That's what I was thinking. It's probably like the Cybertron toys that had the "Space Camp" stickers randomly added to them at some point. No one really seemed to care, lol.

MIKE
engledogg

 

Chapter 5: The Cyberjets/Mini-Jets (1995)

One of the two 1995 assortments that actually had more than one wave released were the "Cyberjets" (or "Mini-Jets", as they were called in Europe). This is also where we can observe the exact point when Hasbro switched from "same-character running change color/deco variants" to "redecos marketed as separate characters".

As I mentioned in the previous chapter, nearly all wave 1 figures in 1995 were given entirely new names that hadn't been used by any previous characters. The first wave of the Cyberjets assortment consisted entirely of Decepticon figures: Skyjack, Space Case, and Hooligan. Here they are in their United States market packaging, again featuring the standard 1995 US packaging design lacking the Generation 2 title.


The second wave of the Cyberjets assortment consisted entirely of redecos of the wave 1 figures, and they were all marketed as Autobots, sporting the names of existing characters from Generation 1 despite not really resembling their namesakes, just like those unreleased wave 2 Laser Cycles. Basically, coupled with 1994's Generation 2 Dreadwind and Smokescreen figures (more on those two in chapter 9), this marked the beginning of a practice that would frequently be referred to by fans as "name-slapping".

In any case, the redecoed Skyjack became Air Raid, Space Case became Strafe, and Hooligan became Jetfire. Here they are again in their United States market packaging:


What's interesting is that both Strafe and Jetfire are equipped with stickers that sport the G2 Decepticon faction insignia, even though the packaging markets them both as Autobots!


My theory is that Hasbro initially intended for wave 2 to feature mere color variants of the wave 1 figures that would have been released as running changes, similar to what they had done with the Dinobots and the Constructicons before, and had also intended to do with the "Heroes". However, as I already mentioned several times before, all the 1995 assortments went from featuring new-name nobodies for their respective first wave to exclusively using the names of Generation 1 characters for all subsequent waves (whether those waves were released or not). One possible explanation would be that Hasbro did this simply to secure the trademarks for those names; another would be that this was basically a last-minute attempt to save the struggling brand by evoking nostalgia, using the names of well-known G1 characters. Since the decos had already been created by that point, all Hasbro could do was, well, slapping new names on those toys.

With the Cyberjets, Hasbro apparently changed their minds at the eleventh hour. Thus, the decision to market the wave 2 figures as separate characters was reflected on the packaging, but it was too late to change the stickers. As I explained in the introduction, the term "wave" didn't exist yet at that time (as the first documented official use of the term was the 2001 Robots in Disguise line); instead, the green tag attached to this "Hasbro Standard" factory sample of Air Raid refers to the case assortment as "Cyberjets refresh asst".


While this isn't particularly conclusive yet, the strongest evidence to support my theory is the way these figures were handled in Europe.

I couldn't find any evidence that the Cyberjets were ever available in Italian packaging, nor could I find Italian market names for any of the individual figures, so I can only show you the two trilingual versions. Here are the wave 1 "Mini-Jets" Skyjack, Space Case and Hooligan in English/Spanish/Portuguese packaging:


Like with the European versions of the "Lasercycles", the packaging uses a different design than the figures' United States counterparts, retaining the Generation 2 title and only featuring the characters' names on the back of the packaging.

And here they are in French/Dutch/German packaging:


As you can see, not only has the "Mini-Jets" assortment been given an additional French name, "Les Pirates du Ciel" ("the pirates of the sky"), but so have the indvidual characters: Skyjack became "Epervier" ("sparrowhawk") in France, Space Case became "Faucon" ("falcon"), and Hooligan became "Vautour" ("vulture").

Now the wave 2 Cyberjets/"Mini-Jets" are where it gets really interesting. Technically, Air Raid, Strafe and Jetfire all remain unreleased in Europe; hoooooowever...

In the United Kingdom, all three wave 2 Cyberjets were available at discount chains, as imports in English-only United States packaging.


According to the import stickers on the back of the packaging, importing of these figures was handled by a Chorleywood-based company named MBC Ltd., which has a loooong history of importing Transformers toys to the UK spanning over two decades, with these G2 Cyberjets being among the earliest documented examples to date. The most recent instance of MBC-imported Transformers toys were the Titans Return wave 1 Titan Masters (which had previously seen an official European release) in mid-2017! Additonally, reports also exist of the wave 2 Cyberjets having been imported by another company, Peterborough-based Kingsley Paige PLC, which had previously also imported the Chinese-market Generation 1 Transformers toys from the early 1990s to the UK, and finally went out of business in 2005.

Meanwhile, the "Air Raid", "Strafe" and "Jetfire" Cyberjets redecos did see an official release in French/Dutch/German packaging... but the way they were handled lends a lot more credence to my above theory that the decision to market the wave 2 figures as separate characters was a last-minute decision:


As you can see, all three figures were available in packaging sporting package art that still depicts the original decos for those figures, and even identifies all three as Decepticons! Now as mentioned several times before, for some reason, European packaging at the time only featured the characters' names on the back of the packaging. As you can clearly see from "Air Raid" aka "Skyjack"/"Epervier", Strafe" aka "Space Case"/"Faucon" and "Jetfire" aka "Hooligan"/"Vautour", it appears these figures were indeed sold in Europe as running change color variants of the wave 1 figures they were redecoed from!

Now one might argue that this was a change specifically made for the European market, but coupled with the G2 Decepticon stickers used for Strafe and Jetfire despite being marketed as Autobots in the US, and that Hasbro Standard sample being identified as part of a "refresh assortment", my conclusion isn't that far-fetched: At the last minute, Hasbro had decided to abandon the established practice of releasing same-character "running change variants" in favor of marketing the redecos as fully-fledged separate characters instead.

