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Gobots – Transformers Rip-Off or Childhood Favorite?

You decide… were Gobots simply a Transformers rip-off, or should Gobots be celebrated as a 1980s favorite?

While I still enjoy the opening theme music, I always felt that GoBots was a poor mans version of Transformers.  That’s my two cents.  Feel free to disagree.

This ad comes from DC Comics published with cover date June 1986.

12 thoughts on “Gobots – Transformers Rip-Off or Childhood Favorite?

  1. I was always more of a Gobots fan. yes they are a poor mans transformers, in that you could buy like 5 Gobots to 1 transformer. The only transformer I really cared about was Megatron (mostly because he was a cool gun) and Shockwave (because of the tapes).

    Mind you, I always mixed my figures. He-man regularly owned some GI Joe face.

  2. having not owned a Transformer or a Gobot and not (until now at least) knowing that there was a price difference, i can say Transformers were always a better packaged product on the shelf. I also always found it remarkable that the main ‘evil’ Gobot was Cy-kill. For the mid 80’s that was a pretty rough name for a toy bad guy…

  3. Ripoff. My brother grew up with Transformers, and I never saw him with a Gobot. It’s kind of like the difference between a real Barbie and the grocery store fakes.

  4. To use a high school SAT analogy: Go-bots are to Transformers what Sgt. Rock is to G.I. Joe.

  5. GoBots as a whole were an exceptional toy. I loved the cartoon too and as corny as it seems today it is no less corny than Transformers.

    I have been considering doing a post on the roles of females in GoBots and Transformers.

    Transformer females were extremely rare (almost non existent) and when they did appear they were more often than not pink and wearing high heels (Arcee.)

    GoBot females were strong characters and integral to the story, and not distinguished by juvenile perceptions of

  6. It was definitely a poor man’s Transformers. My parents bought some for me, but I’m not sure if it was because of the cost or they just didn’t know the difference. It wasn’t until later when I started collecting allowance that I started buying Transformers on my own.

  7. Gobots, great little toys, however if you look at the dates that they were made, the show in Japan(as both gobots and transformers were brought from japan), the Gobots pre-dates transformers by some number of years, the art for it was outstanding, how it got so bad when it got here I don’t know, and a interesting side note, cy-kill was a good guy. search you tube, you can find some clips.

  8. Gobots came first so they cant rip off Transformers. Something cant rip something off if they came out first. besides Transformers was nothing but Diaclone reissues. :p

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