#micro change

MC-06 Watch Robo (toy)

Interesting note from tfwiki

If Studio Series 86 Grimlock ever gets a Retro Retool like Legacy Gears, he might have More than just Red Eyes like the G1 Toy-Accurate Headsculpt

(Source: Flickr - Francisco Wong)

You may have the running change variant with the altered door hinge and the unified button assembly, you may have a rubsign instead of a Decepticon logo. But looks pretty right, yes?

Here’s the problem: those red and black stickers don’t belong there, they belong on the ends of the weapons.

(Source: Reminator’s G1 Soundwave Review)

Hasbro’s instructions tell you to do it.

(Source: Botch's Transformers Box Art Archive)

And it appears that way on the box.

(Source: eBay - wheeljackslab)

But Hasbro’s images are wrong. The stickers originate from Soundwave’s Micro Change predecessor, Cassette Man, where the black section had the word "Cassette" in it.

(Source: Instagram - themexicangriswalds)

Thirty-something years of Transformers and I just learned this today on TFW2005′s boards.

It always seemed like a strange detail, and nobody ever put them on straight.

What if you want to fix yours? Reproduction sticker sheets can be found on ToyHax (formerly Reprolabels, where they also designate them for the wrong locations) or eBay; you might occasionally find a genuine sticker sheet on the latter.

Based on the top of the box in the stock image, it looks like it’s too late for Hasbro to fix it in their "Vintage G1" reissue; it seems they really are going for that authentic 80s experience.

Until they do fix it, remember: friends don’t let friends sticker Soundwave incorrectly.

So a friend of mine recently came into possession of “Tic Toc”, the Gobots alarm clock. The figure itself is a bit of an oddity, though not too odd - it’s a large figure of the same basic robot design as the Gobots transforming wristwatch. (Both contain working digital clocks.) 

The really odd thing, though, was on the side of the box - aside from cross-sells of itself and the wristwatch bot, there’s a promo for “Roll-Bot”, a digital clock robot that folds up into a sphere. This was never released as a Gobot, as far as anyone knows, and there don’t seem to be mentions of it in other marketing materials from the period (such as scans fans have made of newspaper ads that promote the alarm clock).

I figured it had to be another existing toy, not an unproduced original design  -there were a lot of American companies licensing and renaming obscure robot toys at this time. Maybe it was something from a different Japanese manufacturer that Tonka had attempted to license, or had licensed but couldn’t get distributed.

I still don’t know the origin of this item, but I have found photos of the real deal, as well as some info on how it was released at one point - Wolfsbigbadgarage on ebay has a copy of what is clearly the same robot, distributed by a company named Nelsonic under the name “Playtime Robot Clock”.

While the box shows the Playtime Robot Clock in red and blue, the actual item inside is chromed silver. As a silver and black orb, it’s actually quite reminiscent of Metal Man, from Takara’s Meteor Robo, a series of small toy robots that transform into spheres.