Chapter 7 will feature even more evidence to support this theory.


Recommended additional reading:

• Seibertron features a gallery of Skyjack >here<, of Space Case >here<, of Hooligan >here<, of Air Raid >here<, of Strafe >here<, and of Jetfire >here<.
• BWTF features a review of Skyjack >here<, of Space Case >here<, of Hooligan >here<, of Air Raid >here<, and of Jetfire >here<.
• Transformers At The Moon features a gallery of Skyjack >here<, of Space Case >here<, of Hooligan >here<, of Air Raid >here<, of Strafe >here<, and of Jetfire >here<.

Acknowledgements:

• Big thanks to Transformers At The Moon, Transformers-Universe.com, Transformerland.com and ToyhuntersNL for letting me use their photos.
• On top of that, very special thanks go out to Vision Toys, who even went so far and took all-new, high quality photos for me to use here!

 

I'm finding Mr Nevermore's theory here quite compelling. It does need reading right the way through to set this idea in the correct context though. Well done that man

The Cyberjets are some of my favourite toys in the entire range - Hooligan blew my mind when I first had one - and have long been intrigued by the name thing.

My Own Personal Theory on the names - before I saw this - was there had been a straight mistake by Hasbro (like that's never happened) and the names had been swapped between the two sets of toys. Thus the red limbed toys are the Autobots and the Blue limbed toys are the Decepticons, and the Euro carded blue limbed toys is possibly the only place where it was correct.

Thus

Hooligan becomes a red limbed Jetfire
Skyjack becomes a red limbed Air Raid
Space Case become a red limbed Strafe

And

Jetfire becomes a blue limbed Decepticon Hooligan
Air Raid becomes Skyjack
Strafe becomes Space Case

I associate Red more with an Autobot colour and the pale blue with Decepticon and having the blue limbed toys as the Decepticons explains the faction symbols.

As a product of this swap what I propose should be called Air Raid, which was actually released as Skyjack, has very similar colours to his original version:




The same is true for what I propose should have been called Strafe, and was released as Space Case




With Jetfire as a mad orange with camo for white repaint, so that there aren't two white and red jets in the same assortment - see also G2 Sideswipe and Inferno.






Indeed years later when Hooligan becomes R-Blade, effectively Jetfire, he does swap the Orange with Camo for White




=-

While we're on the subject of names in this period....

I was also led to wonder at one point if the names Sureshot and Archforce, used for the Euro releases of Hero Prime and Megatron, were the new character names intended for ultimately unreleased "Combat Hero" repaints of Hero Prime & Megatron

=-

I shall now have to move both of my own theories aside in favour of the much more compelling evidence presented here.

 

Chapter 6: The Auto Rollers/Autorollers

Our next 1995 assortment are the Auto Rollers. These started out as two figures, both of them marketed as Decepticons: Roadblock the mining loader and Dirtbag the mining truck. "Roadblock" was actually one of the few 1995 wave 1 figures that did reuse the name of a Generation 1 figure, in his case that of an Ultra Pretender. In the United States, they were sold on blister cards:


In Europe, meanwhile, the assortment name was spelled "Autorollers" (as one word without a space in between, just like the "Lasercycles"), and instead of blister cards, the figures were sold in boxes instead, with the packaging design matching all the other European 1995 releases, complete with the retained "Generation 2" moniker. Here they are in their English/Spanish/Portuguese packaging:


Unlike the carded European 1995 releases, the "Autorollers" actually featured their individual names on the front of the packaging. Note how Roadblock's name is spelled "Road Block" (two words instead of one), while Dirtbag keeps his US spelling.

Bizarrely, the 1995 UK Toy Fair catalog instead refers to the assortment as "Autoroll Constructicons". An early working name?


For the French/Dutch/German packaging variant, the Autorollers (still spelled as one word) were given the additional French market name "Auto-Transformers". Oddly, Roadblock's name was spelled as one word like his US counterpart on the front of the packaging, but as two words like the European version in English/Spanish/Italian packaging on the back. He also gained the additional French name "Bulldo" (presumably a wordplay on "bulldozer"), while Dirtbag was given the additional French name "Chantier" ("construction site").


For the Italian packaging, GiG named the assortment "Excavators" (spelled with a plural-"s" on the front of the packaging, while the back of the packaging referred to the individual figures as "Excavator" in the singular form), with Roadblock renamed into "Macigno" ("boulder"), and Dirtbag renamed into "Rollo" (presumably a wordplay on the English verb "roll", and the English assortment name "Auto Rollers"). Not entirely unusually for GiG, both names had previously also been used for different characters: "Macigno" was previously the Italian market name for the Constructicon Long Haul and for the Micromaster Constructor Squad member Grit, whereas "Rollo" was previously the Italian market name for the Constructicon Mixmaster, as seen in part 3 of the introduction.


Hasbro's 1995 Toy Fair catalog depicted intended redecos for both figures that would have presumably been released as the assortment's second wave: Both Decepticons would have been redecoed into Autobots (similar to what happened with the Cyberjets), with Roadblock becoming "Sgt. Hound", and Dirtbag becoming "General Optimus Prime". As far as I'm aware, that catalog image is all we have ever seen of these redecos, as they presumably never even made it to the sample packaging stage due to the discontinuation of the Generation 2 line.


Note how the 1995 Toy Fair catalog also spells the name "Road Block" as two words, so apparently that odd alternate European market spelling didn't come completely out of nowhere.

