Stink Egg Known as Cartoon Networks - Robotomy

by: Ana Bruja-Khayos

As I’m navigating my way through my Netflix account I often find myself watching stuff I’ve never seen before.  Some of the times it is a very good experience but some of the time it is just not a great experience.  Robotomy was one of those series that I vaguely remember seeing ads for back when I had cable but I also remember it being gone just as quickly as it appeared. 
At the time I thought the art style was interesting but it was nothing that I wanted to watch until now.

The first thing that I noticed is that the series was incredibly short.  It was only 10 episodes compared to the standard 13 or 22 episode per season I’m used to seeing.  That got me thinking... ok what do I have to lose?  Put it on the background and is only going to be on for about 4 ½ to 5 hours tops. What could possibly go wrong with this?

Oh boy...

The show follows these two robots that are in robot high school a name.... you know what who cares.  In this world being a heinous evil robot is the norm, while being nice is completely off pudding.  While you follow Thrasher and Blastus through the school you will be shown incredibly odd and at unrelatable situations that simply fall flat and are simply not funny.  As you watch the show you get the sense that just like it’s main characters it was trying too hard to be the next big thing and simply filled the show with stupid unfunny fart jokes, and imagery that only Ah!!! Real Monsters could have pulled off back in the day.  Both the main cast and secondary characters have very 2D personalities like school princess, jock, nerd that have a very cliche fell to them.  After the first 3 episode I simply blurred out the show and it was just moving pictures with noise.

I’m sure someone out there likes the show, but is just not me. If you like it, let me know in the comments. Maybe I’m missing something, where’s the jokes?

About the Show
Seeing how bad the show was got me thinking what happened here.  How did this get made and why.  It turns out the show was created after a long losing streak of rejected production ideas.  The show was in and off production for a few years due to changing management, and finally was finished in 2009 pushed out to be aired in 2010. Needless to say it didn’t go well. The show only lasted a measly 4 months on the air before it was cancelled.  The show is the shortest running Cartoon Network original series along with the least episodes ever made by them.  The show was so bad it was finally also completely removed from the CN website around 2011 as a listed show.  I’ve rarely seen any network do that.  Talk about sweeping it under the rug.

What really made me sad is that this show was directed by Christy Karacas who is known for his other project Superjail.  I love Superjail.  All in all you can’t win them all and this is one of those shows best left forgotten.

Final Thoughts
Only watch if you are severely intoxicated and looking to kill brain cells.  Best recommendation is to skip it completely. 

Kaiju Lagoon- mini jumbo sized King Joe by Bandai

King Joe was sent by the Pedan aliens as their main weapon to conquer Earth. Arriving on Earth in the form of 4 ships, the Pedan's ultimate weapon laid siege to a naval fleet until they garnered the attention of the Ultraseven crew. By the time they arrived to provide a counter-attack, King Joe was long gone and on to it's next target. As the four ships arrived at a U.N. Embassy they combined to reveal King Joe's full form, a giant frickin' robot with some strange protrusions (ie- giant electrode tits on his head, a rainbow window chest and what I can only describe as bongos on his ass and hips.) Even with the countermeasures hidden at the embassy, King Joe seemed near indestructible.

(pretty decent scenes)

Ultraseven soon showed up to save the day but couldn't seem to breach King Joe's Pedantic Armor. Soon after exhausting a good deal of his energy, Ultraseven found himself pinned to the ground and became the recipient of some absolutely viscious bitch slaps, courtesy of King Joe. At this point Ultraseven decides the best thing to do is pass the fuck out and hope this alien quits pummeling him.

As King Joe turns his back to Ultraseven, the hero lunges forward and knocks King Joe on his glorious golden ass. Incapable of getting back up again(most likely due to his bongo ass), King Joe splits into the four ships and flees with Ultraseven in pursuit.

It was then revealed that the reason for King Joe's attack on the Embassy was due to a scientist who had found a chemical that is highly reactive with Pedantic Armor, which also explained why the Pedan Aliens have come to Earth as well. King Joe returns, arriving in Tokyo Bay where it trashes a few oil tankers till Ultraseven shows back up. King Joe once again totally owns Ultraseven in a pretty decent fight, even though his weakness is getting knocked on his ass. But Ultraseven has a WMD full of that Pedantic reactive chemical which he shoots at King Joe, short-circuiting and destroying the robot once and for all.

