from the report yesterday regarding the German launch of the Transformers Animated cartoon, TransformersAnimated.com spoke today with Herr Ebentreich the Senior Marketing Manager of Super RTL regarding the show. Herr Ebentreich told use that Transformers Animated will not début on the 20th June 2008, as previously reported, but will infact start on the 3rd May at 03:45!

He went on to confirm that the show will be split into two seasons, with 10 episodes being shown at first, and the second season running from September until December.

Super RTL will also be launching a "mirco site" nearer to the release date.

We'd like to thank Herr Ebentreich for his time.

You can view the German showtimes over at on the Transformers Animated German Showtimes page over on TransformersAnimated.com

Transformerswon four Visual Effects Society Awards on Sunday, including the top prize for outstanding visual effects in a visual effects-driven film. Transformers also won the single visual effect of the year award for its desert highway sequence, the Models and Miniatures award as well as the Compositing award. The top prize was collected by Scott Farrar, Shari Hanson, Russell Earl and Scott Benza.

You can read more on this story at the Hollywood Reporter.

Hasbro's 2007 sales were announced this morning with Fourth quarter sales increased 16 per cent to $1.3 billion. Net income climbed 24 percent to $133.7 million from $108.3 million a year earlier.

Full year net income climbed 45 per cent to $333 million, the biggest gain since at least 1999.

International sales increased a stagering 29 per cent, far more than the US, with strong sales for Transformers, Spider-Man, PotC and Littlest Pet Shop animals. 4th Quarter sales accounted for two-fifths of the total international profit for the year.

In related news Hasbro have named Brian Goldner as their new CEO, taking over from Alfred J. Verrecchia.

As you know we like to keep you up-to-date with the NPD sales figures so you can see how Transformers is fairing compared to other toy lines. Well we can now bring you information on just how Transformers performed in Week 51 of 2007. That's the week before Christmas.

In terms of Monetary Sales, the Transformers Movie Deluxe toys was the 6th best selling toy that week and the best selling action figure.

In terms of actual units sold, however, the Transformers Movie legends tops the Action Figure chart and was number 3 on the overall toy sales chart behine only the Hot Wheels Car Assortment and the Cars Assortment. It fended off Doctor Who into 5th position. The Transformers Movie deluxe toys were 8th, one higher than Ben 10.

TFW2005 poster, Darth Convoy, has once again posted details of more toys being made in China for the Botcon 2008 convention later in the year. The new figures are.

1. Energon Megatron repainted silver and black with blue wings and a new head.
2. Classics Rodimus painted black with a beard.

The figures will be bundled together (like the Alphatrion / Weridwolf set) along with a Minicon

You can view the post here.

Two auctions have appeared on Yahoo! Japan for some Transformers Animated character sheets. These character sheets feature designed for many of the characters that have appeared in the show, thus far, as well as some characters who will be featured later. You can see the images below.

We've updated our Transformers Miscellaneous image gallery area with another Transformers toy groupshot, this one contains our Micromaster base collection and all of our Micromasters (other than the Japanese combiner robots and Galaxy Shuttle).

We should have another few Micromaster arriving shortly, Japanese recoloured versions, so we will take another gallery later in the year of our entire Transformers Micromaster collection.

We've update both Transformers toy image galleries of our Knock Off Clear Optimus Prime and Takara Clear Convoy testshot with comparison images between the two toys. Slight molding differences, on the chest, hear the head and hands and be seen, as well as the differences in the plastic itself.

For more on Clear Transformers why not visit clear.transformertoys.co.uk, where you'll be able to find 50 image galleries of Clear Transformers toys. For more on Optimus Prime simply go to optimus-prime.transformertoys.co.uk as well.

Thanks to Break for sending across some more information form the UK Toy Fair, this time information from the Hasbro Buyers Catalogue. Here's a summary

1. Transformers Animated 'Bumpber-bots' is the name of the new Cyber-slammer type line.
2. Animated 'Activators' are scout-sized versions of characters which feature spring loaded transformations.
3. There will also be a Cyber-Stomper version of Animated Bumblebee
4. Universe Legends were listed
5. A supreme-scale 'Roll Out' Optimus Prime that has a moving mouth with sounds from the cartoon!"

EDIT

Well its been over a week since the British Toy Fair 2008 took place and what a toy fair it was. As we previously reported, Transformers won the best film license of 2007, the Movie Legends was the number 1 selling Action Figure within the UK, and a lot of new and some previously unseen items were displayed at the event. Now, with a big thanks to Minion, we can bring you information on exactly what was shown off at the event by Hasbro UK. Photos were not allowed at the event, so you'll have to wait for the US toy fair for those to be leaked out, but here's the good stuff.

Transformers Animated

Bulkhead was shown in three sizes. Deluxe, Voyager and Leader class. The leader size had a large jetpack with four wing blades coming out.

Optimus Prime was also shown in the same three sizes.

The voyager scale Megatron was on display along with what was probably the leader class, due to its size, helicopter version which had a cannon on the underneath of the cockpit. Minion asked the Hasbro representative who is was and she confirmed it was Megatron. It reminded him of the Miles Mayhem chopper in MASK.

Transformers Animated Fast Action Battlers were on display, though the line has officially bene renamed, only Minion can not recall exactly what to. They now have electronics and sounds as well as the pull back action and pop-out features. Three figures were on display, though Bumblebee is the only one he can recall at this time.

Jazz was also shown off in vehicle mode looking very sweet and G1 like (colour wise).

Other Animated figures were also on display, but nothing else was new as was the packaging.

Transformers Movie

Hasbro confirmed that the Transformers Movie line will run, within the UK, up to the launch of Transformers Animated, at which point it will be phased out. The Robot Heroes Optimus Prime / Bonecrusher 2-pack was part of the display.

Transformers Universe Classics AKA Classics 2.0

Sunstreaker, Prowl, Onslaught and Powerglide were all on display.

Powerglide was fully coloured and was pretty big, comparable to Jetfire. Not enough red for Minion's tastes as they made a lot of use of silver on his colouring.

Onslaught was much chunker than expected, the SWAT APC mode looked much better in person than the official images.

Sunstreaker had been over-handled by the end of the weekend and had fallen to pieces (it was a prototype being displayed).

Prowl looked great

Robot Heroes

Blitzwing and Galvatron were on display, as were a few others. They all looked great and continue the tradition of these collectable figures

Marvel Transformers

The Marvel Transformers were also on display, the first three figures being Hulk, Venom and Iron Man. Much smaller than the metamorphs and comparable to the Star Wars Transformers. Venom turns into a jeep/APC, Hulk a Tank and Iron Man a jet. They all looked pretty cool

We'd like to thank Minion for his report and hope you enjoy this awesome report of the 2008 British Toy Fair. We'd like to thank you in advance for linking to this article rather than copying its contents

We're not the only ones who want to say Kung Hei Fat Choi to our Chinese visitors, FatGuy also extends these sentiments and celebrates Chinese New Year with a Transformers Animated gallery of Bulkhead and Bumblebee. Check out his great pics at fate8.blogspot.com and don't forgot to drop by Transformers Animated to check out even more images and information on these two characters as well as all the other stars of the show.