It really does seem that I only have good luck with eBay every other month. One month will go really well, and I'll get a toy or toys that are in really nice shape, and then the month after that I run into all sorts of problems, and then the cycle repeats. This month is no different!

I suppose that 1988 was the first Transformers product year where I was buying toys based solely on the aesthetics and appeal of the toys themselves, and not due to a strong or memorable media depiction. When I was a kid, I bought toys like Powermaster Optimus Prime and Quickswitch and Piranacon, but I skipped a lot of the low price point, simple toys. I was a sophisticated consumer, and after four years we should have been getting more elaborate toys, not ones that were simpler than ever before.

So, growing up I never owned any Sparkabots or Firecons. I'm sure I must have seen them in stores, but I imagine their overly simple designs simply didn't appeal to me. Had they been important players in a theoretical fifth season of the cartoon, it might have been a different story!

Like the Firecons, the Sparkabots all share a cold sparking gimmick, retaining the gimmick used for the 1987 Monsterbots but at a much smaller scale. Where the Firecons were monsters who could "breathe fire," the Sparkabots shot sparks out of the back of their vehicle forms.

Also, all three Sparkabots share a cadence and rhythm in their names, which is a bit gimmicky, but I suppose no more so than the Dinobots (single-syllable "S" names) or the Insecticons (weapons terminology).

FIZZLE

In vehicle mode, Fizzle is an off-road dune buggy, similar in configuration to Micromaster Roller Force or G2 Jetstorm. As a vehicle, he's three inches long, mostly a medium blue with silver-painted windows and a light blue spoiler. He has two factory-applied stickers on either side of the canopy, and an Autobot symbol on his hood. (The Sparkabots were clearly designed with rub symbols in mind, since they all have square-shaped indents that would have accommodated them perfectly. The final versions, like most of the 1988 toys, didn't have rub symbols at all.)

If you rev the single rubber wheel on Fizzle's undersize, he is designed to shoot sparks out the back of his car mode. A lot of samples existing today no longer spark, as the internal flint wheel that creates the sparks has a limited life span. (Also, it's hard to find this toy nowadays with the spoiler unbroken and free of stress marks. It seems kids would press down pretty hard on the spoiler in order to rev up Fizzle and get his sparks going.)

To transform the toy, you stand the car up on its rear end and pull the legs out slightly. You also swing the hood back, which uses the robot head as a locking peg to help keep it snapped shut. He's not a complex toy by any stretch of the imagination.

As a robot, he stands three inches in height. Whatever length he gains when you extend his legs disappears when you flip the car hood back, I guess. He has two points of articulation, and can move his robot arms, but his legs are a stump and are fused together. Indeed, the rubberized rotary wheel that powers his sparking gimmick is wedged between the center of his leg-stump, rather rudely interrupting the fantasy that this robot might have separate legs and could theoretically walk.

In robot mode he's almost entirely light blue, as the car undercarriage is the same color as the car spoiler, but he retains the dark blue arms. His eyes and face are painted red. His robot helmet has an interesting design, with sculpted detail that suggests a slotted forehead cover that can swing down over his eyes, like an armored knight, or Super Grover. His robot form is rather plain, though, with no stickers, no painted detail except his face, and not even a visible Autobot symbol.

I tried to find a Fizzle toy that was in good shape, with decent stickers and a spoiler that didn't have the all-too-common stress marks. I ended up paying $18 for him. His screws were covered in rust, but I figured I could dunk them in vinegar like I did with Needlenose. Some of them came clean and some of them did not.

Also, his sparking gimmick isn't currently working. Since I was removing the screws anyway, I took apart the sparking mechanism to figure out how it works. Apparently there's a small piece of flint inside the toy (probably ferrocerium, the same stuff they use in cigarette lighters) and it grinds against the rough metal wheel. When it wears down all the way, like a pencil eraser, there are no more sparks. But, it's possible to move the piece up slightly and tuck something behind it, like a piece of plastic or something, and get it to make contact with the metal wheel again.

I haven't decided whether I need to hunt down a second Fizzle yet. The spoiler on this one is great, but the screws are still awful-looking, even after soaking for two days in vinegar. I may try to polish them up, but it honestly might just be far less work to spend a few more dollars on a second toy and just cobble together the best-looking unit out of the two toys.

GUZZLE

Guzzle is a greyish-green tank with off-white treads and a grey turret cannon. He's about 2.75" from end to end, or nearly 3.5" with the cannon. He's a super-deformed Challenger battle tank, a bit shorter than a real one. The turret can rotate 360 degrees, and the turret gun can pivot up and down. He has two factory-applied stickers on either side of the rear of the tank mode, which also includes his twin Autobot symbols.

