Dave's Transformers Artifacts Rant

     Armada Optimus Prime Spin-Pop

     Found this at Toys R Us.  Almost passed on it due to the pricetag, but
then I realized how terribly WRONG it was and had to get one before some
parents group complained it off the shelves.  :)  I'm told they've been out
in some areas for a while now, but this is the first I've seen of 'em.

CAPSULE

     It's a spin-pop in the shape of Armada Prime.  Only the arms move, and
it is in dire need of paint applications.  A bit expensive, but worth it for
the wrongness value.  $3.99 at TRU.


RANT

     This'll be a short one, there's not a whole lot to say about this.  It's
4.25" (11cm) tall, a fairly faithful reproduction of Deluxe Armada Prime in
shape.  The legs, chest and head are blue plastic.  The back, shoulders and
arms are made of red plastic.  The wheels are painted black, but do not move.
The head has silver paint on the forehead and faceplate, yellow for the eyes.
The truck windows and the groin plate (folded down grille) are silver.
     The arms move at the shoulders, and that's basically it.  The fists have
4mm pegholes, so the toy can carry spare suckers, but not any Armada or
Energon weapons.  There IS a 5mm peg hole between the thighs, though, for
some odd reason.  The screw holes on the back and the back of the legs are
5mm, if a bit shallow for inserting pegs.
     Of course, this is a spin-pop, so there's a sucker inserted into a hole
behind Prime's head.  It spins the included strawberry Chupa-Chup sucker at
one revolution about every 0.7 seconds.
     And it's activated by pressing on Prime's groin plate.

     The Cybertron Inquirer needs to return just to cover this.

     Dave Van Domelen, also got A3, A4, D1 and D4 today, but they'll take a
little more time to review.

     Addendum: the torque of the motor sucks, pardon the pun.  

     Later note: Food Network's "Unwrapped" had a segment on the group that
designs a lot of Hasbro's candy tie-ins, and they briefly showed a protoype
of the Prime Spin-Pop.  An early version had the figure pull apart down the
center, with the sucker being revealed like a Matrix in the chest and then
flipped out.  With the body sealed back up, the sucker stuck out from the
feet.