Review – Super Gobots Bug Bite (1984)
Tonka’s Super Gobots toys (find at Amazon.com*) were the larger, better-constructed GoBots in the line and actually quite hefty chunks of die cast metal and plastic. These are far, far superior to the smaller toys . . . even if the Super GoBots could really use better heads/faces.
Packaging
Bug Bite* comes in the standard (for the line) box with fabulous artwork, a flap that open to reveal a window showing the toy, and transformation instructions right on the back of the box. The thing I want most after time with this box (and the box with Staks) is a book collecting all of this old GoBots artwork together. I’m probably not going to see such a thing. Aw.
Beetle Mode
My memories of GoBots toys always go to the thought that the toys were cheap and inferior to Transformers, but as I play with Bug Bite* I must admit that my memories are wrong. This toy is every single bit as professional and well-produced as the Transformers Autobot cars from the same time, complete with lots of die cast parts and rubber tires. So why do I always think of GoBots as lesser toys than Transformers?
I suspect that my memories that place these as cheap toys comes down to two specific things:
- Story. The GoBots fiction we were given in the US wasn’t at all of the same level of quality as the Transformers comic and cartoon. GoBots would have benefitted from stories that were as well-produced as the Transformers tales of the eighties.
- Heads. Yeah, this is probably my biggest complaint with Bug Bite* and many other GoBots. Those heads/faces that are simply parts of the vehicles make these feel really cheap. If these robots had been given actual heads and faces I would have loved them a lot more. Not all GoBots suffer from this problem, but enough of them do to detract from the entire series.
Robot Mode
Standing 5.5-inches tall, Bug Bite* is a significant piece of transforming robot toy and looks mostly nifty. The only serious flaws are the head (as I mentioned) and those spindly arms; those are are too thin and ugly for me to really fall in love with the design.
If I stop and think about it, though, I can admit that there’s a goofy charm to the robot design. It helps that the transformation design is clean and quick . . . even if a good chunk of car is hanging off of the back of the robot. If the designers had managed it so the top of the car flipped back (so the windshield part if a backpack) to reveal an actual robot head I’d be a lot happier with the design.
What we get is a robot that leaves me confused and unsure of my feelings. I cannot state that it’s a cheap transforming robot toy — the manufacture is too high a quality for this to be an inexpensive knockoff — but the flaws are strong enough that I continue to look at the GoBots as weaker and lesser than Hasbro’s Transformers. I can respect what’s here more than I ever have before, but that doesn’t mean I’ve suddenly decided that GoBots are better than Transformers.
Closing Thoughts
Bug Bite* is a pretty neat toy, but the poor head design and thin arms leave me kinda neutral on whether or not it’s a toy I’ll keep in the collection forever. The physical manufacturing of the toy is a higher quality than a lot of what we see today — seriously, all of that die cast metal makes this a heavy beast of a toy — but the articulation is less effective than we get with most modern transforming robot toys.
This is one I suggest you enjoy from a distance and don’t bother tracking down.
You want to see parts of the alt mode just hanging there – have a look at Megatron’s trigger in robot mode (but don’t stare too long, it’s awkward for both of you). No head/face? Perhaps a glance over at Ratchet or Ironhide is in order. Spindly arms? Optimus Prime wasn’t winning any arm wresting competitions! And unless you transformed Starscream next to the drawer you kept his fists in (or you happened to remember to shove them in your pocket on the way to your friend’s house) then he didn’t even have hands!
Fact is, GoBot toys get a bad and undeserved rap any way you look at it. Or perhaps Transformer toys are respected to a degree greater than the toys themselves actually deserve.
But I think you make a great point in that the GoBots fiction was where they lost the ‘respect’ of American kids. I will argue that the Transformers cartoon was no less goofy than the Gobots one (but in different ways), and Transformers at least on the surface seemed to take a more ‘serious’ approach. Plus, Transformers had Marvel comics to give them even more legitimacy. Then again, GoBots had multiple female characters and they weren’t singular sexist representations (ie only pink cars with high heels) – AND they made toys of them – and that’s got to count for something.
Personally I feel these are being misjudged because of how Tonka marketed them. The “Super Gobots” are clearly meant in the original Japanese design to be PILOTED mecha (much like most of the original Diaclone that formed half of Transformers G1), not sentient robots. That’s why they all have “cockpit” heads. The missing link here is “Psycho” which was originally based on the car used by Cobra in the anime Space Adventure Cobra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_%28manga%29 ). The figures in the “head” are actually of the characters Cobra and Lady, so you can see the robot mode is designed to be piloted by them.
As such, I always thought the Super Go-Bot toy designs were fairly sensible as they allow the driver to stay seated at the wheel in both vehicle and robot modes. In this sense they are more akin to the same issue with Ratchet and Ironhide, which were meant to become powered suits for their tiny 1-inch tall Diaclone pilots that Hasbro omitted and replaced with those half-assed face decals… 😉
http://a-loft-on-cybertron.deviantart.com/art/Ironhide-walking-Libessart-595740738
Personally I feel these are being misjudged because of how Tonka marketed them. The “Super Gobots” are clearly meant in the original Japanese design to be PILOTED mecha (much like most of the original Diaclone that formed half of Transformers G1), not sentient robots. That’s why they all have “cockpit” heads. The missing link here is “Psycho” which was originally based on the car used by Cobra in the anime Space Adventure Cobra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_%28manga%29 ). The figures in the “head” are actually of the characters Cobra and Lady, so you can see the robot mode is designed to be piloted by them.
As such, I always thought the Super Go-Bot toy designs were fairly sensible as they allow the driver to stay seated at the wheel in both vehicle and robot modes. In this sense they are more akin to the same issue with Ratchet and Ironhide, which were meant to become powered suits for their tiny 1-inch tall Diaclone pilots that Hasbro omitted and replaced with those half-assed face decals… 😉
http://a-loft-on-cybertron.deviantart.com/art/Ironhide-walking-Libessart-595740738