There's a raised block near the back of his tank mode that was clearly supposed to be where the rub symbol would have gone. On the final production version, there is a grid pattern in its place.

Guzzle is interesting in that he has only one functional wheel. His rubberized undercarriage wheel, which powers his sparking gimmick, is the only working wheel on the toy. His treads are immobile, and he has two knobby little faux wheels molded to the treads near the front. It looks as if they might have been planning to attach some tiny Micromaster wheels with pins, judging by the gaps where the faux wheels are. But, in the end, that didn't happen. There are a lot of Guzzle toys on eBay where these little knobby wheels have been worn off, and some of them have even had the tread pattern scraped off the bottom altogether. Of course, it's not really the fault of the kids who played with their Sparkabots, since the toy's design encourages this kind of usage.

To transform him to robot mode, you extend the legs. That's it. He was a One-Step Changer long before it was cool. Wait, it was never cool. But, anyway. Not a difficult toy to master, by any means. I kind of wish I had him around when my kids were younger.

As a robot, he's three inches in height. His undercarriage color is now his primary robot mode color, so he's mostly off-white, with a yellow-painted torso and a blue-painted face. His sculpted robot forearms are embedded within the tank treads. His upper legs are bit spindly—they're a plastic block, and they're also the piece to which the tank turret is attached, so there's a big, visible screw going right through the center of the block.

I bought my Guzzle for $23. There were a lot to choose from, but I really wanted one with plastic knobs that weren't worn down. The one I bought has a working spark gimmick, too. He's missing a sticker, though! D'oh! I was focusing so intently on his treads that I overlooked this entirely. There's just a sticky piece of paper where the label used to be. I think it would be easy enough to buy a second junker and cobble together a good unit out of the two toys.

SIZZLE

I'm not sure why I've had such rotten luck with the Sparkabots, except for the fact that my August purchases went really well, so of course now that it's September, it's time for a disaster. Well, I hunted for a Sizzle with no scrapes to his robot chest and an intact engine (they tend to pop off and go missing), and I found one in great shape. But, when I opened the box, he was sitting there in a Zip-Loc baggie in pieces. His hood and both his arms are broken off. I guess he must have sat in the sunlight for way too long. It's shame, because he was otherwise a gorgeous specimen—no rust on the screws or wheel pins. Sigh. Well, maybe the next one will be better.

So, Sizzle is a funny car, and reminds me strongly of the Tonka GoBots toy called Street Heat. Same size, same basic vehicle configuration, and same tricked-out exhaust pipes on the sides. I believe he's a third-generation Chervolet Camaro, or something similar. As a car, he's three inches in length, and is an off-black charcoal color with light grey painted windows, metallic silver exhaust pipes, and a vac-metal engine. There's a square-shaped indent in his hood that would have accomodated a rub symbol, but we get an Autobot badge sticker instead.

There is an odd little raised section that joins the rear window and the roof of the car. That's there because of the shape of his internal sparking mechanism, which has a protrusion in that spot (it's where the piece of flint is stored, actually). To transform him, you extend the legs and flip back the vehicle hood. That's all there is to it.

As a robot, he's just slightly under three inches tall. HIs colors change dramatically in this form—his arms retain the black color of his car mode, but the rest of him is a bright red, from head to toe. He's got a face and eyes that are painted light blue. As with the others, his rubberized wheel is wedged between his sculpted robot legs.

On Wednesday, September 14, 2022 at 5:46:11 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:

> I'll admit to being disappointed that my toy arrived broken (I spent $18 on him!), so I'll have to go back to eBay and a) see about getting a refund and b) getting a second Sizzle toy.

Got a refund. Looking at buying Sizzle #2. Also, I was able to use the screws from the broken one to spruce up Fizzle and make him pretty! Yay, everybody wins!

Zob (to me, Sizzle is the G2 Laser Rod)

On Thursday, September 15, 2022 at 4:59:54 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:

> Got a refund. Looking at buying Sizzle #2.

It's amazing how long these processes take sometimes. Getting me a set of Sparkabots has been like a month-long excursion.

So, I got my second Sizzle for $13 plus shipping, but it was cheap because it was missing the engine piece. I popped it off the broken one and attached it to the new one. Easy peasy.

