little known fact : Megamorph Hulk was supposed to have been a character for the transtech toyline under the name : "Immorticon" But when Transtech got cancelled , the designers went to Toybiz and used some of the transtech designs to create the Megamorphs
I'm guessing Immorticon gets it's name from Immortal? Cause if so, I find it funny it's the hulk Since years later we would get a comic run called the Immortal hulk.
i recall reading about this! transtech is still a line i’d like to see happen, and i feel like technology has advanced to the point where the designs could probably be executed properly. cost, on the other hand… well.
Maisto also tried their hands at some Transformers-style toys. I think they were called Biklonz, but they were motorbikes that transformed into bipedal robots. They didn't have proper head sculpts, the windshield section became the head for some reason.
I'm a bit surprised that Hot Wheels' 2nd round at making a Transforming cars line didn't make it to the list. My personal favourite Transformers competitor Modifighters! They came out in the 07 movie's lifetime, they used to be normal vehicles until being modified into transforming robots! They were/are weird looking in bot mode and I love them, I have 3 which includes the main character of the line Streetwyse the Kingpin (I'm not joking that literally his name).
That one Tobot Y toy is novelty infamous as Energon Ironhide. But it's still a good helibot in its own right, and if there's any other coincidental ripoff engineering in the other Tobot toys it's not as obvious since they're the everyday car. Arguably it felt like Tobot V/GD was ripping off itself when Y and four others were head & redecoed in Rescue red that look like classic beloved Tobots but are not the same and completely different in character.
I think another Transformers knock off line that should be mentioned is Autotech. Instead of one toy vehicle turning into a robot, you instead had packs of 3 to 5 vehicles that transformed and combined into a robot. My favorite was the military 5 pack Striker.
Great video, Sir! I used to collect a series of figures and vehicles called MARS HEROES. They were made by Hap-P-Kid toys in China and could be found at Walgreens, Family Dollar, and even TRU and Wal-Mart in some cases. It was a great Cyborg soldier vs Drejj-like aliens line with interchangeable parts and cool little vehicles. All that goodness ended when Hap-P-Kid decided to dedicate the MARS line completely to the unrelated MARS CONVERTERS. These were 8-10 inch transformable robots that came in not only car and truck form, but dinosaurs as well. While the molds are original and not awful looking, we didn't need yet ANOTHER line of morphing robots in a market that's already saturated with them. Oh what could have been if they'd just continued MARS HEROES!
Fun Fact , the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle series did infact have a Mutant who would fuse himself with Cars and to Race against and wreck other cars ^^ He didn't transform into them... But still a pretty crazy concept!
4:32 Thank you sooooo much! I had one that was a jet and loved it. It had a disc that I played on my grandpa's PC. It was a short like visual novel. For years I had tried to find out what the toyline was.
I had a R.E.V, but until this point I couldn't remember what they were called, but now I know, and the video I found of one is also the one I had, I still have a car door from it in my old toybox. No idea what happened to the rest of it.
I had a few of the Ninja Turtle Mutations toys as a kid. They came out with the Secret of the Ooz. One of the figures was actually a Shredder that transforms into Super Shredder from that movie. I think there was also a cartoon based toy line as I vaguely remember a Splinter figure that kind of transformed like Animorphs did from his original human form except Splinter was never a human in the movie, he was a pet rat that mutated, him and the human being the same character was only in the 80's cartoon. I think all the turtles were the same molds for both the 80's cartoon and movie toy lines with that Super Shredder mutation being the only new mold they made specifically for the movie. Anyway I never saw the vehicle transformers. I do kind of hope Hasbro does a transforming Party Wagon for their official crossover toys at some point. Anyway... one toy line you didn't mention that I have a few figures of is the Digimon Digivolution toy line produced by Bandai. There's a Agumon that transforms into WarGreymon, they also made a black variant of it, I only really have the black version. Impmon into Beelzemon. Oddly they made WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon as a combiner into Omnimon which makes sense but ExVeemon and Stingmon into Palidramon is a triplechanger despite the fact that ExVeemon and Stingmon should be two separate Digimon that combine to form Palidramon. Imperialdramon just transforms from Dragon mode to Fighter mode and they made a repaint of this figure in his Paladin Mode colors which also make no sense because there was never a white version of the Dragon mode and Paladin Mode has a sword that the toy doesn't even come with, he does still have the cannon of the original version which he's not suppose to have. They didn't even bother retooling the figure to give him his correct weapons it's just a really lazy repaint. They also make a Cybertramon to Justimon, Guilmon to Gallantmon, Terriormon to MegaGargomon, Gargomon to Rapidmon. Lopmon to Kerpymon. They weren't all just from one Digimon to another either, they also made an Armor Digivolution line which consisted of Flamedramon from the Digi-egg of Courage, Submarimon from the Digi-Egg of Reliability, Raidramon from the Digi-egg of Friendship, Magnamon from the Digi-egg of Miracles. I listed these separately because Bandai of America and Bandai of Japan actually had very different ideas of what this toy line should be. The American versions transform directly from Egg to Armored Digimon while the Japanese version actually have a base Rookie figure that you would attach the bits of armor from the Digi-Egg onto. There was still an element of Transformation involved but the transformations were much more simple as they didn't have to turn into an Egg they more or less had to elongate to fit the armor. This typically resulted in the Japanese versions looking a lot more screen accurate in egg mode while the American versions tended to look better in the Armored mode. Though this also meant that the Japanese toys had a rather unique play pattern that made them more than just the typical Transformers knock offs of other Digivolving toys and they repeated this in Frontier with the Spirit evolution toy line. I actually wish I had the Japanese versions but I only had the American toys I listed off earlier. And if you don't like shellformers or hallow plastic the Digimon Digivolution toy line is FULL of it cause a lot of the designs are essentially impossible to do any other way. I'm just impressed they managed to engineer toys that could transform at all. I think Greymon to MetalGreymon which I could never find as a kid might be one of the best figures they ever made because the two designs are already so similar it's one of the only figures that's actually screen accurate and isn't a shellformer.
