Review – Convertible Robots Cement Mixer
I have spent the last few years posting information, reviews, and pics of cheap transforming robot toys here at battlegrip.com (hundreds of posts), and today we take things up a notch with what has to be one of the cheapest of the eighties transforming robot lines: Convertible Robots. This toy is so cheap and ugly that it may be one of only a handful that I’ve stopped while taking photos and said: “Why did I even buy this thing?” Seriously, the charm of ugly is nowhere to be found here, and instead all we’re left with is a bad robot toy.
Packaging
As you can see in the pic, the cheap plastic bubble and even cheaper glue did not survive the mail; the toy arrived opened. That’s a danger with carded toys, and the fear of the glue giving away to the weight of the toy is why I keep laying the Star Wars die-cast toys down on their backs; those seventies Star Wars TIE Fighters are heavy as hell, and the last thing we want to see is the weight of the toys rip them free of their MOC status. I should post pics of those TIE Fighters, right? Also, I should probably focus on this Convertible Robots toy at the moment.
So Very Horrible
This robot is so bad that the manufacturer, unnamed on the packaging, didn’t even bother to give the poor robot a proper name. Fans of the GoBots will recognize the toy as Block Head (reviewed at Counter-X), but I am willing to bet that the official GoBots toy feels more durable and less floppy than this off-brand transforming robot toy. At least Block Head’s face isn’t chewed away by some unknown being, which is more than we can say for this very bad Convertible Robots toy. Who gnawed on your face, robot?
Fun Transformation Design
The one good thing I can say about this robot is that its transformation design is more clever than simply folding out the feet and arms. The cab folds in on itself, the cement mixer drum swings up to hide inside the cab and reveal the head, and the rear sections fold and twist in on themselves to form the legs/feet of the robot. The transformation design would feel a lot more satisfying if the plastic and metal parts of the toy didn’t feel so cheap; trust me, the manufacturer took every step they could to reduce the quality of this toy down to pure junk.
Closing Thoughts
I’m usually a fan of cheap transforming robot toys — the cheaper, the better! — but this Convertible Robots toy has demonstrated that your robot toy can go too far down the path of cheap construction to be any fun at all. I have a few more of the robots in this series, but right now I am going to leave you with these very important words: Do not buy the toys in this line. Even $5 is too much to pay for one of these, and that’s saying a lot when referring to a toy that’s over three decades old. Avoid this line!
Hmm. Something about that packaging looks familiar enough that I think I had some of this line as a kid. I know I have a knock-off of the GoBot Spoons packed away, that I’ve never figured out exactly what line it came from. (It would have come from Walmart or TG&Y around…oh, 1985…?) Thanks for posting! I’m gonna look into this line a bit more…!
As a huge Gobots fan, I have purchased quite a few of these due to having color variations when compared to their Machine Robo and Gobots releases. The Convertibe Robots version of Block Head has blue instead of red arms and legs when compared to the Gobots/MR versions. The Convertible Robots line makes for a nice sealed collection for display. I only have a loose Waterwalk (in red, white, and blue colors) that transforms fine. There are worse quality KO transforming robots out there.
Wow…come to think of it, I’m pretty sure a red, white, and blue Waterwalk is the other figure I remember getting from this line. The evidence is building that these “Convertible Robots” are what I have…
Were it not for the tiny arms, that’s actually a pretty impressive model for a vintage line. Still, it’s really fun to see these old ‘bots–keep ’em comin!
Have you ever looked at the knockoff versions of the Transformers tapes? I distinctly remember having a few of those as a child.