Dave's "Fries With That" Transformers Rant

     Burger King 2007 Kids' Meal Transformers
     - Optimus Prime, Starscream (Week 1)
     - Ironhide, Blackout (Week 2)
     - Autobot Ratchet, Scorponok (Week 3)
     - Bumblebee, Megatron (Week 4)

     Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Artifacts/BK07

     Updated 7/16/07: Review complete.

     First off, as I noted in 2005, if you have a BK local to you that
carries these and will sell just the toys without requiring a meal purchase
(most will), I recommend picking them up.  They're just a buck, after all.
My recommendations below will focus more on the idea that you might be
thinking of buying these on the secondary market, after the promotion has
ended.

CAPSULES

     Optimus Prime: Cheap-looking, cheap-feeling, and the gimmick doesn't
even work reliably.  Even by kidsmeal standards it's kinda sad.  Don't go to
any real effort trying to get this one.
     Starscream: Okay gimmick, but otherwise a mediocre statue of the robot
mode. 
     Ironhide: Decent vehicle, okay semi-transformation, and at least the
wheels all roll.  Worth looking for.
     Blackout: Chibi helicopter with a rotor-launch gimmick that does okay
once you figure out the best way to hold it, and a secondary picture
gimmick.  Decent.
     Autobot Ratchet: Comes about as close as this line's gonna come to
transforming, a sort of vehicle Pretender deal.  Okay.
     Scorponok: Kind of a Jumpstarter, needs a good deal of space to work.
Eh. 
     Bumblebee: So-so unposeable minifigure in a decent transformation
chamber accessory.  Okay.
     Megatron: Rather nice lenticular motion card, okay display base, and a
misshapen blob of plastic someone mistakenly thought looked like a toy.
Almost worth getting for the card and base, but that's it.


RANTS

     Note: this is the first time I know of since the very first McDonalds G1
Happy Meal TFs that we've gotten a kidsmeal TF promotion dominated by (if not
completely made up of) non-transforming toys.  Some sort of transform.
Kinda.   (Later note: Okay, forgot the non-MOVING Optimus Prime from Dairy
Queen.) 

     Packaging: Each comes in a plastic bag 5" (13cm) wide and 5.5" (15cm)
tall, with a tear-line.  There's two different bags, one for Autobots and the
other for Decepticons.  Each has the relevant faction symbol ("corroded" red
for Autobots, gray for Decepticons) on a black background with various
parental warnings in white next to it.  [Later note: the bags are actually
variable in size, depending on the size and shape of the toy inside.]
     Inside the bag are the toy and a smaller non-sealed bag with the
paperwork.  There's a folded over piece with logos on front, the toy's
instructions on the inside left page, and line drawings of all eight toys on
the inside left page.  The back just has the Burger King logo and legalese.
Inside the folded sheet are a one-page mini-catalog showing the voice changer
Prime helmet, Deluxe Barricade, and Cyber-Stompin' Prime on one side, plus a
Hasbrotoyshop.com coupon on the back (promo code TRANSFORMBK gives free
shipping on TF orders of $25 or more until 10/31/07).  The other sheet is a
coupon for $5 off the Nintendo DS TF game at Best Buy, good until 9/15/07.
     The eight toys in this promotion are: Optimus Prime (truck that bursts
open to reveal robot), Starscream (robot mode with battle damage gimmick),
Autobot Ratchet (vehicle), Scorponok (beast), Ironhide (vehicle), Blackout
(vehicle, launches rotor), Bumblebee (robot, with display stand for trading
card), Megatron (robot, with display stand for trading card).  There's a
clearer display in the restaurants, but it was raining so I didn't bring my
PDA inside to take notes, I'll add the info later.


AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME

     Packaged with a plastic strap around the truck to keep it from popping
apart in package.  The strap is covered in not-a-toy warnings.
     The truck is two pieces of medium blue plastic shell, 4.5" (11cm) long,
2.5" (6.5cm) wide and 2.5" (6.5cm) tall, somewhat chibi/squashed.  The grille
and front flames are painted red, but there's no other red detailing on the
toy.  The windows are light blue, the wheels painted black, and there's light
gray paint on the smokestacks and side details.  The shell looks and feels
ultra-cheap, even by kidsmeal toy standards.
     Inside the shell is a chunk with a pull-back motor.  If you pull back
and let go, the truck will zoom forward and then launch the shell halves,
revealing a crouching robot mode.  Well, sometimes it will.
    The crouching robot is made of a slightly brighter blue plastic.  The
"bust" section is made of slightly more flexible plastic, the rest is rigid.
The three wheels on the underside are black plastic, with rubberized strips
on the two drive wheels.  The left leg is forward, knee up, while the right
leg is knee on the ground, foot back.  The right arm is forward and scraping
knuckles on the ground, while the left arm is behind the leg.  The left
forearm is painted red, but the right forearm is not.  [Later note:
apparently some have both forearms painted.  Yay craptacular quality
control!]  There's light blue paint on the eyes and chest windows, but no
black paint anywhere.  The hands, feet, faceplate and some other details are
painted light gray.  The whole thing is 2" (5cm) tall, although if the robot
stood up straight it might be twice that.
     It's...eh.  If the gimmick worked reliably it might be kinda neat, but
it just comes across feeling really shoddy.