The Digivolving Line was awesome even if they had some compromises. Unfortunately Omegamon in Japan was plagued with the worst GPS I've ever seen on all the White and unfortunately that meant that MetalGarurumon was practically unplayable. The worst part is that the Japanese Line had so many cool things added to it and wasn't cheaply made at all but is plagued by the worst aging I've seen in my life. Dukemon's beautiful metallic white with a cloth cape and Chrome turns into piss yellow if it's exposed to light for too long. Which sucks because the US version is terrible, but it's automatically better because it isn't susceptible to UV Light. Unfortunately it gets worse when you realize that because Digivolving Spirits got canned we lost out on a safe version of the Dukemon Mold that's accurate. Which sucks because Wargreymon was awesome and had die-cast joints, that man is absolutely solid to this day. Also chrome and all the bells and whistles and transforms into a semi respectable Agumon though I'm not sure if I like it more than the OG out of nostalgia. We could've gotten so much more out of that line, like an Omegamon that doesn't suffer from more GPS problems than most Transformers! Yes I'm still salty about that. We do have the Digivolving Spirits for most of the other Digidestined from the original and Alphamon, but it feels kinda Hollow without some of the main Victims of GPS being there.
@@Isolder74 I do remember seeing a couple of those in the toy line for the CGI Nickelodeon series. I only ever saw two of the Turtles no matter what store I went to so I'm not sure if they even made all of them. I'm guessing ones like Mikey never got made because of the controversy that got his weapons removed from the later seasons of the 80's cartoon and the sequels in the 90's movies and Donatello I assume they never made cause his weapon is essentially just a stick that no one likes.
Number 4 seems more like something Tony Stark created for Bruce Banner to use as a way to get Banner's alter ego to use to fight Galactus when everyone else is indisposed fighting another heavy dangerous threat towards Earth.
Speaking of Hot Wheels, they had one of their cars that was shaped like a robot laying down. If you stood it up on it's back end, it was a robot holding a gun. Recently, I saw the same car now packed with a trailer accessory that could transform into power armor a la Gobots, lol.
I remember so many transforming robot toys from my youth, There was Modifighters from Hot wheels, which were cars that turned into robots that wore sneakers and other stuff, and there was also Power rangers morphers which had the rangers turning into the zords or weapons from the show.
Speaking of Robo-Wheels, the fiction surrounding it is even more blatantly "inspired" by Transformers. The short cartoon that advertises the toyline that came on VHS may as well be a synopsis of the premise of the original Transformers cartoon with the names changed. At around the same time, Mattel also was attempting to get success from their take on the "cars that turn into cars with weapons on them" genre pioneered by M.A.S.K. with Sho-Gun, which I don't remember if it was a subline of Hot Wheels too.
Hey TJ, longtime viewer, first time commenter, just wanted to say I really appreciate the quality and production rate of your videos, I used to watch videos like yours and other transformer reviews/content makers to live vicariously within the world of collectors. However, recently I quit Yugioh and sold off my entire collection which netted me such surplus of spendable fun money, that i decided to pull the trigger and enter the world fully, 4 months later I now have collected all of kingdom bw and even delved into the world of third party and KOs to fill out rosters that hasbro never made, and it's videos like yours that discuss the history and quality of figures that has helped me grow more involved every day. Sorry for the long winded comment and I will digress to say thank you, your videos are always well informed, articulated and presented with a sophisticated nuance that sometimes feel like a college lecture (in a good way) on transformers, i always learn a new facet of this hobby with each video, so thank you.
My personal favorite was the ReKonstructors by K'Nex. Being a building toy they couldn't properly transform and the designs were goofy as heck, especially since they had human faces partially covered by reflective visors.
11:57 Toy Biz was actually a part of Marvel Entertainment that time, but due to their bankruptcy, they had to be shut down, and the toy license sold to Hasbro.