The unreleased "General Optimus Prime" and "Sgt. Hound" figures later inspired Fun Publications to produce a souvenir two-pack featuring redecos of Generations Thrilling 30 Roadbuster and Scoop that was available at BotCon 2015:


On top of that, Hasbro had also planned to release a third wave of Auto Rollers. Along with the equally unreleased fourth (or third, depending on how you count) wave of the Go-Bots (which I will cover in the following chapter), this would have been the first instance of a new wave planned from the outset that would have featured entirely new sculpts, in this case an armored personnel carrier and a fighter jet. Due to the cancellation of the Generation 2 line, these never went into production. However, samples in what is assumed to have been their intended Generation 2 colors are known to exist in the aftermarket:


It appears these never went far enough into production to be assigned names; internally, Hasbro simply referred to them as "Auto Rollers APC (Tank)" and "Auto Rollers FA18 (Jet)". A shipping invoice from Takara to Hasbro reveals that at least twelve samples have been shipped to North America, with another set of samples known to have remained with Takara.


Since the toolings had already been created, Takara later released them as part of their Beast Wars line (specifically the portion marketed through the Beast Wars II cartoon in Japan) along with redecos of Roadblock (named "Autocrusher") and Dirtbag (named "Autostinger"), with the APC being named "Autolauncher" and the jet named "Autojetter". An early Takara Beast Wars toy catalog depicted the old Generation 2 samples to represent Autolaucher and Autojetter, whose colors presumaby hadn't been finalized yet by that point:



Recommended additional reading:

• Seibertron features a gallery of Roadblock >here<, and of Dirtbag >here<.
• Transformers At The Moon features a gallery of Roadblock >here<, of Dirtbag >here<, of the unreleased APC >here<, and of the unreleased F/A-18 >here<.
• Transwarped features a group shot of Roadblock, Dirtbag, the APC and the F/A-18, complete with a scan of a shipping invoice for the samples of the latter two, >here<.
• z75sales features photos of various unreleased Generation 2 figures, including samples of the wave 3 Auto Rollers, in his Facebook album >here<.
• The Obscure Transformers Website features scans of the 1995 UK Toy Fair catalog >here<.

Acknowledgements:

• Big thanks to Transformers At The Moon, Transformerland.com and griffin of Ozformers for letting me use their photos.

 

Chapter 7: The Go-Bots/Gobots (1995), part 1

Oh boy. This is by far the longest chapter of this series. Because of this, I'm going to split it up into several parts.


Next to the Cyberjets, the Generation 2 Go-Bots are the other 1995 assortment that actually had more than one wave released before the line was canceled. In fact, depending on how one counts, there were either two or even three waves released, with a third (or fourth) one planned but ultimately canceled.

Before I continue, a brief explanation regarding the assortment's name is required: In 1991, Hasbro bought out their former rival Tonka, whose GoBots (or "Go Bots") line had been the biggest competitor to Hasbro's Transformers during its early years. In 1993, as part of the Generation 2 line's first year, Hasbro released a redeco of the Aquaspeeder figure Jetstorm, which had originally been developed for the European-only continuation of the Transformers brand (and whose continuing success was the very reason why Hasbro had launched the Generation 2 line in the United States in the first place), as a "Color Changer" under the name "Gobots", a very obvious attempt at securing the trademark they had acquired in the Tonka buyout. Now none of the "Color Changers" in their US colors were ever released in Europe; instead, the Aquaspeeders in their original colors were re-released in Europe in 1994, this time in packaging sporting the Generation 2 branding. Those re-released Aquaspeeders in actual Generation 2-branded packaging appear to be extremely rare, to the point where I explicitly had to be shown a tiny photo of Jetstorm in that packaging version to believe it even exists in the first place.


Even more confusingly, the US Generation 2 Color Changers are a huge, messy hodgepodge mix of the European 1993 Aquaspeeders, their names and bios, and the names and bios of the 1993 European Stormtroopers, the Aquaspeeders' Decepticon counterparts (which were never released in the United States): The redeco of European Aquaspeeder Jetstorm was given the name "Gobots" (for the reasons explained above), and the bio of European Aquaspeeder Deluge; the redeco of European Aquaspeeder Aquafend was given the name of European Aquaspeeder Jetstorm, and the bio of European Stormtrooper Drench; the redeco of European Aquaspeeder Deluge was given the name of European Stormtrooper Drench, and the bio of European Aquaspeeder Jetstorm; and the redeco of European Aquaspeeder Speedstream was given the name of European Aquaspeeder Deluge, and the bio of European Stormtrooper Hydradread. Confused yet?

Aaaanyway. We'll get back to the assortment name in a bit. Like all the other 1995 assortments' respective first waves, wave 1 of the Go-Bots consisted entirely of new characters: Firecracker, Blowout, Gearhead, Motormouth, Double Clutch, and High Beam. Here they are in their United States packaging, again featuring the standard 1995 US packaging design lacking the Generation 2 moniker:


I was also able to find photos of "Hasbro Standard" packaging samples of Firecracker, Double Clutch and High Beam:


Note how the green tags still identify the assortment as "Super Fast Asst". The name "Super Fast" would also appear on a proof card of the unreleased Power Master "Pothole" (more on that one in chapter 10). Another early working name for the Go-Bots assortment was "Superspeedbot", used by the Hasbro representatives during the BotCon 1994 Hasbro product presentation. What's also interesting is that the tag identifies the factory that has produced these as "Jetfair". For those who don't remember, Jet Fair is/was the name of a Chinese factory that produced Transformers toys for Hasbro and Takara, and which made the news in 2010 for their alledgly harsh working conditions. So apparently by that point, Hasbro and Takara had already been employing Jet Fair's services for at least fifteen years!