DECEPTICON: STARSCREAM

     Comes with a bit of plastic blister on the lower legs, probably to keep
it from poking through the bag.
     This is a non-transforming robot made of very light gray plastic (rigid
on the torso/head piece, rubbery on the arms and legs), standing 3.5" (9cm)
tall.  The shoulders are swivels, and that's it.  The eyes are red, there's
pale gold paint on several parts of the chest, and black on the ankles and
back. 
     The gimmick here is a battle damage chest with three sides.  Tap it
lightly, and the center chest panel flips by one turn, revealing a few
pockmarks and similar gold details as the undamaged face.  Tap it again, and
the chest is a mangled ruin painted medium gray.  It's likely to already be
in gray mode when you get it, though.  It "reloads" easily enough, and
doesn't seem to trigger too lightly.
     Might be worth picking up to paint, but the gimmick wears thin quickly
and that's pretty much all it has.


AUTOBOT: IRONHIDE

     No interior packaging stuff.
     This is a semi-transforming toy, in that it goes from a truck to a truck
with odd features.  4.25" (10.5cm) long and made entirely of black plastic
with rubberized rear tires.  It has blue pait on the windows, silver paint on
the front grille and exhaust pipes.  Weird, that, given how the VOYAGER
Ironhide has unpainted exhaust.  One subtle bit I appreciated is how they
emulate the molded Autobot symbol on the tail gate by printing a gloss black
Autobot symbol on the matte black plastic.
     The gimmick is a pull-back motor.  And when it reaches the end of its
spin, the bed cover flips up and the doors flip down like wings.  Inside the
bed cover is a large molded Autobot symbol that's painted red.  And, a nice
touch here, the bed has proper bedliner pattern on it.  The insides of the
doors have jet engines molded on them and painted silver, so I guess Ironhide
gets to be a flying truck.  Getting the doors to stay back on doesn't always
work, you have to press hard.  It's more of a tab and slot thing than actual
locking.  The actual motor action is pretty good, though...it ran the entire
length of my kitchen (the longest stretch in my apartment without pile
carpeting) and still had spring under tension to go.  That kicks the butt of
the Cyber Slammers.
     As a "Transformer" it's still iffy, but as a toy in general, especially
a dollar toy, it's pretty good.  


DECEPTICON: BLACKOUT

     No extra packaging here either.
     A slightly chubby Pave Low helicopter 4.75" (12cm) long made of slate
blue plastic with black paint on the disc-shaped tail rotor (it has the
blades molded into the disc, but trying to avoid snappable bits).  The
internal gearing is black plastic, and the two main wheels have rubberized
black tires.  The rotor is your basic 3" (7.5cm) diameter flying top toy
rotor design in black plastic, but with six blades instead of the usual four.
This impressed me some, since so often these toys ignore the actual number of
blades and use a stock four-blade model.  Finally, there's some clear plastic
on the front windows and the underside eyepiece (I'll get back to that in a
second).
     The toy's main gimmick is, as you might expect, launching the rotor.  As
with the Armada Cyclonus Happy Meal toy, you push it along to get the rotor
to launch.  Given the relative sizes of things, it's hard to get a good
enough grip to make it launch in less than a meter of tabletop, but I finally
found the right hand position.  Hold the wing stubs with index finger and
thumb, brace the tail rotor in the webbing between index and thumb, then push
forward hard and a little down.  The rotor will zoom off after less than a
foot of pushing.
     Perhaps anticipating the frustration this gimmick might cause kids with
smaller hands, and to give the toy SOME value once the rotor is lost, you can
also look through a lens in the bottom of the cockpit to see a picture of the
robot mode.  It's basically a slide between the windows and the bottom, and
is backlit through the windows.
     A decent kidsmeal toy, I suppose.  A few more paint apps would have
helped, though.


AUTOBOT: AUTOTBOT RATCHET

     No secondary packaging, some assembly required, in that the didn't want
to package it with the spring under stress.
     It's basically a minifigure folded up inside a vehicle shell, so that
releasing the catch on the front bumper makes it all spring open.  You have
to plug the minifigure's feet into pegs on the inside to make it work.
     The outer shell is made of bright yellow plastic on the upper half and
black plastic on the lower half, the wheels are just molded and do not
roll.  It's an okay approximation of Ratchet's H2 mode, 4" (10cm) long, 2"
(5cm) wide and 2.25" (5.5cm) tall.  There's black paint on the front grille
area, the windows, and stripes along the roof rack.  None on the top,
probably to keep down the number of paint passes (front, right, left).
There's a red EKG trace zigzag on each side.  The copyright info molded on
the bottom has Hasbro and Burger King listed.
     Pressing in the tab on the front bumper lets the minifig inside
straighten out, lifting up the top half and throwing it back.  The top half
can just be folded back down over the figure, no extra manipulation needed.
The inside of the bottom half, in addition to having pegs for the minifig's
feet, has various molded tech details and a large Autobot symbol.  No paint
inside, though.
     The figure inside is 2.75" (7cm) tall at the head, all made of bright
yellow plastic with blue painted eyes and various black painted details.
Somewhat incongruously, he's in a body builder pose as if flexing his biceps
for the crowd.  Ratchet, hero of the beach!  The shoulders and left hip are
spring loaded to simply straighten up and fold out.  The right hip is a
non-spring-loaded swivel joint, and if you don't peg that foot down you can
raise the leg and it'll stay up.  So now he's in a bodybuilder chorus line.
     Moderately amusing in a silly way, and a bit of a custom paint job might
make the minifig more worthwhile (although scraping issues become a problem).


