Gracefully Forgotten Gobots

[Zbu Manowar]

Yup, same as the Gracefully Forgotten Joes thread, only this time I think we can all chime in about which Gobots sucked. And no, the correct answer is NOT 'all of them.' Let's be slightly fair here. ;)

And our first one is....

Scooter

The main three bad Gobots--Cy-Kill, Crusher, and Cop-Tur--were badasses if not derivative. They were all designed with a menacing aspect to them. They either were scowling or evil or such. And to be fair, Leader-One and Turbo were suitable adversaries for them being notably heroic. But what about Scooter? The 'little guy' of the group? The 'cute' one who was there being goofy and shit?'

What is up with those bangs? He's a robot for Christ's sake, not some kind of fucking cyborg!

The Gobots were the most famous Transformers ripoffs and Scooter is the most obvious example. Where the good guys and bad guys similarities to Transformers could be explained away by the tenets of any cartoon of the '80s, Scooter can't really explain by being the Bumblebee ripoff. He's the youngest one of the group, he has a human friend, and he transforms into something that is mildly non-threatening and dangerous. Sadly, while Bumblebee had dignity and was somewhat independent and likeable and had street cred as being a fairly classic and well-liked VW bug, Scooter was whiny and stupid and basically defenseless. And what was up with being a moped? It was like the creators were trying to be cool but a moped isn't cool. It's not even a real vehicle. It's a wimpy transformation to carry off and the character's personality has to be cool to make it cool. Scooter makes it look stupid. And it's sad since nobody bothered to give him a name that would at least not reinforce the fact he was a fucking scooter.

So, Scooter gets the first prize. For being lame...and we won't mention the action figure which somehow, for some reason, makes him taller and non-proportionate to the other Gobots except for that blue monster with a red button on his belly or the Command Center.

[Bennett]

There are two important things that you left out when mentioning Scooter:
1. Not only was he a complete pansy and coward, but the cartoons created decided to give him the lame and totally unexplained power of hologram. It got to be like the killing of Kenny in South Park. You knew it was coming, "Oh here comes the part where Scooter turns himself into a rock... Wow! that was a close call!" Good thing you've got that power of suck-o-gram... (i myself would prefer the power of snort-a-gram, but i digress)
Why was it that Scooter was the only one who had this power? Or am I wrong... He's the only one I remember doing so... It's kind of like (again I could be wrong here) how the Decepticons could fly without transforming, but we never saw the Autobots do so.

on to....
2. To this day I am automatically reminded of Scooter's nasally whiney voice whenever I hear...

Dave Matthews.
Yes, that's right, Dave Matthews sounds like Scooter.
and that is not a good thing.

that's all, truthfully, I can't remember any Go-bots other than those that Manowar mentioned. The big blue monster thing was pretty badass... it defected from the Go-bots to play with G.I. Joe in my book. Some kind of evil Destro creation (again, I digress).

[Zbu Manowar]

Good call on that blue monster being a Destro creation. An easy way to explain it off is Destro wanted Zartan out of the way and built it as a gift to the Dreadnoks but it suddenly started liking them and hence, it was their pet or something.

And what was up with all the Gobots firing energy out of their fists? I never understood that.

[FS]

It's kind of like (again I could be wrong here) how the Decepticons could fly without transforming, but we never saw the Autobots do so.

No, you're right. I remember an episode where the Autobots and Decepticons had to work together for some reason, and a party of them went into a cave with a huge web (and matching spider-creature). As they're all stepping into the web, Megatron suddenly takes flight and says "Oh, I forgot. Autobots can't fly!".

Megatron was such an awesome villain :love

[Zbu Manowar]

Did anybody else ever figure out how the Transformers could be designed on 1980's car designs when they supposedly came from worlds away? I never got my head around that one....doesn't matter, really.

[Milkman Dan]

I think I remember seeing an episode of Transformers where they were remembering being back on Cybertron before they came to earth and they all had different shapes. Like Star scream turned into some kind of delta wing pyramid jet thingy and Bumblebee was a hovercar. I might just be tlking out my ass though.

Also I thhink the big purple robot monster on Gobots was called Zod.

[Zbu Manowar]

Okay, that somewhat makes sense. And thanks about the Zod name. Chances are I didn't remember it because of General Zod from the second Superman movie.

:)

[Skulhedface]

I must say though, they did have cool names. "Yaah! It's that badass CY-KILL!!"

I'd rather have the name "Cy-Kill" than "Megatron".... but I'd rather BE Megatron. Oh well.