I've had about 6 Roadbots in different scales growing up, so they're nostalgic for me, but I can recognize that most of them did do quite an amount of partsforming. Mostly though, they came with lots of accessories (different weapons, shields, guns and even armor on the 1:24 scale, I guess to one-up Alternators). I also liked them because of their different transformations comparing to Transformers, although the cost of that would be articulation most of the time.
There was a toy line in the 80s called "Road Bots" and you had to take them apart and reassemble them to robot mode. Funny the modern toy under that name does that too.
Some roadbot figures actually use all of their removable parts and accessories in robot mode and store everything in vehicle mode, but that’s only in some of the large scale figures
If you think Hotwheels' Robo-wheels were an attempt to imitate Transformers, then you haven't seen the Modifighters that came out in 2007 from Hotwheels himself. They are literally cars that transform into robots, even with water guns like G2 and Beast Wars. I had a green one and gave it to a relative, sometimes I regret it a bit.
also Robo Wheels isn't the only time Hot Wheels did a toy line of transforming robots, there is another one called "Modifighters" which is straight up Transformers as in it fully converts with no parts-forming.
Oh my god!! Number 8….I remember seeing these guys all the time at Toy’s R us I knew they were bit of a Transformers knock off like but honestly I still enjoyed them and even remember keeping some of them but lost them over the years
Don’t even get me started on the triple transforming megazord figures. Band I seriously thought that they could fuse the ideas of Ranger and megazord into one thing. They did it, and they failed. The only reason I know, is because I have it. I got this thing at PMC 2018. It falls apart a lot.
I have never heard of these, so goo idea showing lines that some may have not known of. I have not seen a new Transformer toy since the 80's so I did not know they made them again after the movies.
When I was a kid I remember seeing Matchbox Parasites in the store. I thought they were crap and I would be upset if my parents bought me any for up coming Christmas. Now I have them all MOC and a set I opened. They are so lame, I love em.
ARGGH!! Can't believe you didn't talk about LJN Switchbots from 1984/1985! Not only are they pretty great toys for their time, they're good and meme-y being from LJN (Laughing Joking Numb-nuts)!
5:53 I had one of those as a kid (Minkey)! I remember I wanted more like Tonka but my dad says no cos they were expensive! 16:58 Had the orange one on the left side!
I remember Parasites. As a kid I didn't care for them, because there were no heroes in the line, only villains. My young brain couldn't get past that for some reason. Plus, my resources were limited, so I stuck with the TFs.
I actually have a small collection of Dinozaurs. They have some bizarre engineering, especially Gigano Dragon. The chrome does indeed hold up well, but the plastic kinda doesn't. Thankfully haven't had any breakages though! I do wanna pick up the T-rex guy though.
apart from the turtle van and transport module, they could go all out for road ready range, rocksteady or bebop transform in turtle tenderizer, ratking as the footski, maybe a large krang as the technodrom, april as the channel 6 news van or maybe donny as the blimp if I am not mistaken mask rider had the transforming magno and chopper toys
Those revs, good God I've been looking for those for years. Had one of the small ones ( blue dirt bike) as a kid and thanks to you I can remember what they were called
I know one toy story 2 movin morphers was Mattel’s attempt at transformers and it was hilariously strange like buzz lightyears head just sets on top of his ship with fan detail on the bottom of it in an attempt to look like something else lmao.
When you mentioned power rangers, I thought you were going to say the turbo rescue zords. The ones that start as vehicles and turn into humanoid robots before they become a combiner.
I know Tobots because my country is selling these guys in toy stores like 'Kiddy Palace' as well as Toys 'R Us. Singapore has them Toys 'R Us alright. They even sell Transformers toys too. 10:55, oh wow..not too shabby. 12:53, oh. Ok. That makes sense. 13:40, you think they would have something like a Bandai Studios which Hasbro has it so they can make stuff that might be rivalling that of Bandai of Japan stuff? They shoulda gotten Shoji Kawamori or Shinji Aramaki to supervise. 14:41, this toyline. Ah yes. The SILVER SWORD! You often wonder if Bandai of America could've repacked them as MMPR toys back in the day in an anniversary line. Just saying. Parasites. Truly a horror B-movie thing.
7:40 I got a few of these off a yard sale. Their kinda cool. Tho the blue and yellow van it kinda just energon prime with a skate board as the wheels. 15:16 that needs a review.
Don’t know if it would technically count, but I used to love the digi-volving digimon toys that would change between two forms cause they reminded me of Transformers
4:28 okay so that's what those things were called. I remember getting one of those when I was a lot younger when visiting my grandparents because it was really cheap or something. Never remembered exactly what they were or called beyond that.
I've love to see you make something like the top 10 best/worst 3rd party Transformers Companies. Like, not the ones which just lazily rip off toys and release them cheaply, the ones who legit try to fill a gap where they see demand, and try (not always succeeding) to make something good for fans, like Fansproject or Unique Toys.
