1986 Gnaw looks more like a Piranha than a shark.

because the cartoon/toy design for Gnaw was fat+round & not extremly long like a skark.

I wonder if hasbro changed the name of the piranha gnaw alt mode to make it seem more cool or fierce.

 

To be honest it looks more like a mutated frog than a piranha. Piranhas have a very special face and a monstrous underbite.

 

To be fair, sharks don't have legs or arms either, so I wouldn't take the name so far in meaning.

 

I say it looks more like a giant robotic grape with teeth, eyes, and limbs.

 

Yeah, but "Grapebot" was never popular in the focus groups.

 

It woulda been Grapeticon, duh.

 

the TF Wiki has a bunch of hilarious quotes from Floro Dery as to the design process of the characters he made for the movie, such as this one for Arcee: "Arcee is the naked mechanical equivalent of Princess Leia of Star Wars."

Quoting what they put in the Sharkticon entry:
"* When asked about the Sharkticon design in an interview, Floro Dery's reply was, "Sharkticon is a shark." He's seen some pretty weird-ass sharks. "

 

Lol, yeah, but HUGE eyes and TINY limbs, he really is a freak, which is what makes him better than the boton repaint IMO

 

I always thought of Sharkticon as Nightmare PacMan.