Did it? I guess you're right. I'm sure gobots hit the store shelves first in my area though because I had Fitor long before Transformers started showing up. I think those early gobot commercials using the Japanese footage also appeared before the Transformer commercials started rolling out. I remember the gobot merchandise seemed to hit first. I honestly can't remember when I first saw Challenge of the Gobots personally. I distinctly remember first seeing the Transformer mini-series when it came out when I was home sick. But I have no personal recollection of watching gobots, other than I remember it airing on USA Cartoon Express after the series had wrapped.

 

Yeah, people seem to forget this, or weren't around to experience it. Location is everything, and for a large segment of the US population, comic shops were essentially non-existent. For those people, it was cartoon or nothing. Not everyone had a comic shop within bike-riding distance. But who didn't have a TV?

Even growing up in L.A., the one comic shop anywhere even kind of near my area was something I found by accident one day. Hell, I didn't even know there was such a thing as a comic shop. I don't know how I would have gotten into comics otherwise, as they were disappearing from 7-11s, which were the main place to get them previously, and even then, distribution was spotty at best. Getting two issues in a row of something at a 7-11 was a stroke of rare luck.

 

Yeah, for the toys, GoBots did definitely come first. But Transformers beat GoBots to the punch in cartoons.

 

Found it!

I'm pretty sure this is one of the first instances of transforming toys hitting US airways. I'm not sure it was this exact commercial, but I'm almost sure that these early gobot commercials predated the Transformer commercials because I had a Fitor for a long while before I got a Cliffjumper (my first Transformer). But memory is a funny thing, so who knows? I could swear that these Gobot "invasion" commercials were the first thing on the airwaves though. I guess that's why I remember gobots airing first (may also be a memory trick due to gobots heavy kid-friendly style).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtH4LZaFcAI

 

I feel like you keep tying to push this discussion in one direction and it's not the direction implied by the thread title.

Like, it wasn't just the cartoon that made Transformers win out over GoBots, it was the line being handled entirely better with far more product, advertising, and awareness.

But you've only talked about the cartoon as if that's all you want to talk about - which is fine, but blaming it solely on the cartoon is trying to narrow the scope when it's already been said it was more than just 22 minute cartoons at play here.

 

To be fair, the thread title was supposed to say "partly" but the original way I had it phrased didn't fit and when I changed the sentence structure around I accidentally left that part out. Of course there were other factors that influenced the success and failures of the brand. I'm just throwing this one out as a highly contributing factor. I mean, both these brands were built on the backs of their cartoons. That's going to have more impact then say the designs on the cards. And going back to that earlier post, the gobot cards were fairly typical of 1980s packaging. So I don't think that was really a brand killer. Tonka itself was a hugely successful brand in the 80s and most of their packaging was dull as dirt.

 

I think GoBots had the potential to do something grand, but the ball was dropped somewhere along the way.

I also think the toys really had something to do with it.

As we've seen, shows and toys influence each other, in both directions. Heck, IIRC, a show was canceled because the toys were failing to sell. (Something DC related, I believe.)

Transformers not only offered diverse sizes, but characters as well. You could get Mini-Bots, Deluxe Cars, Supreme Air Commanders, City Commanders, etc. Little pocket sized bots, giant battery operated bots and everything in between.

GoBots basically had a one size fits all attitude. Sure, there were Super GoBots and a few larger oddities here and there, but the toys were all pretty much the same. A thick chunk of painted die-cast with a few plastic bits and a face strapped to it. Whereas Transformers were fully realized robots with bits and pieces of die-cast included. They had flair, GoBots were stiff and seemingly functionless.

GoBots did have kickass playsets. They lit up, they made noise, they doubled as carrying cases for your GoBots. While Transformers actually WERE the bases and smaller bots could interact with them. I do think GoBots did it better, though. Those GoBots bases were pretty doggone neat, not to mention BIG.

Transformers had slightly more detailed animation and a darker tone, plus a straightforward storyline. GoBots had this convoluted "we used to be humans, a long time ago" thing going on, then followed it up with GoBots: Battle Of The Rock Lords, which added even more "WTF?!" stuff to the storyline. All while sporting that slightly too soft Hanna Barbera animation style they had become so well known for.