I had a few Road Bots (when I was a kid I didn't really recognize the difference, I saw transforming vehicle= transformer, and there was a lot of stuff like that, and particularly KOs in pound shops or tourist gift shops, If memory serves I had a KO of G1 Devastator, and some of the Robotmasters including Optimus) as memory serves they were not very durable.
not sure about the Power Ranger one - remember Power Rangers is from a Japanese show called Super Sentai that has been around since 1975, they have had combining robots and transforming toys almost as long, that being the case Power Rangers just followed the "parent" toyline -- i will say that Boukanger (Operation Overdrive's Japanese source) never had a robot/drill toy but it did have a Sword/robot transforming toy
I was waiting for Webdiver the whole time. Do they count? I actually have most of them pretty much because of your Gradion and Galleon reviews, even though Gradion is a big translucent plastic victim. Speaking of, the only DinoZaur I ever had was Dino-Brachio, and he's still in perfect shape.
This design is like 10 years old, they got a new version of Tobot Y. Shameless, yeah, but that’s like one design they took, but the rest are genuine gifts from heaven.
For those looking for such figures, and wish to be disturbed as well, search Legends of Nara Metomorphs. They only made four, and each on is nightmarish in their own right.
Eh, I can't get too mad at the Robo Wheels, since Hasbro had already ripped off their Speed Blaster car design for the G2 Go-Bot High Beam, which later became Spy-Changer Crosswise.
I remember a weird toyline that had simplistic vehicles that turned into blocky animals, but I can't remember the name of the line. As far as I know, it probably wasn't by Hasbro
Surprised you didn't list bakugan or meccard. Bakugan has its own reasons why the toys transform and they all turn into marbles, but meccard is a knockoff of both bakugan and transformers with their magnetic activated robot modes from their folded up cars.
Toys story 2 movin’ morphers by Mattel was another transformers rip-off with RC being closest to one and it was the only vehicular one because they were released during the Beast Wars.
Is it bad that I still want some of those Dinozaurs/Dinozone figures and want Discotek to put the anime on SD-BD? Eh, I dont think so. Also, man I wish Tobots were easier to get and not as pricey.
I have a pair of Robo-Wheels, including the one you used for the pic. Young me had fun with them, but probably not now. The only public videos on my channel right now are of DinoZaurs figures, and they've actually held up well. The translucent plastic definitely feels thicker and the chrome has definitely outlasted at least one of my Transmetals (RIP Scourge's butt).
Roadbots ware not awful but insanely flawed, bad plastic, bad paint, terrible articulations, partsforming etc.. Most were deluxe class scale but some were a lot bigger while still cars, and we've had a few straight up Alternators KOs like Tracks or Mirage that made them awful.
little known fact : Megamorph Hulk was supposed to have been a character for the transtech toyline under the name : "Immorticon" But when Transtech got cancelled , the designers went to Toybiz and used some of the transtech designs to create the Megamorphs
That explains why the mold kinda looks like Frankenstein
I'm guessing Immorticon gets it's name from Immortal?
Cause if so, I find it funny it's the hulk
Since years later we would get a comic run called the Immortal hulk.
i recall reading about this! transtech is still a line i’d like to see happen, and i feel like technology has advanced to the point where the designs could probably be executed properly. cost, on the other hand… well.
Maisto also tried their hands at some Transformers-style toys. I think they were called Biklonz, but they were motorbikes that transformed into bipedal robots. They didn't have proper head sculpts, the windshield section became the head for some reason.
Nope. Biklonz was by Young Toys and turned into animals.
You're thinking of the Cykons.
Maisto also had Roborods.
@@lyokomajor I had a couple of Roborods.
I'm a bit surprised that Hot Wheels' 2nd round at making a Transforming cars line didn't make it to the list.
My personal favourite Transformers competitor Modifighters! They came out in the 07 movie's lifetime, they used to be normal vehicles until being modified into transforming robots! They were/are weird looking in bot mode and I love them, I have 3 which includes the main character of the line Streetwyse the Kingpin (I'm not joking that literally his name).
I remember Modifighters too!
That one Tobot Y toy is novelty infamous as Energon Ironhide. But it's still a good helibot in its own right, and if there's any other coincidental ripoff engineering in the other Tobot toys it's not as obvious since they're the everyday car.
Arguably it felt like Tobot V/GD was ripping off itself when Y and four others were head & redecoed in Rescue red that look like classic beloved Tobots but are not the same and completely different in character.
I think another Transformers knock off line that should be mentioned is Autotech. Instead of one toy vehicle turning into a robot, you instead had packs of 3 to 5 vehicles that transformed and combined into a robot. My favorite was the military 5 pack Striker.
Great video, Sir! I used to collect a series of figures and vehicles called MARS HEROES. They were made by Hap-P-Kid toys in China and could be found at Walgreens, Family Dollar, and even TRU and Wal-Mart in some cases. It was a great Cyborg soldier vs Drejj-like aliens line with interchangeable parts and cool little vehicles. All that goodness ended when Hap-P-Kid decided to dedicate the MARS line completely to the unrelated MARS CONVERTERS. These were 8-10 inch transformable robots that came in not only car and truck form, but dinosaurs as well. While the molds are original and not awful looking, we didn't need yet ANOTHER line of morphing robots in a market that's already saturated with them. Oh what could have been if they'd just continued MARS HEROES!