I was also able to find a couple of photos of packaging mock-ups for Firecracker, Blowout and High Beam. (Packaging mockups for the other three exist too, but I couldn't find any photos anymore.) For those who don't know, packaging mock-ups are commonly created by using whatever existing packaging is available lying around and then cutting it into the desired shape. In this case, we have parts of packaging from ToyBiz's X-Men and Kenner's Aliens vs Predator lines.


Furthermore, there exist mock-ups of the actual cardbacks for Firecracker, Gearhead and Blowout. Instead of the "High-speed racing axles" advertised on the final toys' packaging, these mock-ups advertise a campaign for a "free Solarbot Transformer", the details for which would be featured on the back of the card. More speculation on what this mysterious "Solarbot" might have been can be found in chapter 11.


As mentioned before, Generation 2 figures in bilingual Canadian packaging are generally hard to find, presumably because Canadian collectors generally don't care for those and everyone prefers the English-only US versions. I did, however, manage to find photos of Motormouth and Double Clucth on Canadian cards. The general packaging design stays very close to that used for the United States, and thus also lacks the title "Generation 2".


While the assortment name, "Go-Bots", was allowed to keep its name, the individual characters got additional French names for Quebec, all of which were fairly literal translations or interpretations of their English names: Firecracker was literally translated as "Pétard", Blowout became "Crevaison" ("flat tire", so basically a "blowout"), Gearhead became "Engrenage" ("gears"), Motormouth became "Bagou" ("glibness" or "showmanship"), Double Clutch became "Embrayage" ("clutch"), and High Beam became "Lumen" (a unit of light).

Continued in part 2!


Recommended additional reading:

• Ben's World of Transformers features a review of of Firecracker >here<.
• Greg Gaub's Transformers Page features photos of Firecracker >here<, of Gearhead >here<, of Motormouth >here<, of Double Clutch >here<, and of High Beam >here<.

Acknowledgements:

• Big thanks to Transformerland.com and Shmax.com for letting me use their photos.

 

Chapter 7: The Go-Bots/Gobots (1995), part 2

In Europe, the Go-Bots were available in the usual three different packaging variants, all of them adhering to the general packaging design used in Europe at the time, retaining the Generation 2 title and with the names of the individual characters only printed on the back of the cards. Now as I mentioned before, there was some bizarre naming confusion going on that resulted from Hasbro's repeated attempts at securing the name "Gobots" they had acquired when they bought out their former rival Tonka. We have the US Color Changer "Gobots" (who was never officially available in Europe), whereas the 1995 assortment's name is spelled "Go-Bots"... but in Europe, the assortment's name is also spelled "Gobots" as one word, similar to what happened with the "Lasercycles", the "Autorollers" (which I covered in chapters 4 and 6, respectively) and the "Powermasters" (which I will cover in chapter 10)! Here are Firecracker, Blowout, Gearhead, Motormouth, Double Clutch and High Beam in English/Spanish/Portuguese packaging:


And here they are in French/Dutch/German packaging. Unfortunately I couldn't find photos of Gearhead in this packaging version, and although I did manage to find a photo of the back of Firecracker's packaging, that one will see use further down below for reasons that will become obvious later.


For the French-speaking markets, the assortment was given the additional name "Turbo-Transfo", and the characters were all given odd, rather technical alternate French names as well, which all differ from the Canadian French names listed above: Firecracker became "Turbo-Diablo" (because his alternate mode is a Lamborghini Diablo), Blowout became "Turbo-Comete" ("turbo-comet"; a slight misspelling, as the French word "comète" should actually be spelled with a grave accent above the first "e"), Gearhead became "Turbo-Stockcar", Motormouth became "Turbo-Porteur" ("turbo-porter"), High Beam became "Turbo-Libero" ("libero" being a word of Italian origin that refers to someone who is "free"; in both French and German, it's a well-known term for special positions in two different sports games, namely a volleyball libero and a "sweeper" in the game of football aka "soccer"), and Double Clutch became "Turbo-Indy".

And lastly, here are the six in Italian packaging complete with "GiG" branding:


For the Italian market, the assortment name was changed to "Tecnobot" (no plural-"s" because of Italian grammar rules)... which was also the Italian name for the Generation 1 Technobots! And that's not the only name reuse for the Italian figures: Firecracker became "Saetta di Fuoco" ("Arrow of Fire"), Blowout became "Leon", Gearhead became "Ariete" ("Aries"), Motormouth became "Bufalo" ("buffalo"), Double Clutch became "Sprinter", and High Beam became "Puma"... which was also the Italian name of Generation 1 Tracks, at least the 1991 European-only Action Master figure.

Continued in part 3!


Acknowledgements:

• Big thanks to Transformerland.com, Vision Toys, Shmax.com and Soundwaves Oblivion for letting me use their photos.

 

Chapter 7: The Go-Bots/Gobots (1995), part 3

Now here is where it gets even more confusing: For their initial release, Firecracker and Blowout had featured transparent (or "clear") red and gray car shells, respectively. Because all six figures in the first wave were "gang-molded" (as in, parts of one figure were created from the same toolings as other parts of another figure, hence making them share plastic colors), that resulted in their wave-mates Gearhead and Motormouth also featuring parts in the same clear plastic colors. For whatever reason, Hasbro then decided to change all the plastics from clear to opaque (or "solid"). Subsequently, they also decided to paint Firecracker's head blue and give him a silver face, and sell the new, "solid" versions of Firecracker and Blowout as separate characters, using the names of existing Generation 1 characters like with the wave 2 figures from all the other 1995 assortments. Thus, Firecracker became "Optimus Prime", and Blowout became "Megatron".


Due to the gang-molded nature of the figures, this also resulted in Gearhead and Motormouth trading in their "clear" plastic parts for "solid" plastic, but unlike the other two, Hasbro decided to let them retain their original identities, resulting in "running change" variants rather than new characters.


