National GoBots Day is April Fools Day!

04.01.2014 – If you happen to be a Transformers fan and were excited about the news regarding the GoBots becoming part of the TF Generations toy line, maybe you’re not reading the tags below and what is the date today. Your guess April Fools Day is like a trap if General Ackbar from Star Wars would describe the news. But the idea is way past to be intentional as Transformers Philippines has made April 1st as the annual GoBots Day since having it began in 2008.

Challenge of the GoBots was Tonka’s answer to Hasbro’s Transformers in the 1980s. But the native inhabitants of Gobotron became a joke having a weak concept for its narrative, and featuring basic less-challenging transformations for the toy robots. In other words GoBots was inferior and Transformers is superior if you use Soundwave’s line in the 1986 animated movie and re-word it.



Hasbro Acquiring Tonka and GoBots

By 1991 Hasbro acquired Tonka and its GoBots license which slowly incorporated these cyborgs into the Transformers Universe through comic books. For those unaware the GoBots are cyborg beings not entirely sentient machines unlike Transformers.

Originally Challenge of the GoBots where toy imports from Japan, which was known as Machine Robo manufactured by Bandai, the rival of Takara who made Transformers previously known as Diaclone. So if you’re wondering why Bandai has not reissued Machine Robo it’s because Hasbro owns the rights to the characters appearance.



Former GoBots to Machine Robo Rescue

Though Bandai has little success in bringing back some of the characters that were based from Machine Robo which became GoBots in America. These were the Machine Robo Rescue or abbreviated as MRR, which was also released in the US in the mid-2000s.

Some of the robots in MRR are previous GoBot characters, and one of them is Fi-Tor a red jet that resembles the Volt Cruiser that changes to into the head of Chōdenji Machine Voltes V. But Fi-Tor is an unknown character unless you’ve been a fan of the GoBots when they where airing on Saturday mornings. So it’s safe that Bandai was able to use Fi-Tor and renamed it as Jet Robo in MRR.



Annual GoBots Day

Transformers Philippines a local culture site about who started this annual event is not just making a prank about the GoBots on April Fools Day, but also making campaign for some fans to remember and introduce GoBots to those who never had any idea who where these “poor man’s Transformers.”

This already became an annual thing the moment a vintage Challenge of the GoBots figurer in Cy-Kill was first featured in 2008. You can say even though GoBots was not as popular like the Transformers they became relevant for those who appreciate the 1980s nostalgia. Even the former Toyfare magazine had a feature about the toy line as well as various media that built the brand.





The Challenge of the GoBots is here to stay and if you happen to see anything related to them finding it out on April 1st you better think its either an April Fools joke or GoBots Day. Now it depends if they are making a joke or featuring the character from Gobotron.