Fun Fact , the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle series did infact have a Mutant who would fuse himself with Cars and to Race against and wreck other cars ^^
He didn't transform into them... But still a pretty crazy concept!
4:32 Thank you sooooo much! I had one that was a jet and loved it. It had a disc that I played on my grandpa's PC. It was a short like visual novel. For years I had tried to find out what the toyline was.
I had a R.E.V, but until this point I couldn't remember what they were called, but now I know, and the video I found of one is also the one I had, I still have a car door from it in my old toybox. No idea what happened to the rest of it.
I had a few of the Ninja Turtle Mutations toys as a kid. They came out with the Secret of the Ooz. One of the figures was actually a Shredder that transforms into Super Shredder from that movie. I think there was also a cartoon based toy line as I vaguely remember a Splinter figure that kind of transformed like Animorphs did from his original human form except Splinter was never a human in the movie, he was a pet rat that mutated, him and the human being the same character was only in the 80's cartoon. I think all the turtles were the same molds for both the 80's cartoon and movie toy lines with that Super Shredder mutation being the only new mold they made specifically for the movie.
Anyway I never saw the vehicle transformers. I do kind of hope Hasbro does a transforming Party Wagon for their official crossover toys at some point.
Anyway... one toy line you didn't mention that I have a few figures of is the Digimon Digivolution toy line produced by Bandai. There's a Agumon that transforms into WarGreymon, they also made a black variant of it, I only really have the black version. Impmon into Beelzemon. Oddly they made WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon as a combiner into Omnimon which makes sense but ExVeemon and Stingmon into Palidramon is a triplechanger despite the fact that ExVeemon and Stingmon should be two separate Digimon that combine to form Palidramon. Imperialdramon just transforms from Dragon mode to Fighter mode and they made a repaint of this figure in his Paladin Mode colors which also make no sense because there was never a white version of the Dragon mode and Paladin Mode has a sword that the toy doesn't even come with, he does still have the cannon of the original version which he's not suppose to have. They didn't even bother retooling the figure to give him his correct weapons it's just a really lazy repaint. They also make a Cybertramon to Justimon, Guilmon to Gallantmon, Terriormon to MegaGargomon, Gargomon to Rapidmon. Lopmon to Kerpymon.
They weren't all just from one Digimon to another either, they also made an Armor Digivolution line which consisted of Flamedramon from the Digi-egg of Courage, Submarimon from the Digi-Egg of Reliability, Raidramon from the Digi-egg of Friendship, Magnamon from the Digi-egg of Miracles. I listed these separately because Bandai of America and Bandai of Japan actually had very different ideas of what this toy line should be. The American versions transform directly from Egg to Armored Digimon while the Japanese version actually have a base Rookie figure that you would attach the bits of armor from the Digi-Egg onto. There was still an element of Transformation involved but the transformations were much more simple as they didn't have to turn into an Egg they more or less had to elongate to fit the armor. This typically resulted in the Japanese versions looking a lot more screen accurate in egg mode while the American versions tended to look better in the Armored mode. Though this also meant that the Japanese toys had a rather unique play pattern that made them more than just the typical Transformers knock offs of other Digivolving toys and they repeated this in Frontier with the Spirit evolution toy line. I actually wish I had the Japanese versions but I only had the American toys I listed off earlier.
And if you don't like shellformers or hallow plastic the Digimon Digivolution toy line is FULL of it cause a lot of the designs are essentially impossible to do any other way. I'm just impressed they managed to engineer toys that could transform at all. I think Greymon to MetalGreymon which I could never find as a kid might be one of the best figures they ever made because the two designs are already so similar it's one of the only figures that's actually screen accurate and isn't a shellformer.
The Digivolving Line was awesome even if they had some compromises. Unfortunately Omegamon in Japan was plagued with the worst GPS I've ever seen on all the White and unfortunately that meant that MetalGarurumon was practically unplayable. The worst part is that the Japanese Line had so many cool things added to it and wasn't cheaply made at all but is plagued by the worst aging I've seen in my life. Dukemon's beautiful metallic white with a cloth cape and Chrome turns into piss yellow if it's exposed to light for too long. Which sucks because the US version is terrible, but it's automatically better because it isn't susceptible to UV Light.
Unfortunately it gets worse when you realize that because Digivolving Spirits got canned we lost out on a safe version of the Dukemon Mold that's accurate. Which sucks because Wargreymon was awesome and had die-cast joints, that man is absolutely solid to this day. Also chrome and all the bells and whistles and transforms into a semi respectable Agumon though I'm not sure if I like it more than the OG out of nostalgia. We could've gotten so much more out of that line, like an Omegamon that doesn't suffer from more GPS problems than most Transformers! Yes I'm still salty about that. We do have the Digivolving Spirits for most of the other Digidestined from the original and Alphamon, but it feels kinda Hollow without some of the main Victims of GPS being there.
The ninja turtles also have versions that turned into their weapons.