The "clear" and "solid" versions of Gearhead and Motormouth are easy to tell apart even inside the packaging, since the relevant parts are usually visible from the underside of the blister bubble (unless they're covered by an inconveniently-placed instruction sheet).


Here are the Go-Bots versions of Optimus Prime and Megatron in US packaging. Note that while the package art for Optimus Prime was amended to reflect the altered paint colors compared to Firecracker, Megatron's package art is completely unchanged from Blowout's.


I did also manage to find a photo of a packaging mock-up (or proof packaging sample?) of "Optimus Prime", which unusually features a near-final cardback with the correct name and package art colors, but the toy inside still has Firecracker's clear red plastic!


Double Clutch and High Beam had never featured any "clear" parts, therefore the wave 2 versions of those two are virtually identical to the wave 1 versions... but there is one detail that sets all the wave 2 figures' packaging apart from the wave 1 figures' packaging: The cross-sells.


The wave 2 cross-sells identify the figures in the middle column as "Megatron" and "Optimus Prime" rather than "Blowout" and "Firecracker", but if you look closely, none of the colors in that wave 2 cross-sell have been changed! Both "Megatron" and Motormouth still feature very obvious clear parts, and even more obviously, "Optimus Prime" still has Firecracker's white head and blue face!

Since the "Gobots" were reportedly rather rare in the United Kingdom, it's unclear if these were ever released in English/Spanish/Portuguese packaging at all (or Italian packaging, for that matter); however, the "solid" versions were available in French/Dutch/German packaging. Just like with the wave 2 Cyberjets/"Mini-Jets", however, they weren't sold as "Optimus Prime" and "Megatron", but rather as "Firecracker/Turbo-Diablo" and "Blowout/Turbo-Comete". Even the package art for "Firecracker" keeps the original colors for the head. I don't have photo of the back of the packaging for that "Blowout", but since the eBay seller identified him as "Blowout" rather than "Megatron", I feel safe to assume that this is indeed the name printed on the back of the packaging.


Continued in part 4!


Recommended additional reading:

• Greg Gaub's Transformers Page features photos of Optimus Prime >here<, and of Megatron >here<.

Acknowledgements:

• Big thanks to Transformerland.com, Shmax.com and M Sipher of TFWiki for letting me use their photos.
• I repeatedly tried to contact Ben Yee of BWTF through multiple channels and never got a response whatsoever. Ben, if you're reading this, please let me know if you have a problem with me using your images! It's all done in good faith.

 

Maybe when you're done with this series, something on 1993 is in order highlighting the packaging, colour and name difference between Euro G1 93, US G2 93, & Euro G2 94?

 

I've already been thinking about doing something like that. Maybe starting with Euro 1990/1991 "Classics", Euro 1991 Action Masters, and then working my way up until Euro G2 1994.

 

I recall seeing them ONCE at retail.... And that may have been sometime after the event.

 

I call it Hasbro forcing people to buy more toys year round out of fear of not being able to buy them again.

Kids usually get toys on their birthday and Christmas. If your kid wants a figure in Wave 2 for Christmas, better buy it in April and keep it in a box all year.

Then thanks to terrible QC, when they open it on Christmas morning and the toy is broken, you're out of luck since that figure will never be seen in stores again and your return window ended in June.

 

No one's forcing you to buy anything.

 

I accidentally deleted a paragaraph on the French Canadian names for Motormouth and his wave-mates when splitting this chapter into multiple parts. Fixed that.

 

Chapter 7: The Go-Bots/Gobots (1995), part 4

Following this half-baked second wave featuring two minor plastic color variants and two barely-redecoed figures sold as separate characters, Hasbro then decided to release a third (or second, if you count the previous one as "wave 1.5" or whatever) wave of Go-Bots. This time, all six figures were given completely new colors and decos (as well as recolored package art), and all were assigned new identities, each being given the name of an existing Generation 1 character: Firecracker/Optimus Prime now became "Sideswipe", Blowout/Megatron became "Frenzy", Gearhead became "Soundwave", Motormouth became "Ironhide", Double Clutch became "Mirage", and High Beam became "Bumblebee". Once again, most of them don't particularly resemble the characters they're named after, neither in terms of sculpt nor in terms of their color schemes and decos. Here they are in their United States packaging:


I also managed to find photos of "Hasbro Standard" samples of the entire wave. Like with the wave 2 Cyberjets, the green tags on the back of the packaging refer to the figures as a "refresh assortment", and like the wave 1 Go-Bots, they were also again manufactured by the Chinese Jet Fair factory.


Once again, I was not able to find any evidence that the redecoed Go-Bots were ever released in English/Spanish/Portuguese or Italian packaging. They were, however, available in French/Dutch/German packaging, and this time they were given a very bizarre treatment, being both assigned the same new English-name identites as their US counterparts (complete with recolored package art) and retaining the oddly technical alternate French-speaking markets names for the original wave 1 releases. Firecracker became "Sideswipe" in English but remained "Turbo-Diablo" in French, Blowout became "Frenzy" in English but remained "Turbo-Comete" in French, Gearhead became "Soundwave" in English but remained "Turbo-Stockcar" in French, Motormouth became "Ironhide" in English but remained "Turbo-Porteur" in French, Double Clutch became "Mirage" in English but remained "Turbo-Indy" in French, and High Beam became "Bumblebee" in English but remained "Turbo-Libero" in French.


