BIG McLARGEHUGE! Oh, and Scoop & The Ammonites.

I promised a review of Scoop and the MiniCons, who came in about a week and a half ago. "I've been busy" is what I'm going to say to the deep empty universe awaiting a "review" of toys.

As usual, the toys come with comics, though I'm not sure what parts of the Dark Cybertron story these are part of. The MiniCons are known in the comics as The Ammonites, a faction of another set of transforming robotic life-forms engaged in their own war, and are not called such on the packaging. But whatever.

The first thing I noticed about the combined form of the MiniCons is that, when you look at the robot from the back, the face of the figure making up the legs of the combined figure is...

...THE COMBINED FIGURE'S BUTT. Granted that piece's arms should be blocking the face, but I'm incredibly immature and will be pointing this out to EVERYONE. The figure was easy to take apart and turn its three components into regular bots. There's very little transformation on that end.

I think the helicopter figure on your right is a ladybot, based on the diamond-ish shape of its head and her high-heeled footware. I do NOT have to point this out to anyone. I have more proof and more to gain that the combined bot's butt is a face.

Never got into the TargetMasters part of the TF lore because the Headmasters were much more interesting and, despite being just as blocky, better designed. G1 figures after the movie weren't based on specific vehicles (other than the Throttlebots?) and so they looked LIKE toys, and the Targetmasters especially looked like toys holding other toys. So other than Cyclonus, here's the first actual Targetmaster redone in Generations mold. The construction vehicle looks pretty good and the transformation is pretty easy. There's not much else to say about that other than that he's holding two implausible weapons (living people who turn into guns, at least in the original G1 world; they're robots in the IDW comics, of course). The weapons can stack on top of each other, which for those of you with a dirty mind...

ANYWAY.

I was at a gathering of local TF collectors, and my pals Til All Are Mine and Collecticon were present, and good times were had. The host, Rick, who organizes Atomic Sketch, gave me this:

It's a KO tiny Fortress Maximus! It falls apart easily! The transformation would only risk further damage and lost pieces! And it's called...

Which makes me think of this wonderful MST3K bit:

TINY WHIRL!

Whoa! Look what I found in the $3 bin at Quake!

$3 because he still has no hands, poor guy.

It's a really tiny WHIRL! No more than four, maybe five inches tall. Adorable. I'm sure MTMTE Whirl would find it adorable.

This is a tiny version of the "Dorvack" figure from Takatoku Toys (i'm looking this up on the TF Wiki, yes.). The only readable word for me (in English) is "JAPAN" and the copyright symbol so I can't tell where it officially comes from. There was also a line called Convertors and it looks like this is "Chopper." (We covered Convertors before when I found that tiny camera dude earlier this year.)

Okay, mystery solved. Isn't looking up stuff WHILE typing up a blog entry fun? It is. That's the kind of writing and editing that will get Transformers Aficionado the Pulitzer it deserves.

That rotor's a little sad. EDIT: The rotor was upside down. I fixed it.

EDIT! For scale, here's Tiny Whirl with...coffee.

Robots With Coffee contest - give our KO a name! (and a Silly Page.)

Hola, Amigos. Robots With Coffee is having a contest. THE PRIZE? Issue 1 of More Than Meets The Eye...the $1 version that came out last week!

Why, a comic book reprint with a cover price of ONE DOLLAR? Totally worth the effort needed to go to the RwC Facebook page and think up a name for THIS guy:

This is a KO Seeker I found at Quake.
I did NOT paint him like this.
He, or even She, needs a name.

You can also enter in the comments section but you can't do it anonymously. Winner gets a copy of the $1 reprint of issue 1 of IDW's More Than Meets The Eye by John Roberts & Nick Roche mailed to them. The postage will cost more than the comic book. So, enter. This contest is NOT sponsored by Hasbro, IDW, or anyone affiliated with Transformers or responsible for the comics. But James Roberts DID retweet the contest on Twitter so that made my day.

AFTER THE JUMP: a Silly Page!

Little camera guy: UPDATE! IDENTIFIED!

I'm kind of fascinated by KOs, other brands, and imitators, though I don't go out of my way to acquire them due to budget and...well, really, do I want THAT THING in my house? You know?

I was visiting Quake Collectibles a few weeks ago and the owner showed me this little guy. He was pretty pricey. I thought he was Go-Bot sized, except he wasn't a car. The brand is "Mark" or "Marc" Japan, and unfortunately I only had my cell phone camera to capture him on digital film, so you probably won't be able to make out the logo.

So, take a look, and let me know if you know who he is. I was probably not using the right search terms on the googles.

UPDATE: Thank you Optimal Omega. As he posted in the comments section, looks like his name is Focus from Convertor Spies. Explore that page and you'll see a bot that looks a lot like Whirl. HOLY OWL POOP, I HAD HOOT at some point.

Til All Are Gassy #2 - where did Carly get her change of clothes?

Hey, here's 'Til All Are Gassy #2, starring Eric from Til All Are Mine and...me!

Click on the image to stream or download the MP3!

