Review – Transformers Generation Two Sizzle
This toy isn’t quite twenty years old, but that’s only because I sat down to review it before the calendar flipped to a new year. Released in 1993, this Sizzle Sparkabot toy is a great example of what Hasbro was doing with their Transformers Generation Two series: take an earlier release and put it out in new colors. Translucent lime green, anyone?
Vehicle Mode
Some sort of over-powered funny car, Sizzle has that boxy, toy-like quality that makes the Autobot Mini-Cars of the eighties (and their re-releases in the nineties) so very much fun. Little tires up front, big tires in the back, and a sparking motor that activates when you rev up the car on a flat surface makes this exactly what I love about the toys of this era: it’s silly and fun.
Robot Mode
After yesterday’s discussion about action figure articulation I know it’s a little odd for me to pull out a toy with almost no articulation at all — just two swivels at the shoulders — but I thought this was a great time to show how toy’s used to be. If you compare this Transformers Generation Two toy to almost any toy made today the newer toys have far superior articulation . . . but this one transforms easily and everything feels nice and tough.
Closing Thoughts
The Transformers Generation Two Sizzle shouldn’t be on anyone’s “must buy” list, but it is a fun toy and those colors are a great example of Transformers color choices of the early nineties. This is my only Sparkabot toy and while I do want more I am more interested in finding the last two Throttlebots that I need than I am in finding another Sparkabot.
A functional and fun toy, but not an amazing one. I suspect he would be a lot cooler in the full set of Sparkabots than he is all on his own.
Philip Reed feels like a little kid when he pops open a toy that’s almost two decades old.
Man, i’ve not seen a G2 packaging in years. The only actual Transformers I saw in stores as a child were Generation 2’s, as all my G1’s came loose from yard sales.
While I wish I were around for the original releases, it was good timing that in the early 90’s for child-Blayne – all the 10 year olds from 1984 were all going to college. As kids left their toys behind for beer and girlfriends, their parents quietly sold their toy collections to me on foggy Saturday mornings. 🙂
Still, I have a soft spot for garishly colored Transformers, thanks to K-Mart’s generous G2 Transformer section. Thanks for posting some of the packaging shots Phillip. 🙂
The one you want is Blaze, the Autobot “hitman”.
Yep. Prime was really giving some deep job descriptions in the latter days of G2.
@Blayne – Happy to help out! If you want some real fun with Generation Two I always recommend the comic from Marvel. I wish that had run longer.
@Phillip Reed – Is the Marvel TF series you’re talking about the same one written by Simon Furman, canceled way back when – then restarted just recently?
I’d be really interested to check out some G2 specific comics. I never thought G2 had an actual story, rather that any modern TF toys like Megatron as a tank, Combat Hero Prime, etc. were just callbacks to the original redecos from the early ’90s.
@Blayne – I posted a little about the series and a link to an overview a few years ago: https://www.battlegrip.com/?p=15723
The current IDW series continues the original Marvel run and not the Marvel G2 run. I’m not sure how, if at all, the G2 comics fit into the new IDW comics.
@Philip Reed: Thanks for the link. 🙂 I’ll track down that series and check it out. I’m pretty sure the G2 was considered a different ‘universe’ from the normal Marvel comics TF comics (then things became more complicated later on with the USA/UK Magazine releases).
I’d forgotten about the CG repacked G1 episodes. I remember disliking those, and prefering the season 3 cartoon intro. I still love that version of the theme song.
I did a quick search on youtube for Generation 2 cartoon intro’s, and found a great German dubbed G2 episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPe5_6cxywA
Starscream screaming in German is awesome, and absolutely made my day. German Bruticus is also pretty great. 🙂