@@Isolder74 I do remember seeing a couple of those in the toy line for the CGI Nickelodeon series. I only ever saw two of the Turtles no matter what store I went to so I'm not sure if they even made all of them. I'm guessing ones like Mikey never got made because of the controversy that got his weapons removed from the later seasons of the 80's cartoon and the sequels in the 90's movies and Donatello I assume they never made cause his weapon is essentially just a stick that no one likes.
Number 4 seems more like something Tony Stark created for Bruce Banner to use as a way to get Banner's alter ego to use to fight Galactus when everyone else is indisposed fighting another heavy dangerous threat towards Earth.
Speaking of Hot Wheels, they had one of their cars that was shaped like a robot laying down. If you stood it up on it's back end, it was a robot holding a gun. Recently, I saw the same car now packed with a trailer accessory that could transform into power armor a la Gobots, lol.
I remember so many transforming robot toys from my youth, There was Modifighters from Hot wheels, which were cars that turned into robots that wore sneakers and other stuff, and there was also Power rangers morphers which had the rangers turning into the zords or weapons from the show.
Speaking of Robo-Wheels, the fiction surrounding it is even more blatantly "inspired" by Transformers. The short cartoon that advertises the toyline that came on VHS may as well be a synopsis of the premise of the original Transformers cartoon with the names changed.
At around the same time, Mattel also was attempting to get success from their take on the "cars that turn into cars with weapons on them" genre pioneered by M.A.S.K. with Sho-Gun, which I don't remember if it was a subline of Hot Wheels too.
Hey TJ, longtime viewer, first time commenter, just wanted to say I really appreciate the quality and production rate of your videos, I used to watch videos like yours and other transformer reviews/content makers to live vicariously within the world of collectors. However, recently I quit Yugioh and sold off my entire collection which netted me such surplus of spendable fun money, that i decided to pull the trigger and enter the world fully, 4 months later I now have collected all of kingdom bw and even delved into the world of third party and KOs to fill out rosters that hasbro never made, and it's videos like yours that discuss the history and quality of figures that has helped me grow more involved every day.
Sorry for the long winded comment and I will digress to say thank you, your videos are always well informed, articulated and presented with a sophisticated nuance that sometimes feel like a college lecture (in a good way) on transformers, i always learn a new facet of this hobby with each video, so thank you.
Fun list. I'd recommend having more pictures of each product next time, I was left wanting to know more about each one.
My personal favorite was the ReKonstructors by K'Nex. Being a building toy they couldn't properly transform and the designs were goofy as heck, especially since they had human faces partially covered by reflective visors.
11:57 Toy Biz was actually a part of Marvel Entertainment that time, but due to their bankruptcy, they had to be shut down, and the toy license sold to Hasbro.
I was waiting for you to make a list like this!
Tobot is actually pretty nice! I like the older figures more but they're still cool
I honestly think the Matchbox "Parasites" are pretty neat! their spunky and dumb looking designs have their own charm to them
Evac also got repainted into Universe Blades. I had that figure, it was a good mold... Good enough to be almost completely knocked off, I guess.
4:36 OH MY GOD THANK YOU I'VE BEEN TRYNA REMEMBER WHAT THAT LINE WAS CALLED FOR MONTHS NOW
I've had about 6 Roadbots in different scales growing up, so they're nostalgic for me, but I can recognize that most of them did do quite an amount of partsforming. Mostly though, they came with lots of accessories (different weapons, shields, guns and even armor on the 1:24 scale, I guess to one-up Alternators). I also liked them because of their different transformations comparing to Transformers, although the cost of that would be articulation most of the time.
I was worried Gobots would appear on this list, glad you didn't add them.
There was a toy line in the 80s called "Road Bots" and you had to take them apart and reassemble them to robot mode. Funny the modern toy under that name does that too.
Some roadbot figures actually use all of their removable parts and accessories in robot mode and store everything in vehicle mode, but that’s only in some of the large scale figures
If you think Hotwheels' Robo-wheels were an attempt to imitate Transformers, then you haven't seen the Modifighters that came out in 2007 from Hotwheels himself. They are literally cars that transform into robots, even with water guns like G2 and Beast Wars.
I had a green one and gave it to a relative, sometimes I regret it a bit.
also Robo Wheels isn't the only time Hot Wheels did a toy line of transforming robots, there is another one called "Modifighters" which is straight up Transformers as in it fully converts with no parts-forming.
Oh my god!! Number 8….I remember seeing these guys all the time at Toy’s R us
I knew they were bit of a Transformers knock off like but honestly I still enjoyed them and even remember keeping some of them but lost them over the years
Don’t even get me started on the triple transforming megazord figures. Band I seriously thought that they could fuse the ideas of Ranger and megazord into one thing. They did it, and they failed. The only reason I know, is because I have it. I got this thing at PMC 2018. It falls apart a lot.
But since GoBots came first are not all these toy lines ripping off GoBots?
I have never heard of these, so goo idea showing lines that some may have not known of. I have not seen a new Transformer toy since the 80's so I did not know they made them again after the movies.