Me, personally, I thought GoBots had better storylines and the performances were good. It was campy and cheesy, but nothing too terrible. Transformers was over the top campy and cheesy, the performances were all pretty much the same handful of people doing like 5 different voices (which tended to sound the same as the show went on). The storylines for Transformers basically had their best of the best in season 1, with a handful in season 2 and barely unwatchable in season 3. 4 brought back Optimus, helped a great deal, I thought. Shame it ended with a few episodes. (Still, an impressive run at 98 episodes.)

GoBots was known for having long story arcs and mini series that had a long run time. I have both the pilot story line and the midseason miniseries, both on cassette and DVD (I made digital transfers, years ago.) and they've got a pretty impressive runtime. 22 min @ 5 eps, each. That a long time for a kid to pay attention to a single storyline. Transformers strung together 3 episodes and called it a day. A 5 episode storyline was something special and used sparingly, such as, well... Transformers: The Movie. Or Five Faces Of Darkness.

I think the biggest thing is how they were handled and how differently they were handled compared to one another.

I think both franchises have genuine positives, and sad negatives. I think GoBots should be given another chance, especially with those artisan level bots becoming available at BBTS and seeing how much people are really excited for them.

I think there's room in the world for both franchises. Problem is, Hasbro now owns both and they'll never produce something that'll directly compete with their own major brand, not when it's been absorbed into said brand.

It's a shame, but I think GoBots has had it's time in the sun and it's been over for too long. Too long to come back from.

 

As someone who honest-to-god loves the gobots... I'm gonna go and say that it's a combination of the cartoon being pretty crappy in comparison to Transformers, the lack of individual profiles for the characters, and the wide variety of alternate modes and figure scales of TFs in comparison to Go-bots... on top of the fact that Transformers had more outlets for its fiction and thus a more impressive marketing campaign. TF had the cartoon, the comics, the books, and the odd video game, whereas Go-bots pretty much just had the cartoon and that was it. Given all of this it's little wonder that Go-bots ultimately lost the war over the toy shelves. It is kind of a shame-- part of me wonders how things would have gone had Go-bots managed to continue on as a successful competitor to Transformers to this day.

 

personally, i still stick by the reason why it failed, wasn't the toys, but because their is a huge difference between sunbow, aka Marvel, and Hanna-Barbera, in terms of quality,

that masterpiece grimlock is a figure that is painted to be like the comic book character, not DESIGNED to be like the comic book character. there is a huge difference.

whether or not a comic book is an example on how transformers can be better than gobots, doesn't really matter. because if Gobots were picked up by marvel, instead of transformers, we would be having this same very conversation about gobots in reverse.

what really makes a difference is how they were marketed, and exposure.

the plastic isn't any better, nor worse than the plastic in transformers. transformers were just as prone to break. however, the problem came from having metal ball joints, inside plastic sockets. the metal basically just drilled right through the plastic. however, transformers has shockwave in the same category. except instead of having ball joints, it had a big giant metal bar in between the legs. so everytime you transform it, you are cutting a hole in both of the two sides.

idk, i have very vague memories of it being mostly on saturdays in my area. but, being that the first season only has like 13 episodes, i am going to assume that was the case, and when it was playing monday through friday on you, it was already in syndication. like at some point, He-Man was apparently airing twice a day, 7 days a week.

according to wikipedia, they both came out within a month of each other. transformers was aired from;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transformers_(TV_series)

and gobots;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenge_of_the_GoBots

to say either is an attempt to cash in on the other, is ridiculous, i think.

since neither would have been successful yet.

 

GoBots also made terrible choices for their faction leaders: they made their heroic leader a jet fighter, and their evil villain a motorcycle.

I mean... what kinda contest is that? The good guy is a massive, supersonic, heavily-armed miracle of modern military technology. The bad guy? He's a small, unassuming, civilian transport that looks goofy in vehicle mode and even goofier in robot mode.

Sure, Cy-Kill's vehicle mode is better for everyday disguise -- he can go many more places without being noticed, and can FIT in many more places -- but outside of disguise, he just seems pathetic compared to Leader-1.