Hasbro's Toy Fair 1995 catalog depicted figures from all three waves side by side, but with a few oddities: Aside from several odd name spellings ("Iron Hide", "Gear Head", "Motor Mouth", "Side Swipe", "Bumble Bee" and "Sound Wave" all spelled as two words instead of one), the catalog also depicted Optimus Prime and Megatron with their opaque parts, Megatron's silver car shell and Optimus Prime's painted blue head, but "Gear Head" and "Motor Mouth" are the wave 1 versions featuring "clear" parts, even though their wave-mates Firecracker and Blowout are omitted in favor of their aforementioned redecos, Optimus Prime and Megatron!


Takara later used these sculpts again for their 2000 Car Robots line, all of them redecoed into different characters as a new group called the "Spychangers". When Hasbro released the Car Robots toys outside Japan under the title Robots in Disguise beginning in 2001, the Spychangers were also among them, but even though they were the feature characters of an entire episode of the Robots in Disguise cartoon (titled "Spychangers to the Rescue"), it wasn't until the much later "clear" redecos (initially exclusive to KB Toys, but later also available at Target stores) that the toys were actually identified as a distinct subgroup on their packaging, now spelled "Spy Changers" as two words.


On top of that, there was actually another Go-Bots product that was planned for 1995 but ultimately never released at all due to the cancellation of the Generation 2 line: "Greasepit", a racing-themed redeco of Gearhead/Soundwave, would have come with the "Racing Rig", a large truck (similar in concept to the Generation 1 Micromaster vehicles released just a few years prior) that would have opened up to reveal a working launching ramp, complete with accessories such as "oil drums" (made of plastic) and a cardboard "ring of fire" with a plastic base. Both Greasepit and the Racing Rig would have sported large "95" markings, indicating the year the toy was intended to be released. Though samples of the whole set exist, all specimens of Greasepit are supposedly just production Gearheads painted over. How exactly this would have worked considering the gang-molded nature of Gearhead and his wave-mates is anyone's guess. Then again, Hasbro was later able to release redecos of the wave 1 figures as "Spychangers" under the Universe line without all their wave-mates being released at the same time, so who knows.


Packaging art of both Greasepit himself and the Racing Rig was also produced, and he even had a bio written that was sold on eBay back in 2008. Oddly, the name "Racing Rig" is misspelled "Raceing Rig" with an extraneous "e".


Continued in part 5!


Recommended additional reading:

• BWTF features a review of Sideswipe >here<.
• 'Til All Are Mine features photos of Go-Bots Frenzy (and Soundwave) >here<.
• Transformers At The Moon features the unused package art for the unproduced Generation 2 Racing Rig >here<.
• TFW2005 has a news story featuring the bio for the unproduced Generation 2 Greasepit >here<.

Acknowledgements:

• Big thanks to Transformerland.com and TFW2005 member Deceptigtar for letting me use their photos, and to Transformers At The Moon for letting me use the images for the Racing Rig.

 

Chapter 7: The Go-Bots/Gobots (1995), part 5

On top of all that, Hasbro even had plans for a fourth (or third, depending on how one counts Optimus Prime and Megatron) wave of Go-Bots. This one would have finally ditched the redecos of the wave 1 figures and introduced six entirely new sculpts: A military SUV, a modified fourth generations Chevrolet Camaro, a first generation Dodge Viper, a Mercedes Benz SL500 sport coupé, a Porsche 962 Le Mans-style race car, and a 1995 Chevrolet Caprice police car. Unfortunately, these ultimately fell victim to the cancellation of the Generation 2 line. However, all six made it to the painted sample stage, and thanks to the decos, the intended characters for at least two of them could be identified: The SUV would have been Hound, and the Camaro would have been Rumble.


Oddly, there even appears to be a slight color variant for Rumble, with multiple samples of each version having ended up in the possession of collectors: One version has the words "Pizza" and "Jerry's" from the fictional sponsor decals painted yellow, and the other version has them in unpainted white. (And for the record, the sponsor decals are intended to read as "Vinny's Pizza", "Jerry's Motors" and "Pro Stock", not "Vinny's Pro Stock" and "Motors Pro Stock". Supposedly, "Vinny" and "Jerry" refer to former Hasbro employees Vincent D'Alleva and Jerry Palmer, or possibly longtime Hasbro employee Jerry Jivoin.)

Proof card samples of all six figures also exist, with all of them using the cardback of the wave 1 figure High Beam:


On top of that, the 2014 book Legacy: The Art of Transformers Packaging by Jim Sorenson and Bill Forster even features unused package art for Rumble, Hound, the GTP racer aka "4X" and the police car aka "911".


Considering all the numerous test shots and samples for these six unreleased Go-Bots that have surfaced in the past two decades, I'd be willing to argue that any of the released figures from the first three waves in bilingual Canadian packaging might actually be rarer than any of the unreleased wave 4 figures! But that's because nobody really cares for Canadian packaging...

Hasbro later used four of these unreleased Go-Bots for their 2001-onwards Robots in Disguise line: Rumble was redecoed into Side Swipe (now actually spelled as two words), the Dodge Viper became Side Burn, the Porsche 962 racer became Daytonus, and the police car became "Prowl 2". Additionally, Side Swipe and Prowl 2 were later also available as part of the "Tiny Tins" line-up. (As I already mentioned in part 4, the packaging for the KB Toys/Target exclusive redecos of the original six RID Spy Changers was the first instance of those toys actually being identified as "Spy Changers". Thus, no versions of Side Swipe, Daytonus, Side Burn or Prowl 2 were ever referred to as such on their packaging.)


