Gobots! Mighty what?

[Time Traveller]

Hey all. I was just browsing through an old Gobots ID archive. I realized I'm relatively far along. Does anyone have some they want to sell?
I was also thinking on why this line ultimately failed. Could it have been the decent alt mode sculpts with plenty of metal? Or was it the crappy (sometimes nonexistant) faces? Or was it the horrific TV show?

[Kup]

got a link to the site?

could be there are some in my box of spares

[Jose]

Actually I have a Gobots want list!

I think they failed because of the show and the poor marketing. I read that at certain point Tonka overtook Transformers on sales, but they dropped the ball.

Gobots had several reasons to be loved:

-Cheaper price
-More durability than a Transformer
-High quality
-Realistic themes
-Comfortable size

And they had of course reasons to be hated:
-Silly names
-Marketing aimed to younger children
-A badly executed TV show
-They were taken as knock-offs

Later on, Tonka released other figures under the Gobots name, however they weren't made by Bandai. One reminds me of a Nerf squirt gun...

However, you really have to treasure the old ones (the Machine Robo figures). High quality, well-sculpted castings, rubber wheels... In my opinion, each car which forms Puzzler is a lot better finished than Menasor's.

[Commander Megatron]

Had to be the crap cartoon, it was awful. the Gobots didn't have any exciting guns and the personalities of the characters were either Good guy or bad guy. There was no different personalities or anything like that. At least not from what I can remember.

[Rodimus Prime]

ok, this fits in well with something Arcee and I were wondering.

The below pics are of a toy owned by one of Arcees siblings as a kid and we were wondering what the character was called and any info on it. It clearly says GOBOTS on the chest but I don't recall the figure, but then again I only ever had one Gobot and it was a Rock Lord one at that.

anyways, here's the pics.





thanks in advance

[Kup]

awkward, but nice piece

[Arcee]

You forgot to push the blue part of legs up in that second pic. Thanks for posting them, though. I'm anxious to find out what/who the heck it is.

[Time Traveller]

I think this addresses your item, and jose's squirter mention:
Part of the gobots line was non bandai, non tonka built. the squirter (which i own!), three cap guns, a big ship, and a pair of binoculars, were all released here as part of the line. they are complimented with being very functional and sturdy, though the robot modes are a little awkward. They are collectively called the "Arco Gobots". the one you pictured is called Rogun, and he's one of the cap rifles. A kid in my school had the pistol when we were little, but i could never get him to trade it. I think he's in jail nowadays. No...seriously. my class turned out to be a bunch of losers.

Jose, what's that want list? i should write one up.

[Arcee]

Awesome, thanks TT! I knew you guys would be able to help. The toy was/is my older brother's ... I remembered him saying about it being a cap gun, but aside from that I didn't know anything else about him. I'm not entirely sure what to do with him now, though. It's back to the closet I guess ... my bro doesn't seem to want him and I doubt he is worth anything.

[Galvatron]

I used to have that same gun toy when I was younger.
Except the chest sticker said "ROGUN".
So there are now 2 known versions of this figure.

I traded Rogun, along with a bunch of other Go-Bots and got Devastator.
A nice trade I might add.

[Ultra Magnus]

My take on go-bots.

It was the crappy cartoon that killed my collection. I had about 20 before the cartoon aired, and only bought about 3 or 4 more after the cartoon. The 3 or 4 more after the cartoon were really to fill gaps in my TF collection (I.E., I bought a few of the "Super" go-bots helicopters to help the Decepticons when there were only Sweeps to fill out the army in the TF line).

I actually feel that toy wise, they were superior to Gen 1 Transformers. Hear me out before you kick me out of here.

In robot mode they were all one of two sizes. This means that concievable, any two of the same size would be an equal match for one another. However, in the TF's very few robots on either side were exact size matches. Usually many of the decepticons were taller the the auto-bots that were supposed to be around the same rank.

In robot mode, Go-bots didn't usually have the big gaping holes that the backside of many Auto-bots did. The "Super" Go-bots were just as solid in either mode. Gen-1 TF's really did not go very far to fix this issue, either. Reference the large robot mode of Ultra Magnus for instance. If you turn that guy around, it looks ridiculous. Even the smaller Go-Bots were more solid in this nature. A good example would be Turbo v/s Bumblebee (Windcharger is a closer match as far as vehicle mode, but I am looking at the stars of the shows). The head on Turbo is a solid piece, that does not leave a big hole in the upper torso. There were also very few "extra pieces" to keep up with. For instance, I did not have to find a place to keep a go-bot's hands while in vehicle mode, nor did I have to find a place for the back potrion of the ambulance when he was in robot mode.

The Super-robots for Go-bots did not always have faces, but this lent to easily pretending that they were mech's with human drivers. Besides, I did prefer the go-bot tank turret head guy to Ironhide at the time (after all, the Ironhide figure had no chest and the face was about a quarter cenimeter from back to front).