Marvel Transformers via Hasbro did gave us the awesomeness that was Beef Tank Hulk, so at least they did something good with that toyline.
When I was a kid I remember seeing Matchbox Parasites in the store. I thought they were crap and I would be upset if my parents bought me any for up coming Christmas.
Now I have them all MOC and a set I opened. They are so lame, I love em.
I remember Fisher-Price once made a pseudo-Optimus Prime for their Rescue Heroes toyline. I loved my Rescue Roy so much.
ARGGH!! Can't believe you didn't talk about LJN Switchbots from 1984/1985! Not only are they pretty great toys for their time, they're good and meme-y being from LJN (Laughing Joking Numb-nuts)!
I watch a certain nerd who "loves" LJN
5:53 I had one of those as a kid (Minkey)! I remember I wanted more like Tonka but my dad says no cos they were expensive!
16:58 Had the orange one on the left side!
I remember Parasites. As a kid I didn't care for them, because there were no heroes in the line, only villains. My young brain couldn't get past that for some reason. Plus, my resources were limited, so I stuck with the TFs.
I love my new TJ Omega Tee !!! All hail bro!
I actually have a small collection of Dinozaurs. They have some bizarre engineering, especially Gigano Dragon. The chrome does indeed hold up well, but the plastic kinda doesn't. Thankfully haven't had any breakages though! I do wanna pick up the T-rex guy though.
apart from the turtle van and transport module, they could go all out for road ready range, rocksteady or bebop transform in turtle tenderizer, ratking as the footski, maybe a large krang as the technodrom, april as the channel 6 news van or maybe donny as the blimp
if I am not mistaken mask rider had the transforming magno and chopper toys
I can’t wait to see if there’s a legacy hot shot so you can do another skit
Those revs, good God I've been looking for those for years. Had one of the small ones ( blue dirt bike) as a kid and thanks to you I can remember what they were called
I know one toy story 2 movin morphers was Mattel’s attempt at transformers and it was hilariously strange like buzz lightyears head just sets on top of his ship with fan detail on the bottom of it in an attempt to look like something else lmao.
4:27 Oh my god, I remember that toyline. I've been looking for info on it for years and never found anything because I thought it was from Mattel.
One of my cousins actually had a Dinozaur. No idea where it is these days, but considering its transclearant plastic, probably everywhere.
When you mentioned power rangers, I thought you were going to say the turbo rescue zords. The ones that start as vehicles and turn into humanoid robots before they become a combiner.
I know Tobots because my country is selling these guys in toy stores like 'Kiddy Palace' as well as Toys 'R Us. Singapore has them Toys 'R Us alright. They even sell Transformers toys too.
10:55, oh wow..not too shabby.
12:53, oh. Ok. That makes sense.
13:40, you think they would have something like a Bandai Studios which Hasbro has it so they can make stuff that might be rivalling that of Bandai of Japan stuff? They shoulda gotten Shoji Kawamori or Shinji Aramaki to supervise.
14:41, this toyline. Ah yes. The SILVER SWORD! You often wonder if Bandai of America could've repacked them as MMPR toys back in the day in an anniversary line. Just saying.
Parasites. Truly a horror B-movie thing.
Now we need a list of top 10 toy lines that Transformers ripped off from.
Keep up the great work.
You can still get Roadbot (with Lights!) and every time I see one I’m very tempted to buy it.
7:40 I got a few of these off a yard sale. Their kinda cool. Tho the blue and yellow van it kinda just energon prime with a skate board as the wheels.
15:16 that needs a review.
Don’t know if it would technically count, but I used to love the digi-volving digimon toys that would change between two forms cause they reminded me of Transformers
4:28 okay so that's what those things were called. I remember getting one of those when I was a lot younger when visiting my grandparents because it was really cheap or something. Never remembered exactly what they were or called beyond that.
Anyone remember The Bots Master toon? They had transforming Bots that combined. The combined form was called the Jungle Fiver. Odd.
I've love to see you make something like the top 10 best/worst 3rd party Transformers Companies. Like, not the ones which just lazily rip off toys and release them cheaply, the ones who legit try to fill a gap where they see demand, and try (not always succeeding) to make something good for fans, like Fansproject or Unique Toys.
So funfact: the first bot's color scheme is big homage to Round Vernian Vifam. A 1983 mecha anime
Wait, are you saying your mobile science station doesn't have a six barrel rocket launcher? Why did you even buy the thing then?
I remember getting Hot Wheels Robo Wheels when I was 6 and had fun with them. Watched the VHS tape a lot. I still have a couple of mine somewhere
It's almost poetic that an Operation Overdrive toy ends up on this list.
I had a few Road Bots (when I was a kid I didn't really recognize the difference, I saw transforming vehicle= transformer, and there was a lot of stuff like that, and particularly KOs in pound shops or tourist gift shops, If memory serves I had a KO of G1 Devastator, and some of the Robotmasters including Optimus) as memory serves they were not very durable.