King Joe is in my top 5 favorite Ultraman bad guys (in no particular order Baltan, King Joe, Dada, Pestar and Red King). As the Ultraman story evolves, so do his villains but this version of King Joe is my favorite. No techno cannon, no monotone paint scheme, just very true to the original design. Simple and slick looking with the perfect shade of gold on his suit and a rainbow effect through the “honeycomb” on his chest. The main thing I like about the figure is it's huge! Over 12 inches tall and with some serious weight to him, I've been impressed and desired this figure for years and was finally lucky enough to acquire one through Planet Retro Gallery care of my wife for Valentines day.

Powered Aboras from Ultraman by Bandai

Ultraman has had such a colorful array of evil monsters to battle over the years. Some of them range from the totally believable to the extremely bizarre and everywhere in between. Over the years his villains have gone through amazing overhauls where their physical appearance and abilities have been augmented with technology and magical powers. As the Ultraman saga has evolved over the last several decades, so has he and his opponents. Aboras is one of those many characters

(a shot of the original costume. Lots of reused elements)

(not only a battle of the behemoths, but in a stadium no less) 

Often being mistaken for a blue Godzilla-like creature by those not aware of it, this creature has been around since some of the most early incarnations of the saga. In the Ultraman Powered story, Aboras is one of two ancient devil beasts (or kaiju) sealed away in a magical sarcophagus' long ago in an attempt to save the world from their terror. His arch-nemesis is Banila, a red bipedal monster with almost matched skills. When both tombs were “accidentally” unearthed, both of these titans decided to battle it out until only one was left standing. In the first incarnation, Aboras won and was destroyed shortly after by Ultraman. The second time around Aboras seemed to be victorious but Banila reformed and both were destroyed by Ultraman and the WINR by using a combination of high frequency sound to stun them and a Mega Spectrum Ray to vaporize them.

(new and improved)

Aboras' reintroduction into the Ultraman saga was met with a complete upgrade. Because of budget constraints, Aboras was an altered Red King costume painted blue and a new head. The Powered version has a really cool tyrannosaurus rex look with a tadpole-like tail while keeping the more elongated arms and horn on his head. The figure captures every aspect of the redesign, especially capturing every single bumpy scale along the body. It's a really substantial toy and feels really good in your hand. He's not really oversized to any degree, just big considering the fact he's a friggin' mutant T-Rex. The figure fits in well with the rest of the series and (from what I can tell) is in scale. 

Red bendable robot from Marty Toy 1985

Great success! I have located a second Marty Toy bendable robot in a pile of toys I already owned. I have no recollection of where it came from, when you own as much stuff as I do it's not all that surprising. This little guy was found while I was sorting through boxes of toys in my storage unit last week. Among the TMNT, Voltron and GI Joes was this forgotten classic; buried at the bottom. With this discovery came some more information about this line.

The series name is still unknown to me, what loose examples I have found show the figures holding a melee weapon and a shield with a sticker on it (I assume the sticker gives the user a +5 for defense, or maybe a +2 in stamina). The melee weapons seem to range from a battle axe to a sword and even a futuristic machine gun from what examples I've found; each one cast in a metallic different from the color of the robot so the weapons don't blend into the figure. A lot of time and attention was put into this line from a designer's standpoint. Coming out just after the final fizzle of the Star Wars POTF line, Marty Toy may have been hoping to appeal to some of the Star Wars fans left in the wake of the line's last hurrah. But just like most of the company's previous releases, it was ultimately forgotten and it became merely a faint memory.

Marty Toy should be remembered as a company that made several toy lines out of the same shtick, rubbery bendable figures. They never carried a license to any great property, the card art was simple and probably designed by the company's executives. Actually the card art used so much black space, it should have been considered racist to a degree. Besides this robot line, the character designs for their other series were very plain and un-inventive. In all actuality, the company had two other series that I can find readily in my research; Outer Terrestrial Creatures and Gremlin Creatures. Both series used the same character designs and barley even changed the paint schemes, if they were altered at all.

This second example I found has seen some better days. Neither arm bends anymore at the shoulder and it seems that's not the only wire that's snapped under the skin. The robot shows some rubber fatigue on the right shoulder and some tearing due to the broken wires under it's rubber skin. The sculpt is very unique to this figure, very different from the green robot I reviewed earlier. The rubber it's cast in is a crimson color with a small amount of silver flake to give it a metallic look. This line was obviously the crowning achievement to Marty Toy before they just ended up disappearing one day.