DECEPTICON: SCORPONOK

     No additional packaging material.
     This is a kinda chubby version of Scorponok made mainly of very light
gray plastic with pale non-metallic gold plastic for the legs.  There's pale
gold paint on some of the torso turbines and on the claws, and red paint on
the eyes.  The pose is pretty much fixed, with claws raised straight up and
tail sort of half-bent.  It rolls fairly freely on three wheels (two with
rubberized tires and one without, all black).
     The gimmick here is that if you push back the claws, it winds up a motor
that makes the figure trundle forward as the claws slowly move back to
vertical.  At the end of the "stroke" the claws snap forward the final few
degrees, throwing the figure forward to balance on the claws with the tail
now "striking" forward.  In other words, sort of a Jumpstarter gimmick.  It
needs about 2.5 feet (80cm) of clear flat surface (kitchen carpeting won't
work, it has to be smooth) for this to work, and there's no real shortcuts if
you want it to actually pop up.  And, of course, the "attack" smashes Scorpy
face-first into the surface.  It's face-plant-action Scorponok!
     Fun in a weird way, but very limited novelty value.


AUTOBOT: BUMBLEBEE

     The minifigure is in a separate baggie inside the bag with the
transformation chamber and paperwork.
     The bulk of the toy is a light blue transformation chamber 4" (10cm)
tall and mostly 2.25" (6cm) in diameter, but a bit wider at the base.  It's a
cylinder with most of the front half open, and a red plastic button at the
front bottom.  The button has an Autobot symbol molded into it, and there's a
larger Autobot symbol molded into the back of the chamber.  There's no paint
on the chamber itself.  
     Inside the chamber is a rotating wall.  The default side has a sticker
on it showing Bumblebee's 2009 Camaro mode.  Pressing the button makes the
inner piece rotate 180 degrees, and the minifigure included can have the pegs
on the backs of its heels inserted in holes on the backside of the wall.  In
essence, this is another "sorta transformation" toy.  The figure stays put
pretty firmly once you get the pegs in.  When you release the button, the
wall spins back around on a spring.
     The minifigure is made of a single chunk of yellow plastic 2.5" (6.5cm)
tall.  The face is dark gray with blue eyes.  There's also dark gray paint on
the abdomen, pelvis, inner thighs, fists, car windows, spine, and some
details on the boots.  There's a few bits of light gray paint on the back
flanks, on tubes connecting the back to the arms, plus a bit above them.  I
think these are supposed to be the hubcaps of the front wheels.  Detail level
in general is low, more of a gummiBumblebee.
     All in all, it's okay.  The chamber gimmick at least has a nice heft to
it and the mechanism works well.


DECEPTICON: MEGATRON

     The paperwork baggie (unsealed) also has the base and trading card in
with the instructions and catalog, plus a bit of thin corrugated cardboard to
stiffen things up.
     This is a purple Decepticon symbol base that holds a lenticular action
card behind a simple figure.  The base is a single piece of molded purple
plastic 3.5" (9cm) long, 3" (7.5cm) wide and about a quarter inch thick
except for at the card holder.
     The lenticular card has about a dozen frames in its animation, making it
the only impressive part of this toy.  Megatron (old CG model with simpler
face) stomps a bit, then his logo appears, glows and vanishes while a
Decepticon symbol grows to fill the screen.  The card's back has a tech-
backgrounded Decepticon symbol in purple shades with white greebling.
     As for the figure...um, it's tall?  4" (10cm) tall, made of a light cool
gray plastic with various black paint applications.  The arms can swing at
the shoulders.  And it looks like someone made a wax Megatron and left it out
in the Sun.  All the details are mooshy and indistinct, to the point where I
can't be 100% sure they used the old head design!  The hands are indistinct
blobs.  It's like they took a mold intended for a 1" tall gamepiece and
scaled it up without adding any details.
     It takes some effort to win the title of Worst Movie Megatron Toy, but
this one puts forth that effort.  It's not even repaintable into anything
good, unless you want to pretend that Clayface is doing a bad imitation and
just paint it in shades of brown.  The card is nifty, and I suppose you could
use it and the base for Robot Replica Megatron, but the figure itself is a
writeoff.  


     Dave Van Domelen, glad he doesn't have to buy the food to get these.