I don't know if these fit in here, but along with my Transformers and GoBots, I also had Select Convertors and Moto Bots.
not sure about the Power Ranger one - remember Power Rangers is from a Japanese show called Super Sentai that has been around since 1975, they have had combining robots and transforming toys almost as long, that being the case Power Rangers just followed the "parent" toyline -- i will say that Boukanger (Operation Overdrive's Japanese source) never had a robot/drill toy but it did have a Sword/robot transforming toy
I was waiting for Webdiver the whole time. Do they count?
I actually have most of them pretty much because of your Gradion and Galleon reviews, even though Gradion is a big translucent plastic victim.
Speaking of, the only DinoZaur I ever had was Dino-Brachio, and he's still in perfect shape.
Very cool and fun topic. I really love your unique topics.
Meteorbs where a Transformers cash in from the Masters of the Universe toyline. They where actually from a Bandi toyline called Tamagoras.
1:42 okay, so on top of that being a copy of Cyberton Evac, that head and color scheme are a dead ringer for Vifam (Ginga Hyōryū Vifam)
This design is like 10 years old, they got a new version of Tobot Y. Shameless, yeah, but that’s like one design they took, but the rest are genuine gifts from heaven.
For those looking for such figures, and wish to be disturbed as well, search Legends of Nara Metomorphs. They only made four, and each on is nightmarish in their own right.
14:25 *_"WHAM, BAM, IT'S THE DINO JAM!"_*
hot wheels also had modifighters which was more hip hop style with the robots looking like gangsters or something one was even called streetwyse
I'd love dinozaurs to get a comeback, they were cool I have the sabertooth one on my shelf
Hot Wheels had one more Transformers style toy line, where the figures were much bigger than their first attempt.
Eh, I can't get too mad at the Robo Wheels, since Hasbro had already ripped off their Speed Blaster car design for the G2 Go-Bot High Beam, which later became Spy-Changer Crosswise.
I remember a weird toyline that had simplistic vehicles that turned into blocky animals, but I can't remember the name of the line. As far as I know, it probably wasn't by Hasbro
hey TJ think a show like Van-Piers could work now with better CG
You know, the Tobot figures are what I want in a power rangers and transformers crossover a line of figures.
Surprised you didn't list bakugan or meccard. Bakugan has its own reasons why the toys transform and they all turn into marbles, but meccard is a knockoff of both bakugan and transformers with their magnetic activated robot modes from their folded up cars.
I remember owning a TMNT transformer figure, I think it was raph in a pilot suit that transformed into a f 15 jet lol
I was waiting to see some talk on the anymorph transformable toys.
Animorphs was an official Transformers line, so not really a rip off.
@@TJOmega oh, i forgot about that, they dint feel like transformer toys, thanks for for the reply.
The Tobot who is a ripoff of Evac is actually a ripoff of Bifam/Vifam
Toys story 2 movin’ morphers by Mattel was another transformers rip-off with RC being closest to one and it was the only vehicular one because they were released during the Beast Wars.
Wow…surprised you didn’t hit up the Converters or Zybots
Zybots are oogly. Especially the combiner.
@@johngavin1175 they really are 😂 I still want the big rig one though
@@Wolfie1262 Don't get me wrong,I find most if not all the transforming bot lines from the 80s interesting.
@@johngavin1175 They are, but often times for the wrong reasons lol
Some of the Super Gobots are just…damn.
shape shifters .. never forget the mis transformed punisher :P
Imaginex recently made some sort of reverse Headmasters toyline with DC superheroes called "Head Shifters."
I had one of those Hot Wheels ones as a kid and really liked it. I had N1 Street Beast.
Is it bad that I still want some of those Dinozaurs/Dinozone figures and want Discotek to put the anime on SD-BD? Eh, I dont think so. Also, man I wish Tobots were easier to get and not as pricey.
I have a pair of Robo-Wheels, including the one you used for the pic. Young me had fun with them, but probably not now.
The only public videos on my channel right now are of DinoZaurs figures, and they've actually held up well. The translucent plastic definitely feels thicker and the chrome has definitely outlasted at least one of my Transmetals (RIP Scourge's butt).
I recall Power Rangers Zeo had Ranger figures that turned into Zords as well.
I had that Shape Shifters Venom, along with Spider-Man and Lizard, and I loved them.
Roadbots ware not awful but insanely flawed, bad plastic, bad paint, terrible articulations, partsforming etc.. Most were deluxe class scale but some were a lot bigger while still cars, and we've had a few straight up Alternators KOs like Tracks or Mirage that made them awful.
Does it really count when the parent company has both product lines?
South Korea has a lot of Transforming Robots
from Tobots, to Hello Carbots to Metalions
Daran Norris was in both Dinozaur and Transformers Prime, just like the Dragon Dagger.
I had the transforming Shredder AND a couple of RoboWheels as a kid!
I’m surprised Animorphs wasn’t on this List.
Animorphs was an official Transformers line.
I really want some Robo wheels figures.
Hot Wheels actually did the transforming thing twice with Modifighters.
Ever heard of Transforming Blok Bots?
Holy SHIT I forgot about Robo Wheels