Mexican bootleg Ultraman by unknown maker

Viva Mexico!

Mexican bootlegs are a branch of toy collecting I wish I could get more involved in. It's such a bizarre genre of toy collecting. There's no list of what was made, so who knows if you have a complete set or not. They are meant to be a novelty of sorts, which would drive completists absolutely mad. If you find something that catches your eye, buy it quickly because who knows if they made 10 or 10,000 of that figure. I'm not one to say something like that, one of my base rules of collecting is there's rarely only one of anything; but this isn't normal toy collecting. I have friends that own small armies of Homer from the Simpsons as every DC and Marvel character imaginable and near full sets of vintage Star Wars figures made out of lead. I own a few bizarre figures myself, from “Big Chap” from Aliens to E.T (bagged as a character known only as Space Friend) and today's topic of discussion, Ultraman.

Bought off of an eBay auction in mid December, this particular Ultraman figure has no maker's marks or indentifying symbols. This isn't a surprise since most unlicensed Mexican figures are void of such markings. The figure is molded in silver plastic, possibly blow molded like most figures just like him from south of the border. No paint applications on the toy anywhere nor any traces of paint lead me to the conclusion that this figure was meant to just be a silver hunk of plastic. The only confusing thing about the figure is the gym shorts sculpted on the figure. The ridge on the head is an Ultraman trait as well as the chest piece, but the booty shorts left me scratching my head. I know toys such as him are often sold by sidewalk vendors, especially in front of Luchador exhibitions. Maybe the figure was meant to represent a certain masked wrestler, the mystery may never be solved to be honest. Enjoy!

GOBOTS GO BOTS GO!

GOBOTS have always gotten a bad rap in the toy world. I loved them as a child because Transformers were crazy expensive. Sure, the GOBOTS cartoon was really lame and the whole cast looked like a 6 year old named them (Spay-C, Spoons, Royal-T, Cy-Kill, Leader-1) but you could get about 3 for the price of one Transformer. I've got a ton of them as a child and the Rock Lords were my favorite line they made. Say what you will, I will always be a GOBOTS fan.....but in my toy box the GOBOTS and Transformers fought side by side in glorious battles that even saw special guest appearances by He-Man. At the Yancy Street Comic Con I was able to not only further my collection of GOBOTS but also further my knowledge of the line.

GOBOTS just never got the due respect that should have been given to them. Always dubbed the "poor kids" Transformers, most people went for the more recognizable transforming robots of the 80's. Truth of the matter is GOBOTS predate Transformers by a couple of years in America and outlasted about 30 other 80's toy lines that had some serious marketing muscle behind them. But why? How'd they last so long and why does everyone think they sucked so bad?

                                  (the opening always made the show look so cool)

GOBOTS were made by the powerhouse behind all those great metal toys both you and your parents played with as a kid, TONKA. Tonka and their Japanese toy making friends at Bandai brought us some absolutely amazing robots that actually looked like the real cars they were trying to imitate. The transformations were simple though, sometimes 3 folds would get you from robot to vehicle and back again. Which is great if you have a very stupid kid but if you have a kid that needs tons of stimulation, they'd gravitate towards Transformers and their Rubik's cube-esque complex transformations. Another down side the figures had was lack of backstory on any of the characters. The figure packages were void of the TECH SPECS Transformers got us use to and the cartoon was really, really dumbed down. So you mainly bought a toy just because it looked good and not because you had an emotional attachment to the character. For kids, being emotionally attached to a main character is a big deal. How many of you remember crying like a little bitch when Optimus Prime died in front of your eyes.

                                  (relive the pain, care of your friends here at Raging Nerdgasm)

Fun Facts- 

1)Head writer for Challenge of the GOBOTS was none other than Kelly Ward. Ward, who was also an associate story editor for the series and the voice of a couple secondary characters went on to become a voice director for Legion of Superheroes and the Watchmen motion comic. Oh, he also played Putzie in the movie Grease (the only blonde member of the T-Birds).

2) GOBOTS were more than "mighty robots", they were cyborgs. Their story (from the cartoon series) said they were humanoid aliens from the planet Gobotron until an asteroid collided with their planet forcing the survivors to seek refuge in mechanical bodies (mainly their brains). What made them choose bodies that transformed into limos and motorcycles? Wouldn't you?

