As the frenzy for Transformers goes into overdrive, a man once named Aaron Schwarz sits wondering whether he’ll be slapped with some kind of lawsuit. In November, he legally changed his name to “Sunshine Megatron” -- but not by his own volition… well, sort of. The founder of off-color fashion site T-Shirt Hell, Schwarz -- errr, Megatron -- held a publicity stunt $25k contest to crowdsource his renaming. People suggested names and voted on their favorites, which included “Tetris Crowley” and “Cray Z. Fantastic,” but the wisdom of the crowd determined he would have to file for the hilariously unfortunate, Transformers-insired name change. As he later told the Chicago-Sun Times:
The Underwire emailed recently with the t-shirt tycoon to see what life is like when your dry cleaner refers to you as “Mr. Megatron.”
UNDERWIRE: It's been more than 6 months since your official name change came through. How have things changed?
MEGATRON: It's hard to maintain my a-holeness with a name like Sunshine. I mean, I certainly try to be as impatient and as demanding and as much of a jerk as I normally am used to being, but it's just hard when the person on the other end of the communication has to say my name out loud for some reason or when I have to sign an angry email "-Sunshine". So basically...I'm softening up.
UNDERWIRE: Were you a fan of Transformers growing up?
MEGATRON: I was ABSOLUTELY a fan of Transformers when I was growing up. I was about 10 or 11 when they came out and besides Masters of the Universe figures (which totally kicked ass back then), they were my favorite toys. But it was purely coincidental that Megatron was one of the final names.
UNDERWIRE: Are you excited for the film or worried you’ll just have to keep on explaining, “No, no -- not that Megatron”?
MEGATRON: I was a little uncomfortable when someone brought it to my attention that the film was coming out this year. And I suppose I'm going to have to see the film "Sunshine" one day… I was joking around with friends recently that I was going to need to have another naming contest when the makers of the Transformers movie decide to sue me. New suggestions from friends included "Goober Von FancyPants." Or I could, of course, just change one letter in my last name and become Sunshine Metatron.
[ed. note: go back and click that link if you don't know what a Metatron is]
UNDERWIRE: Any particular reason you didn't get a middle name?
MEGATRON: My name was already crazy enough. I suppose I could have been Sunshine Kevin Megatron to make things sorta awkward. Or perhaps Sunshine Carol Megatron to make things even more awkward. I think it would have just ended up making things even more "difficult" for myself, considering my humor sensibility.
UNDERWIRE: I didn’t notice any Transformers shirts on the site. What gives?
MEGATRON: We don't have any. Perhaps after the movie launches, we will do a couple...fairly offensive ones.
UNDERWIRE: Have you considered making any Sunshine Megatron shirts?
MEGATRON: I love utilizing niche markets, but come on now. Would anyone other than my mother really want a Sunshine Megatron t-shirt?
UNDERWIRE: So what’s on the horizon for Mr. Megatron?
MEGATRON: I'm launching my next big company July 24th; I cannot give away the theme, but let's just say that it will be different than anything else out there; it's called TorsoPants.com; Besides that, I'm considering doing a line of invisible hats. They look great. Just having a hard time figuring out which colors to go with.
Baddummpchhhh…
