Mythology Gag / Toys

• LEGO:
  • One of the figures for the third Space Police line has an Octan logo on its leather jacket. Octan used to be the Brand X fuel station for Lego's City range.
  • Additionally, a "statue" of the first astronaut is actually a Classic Space mini-figure with a blanked-out face. The Latin inscription on the base (in annos triginta ad caelum infinitum construxit) means "Thirty years of building in the infinite heavens," referring to the fact that Space Police III was released on roughly the thirtieth anniversary of the introduction of Classic Space.
  • The graffiti on the alien's spaceships references the much-loved "Blacktron" and "Spyrius" (early space "bad guy" themes — indeed, Blacktron was the enemy of the previous Space Police lines) and mostly-loathed "Insectoids" ("Insecturds" or "Insucktoids" being popular names) lines of space sets. Also two of the set designers, who were well known 'Adult Fans of Lego' prior to being employed by The Lego Group, managed to add their online "AFOL" handles ('Nabii' and 'Mister Zumbi') to the alien's spaceships. Basically, the designers really had fun with this line of Lego sets!
    • One recent set makes it even more blatant — one of the Alien baddies is wearing a suit very reminicent of an original Blacktron figure with a Blacktron II logo on it.
  • The Death Star Playset of 2008 had a megaphone piece with neon orange stud on the end, resembling the blasters of 1999 until 2007, being swapped with more realistically looking models. Granted, there wasn't that much time for building up the mythology part.
  • Crossing over with comics, when the Minifigure collection of blind bags came up with a DC Comics series, one of the included minifigures was Bat-Mite. And true to his characterization of being an interdimensional fanboy, not to mention a nod to his Medium Awareness in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, one of Bat-Mite's accessories is a copy of Detective Comics #27 (Batman's first appearance) done in minifigure style.
  • The Lego Town set 1592, Town Square Castle Scene, includes a statue commemorating a prominent citizen from the previous century — who was apparently one of the pre-1978 minifigures without movable arms or legs.
• Transformers:
  • The toys are known for giving newer versions of Optimus Prime the iconic chest-windscreen in robot mode, even if it's not going to be the windscreen in vehicle mode. Likewise, Alternators Tracks and Animated Bumblebee, to name a couple.
  • Another Transformers example would be Generations Soundwave. Ostensibly, it represents the one from Transformers: Prime while in the altmode he used on Cybertron. In actuality, he looks almost exactly like G1 Soundwave, except with a vehicle mode.
  • Given that Soundwave figure also represents the War for Cybertron version of Soundwave, that makes this a video game example as well; indeed, most of the War for Cybertron cast have bodies that resemble some combination of their various G1 Earthen and Cybertronian appearances.
  • The Masterpiece line of action figures are well known for giving G1 characters accessories and features that reference many iterations of the character, some of which made only one appearance in the cartoon:
    • MP-08 Grimlock comes with waiter attire from the cartoon episode "Madman's Paradise" and an intelligence transfer helmet from "Grimlock's New Brain". The eyes of the figure can alternate between cartoon blue and the original toy's red. Later iterations of the toy even include a crown Grimlock wore during his stint as Autobot leader in The Transformers (Marvel).
    • MP-13 Soundwave has a chest display and attachable empty energon cube (both abilities he displayed in the cartoon), as well as a sensor that attaches to either one of his arms. This sensor only appeared in one episode ("Fire on the Mountain", for those interested).
    • MP-14 Red Alert comes with sparks that attach to his head to recreate the damage he had in the episode "Auto Berserk".
    • MP-20 Wheeljack comes with a hypno-chip disruptor (which made only one appearance in "The Ultimate Doom, Part 3") when purchased through Amazon.jp. Interestingly, his faceplate (unremovable without dismantling the head) hides a face similar to that of his Transformers: Animated counterpart, which goes completely undocumented in the instructions. A similar thing is in place with MP-01 Optimus Prime - under his faceplate (which can move to simulate speech à la the cartoon) is a series of squares similar to what a dying Optimus Prime had under his broken faceplate in the Marvel comics.
    • MP-21 Bumblebee has three swappable faces, one of which is the visored, more robotic face that his original toy had.
    • MP-22 Ultra Magnus has, in addition to a Matrix of Leadership, a hidden face similar to the white Optimus Prime repaint that the original toy used.
    • MP-27 Ironhide has several gadgets originally used in miscellaneous cartoon episodes, oftentimes never to be heard from again. He also has a "battle sled" similar to what the G1 toy (infamous for not being accurate to the cartoon or comic^note Page image Ratchet was a repaint of Ironhide, so imagine that toy painted red and that's G1 Ironhide.) had.
    • MP-29 Shockwave has an alternate translucent purple hand and gun barrel, referencing the ones the original Shockwave toy had. One hand even does a salute (referencing a single gesture done in "More Than Meets The Eye, Part 1"), and some even reference what were possible animation goofs (namely having a removable gun hose and barrel to emulate the curious lack of it he had in the aforementioned first episode, and a miniature version of his own gun mode that he wielded in "Desertion of the Dinobots, Part 1").
  • Most of the Titan Masters from the Titans Return line that weren't direct G1 references were more often than not a mythology gag of some sort:
    • A dark gag was Six Shot's Titan Master, Revolver. The smaller figure is sculpted to resemble Jack, a Toyless Toyline Character from the Japanese Anime continuity whom Six Shot turned into an Action Bomb and eventually killed.
    • A much cheerier reference is laser Optimus Prime's Titan Master, Diac, whose name and appearance are based on the old Diaclone driver figures.
    • Alpha Trion's Titan Master is based off of Beta Maxx, the Minicon partner of Alpha Trion in another continuity. Alpha Trion's alt-modes of a spaceship and a lion reference the figure of said other Alpha Trion and a cancelled toy for G1 Alpha Trion respectively.
  • Power of the Primes Nemesis Prime is basically an arsenal of mythology gags relating to other versions of the character.
    • Per the original Paint It Black version of Optimus, he sports the classic black, teal, and red highlights color scheme, along with a large red sword.
    • Said sword is molded to resemble (and, on Amazon.com's original listing, named) the Dark Saber, which was wielded by the Transformers: Armada version of Nemesis Prime. He also includes two blasters that mount on his forearms resembling his smokestack guns.
    • His other sword turns into a bird named Giza, a reference to Nemesis Prime's Arms Micron toy, who comes with a saw shark who turns into a sword.
• The Grossery Gang:
  • Some Grosseries are given names that are the same as previous characters from The Trash Pack, the predecessor to the franchise. Some of the names include Putrid Pizza and Shoccoli.
  • The Series 1 large pack and Series 2 surprise pack both say "Best Before 1985", in reference to the founding year of Moose Toys, the company that owns Grossery Gang.
  • Blow Fly and Trash-a-Pillar themselves reappear as figures in Series 3. Blow Fly, being an exclusive action figure, gets an extended bio that makes use of his original Trash Pack bio, while giving his nickname as "Buzz", the name he was called in the failed Mondo TV cartoon.

---