Why so little love for the Go-Bots?

[mazinz]

Prowl has a head/face you probably mean Ratchet the other van.

Whoops

[VintageMike]

I thought they were ok by I seem to remember they just weren't considered as cool as Transformers.

[nvmbrsdoom5]

I was never much of a fan of either. But I guess I'm one of the unusual people who liked Go-Bots better, as a kid. I was only about 9 when that first came out and it appealed to me, but by the time I saw Transformers I was already getting disinterested in toys somewhat. My one buddy who lived a couple doors down had some of the first Tranformers toys and he loved them, but they just seemed convoluted to me. Transformers, Voltron, etc....they were all cool enough I guess but I just couldn't get into 'em, I was still stuck on stuff like Shogun Warriors, Battle Of The Planets, Ultraman, and so on.

I get a good laugh out of the Transformers fans who are so offended by and negative against Go-Bots.

[jds1911a1]

But Royale-T, the super gobot Vamp and some of the smaller monster bots that came later looked awesome. Every now and then the cartoon would throw in a new character who essentially would be making a "cameo". The Transformers sometimes did things like this when they had those infamous group shots. You would geta glimpse of one character you never saw before or very rarely would see

Don't forget that most of the first wave of Transformers had no head either (do I need to mention Prowl or Ironhide)

Prowl has a head/face you probably mean Ratchet the other van.

[tmthor]

hasbro owns all the trademarks and has used the term Go-bots for transformers sub lines in G2 and playskool. The actual toy designs were probably owned by Bandai all along

Hasbro Owns Go-Bots (owns Tonka) Names & story. The designs are Ban-Dai's as Tonka Licened them here like Hasbro Licenced Takara's designs for Transformers (from Takara's Micro-Change & Diaclone lines). Hence why we will probably not see actual reissues of the Gobots here, But they could repaint any TF & give it the Go-Bots name & Back Story.

However that being said Hasbro Has worked with other Japanese companies before.
Jetfire (Takatoku Toys/Ban-dai )
Omega Supream (Toy Box )
Sky Lynx (Toy Box )
Venom (Takatoku Toys )
Chop Shop (Takatoku Toys )
Barrage (Takatoku Toys )
Ransack (Takatoku Toys )
Shockwave (ToyCo )
Whirl (Takatoku Toys )
Roadbuster (Takatoku Toys)
But pretty much any thing after series 2 was all Takara.

[tmthor]

Thanks for the info! Watching some Machine Robo now, and I think you are absolutely right that things might be different if they went with these original Machine Robo anime from Japan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWBBwn_VB2k

The commercials are pretty awesome as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr59y0mWGvE

If you look at the Origional Japanese Machine-Robo commercials you will notice that Tonka practically used them in their entirety just dubbed.

[mazinz]

I liked some of the go-bots, but a lot of the $10 sized cars and tanks were lame toys. Most of them had no real heads and look like cars that grew feet and arms as opposed to robots. And if I rember correctly, there were only 6 go-bot characters in the cartoon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GobotToys.jpg

Cop-tur was very cool, Crasher was pretty hot for a female robot! Oh, and they also have the best robot name ever - DUMPER! the evil dumptruck

Hasbro has used the go-bot name on several transformers lines, but none bare any likness to the classic 80's characters.


Oh yea, and no SHOCKWAVE either!

But Royale-T, the super gobot Vamp and some of the smaller monster bots that came later looked awesome. Every now and then the cartoon would throw in a new character who essentially would be making a "cameo". The Transformers sometimes did things like this when they had those infamous group shots. You would geta glimpse of one character you never saw before or very rarely would see

Don't forget that most of the first wave of Transformers had no head either (do I need to mention Prowl or Ironhide)

[SexySkottie]

I liked some of the go-bots, but a lot of the $10 sized cars and tanks were lame toys. Most of them had no real heads and look like cars that grew feet and arms as opposed to robots. And if I rember correctly, there were only 6 go-bot characters in the cartoon.



Cop-tur was very cool, Crasher was pretty hot for a female robot! Oh, and they also have the best robot name ever - DUMPER! the evil dumptruck

Hasbro has used the go-bot name on several transformers lines, but none bare any likness to the classic 80's characters.


Oh yea, and no SHOCKWAVE either!

[jds1911a1]

I was never into either, but the Transformers story, as shown in the cartoon was..less lame...than the Go-bots toon. I believe Hasbro owns the rights to Go-Bots now...do they do anything with them?

hasbro owns all the trademarks and has used the term Go-bots for transformers sub lines in G2 and playskool. The actual toy designs were probably owned by Bandai all along

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

Yeah, I think the cartoon was a big part of it. (Machine Robo was INSANELY popular for a while....)

>I believe Hasbro owns the rights to Go-Bots now

I thought they did a Go-Bots line a few years back, as part of the Transformers series, but aimed at younger kids.

Don C.

[Captain]

I was never into either, but the Transformers story, as shown in the cartoon was..less lame...than the Go-bots toon. I believe Hasbro owns the rights to Go-Bots now...do they do anything with them?

[jds1911a1]

The smaller ones were generally nicer than small transformers mini-cars (Jeeper Creeper and Loco were really cool) but in large scale the transformers were better and this was the era of the 30 minute toy commercial catroon. Sunbow made the best ones with Gijoe and transfomers and you followed closely by Filmation (He man) and Rankin bass (thundercars)

the GO-BOTS cartoon was so bad it actually made the great toys uncool

[HardyGirl]

All I remember about these things, (my kid brother watched the show), is the stupid theme song:

"Go-Bots, Go-Bots, Go-Bots, Go-Bots! Mighty robots, mighty vehicles, Go-Bots!"

[samurainoir]

However Tonka (Then owned by Kenner) Saw the Machine Robo cartoon/Anime (the series from Japan where the gobots come from) They did not like the level of violence & had Hanna Barbera create the Monstrosity they did. By the way look on you tube if they had brought the Japanese Machine Robo over as gobots It might have changed things.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dzmjYEGivQ

Thanks for the info! Watching some Machine Robo now, and I think you are absolutely right that things might be different if they went with these original Machine Robo anime from Japan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWBBwn_VB2k

The commercials are pretty awesome as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr59y0mWGvE

[megocrazy]

Considering I was into Transformers, I recently realized how little I knew about the Go-Bots stuff. I still have my Optimus and almost all the combiners but never realized that Go-Bots also had a combiner line. I recently sold one on ebay that was part of a larger figure when joined with others. I always thought for the most part the Go-Bots were better made but the metal parts seemed to make them wear out faster making them wobbily if you played with them a lot. The TV shows weren't even close Go-Bots blew chunks compared to Transformers.