The only real downside I remember to the go-bots, other than the cartoon, was that the qualtiy of vehicle modes. This is where the Transformers won. When the Gen-1 transformer Gen-1's were in their alternate modes, you could step out on the street and find something that looked just like it (except Shockwave and the jumpstarters, but that was ok). Go-bots on the other hand, were a bit more off-base. For instance, Psy-kill, Coptor, Turbo, and the female car from the show were really not that close to many vehicles you could find on Earth (close but not very realistic). Since the didn't have a computer Scan them new forms in the cartoon, it is okay that there are not really perfect Earth vehicles, but then again, Leader-1 was a perfect jetfighter. Of course, once again, when it came to the Supers, Go-bots were doing well in the vehicles again.

Though, I do feel Go-bots were a better quality toy, I am glad Transformers survived if only one could.

[Time Traveller]

actually, looking at the 60-70 gobots smattered around my room, there are only a few with nonrealistic alts. Of the supers i have, Cy-kill, Psycho, and Vamp are the only ficitonals. I have 13 supers. And, having my bumblebee out about mominators movie thread, i see a really cool pic. i'll post it in a few.

anway, let's do regulars. Tank, Fitor, Scorp, Fangs, little Vamp, Cy-Kill, Creepy, Bugsie, Pathfinder, Cop-Tur, Turbo, and Screwhead are fictional. out of four dozen.
oh, and i can tell you the make and model of all the "Puzzler" combiner bots. Looks like you weren't buying the right gobots

I'm going to go take that picture now, and then double post because it's that awesome!

[Time Traveller]

OK... I frickin' rock. Can anyone say "PERFECTLY SCALED"?




That's actually a Renegade named Bug Bite.

[Ultra Magnus]

Perhaps I over spoke a bit with the vehicles not looking real. I was just thinking of say, Res-q the ambulance. His vehicle form was quite cartoonish.

I do remember now another motorcycle that I had. He wes a perfect replica of a police bike, and a few others that were pretty sweet. Also, please be fair, I did say that the supers did alright in the vehicle area. They only reason the fictionals you brought up were made into supers were their popularity as regulars.

As to your picture, it only proves that 20 years ago, the Super Go-Bots had a better quality than the transformers of today.

[Time Traveller]

actually it was meant to look like bumblebee new and old Rest-Q is based on a 70's japanese van styling, so i don't count him as fictional. yes, there were vans like that. Ironhide/ratchet are much the same story

Not only that, but Gobots offers a fairly nice car collection.
-Fiero (I drive one in the summer)
-Mustang
-Corvette
-Countach
-Porsche 930
-Porsche 928 (I've driven one, not mine tho . This is also what Dead End is.)
-Datsun 280z (also Bluestreak and others)
-Porsche 911
-Toyota Celica Supra (also Downshift)
-Leopard I Main Battle Tank (Bundeswehr)

All vehicles I'd like to have in my garage... especially that last. BTW, TT's tank mode is a Leopard II

[Jose]

Perhaps I over spoke a bit with the vehicles not looking real. I was just thinking of say, Res-q the ambulance. His vehicle form was quite cartoonish.

Rest-Q is a Toyota van definetely. In my opinion, most Gobots, the later Diaclone and Microman figures are very realistic.

The Super Gobots are mecha like Ironhide as well. When they converted it to a Transformer, they placed a "face" sticker on the front seat, that's why it doesn't have a head.

The original Gobots were like the Hot Wheels robot toy. More economic, simple and with a distorted scale to make all fit in the same size. The Machine Robo figures were the action figures themselves (those converted into Transformers were the accesories for the action figures instead!). In overall, I'm very delighted with the vehicle choices on the GoBots. Crasher (that female character) is a Porsche (can't remember the exact version), in fact there's a white variant which even has the "Rothmans" labels, just like the real counterpart. However, being aimed to Japanese kids, most of them won't be recognized easily by children from somewhere else.

However, would you expect ever to see a Mitsubishi Canter in correct Japanese refuse collector livery (Fly Trap)? Or a Hino semi with a lowboy trailer (Road Ranger)? Or a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow (Tux)? The list goes on and on...

[Ultra Magnus]

Thanks for the reminder on Crasher's name. I could not remember her name to save my life.

So, that was an actual car? I stand corrected again. I guess I did not have much go-bots actual knowledge, though I owned just about every on I could get my hands on pre-cartoon.

[Time Traveller]

Yeah, I actually have both versions. My dad, a car aficionado, gets a kick out of the Rothman's version. BTW, it's a 962.

[Trailbreaker]

Awesome thread and perfectly timed because I've been thinking of picking up some Gobots and Convertors. As a kid I remember making fun of the Gobots because of the size(as a kid I often lived by the bigger is better theory), the horrible names(I know some TFs had bad names too, but at the time it didn't seem that way), TFs had better personalities due to the superior cartoon and tech specs and Transformers were marketed much better. I still remember seeing the early TF commercials and being in awe. The packaging had the same effect with the wonderful paintings on the front and back and Tron-like lines going around the package. I appreciate Gobots now, but as a kid they just didn't spark my imagination the way the Transformers did.

[Time Traveller]

yeah, but gobots had "Pumper" and "Dumper". 'Nuff said.