On top of that, the police car was later also released under the 2003-onwards Universe line as "Prowl" (but in a deco inspired by Generation 1 Red Alert), and all four of them were later redecoed again for a KB Toys exclusive wave of Spy Changers (now actually called as such) simply branded "Transformers", with their decos based on Generation 1 characters: Side Swipe became "Silverstreak", Daytonus became Wheeljack (or "Autobot Wheeljack" on the back of the packaging), Side Burn became "Autobot Jazz", and Prowl 2 became Prowl again (this time in Prowl's actual colors). Those four figures were later also re-released in different packaging (but with unchanged toys) as part of the 2003-onwards Universe line, this time available from Dollar General and Family Dollar stores.


For whatever reason, Hasbro never released the SUV and the Mercedes-Benz sculpts again. One common hypothesis among fans is that the toolings for those two figures got damaged; however, that is at least somewhat questionable, since the gang-molded nature of these figures means they both share plastic colors with their wave-mates: Not only do the Mercedes's car shell and arms come from the same tooling as Hound's head, inner torso and lower legs, but so do the police car's lower legs, the section underneath the car's front and the weapon. Additionally, Hound's car shell, arms, lower legs and weapon come from the same tooling as the police car's head and upper legs, the Mercedes-Benz's head, inner torso and lower legs come from the same tooling as Rumble's car shell and arms and the GTP racer's lower legs and weapon, and the Mercedes's lower legs and weapon come from the same tooling as the Viper's car shell and arms and Rumble's head, inner torso and lower legs. It's possible, of course, that specifically only the portions of the toolings that would have been used for Hound and the Mercedes got damaged, and the portions used for the other figures remained in a usable state.

Essentially, the Go-Bots assortment embodies everything about the 1995 assortments in a nutshell: We have a first wave consisting of entirely new sculpts with all the characters sporting all-new names, a second wave featuring running change variants marketed as the same characters as their wave 1 selves (Gearhead and Motormouth), redecos originally intended as running change variants of the wave 1 figures but then changed into separate characters using the names of existing Generation 1 characters at the eleventh hour (Optimus Prime and Megatron), a third wave consisting entirely of redecos of the wave 1 figures, all of them marketed as separate characters that use the names of existing Generation 1 characters despite not resembling them at all, and an unreleased fourth wave that would have featured entirely new sculpts again.


Recommended additional reading:

• BWTF features a review of Hound >here<, of Rumble >here<, of the Dodge Viper >here<, of the Mercedes-Benz >here<, of the Porsche 962 >here<, and of the police car >here<.
• The book Legacy: The Art of Transformers Packaging by Jim Sorenson and Bill Forster is getting a paperback re-release leater this year. >Amazon link<

Acknowledgements:

• Big thanks to Transformerland.com and Shmax.com for letting me use their photos, and to Jim Sorenson for letting me use the images from his book.
• I repeatedly tried to contact Ben Yee of BWTF through multiple channels and never got a response whatsoever. Ben, if you're reading this, please let me know if you have a problem with me using your images! It's all done in good faith.

 

This story is somewhat fishy, as these Gobots are gang moulded just like the first wave. So there'd be no parts sprue unique to those two toys: Hound shares parts with Prowl and the Mercedes Benz shares parts with Prowl and Sideswipe & Sideburn.

Rumble/Sideswipe

Car Body, Arms & Hinge: White
Robot Body & Upper Legs: Black
Lower legs and Under Front: Pale Blue

Sideburn

Car Body, Arms & Hinge: Black
Robot Body & Upper Legs: Pale Blue
Lower legs and Under Front: Dark Blue

Daytonus

Car Body, Arms & Hinge: Pale Blue
Robot Body & Upper Legs: Dark Blue
Lower legs and Under Front: White

Prowl

Car Body, Arms & Hinge: Dark Blue
Robot Body & Upper Legs: Green
Lower legs and Under Front: Purple

Hound

Car Body, Arms & Hinge: Green
Robot Body & Upper Legs: Purple
Lower legs and Under Front: Green

Mercedez Benz

Car Body, Arms & Hinge: Purple
Robot Body & Upper Legs: White
Lower legs and Under Front: Black

 

It's possible though that only parts of those particular toolings got damaged, so the Mercedes and Hound would have featured notable defects but the sections used to create parts for the other figures remained in a usable state.

 

Yes, I suppose so....

Do we have a contempary source for the Hound/Mercedes Benz mould damaged thing? Or is it one of these things people have guessed/assumed and now taken as fact?

 

By the way, the entire gang-molded nature of the Go-Bots/Spy Changers led me to a conclusion many, many years ago regarding BotCon 1995 Nightracer: For those who remember, the character's creator, Raksha, had wanted the figure to feature blue parts, and then complained about the final figure's "godawful yellow", which Hasbro claimed couldn't be changed. (Raksha misinterpreted that to mean Hasbro had somehow deliberately screwed her over since High Beam, whom Nightracer was redecoed from, had featured different plastic colors. In fact, what Hasbro probably meant was that they couldn't choose specific plastic colors for this particular production run.) Many fans had assumed that Nightracer was actually just a production run Go-Bot Bumblebee with a repainted car shell and face; my own theory, however, which I first suggested here, then repeated here, then repeated again here, here and here) is that Nightracer was actually made from leftover parts from the same production run as the Japanese Go-Bots Optimus Prime, Megatron and Soundwave!