3) GOBOTS had reoccurring main female characters, not just one like Transformers. (Paradron medics don't count)

4) In Japan, GOBOTS was Machine Robo DX and in Europe it was known as Robo Machines. Robo Machines had a long-running cartoon strip in the UK magazine Eagle comics where in the first issue a scientist creates Cy-Kill, Cy-Kill attempts to assassinate the president of Robotron then flees to Earth and then starts slaughtering British civilians in the village of Cholkham. So Cy-Kill is actually a total badass, but only in Europe and Japan.

                                                          (suck my lazers bitch)

My wife spotted this gem at the Anime Fix booth, a GOBOTS model kit. I'm not only a collector of the GOBOTS but I'm also a registered member of the GOBOTS fan club out of France and this model kit was something I'd never seen or heard of before. I picked it up for $10, which I thought was steep but the model was still sealed in it's original cellophane and it really intrigued me. After getting it home I researched it further to find out Monogram made several GOBOTS models including Leader-1, Cy-Kill, Spay-C and Royal-T along with Buggyman here. Heck, I even found out that Monogram also produced a Turbo Teen. (Which I still say is the most disturbing 1980's cartoon next to Galaxy High and Punky Brewster.)

The box is bright and showy and boasts you can make a 3 inch tall robot with pull back motorized action when completed. Unfortunately the model is molded in red plastic instead of the blue that's pictured all over the front and sides (damn, small print will be the death of me.). Based on it being still sealed and being in great condition from 1984, I won't be opening this piece for the moment. It was well worth the money I spent on it and now I have a new local shop to check for mechas and other interesting toys. I'll be adding Anime Fix in St Pete, FL to my list of awesome shops to visit.

Ultraman monster Gan-Q by Bandai

Sofubi- the mostly Japanese style of vinyl action figures.

I have been a sofubi collector since the early 1990's when Ultraman and Power Rangers came to American TV. I collected it before I knew it was called sofubi. For my 9^th birthday I got all the the Ultraman figures based on the US TV show along with the Super Nintendo game. This was my entry into Kaiju culture, and I wanted more. A year later, my mom found out she had a friend who went to Japan and became a female professional wrestler but came back to the US when her career was put on hold while she raised a family. When she returned to the states, she brought suitcases upon suitcases full of just about anything you can think of from Japan to sell at my Aunt's collectible shop. From what she brought back in her suitcases, I went home with gashapon toys to 15 inch tall figures of Godzilla, Ultraman and so much more. This was a little slice of heaven until the hunger grew again.

Until I got established on eBay in the late 90's, I just didn't feel comfortable buying from Japan. Plus, I didn't have a credit or debit card which was the payment of choice when doing overseas purchases. Every year, I added a couple of pieces to my collection. Whether buying from eBay or going to Mega Con, Dragon Con or Metro Con; I was getting an education in Kaiju and sofubi.

1/ They retire pieces then reissue them in alternate colors. A reissue could be a funky, psycadelic color or just something as simple as trading dark grey highlights for light grey highlights.

2/Bootlegs are plentiful, so be wary of claims to be an “original”. Look for trademarks and maker's marks on the figure. Check the composition of the figure, if it's too stiff it will be (more than likely) a bootleg.

3/Retired pieces go for a small fortune, bring extra cash if you plan on buying something special. While a current character will cost you $10 to $15, a retired piece could go for 3 times the original price or more.

My sofubi collection is very important to me, it's a type of collection that very few people attempt. I think they are very unique and represent a world that most toy collectors don't even know about. Through attaining what I think is a very healthy representation of sofubi, I've made friends with collectors and sellers a whole 7,000+ miles away. One of the more interesting pieces I've bought in the last 3 years was Gan-Q, a monster from the Ultraman TV series. Gan Q is an inter-dimensional joking monster that first premiered in Ultraman Gaia episode 5 in 1998. It later appeared in episode 30 of the same series and in episodes 5 and 6 of Ultra Galaxy Monster Battle (revived by a medieval wizard and no I’m not making this up) . In both shows he can launch replicas of his own eyes and can fire energy balls from them and the eyes on his body.

Gan-Q is your average 5-7 inch vinyl Ultraman figure. Jointed at the shoulder and waist, the figure is more for standing there and looking good than dynamic action poses. The figure looks just like the character from the show; which is a characteristic I like about sofubi toys; they don't get cheap on the sculpted details. The only downside is the figure could benefit from some extra paint applications, a few of Gan-Q's eyes aren't painted in on his backside but this is to be expected. The rear half or quarter of most sofubi figures are void of any decoration other than what was sculpted.