So, I think this toy is just designed badly. The car hood is meant to open for vehicle mode, but the hinge has a square part that is sort of supposed to function as a really cheap ratchet. Sort of like how the 1987 Headmasters had Nebulan figures who could technically move their arms, but the shoulders had squared-off corners so it put a lot of stress on the pegs when you posed them. Sizzle's hood is designed the same way. I was honestly afraid the hinge was going to snap the first time I opened it up. I applied a lot of counter-pressure to the center hinge piece so it wouldn't go flying off. Once I got it open, I whittled down the plastic on the hood just slightly, so it was a little more rounded and a little less square. Normally, I wouldn't modify a toy that's part of The Collection with a capital "C," but I also want to be able to transform him without breaking him!

So, that's my Sparkabot adventure. These are some crazy times we live in. When I was a kid, the general rule was, once a toy was no longer selling in stores, you missed your chance. You were done. That was it. It's crazy that nowadays there's this worldwide marketplace where not only can I get a 34-year-old toy, but there are dozens of them to choose from, and I can replace one easily if it arrives broken. That shouldn't be possible, but here we are.

I also really wonder how many G1 toys there are left in the world today. Obviously a bunch of them were played with by kids until they were broken, or their moms threw them away when the kids grew up, but what percentage are we talking about? Half? Two-thirds? Even if only 25 percent of all G1 toys produced have survived intact today, that's still many thousands of toys floating around out there in the world. I don't think any of them are truly rare.

Zob (except maybe G1 Iguanus, who still doesn't ever seem to show up on eBay)

On Thursday, September 22, 2022 at 6:53:42 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:
> On Thursday, September 15, 2022 at 4:59:54 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:
>
> > Got a refund. Looking at buying Sizzle #2.
> It's amazing how long these processes take sometimes. Getting me a set of Sparkabots has been like a month-long excursion.
>
> So, I got my second Sizzle for $13 plus shipping, but it was cheap because it was missing the engine piece. I popped it off the broken one and attached it to the new one. Easy peasy.
>
> So, I think this toy is just designed badly. The car hood is meant to open for vehicle mode, but the hinge has a square part that is sort of supposed to function as a really cheap ratchet. Sort of like how the 1987 Headmasters had Nebulan figures who could technically move their arms, but the shoulders had squared-off corners so it put a lot of stress on the pegs when you posed them. Sizzle's hood is designed the same way. I was honestly afraid the hinge was going to snap the first time I opened it up. I applied a lot of counter-pressure to the center hinge piece so it wouldn't go flying off.. Once I got it open, I whittled down the plastic on the hood just slightly, so it was a little more rounded and a little less square. Normally, I wouldn't modify a toy that's part of The Collection with a capital "C," but I also want to be able to transform him without breaking him!
>
> So, that's my Sparkabot adventure. These are some crazy times we live in. When I was a kid, the general rule was, once a toy was no longer selling in stores, you missed your chance. You were done. That was it. It's crazy that nowadays there's this worldwide marketplace where not only can I get a 34-year-old toy, but there are dozens of them to choose from, and I can replace one easily if it arrives broken. That shouldn't be possible, but here we are.
>
> I also really wonder how many G1 toys there are left in the world today. Obviously a bunch of them were played with by kids until they were broken, or their moms threw them away when the kids grew up, but what percentage are we talking about? Half? Two-thirds? Even if only 25 percent of all G1 toys produced have survived intact today, that's still many thousands of toys floating around out there in the world. I don't think any of them are truly rare.
>
>
> Zob (except maybe G1 Iguanus, who still doesn't ever seem to show up on eBay)

It's amazing to think that these simplified, gimmicky toys are in the same family as the original Diaclone G1 molds. G1 truly had something for everyone...

On Tuesday, October 11, 2022 at 10:05:36 PM UTC-6, Codigo Postal wrote:

> It's amazing to think that these simplified, gimmicky toys are in the same family as the original Diaclone G1 molds. G1 truly had something for everyone...

I think they had the right idea. Transformers were very expensive toys. When most action figures were three bucks, a mid-range Transformers offering tended to be closer to ten or fifteen dollars. But, they were really good about always having a smaller, entry-level toy assortment available. Whether it was the Mini Autobots or the Throttlebots or the Sparkabots, you could always get a Transformers toy for about three dollars.

When I was a kid, I skipped a lot of the smaller, simpler toys in 1988 because I wanted something sophisticated. I was growing up and becoming more sophisticated, and something with an incredibly simple transformation didn't appeal to me. But, as I look back, toys like the Sparkabots and Firecons were perfect for the kids who were late to the party and just discovering Transformers for the first time. They were easy to operate, they were durable (especially compared to early entry-level toys like Brawn or Huffer), and they were exciting vehicles or monsters. The only thing missing was the media component. If there had been a 1988 television season that had featured them heavily, I would have wanted to own them back then for sure.

Zob (of course, all six toys would have cost me like $20 back then, and that was a lot of money for an 11-year-old in the 80's)