Ah yes, that's another disadvantage GoBots had: the names. God, but a lot of GoBots had lame, lame names. Sigh.

 

well to be fair, optimus prime is a massive truck, megatron is a tiny gun that can be run over by said truck. With that said, I've always thought Fitor would make a better lead villain. at least design wise. But, really it should have just been, the gobots vs the rocklords. make the rocklords the villains. and then you'd have two distinctive sides.

but i agree with you there. Cykill doesn't look like a villain. like i said when i was comparing the intros earlier. Cykill in that intro looks more like the hero, and leader one looks more like the villain, chasing him around the galaxy, and keeps trying to shoot them all in the back! lol

 

Hmm....I remember as a kid realising that what we were seeing in the cartoons and comic books was an ideal realisation of the characters. I thought at the time, there was only so much they could do with the toys to get them to fit the cartoon forms, without knowing the whole past with Takara.

There were a lot of factors that played in the favour off Transformers - part of that was the work of Marvel in crafting engaging personas for the characters, and how that translated to the work in the cartoon. It was just marketed better, and there seemed to more merchandise available at the time too.

 

if you really want to see the difference between the two, just look at the way they intro their theatrically released movies;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8tokEcdMSs

gobots; battle of the rocklords opens with a checklist of new toys to buy,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lo7JPLJUUU

Transformers the movie opens with a planet, eating another planet, and then the most 80's intro song ever.

animation differences aside, one just understands how to catch the viewer's attention, while the other, just says "yea, here's are movie, we put it together within a week!" lol

in short, the difference is, transformers is basically the most 80's thing to ever be created, and the movie, was even more that. the only thing more 80's than transformers the movie, is the flash gordian movie.

 

I don't think anyone was saying that. We were talking about people's faulty memory due to USA Cartoon Express rerunning things forever, so some people's first exposure to each came at different times.

And the GoBots toys came to US shelves first. Inarguably. But the Transformers cartoon came out first... Like I said, and you reiterated, by a month. September, then October. But keep in mind, Transformers began with a mini-series and continued directly into the regular series the very next day. GoBots had a mini series that they rushed out the door, but it took them an entire year to follow up that mini series with more episodes.

But, see? There you are.

The cartoon WAS the advertising. The cartoon WAS the awareness. The cartoon was what drove kids to toy aisles. A different 22 minute advertisement daily, delivered directly into kids' malleable minds, right in their homes.

A scheme so insidious that it was as illegal to do as subliminal messages. That's where the Transformers and GI Joe comics came in. Now, anything is fair game, but as late as the early-1980s, it was illegal to create a cartoon solely to sell a toy line. That's why you never see that phenomenon in the 1970s. Hasbro ingeniously did an end run around this law by having Marvel publish a comic FIRST, so that they could then claim the cartoon was adapting the comic, there being no such law for comic books. That's part of the reason the comic was originally only planned to be 4 issues. Because that's all Hasbro needed to justify the cartoon.

Actually, to be fair, Mattel deserves credit for developing this evil work-around first, for their He-Man franchise. First toys (with little pack-in comics), then a token comic book mini-series from DC, followed by toy commercial tv cartoon, now perfectly legal.

 

No. The toys just looked cool. Gobots looked like shit.

 

Are you kidding? The original GoBots toys are cool as hell. For their size, they are as good as or better than many early Transformers. If Tonka had hired Marvel & Sunbow, and Hasbro had hired Hanna-Barbera, I am not 100% sure this would not be a GoBots forum we were all on right now.

 

As someone alive during the time of Go-Bots, I can state they did not fail. Go-Bots were extremely popular and sold very well. In fact they sold better than Transformers.

 

I'd be interested to see numbers on that.

Wikipedia says about GoBots:

But that's just Wikipedia. It's not like they need back their claim up with numbers, either.

 

Nope. It's beyond me how anyone could have liked them.

Look at this.  


It's obvious why Transformers survived.

 

not sure about the popularity in Japan as the Machine Robo toyline was still running even until today from Bandai & its partner companies, with three different shows made for them with the last one being from 2003, there are even molds that were never made outside of Japan as Tonka's Gobots sort of short lived, plus the newer toys made during the 90's & 2000's long after the Gobots franchise died.