As keen observers might notice, Hasbro Soundwave wasn't part of the same wave as Hasbro Optimus Prime and Megatron; thus, Takara version actually features the lime yellow from Soundwave's car shell and arms, but the other plastic colors are instead pretty much the same ones used for the Hasbro wave 2 "solid" version of Gearhead (red instead of light blue, gray/silver instead of purple), as they're shared with Optimus Prime and Megatron. Likewise, Takara Optimus Prime features the same lime yellow plastic as Soundwave's car shell and arms for his lower legs and "under front" instead of his Hasbro counterpart's more orange-y yellow (which he shares with Gearhead's car shell and arms). Thanks to the gang-molding, that meant that the respective parts for the other figures were also produced. That, in turn, means that all the parts necessary for assembling Nightracer already existed... and that aforementioned "godawful yellow" used for Nightracer's head, inner torso, upper legs and weapon corresponds with the yellow used for Takara Soundwave's car shell and arms! Likewise, Nightracer's black car shell, arms and lower legs correspond with Takara Megatron's head, inner torso and upper legs. For whatever reason, though, Nightracer features a different set of wheels that are usually used for the Double Clutch/Mirage sculpt. So basically, since the only plastic color that's different compared to Hasbro's wave 2 is Soundwave/Sideswipe/Bumblebee/Nightracer's lime yellow instead of Gearhead/Firecracker/Optimus Prime/High Beam's more orange-y yellow, that would leave Motormouth and Double Clutch in pretty much the same plastic colors as the Hasbro wave 2 versions, except that Double Clutch's wheels would be missing, and there would instead be a set of unused High Beam/Bumblebee wheels.


EDIT: Also, this thread discusses variations in the hole sizes for the wheels that can be found in international versions of the Go-Bots, the US versions and even the Robots in Disguise Spy Changers. I think I have a very simple explanation for that as well:

The wheels were simply applied at random. There are two different "general" wheel designs for the wave 1-3 Go-Bots/original Spy Changers: "Three spokes" or "five holes". The "three spokes" versions are typically used for Firecracker/Optimus Prime/Sideswipe/R.E.V./Eagle Killer, Motormouth/Ironhide/Ox and High Beam/Bumblebee/Crosswise/X-Car, and the "five holes" versions are typically used for Blowout/Megatron/Frenzy/Hot Shot/Artfire, Gearhead/Soundwave/W.A.R.S./Wars and Double Clutch/Mirage/Counter Arrow. The only exception is BotCon 1995 Nightracer, who got the "five holes" wheels intended for Double Clutch/Mirage instead (since the other two sets were already used for Takara Megatron and Soundwave, if my theory that they were all made from the same poduction run is right).

Because of the gang-molded nature of these figures and the fact that they always all have black wheels (except for the Jusco exclusive clear Car Robots Spychangers, which all have smoked gray clear wheels instead) regardess of what plastic colors the figures have otherwise, I assume the entire set of 24 wheels is made from the same tooling. However, the "five holes" wheels are not all identical; there are some notable differences in the hole sizes. I assume that means the factory workers didn't pay these comparably minor differences much attention, and simply stuck any "five holes" wheels on any of the figures that were supposed to have them, thus leading to the variants you noticed.

 

Chapter 8: Laser Optimus Prime/Laser Rod Optimus Prime

Following the longest chapter comes one of the shortest ones: The only released figure from the 1995 line-up without a redeco planned for the Generation 2 line, it was considered the pinnacle of Generation 2 engineering and the best Optimus Prime toy for at least a decade.

In Hasbro's Toy Fair 1995 catalog, the toy's name was spelled "Lazer Optimus Prime" ("Lazer" spelled with a "z"), which is either a case of X-treme kool letterz that were all the rage in the 1990s and early 2000s (see also Beast Wars "Lazorbeak" and Robots in Disguise "X-Brawn" and "Skid-z"), or whoever was in charge of the write-ups for the Toy Fair catalog simply couldn't spell "laser". Case in point: The sword is also referred to as a "lazer sword".


In the United States, the toy was sold as "Laser Optimus Prime" ("Laser" spelled with an "s"), again without a Generation 2 moniker on his box. There were actually two packaging variants: The first version features a call-out for the included "Real Action Pop-Ups 3-D Transformer Trading Card" on the front of the packaging.


The second version not only drops the call-out, but also has some of the descriptions of his various features on the back of the packaging rearranged to make room for a lengthy "caution" note.


I also managed to find photos of a "Hasbro standard" factory sample. The green tag attached to the back simply identifies the toy as "Optimus Prime", but otherwise, the packaging appears to be identical to the first variant.


In Europe, not only did his packaging follow the standard packaging design for 1995 European G2 packaging, complete with the retained Generation 2 title, but his box was also a different format, much higher than its US counterpart. Additionally, he was sold as "Laser Rod Optimus Prime". Here he is in his English/Spanish/Portuguese packaging:


This particular specimen came from the same Swedish seller as the English/Spanish/Portuguese packaging version of "Lasercycle" Road Pig previously seen in chapter 4; and indeed, a yellow sticker like the one found on that aforementioned Road Pig's packaging can be glimpsed on the underside of Laser Rod Optimus Prime's box as well, featuring legal information in Danish, Norwegian, Finnish and Swedish.

For the French/Dutch/German packaging, he retained the name "Laser Rod Optimus Prime" on the front, but the bio on the back gave him the additional, highly odd name of "Optimus Primus" in addition to his standard name "Optimus Prime".


GiG's Italian packaging added yet another oddity to this little line-up of bizarre alternate names: Back in 1985, the original G1 release of Optimus Prime had been renamed into "Commander" for the Italian market. When GiG released the Generation 2 version of the G1 figure in 1994 (a year later than in the US), they kept their old name for him and sold him as "Commander" again. So what did GiG do with the Laser/Laser Rod figure? Well, since the toy has his English name "Optimus Prime" written all over it, and Hasbro probably wouldn't make any alterations to the stickers just for the Italian market, GiG combined both names and sold him as "Commander Optimus Prime"!


Recommended additional reading:

• Philister of Transformers-Universe.com reviewed Laser Optimus Prime >here<.
• Seibertron features a gallery of Laser Optimus Prime >here<.

Acknowledgements:

• Big thanks to Transformerland.com for letting me use their photos.