Quickchange Toolbot

This dollar store trash is simply labeled Quick Change, but I will be calling it Toolbot if nobody has any objections. Toolbot is the most interesting kind of bootleg: the bootleg which isn’t a bootleg at all. Perhaps there was once a licensed Toolbot, but I doubt it. It would be nice to own this piece from its original run, as the molds are totally wrecked at this point and the thing barely holds together or stands up. Even in its degraded state, the Toolbot exhibits flashes of competence here and there.

This particular incarnation is packaged on a big, dumb blister card. I’ve owned another specimen which was packaged in a nice window-box.

Microscopic transformations details are printed on the back.

Though Toolbot is packaged in combined form, we’ll look at its constituent parts first.

Two sets of pliers become the arms. The pliers do feature your basic plier articulation.

The plier bots.

Two hand tools become the feet, a screwdriver and hand-saw thing.

The hand tool bots.

Two hammers become the torso.

Hammer -bots.

The magical result, Toolbot!

As bad as this piece is, and it’s really bad, I can’t help but like it a little. Sure the colors are all wrong, and the mix of chrome and gold plating is deeply offensive to human eyes, and it’s ramshackle and amateurish and…where was I? Right, the whole composition really holds together. The idea of a hand-tool gattai is inventive, and as far as the logic of transformation and organization of components, well executed.

By way of making my point, I offer a crudely photoshopped photo, reducing the toolbot to it’s fundamental lines and shapes.

The underlying design is good, the execution was just weak. I’d like to see an enterprising kitbasher create a Masterpiece Toolbot in a “real-type” colorway.