Dave's Transforming Kidsmeal Toy Rant Skechers Supercharger Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Artifacts/Skechers This is a non-Transformers product, but I'm sticking it in with the other kidsmeal toys. :) In September 2007, the Subway chain's kidsmeal toys were based on the Skechers shoe line, and one of them was a transforming shoe robot, called Supercharger. Kidspak meals generally cost about $4, and a significant percentage of Subways are unable to sell the toy on its own. I was lucky enough to find one out of the dozen in the area that could, for 99 cents. CAPSULE Skechers Supercharger: Decent shoe mode, simplistic transformation, goofy robot. Overall not bad for a dollar toy, though. Price variable. RANT Packaging: Comes in a clear plastic bag with black writing. Nothing of interest on the bag, just the name in English, French and Spanish, and then safety instructions and some logos. Inside are the shoe mode and a single small sheet of paper with the instructions in black and white. Step 5 is "Enjoy!" Manufactured by b.little & Company. Since there's no storyline or anything, I will make up my own! I have decided that these are minions of Megashoe. DECEPTICON: SUPERCHARGER Altmode: Skechers shoe Function: Foot Soldier Motto: None After the accident that locked MEGATRON into his new altmode as a Nike shoe, he decided he couldn't return to his DECEPTICONS lest he lose credibility in their eyes thanks to his less than impressive altmode. Breaking into a SKECHERS factory, MEGATRON used advanced Cybertronian technology to merge the assemblyline robots with their own products, resulting in the powerful but mentally limited SUPERCHARGERS. Each houses a modified Exponential Generator and can unleash these energies as powerful chest-beam blasts or donate the power to MEGATRON to enhance his own attacks. Clumsy in robot mode due to their large feet, they prefer to fly on ground effect air cushions. Oddly, while they are large in number, every single one of them is a left shoe. STR 5 INT 2 SPD 6 END 8 COUR 7 RNK 2 FRB 8 SKL 3 Avg 5.125 Shoe Mode: 4" (10cm) long and made entirely of medium blue plastic on the outside. It appears to be a velcro close with elastic bands where laces would otherwise be. The anchor points of the bands are painted neon green, and the Skechers logo is printed in neon green across the velcro closure strap. White paint picks out the inner layer of the sole, and a light gray stripe wiggles up and down along each side. The opening of the shoe is closed off, so you can't sit a Mini-Con down in it like you can with the Nike Megatron. The general shape looks to be accurate and well-detailed, and it could certainly be painted to look more realistic, the mold itself would support it. The stability is a little iffy, the pegs intended to hold it together don't do a great job. There is no articulation...did you expect any? Transformation: Pull the halves apart side to side to create a sort of outrigger shoe. :) Then pull the uppers up, the become the arms and the body stands up in between. Or you could pull the top up first, it's not exactly pegged together so strongly that you have to follow the recommended order. The shoulders extend out on socket cylinders to get the arms away from the body. Robot Mode: 3" (8cm) tall...and still 4" (10cm) long. The halves of the sole become the ski-like feet. There's not even an attempt to fold up the rear parts or anything. The legs are blue plastic, as are the pieces that connect the upper shell pieces (arms) to the shoulders. The torso is light gray plastic, and the head is of a piece with the torso. The sockets on the shoulders and the balls of the hips are neon green plastic. Arms are molded shallowly into the insides of the shoe upper shell pieces. The face is painted blue, the arms are painted light gray and neon green (the hands are left unpainted), and there's a neon green Skechers "S" logo printed on the chest. Shoulders, hips and ankles are ball joints, and they will pop out fairly easily if you want. A little loose, but not to the point that it won't hold a pose. He has a bit of a case of gorilla arms, proportionally speaking. The toy is bolted together with screws that have those triangular socket heads, to prevent kids from taking them apart and feeding the pieces to their younger siblings. Mind you, this isn't really that kitbashable anyway, and most of the work you would want to do wouldn't require more than "pop apart at the ball joints" disassembly. Overall: Well, it's cheesy, but if you can find a Subway that will sell the toys separately, or like their food enough to eat a kidsmeal or two, you can get a horde of minions for Megashoe this way. They're too big to be Mini-Cons, too small to be Scouts. Dave Van Domelen, notes that the other three toys in the promotion do not turn into robots.