Topics include: Prime Shockwave, my Shapeways adventure, Devcon from that episode of G1 TF where Smokescreen gambles away his friends, how big are Carly's lips, what to name my KO seekers, and much more!

Oh, I can't forget how much it bothered me that, in Dark Of The Moon, Carly was able to change her clothes after being kidnapped. Eric and I discuss that at great length. We promised to make these short. This one is under an hour. We will try to keep it short next time...

TRANS-MOBOTS! And the ADVENTURES OF LOTUS-EATER!

Your mom crossed off "Skeez" on the back, in an effort to keep track
of purchased Trans-Mobots, which meant that she would be looking
for the other Trans-Mobots, which means you'd be expecting more
Go-Bot knockoffs for Christmas or a good report card. And that's when
you purposely decided to flunk that math test.

I went to Quake Collectibles in Chicago today and Dave (the owner) showed me some of the figures he had gotten recently. A lot of boxed Transformers, some with the styrfoam, others loose in the box, and many minibots with their backing card.

That's a pretty good haul. I dig the box art but the cost is prohibitive, especially for something that is just going to sit on a shelf and I have another that ALSO sits on the shelf until I choose to pull them out for filming (Gears) purposes. If I can find the tech specs, that would be enough. I wouldn't mind the box art for some figures, but it's just way too much.

Anyway, The Transformer's mortal enemy was the Go-Bots. Yup, I'm pretty sure that's who they were fighting against. The Go-Bots were released in America first. I remember my 8 year old self arguing with a friend over which was better, and they reminded me that the Go-Bots were more original since they were first. I had a few. I'm not sure where they ended up in the battle between good & evil, Autobot & Decepticon, but I bet their popularity with their fellow TRANSFORMING robots went down quickly and I'm sure there were adventures where Autobots & Decepticons put their differences aside and kicked some Go-Bot ass, for no reason.

I ended up including the Go-Bots with the GI Joe vehicles I traded to Quake for some G1 Transformers I never had, which was part of my initial all-in Transformer plan without spending actual money. I'm not sure which ones I had, but I'm looking at Transformerland's site for a list of names and I recognize the following as ones I probably owned: Buggy Man, Geeper Creeper, Rest-Q, Road Ranger, Spay-C, Spoiler, and maybe Turbo (unless I'm confusing him with Spoiler). Spay-C's head revealed by rotating the cone around always creeped me out. I have no idea why. However, I think there's a good reason that I couldn't remember these names off the top of my head beyond not thinking about this toyline for decades. These names SUCK. I mean, jeez louise, Spay-C? REST-Q? Really? BUGGY MAN?!?!

Anyway, like Transformers, Go-Bots were just a toyline lifted (well, licensed) from another company in another country. And like Transformers, they too would have imitators and knock offs. So, today at Quake, looking at the coffee can holding these newly acquired Go-Bot figures, I noticed that some were of a different color than what I remembered; and upon seeing the card, I realized that duh, a few of these were knock offs.

TRANS-MOBOTS! I did you all a disservice in taking a pic of only 4/5ths of the back card with my phone, as what I cut off stated that these toys were distributed by Zayre. The defunct department store? Was this their brand of knockoffs? I wonder how that works; does someone call them up, "Hey, I got thousands of off-color and slightly funny smelling plastic versions of that Go-Bot line by Tonka! They can be exclusive to YOU, Zayre, if you just print on the back of the blister pack that you're distributing them!"

And then they agreed? And they came up with TRANS-MOBOTS? And I'm guessing one of them was your grandfather, about to retire from the retail marketing biz, and that was the best name he could think of, because "Mobots" is the term that Red Skelton might have used for robots? I don't know, I'm just speculating, and unfairly so. And none of you know who Red Skelton is.

But the best is that Go-Bot "Slicks" is named "Lotus Eater." Go-Bot names never seemed that...clever. Transformers fired the great Dennis O'Neil because the best he could do was name Optimus Prime. Can someone find out who is responsible on the Go-Bot end? I mean, the motorcycle bad guy is "Cy-Kill," but the Lockheed Martin SR-71 from this same toyline is "Scoop." What, you couldn't name it "Blackbird?" "Darkhawk" wasn't taken by Marvel Comics yet. Was the SR-71's function 'Go-Bot reporter?'

Knock-off "Gas Can" here seems more clever than "Geeper Creeper." But I'm amused greatly by "Lotus Eater." Is there a literary reference here that couldn't be fully explored because Zayre wasn't able to foot the bill for the Trans-Mobot cartoon? Unlike Transformers, Go-Bots did not have bios mentioning their respective robot's personality. Instead, they had pictures of other robot from line, and Trans-Mobots were no different. (And yes, someone's mom crossed off the acquired figure for future shopping purposes.) So what makes this race car "Lotus Eater?" What match am I supposed to make between formula-1 racing and ancient mariners hoping to fall into a drugged out state to avoid their harsh reality? Your grandfather needs to call Denny O'Neil and get this ball rolling, because I might actually watch this show.

Discuss the possible pilot. See you next time!