At Flashbak: Monsterous [sic] Combiner (Tonka)

This week at Flashbak, I remembered Tonka’s robot combiner who was added to the Gobot toy line in the mid-1980s: “Monsterous” [sic])

Here’s a snippet and the url: (http://flashbak.com/before-transformers-there-were-gobots-apart-theyre-awful-together-theyre-monsterous-363361/ )

“Today, everybody loves Hasbro’s Transformers toy line, but back in the mid-1980s the Autobots had mechanical, transforming competition…from Tonka’s Gobots (“Mighty Robots/Mighty Vehicles”). 

Like the Autobots of Cybertron, the Gobots had two opposing teams: Guardians (the good guys) and Renegades (the bad guys). 

And for a while, the Gobots even had their own TV show: Challenge of the Gobots.

One of the weirdest and most wonderful toys from the 1980s Gobot catalog is the (notably misspelled…) "Monsterous," a large-scale combiner, consisting of six Gargoyle-like Gobot villains.

The toy box describes Monsterous as a “Renegade Robot Giant.”    It also notes a bit about his shapes/abilities: “Six Robots to Six Vehicles to One Monsterous Giant!”

And where did Monsterous hail from, at least in terms of Gobot mythology?

The box had an answer there too.  “Out of the depths of the Antares Solar System arises a band of six renegade monsters.”

The story continued: “Apart, they’re awful. Together, they’re: Monsterous, a Renegade Robot giant that’s more gruesome than the evilest being alive. Their mission is destruction...The starting point is Earth!”

The six individual Renegades that convert into the Monsterous being are: Weird Wing, South Claw, Heart Attack, Gore Jaw, Fangs, and Fright Face…”

Please continue reading at Flashbak. 

Late Night Blogging: Before They Were Transformers and Gobots

Collectible of the Week: Gobot "Monsterous" Combiner (Tonka; 1986)

I know that far and wide these days, the Transformers are greatly preferred to their contemporaries from the 1980s, The Gobots.  In fact, I remember a great joke from Clerks II (2006) when a character noted that Gobots were the "K-Mart" version of Transformers.

Certainly, the machine-robo denizens of Gobotron haven't experenced the popularity resurgence of their Cybertron counterparts in the 21st century.  That fact established, there are still many great collectible toys from the Tonka Gobot line.  The die-cast "Super" Gobots, in particular seem to have held up very well.  The smaller plastic Gobots...not so much.

One of the weirdest and most wonderful toys from the Gobot catalog is "Monsterous," often misspelled as "Monstrous."  Monsterous is actually a combiner, consisting of six Gargoyle-like Gobot Renegades (the Gobot verson of the Decepticons). 

The six Renegades that transform (er, "convert") into Monsterous are: Weird Wing, South Claw, Heart Attack, Gore Jaw, Fangs and Fright Face.  When combined (with Fright Face at the top of the pyramid, as it were...), these ghoulish folks form the monster you see at the top of this post, a very colorful and fanciful-lookng creature, by any definition. 

Relatively few combiners were made for the Gobot line -- just the Renegade Puzzler and the Power Suit Combiners -- so Monsterous is a pretty cool and odd toy.  He certainly doesn't look quite like your typical Gobot, and in his original Japanese incarnation he was called, ominously enough, Satan 6.

Monsterous also originally came in at least two color variations that I've seen while haunting E-Bay.  This particular Monsterous (pictured) is currently my son Joel's absolute favorite toy.

At least until I can get my hands on a Transformer Preda-King Combiner for him...but that's going to cost a pretty penny.