Tonka Gobots v Hasbro Go-Bots

Part1 Why the new Go-Bots can't stack up to the old Gobots. By Celeste

When I first saw the Transformers Go-Bots TV show somethng inside of me said that it wasn't the same as the old Gobots show from 1984. One of my favourite things to do when I was a kid was to sit down in front of the TV and watch the Challenge of the Gobots on TV but now a little bit of my childhood was punched in the stomach with Hasbro's somewhat lame attempt at bringing the Go-Bots back and they didn't do it very well either.

I think that the question of which is better, Tonka Gobots or Hasbro Go-Bots, is matter of taste. A lot about thiis line of toys has changed since I was a kid. Gone are the classic metal toys that I knew and loved and they replaced it with these silly Playskool things made out of cheap plastic, metal, and machine screws.

Company Merger

Hasbro's lame attempt to bring the Go-Bots back started back in 1990 when Hasbro bought out the Tonka toys and thus eliminating any of their competition. Hasbro should have been sued by the competition bereau for making too much money. It sure would give Hasbro execes a good kick in the you-know-where.

The Toys and their Commercials

The Gobots (1984)

Some of the Gobots had some names that most people would think are lame. Some of their names were hyphenated to indicate their alternate forms. Some examples of these hypenated names are:

Leader-1
Spay-C
Hun-Grrr
Hans-Cuff
Rest-Q
Cop-Tur
Cy-Kill
Dive-Dive
Royal-T

Well you get the picture.

And lookie lookie there's a visual aid right on this site for those who wonder what it is I like about the old Gobots commercials.

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/1619/

You look at the Hasbro Go-Bots page and you find that it's not quite the same as they would have you believe.
First of all they don't even shoot the commercials outside anywhere. They look as though they're being shot on a sound stage. What's the matter? Are the advertising execs not being paid enough to do what they need to do to make the Go-Bots line profitable? The toys themselves are made out of cheapola plastic held together with metal and machine screws. Not exactly 5 year old friendly. Now the old Gobots of 1984 had die cast constructions and allbeit a little bit flimsy they were built to last a long time.

The Go-Bot names are as lame as lame can get. Just two names to speak of: Racerbot, Copbot, and Strongbot to name a few. It's nothing that's even remotely new or interesting. Nothing that I can think of that's new or intersting.
There is a strong lack of female characters on the Go-Bots TV show which is my only pet peeve.

Copbot is one of the new Transformers Go-Bots.

The Leaders.

The Leaders: Leader-1 leads the Gaurdian Gobots while Cykill leads the Renegade Gobots.

The 1984 Gobots are split up into two warring factions: The Gaurdian Gobots, lead by Leader-1, and the Renegade Gobots, lead by Cy-Kill, and boy is there ever a war going on that takes both the Gaurdians and the Renegades all the way to earth.

Compare that to the new Go-Bots who don't have assigned leaders and are allowed to do whatever they want whenever they want

The Second-In-Commands.

.
Turbo (right) and Cop-Tur (left) are both the second in command for the Gaurdians and the Renegades.

Both sides have slow witted second-in-commands. The Gaurdians have Turbo while the Renegades have Cop-Tur. Cop-Turr is a little bit dumb while Turbo doesn't look before he leaps and almost always puts himself in imediate danger.

Girl Gobots

Also there were many female characters in the old Gobot series, something that was lacking in the new Go-Bot series. The female characterrs included:

Spay-C
Small Foot
Pathfinder
Sparky
Snoop
Crasher

They're not whimpy girls either. They each have their own merrits and are good at holding their own.

So that's it for part 1 of Why the New Go-Bots can't stack up to the old Gobots. Part 2 will deal with the TV shows in more details.

Comments

Some go-bots weren't that bad, Like Zod a gobot eating monster (at least I always assumed he was a gobot eater) . my biggest gripe was that because they were so small, they broke easier. You just drop Cy-kill once and his arms are shot.

Basically, the kids who got go-bots were the ones whose parents wouldn't buy them Transformers, and were made fun of at school!!!

well put indeed* lol the cheesiest thing compared to the emerson-1800 to the Atari 2600 of its time. the rest is history, but still a good look over

I had cop-tur. I loved him. I remeber small parts of him chipping off as he got old but it was nothing to big. if i hadnt left my huge toy box in the hosue we moved out of when i was 16 i would still ahve him today.

They were flimsy in the sense that not much went into the designs. for example, with leader one, his head (the cockpit for the jet) would fall forward and loosely after awhile. I did have gobots and enjoyed them at the time however.

I'll go on record as stating that I don't like what Hasbro has done with the Go-Bot name, but my problem springs from the fact that they've made the line into a sort of "Fisher-Price Transformers".
I still have no idea why you don't like them based on your article. Apart from an irrational Microsoft-esque hatred of Hasbro, you've shown that both lines have unimaginative names, and while one is made of plastic, and the other die cast metal, both were flimsy. (I'm not sure how something can be flimsy, but built to last at the same time)