Here a bot, there a bot, everywhere a BotBot!
One stormy night at a mall nearby,
Energon power fell from the sky.
It hit the mall with its powerful might,
And gave everyday objects robot life!
Energon power fell from the sky.
It hit the mall with its powerful might,
And gave everyday objects robot life!
— BotBots origin video
Not too long ago, in a place not too far away, a cloud of Energon fell over a shopping mall closed for the night. Hitting the objects into the mall, from gardening tools to school supplies, to even food, the products of the mall were brought to life, turning them into tiny Transformers!
Transformers: BotBots is a Transformers toyline introduced in late 2018. Banking on the popularity of blind bag toylines like Shopkins, the line features small Transformers that turn into mundane objects, a far cry from the standardized vehicle modes common with other Transformers franchises. The spread of the characters are through various blister packs, with some exclusive to a bubble-like blind package.
Unlike other Transformers franchises, BotBots doesn’t draw from any G1 elements, with characters entirely brand new to the franchise and not inspired by any past iterations of characters. The line also has a surprisingly heavy amount of female characters, most often ones that don’t stereotypically look or act girly.
The toyline already has a large number of characters, with 193 in 2019 and another 190+ in 2020 alone, along with a few exclusives.
In December 2020, it was announced
that an Animated Adaptation of the line was planned with Boulder Media animating, with it releasing on March 25th, 2022 on Netflix.
Transformers: BotBots contains examples of:
- A Dog Named "Dog": One member of the Shed Heads is a tool bag named Tool Bag.
- All Animals Are Dogs: Slobber Rock is considered to be like a puppy, being loyal, drooly, and hyper, along with accidentally knocking others down when greeting them. Despite this description, he resembles a turtle-like reptile more than any dog.
- Alliterative Name:
- One character is named Kidd Klobber, which repeats the letter "K".
- Several of the various "factions", especially from Series 1. Toilet Troop, Greaser Gang, Sugar Shocks, Backpack Bunch, and Techie Team. "Series 1.5" adds the Bakery Bytes and Lawn League, Series 2 adds Swag Styles and Music Mob, and Series 3 adds Goo Goo Groupies and Playroom Posse.
- Ambiguous Gender: A variety of BotBots lack pronouns in their bios, leaving their genders unknown.
- Animal Mecha: Some of the BotBots have robot modes that resemble animals:
- Waddlepop is a penguin that turns into an ice pop.
- Chilla Gorilla is gorilla that turns into a pair of headphones.
- Unilla Icequeencone, King Candyhooves, and Sugar Saddle are unicorns that turn into ice cream cups.
- Rootwing is a dragon that turns into a tree.
- Venus Frogtrap is a frog that turns into a Venus flytrap.
- Slobber Rock, Spots the Rock, and Goldie Rock are turtle-like reptiles that turns into rocks.
- Stinkosaurus Rex and Bogusaurus Rex are Tyrannosaurus Rexes that turn into houseplants.
- Abominable Soundman is a yeti that also turns into a pair of headphones.
- Javasaurus Rex and Roarista are Tyrannosaurus Rexes that turn into coffee machines.
- Sour Wing and Aday are dragons that turns into apples.
- Ollie Bite and Pixelfin are sharks that turns into a hat.
- Grrr'illa Grimes is a gorilla that turns into a grease soap pump.
- Big Cantuna is a sea monster that turns into a tuna can.
- Smerg the Sad is a dragon that turns into a spinach tree.
- Greed Feed is a monster that turns into a ticket roll.
- Drippy Pup is a dog that turns into a sippy cup.
- Sugar Breath is a dragon that turns into a piece of candy corn.
- Trisourtops and Tricitrustops are Triceratops that turn into oranges.
- Blurray Murray is an owl that turns into a pair of old-style 3D glasses.
- Crabby Grabby: is a crab that turns into a couch.
- Peels the Monkey is a monkey that turns into a banana.
- Incog-Eggo is a chick that turns into an Easter egg.
- Not to mention the members of the Pet Mob.
- Animate Inanimate Object: A majority of the BotBots have alt modes of various products, such as bathroom equipment, school supplies, and tools.
- Animating Artifact: A cloud of Energon coating the mall’s merchandise brought inanimate objects to life as Transformers.
- Anthropomorphic Food: The Greaser Gang and Sugar Shock tribes were transformed from foods, the Greaser Gang being the food court, and the Sugar Shocks being sweets. Later tribes introduced other food-based alt modes, with the Spoiled Rottens being spoiled food and the Fresh Squeeses being fruit.
- Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance:
- Laceface, Pucksie, Kidd Klobber, and Batsby all have robot modes that resemble players of the sports equipment they transform into (an American football, a hockey puck, a boxing glove, and a baseball bat, respectively).
- Professor Wellread has a robot mode that looks like he has a suit and tie, along with a straight-buzzed haircut.
- Shredder Jack has his nachos turned into what looks like frosted tips, a popular haircut for surfers.
- The Plop Father is designed to look like a mafia boss, complete with a pencil mustache and suit-like look in his robot mode.
- Berserk Button: Don't call Grrr'illa Grimes a "grease monkey".
- Blush Sticker: Waddlepop has pink marks on her cheeks that resemble blush marks.
- Bob from Accounting: Steve From Accounting, one of the members of the Backpack Bunch. He transformers into a stapler, and staples are really the only thing he focuses on, both as his job and in casual conversation.
- Bowel-Breaking Bricks: The Plop Father’s fear is often supplemented by him losing some of his cannoli cream from the end of his pastry tube.
- Brain Freeze: Sippy Slurps, being a living slushy cup, is plagued with a permanent one. Touching her gives the others one, too.
- Bring My Brown Pants: The Plop Father, so named because he drops cannoli filling while running away in terror.
- Cephalothorax: S.A. Cheez has his face behind his lens, so that it's in the middle of his chest in robot mode.
- Character Filibuster: Skitter Chatter does not shut up. He can trap others in hours of conversations, with only him getting words in.
- Crazy Cat Lady: Aunt Kitty of the Pet Mob is a cat who transforms into one of these.
- Crazy-Prepared: Doc Kit is a medic bag that has everything needed for safety, even for the tiniest of trips.
- Cuddle Bug: Cuddle Tooth wants to give hugs to everyone. Unfortunately for her, no one wants to receive them, since she’s a living chainsaw.
- Cute Machines: The BotBots are tiny and mischievous, which only amplifies their adorable designs.
- Cyber Cyclops: A few of the BotBots, such as Lolly Licks and Fit Ness Monster, are designed with a single optic. Almost all versions of the camera mold (S.A. Cheez, Clixx, and Papa Click) are designed this way.
- Delinquent Hair: Frohawk, the graffiti artist colored hairspray can, has a bright pink mohawk on the top of her helmet.
- Denser and Wackier: This series plays for the silly side of Transformers, giving characters non-mechanical alt modes that wouldn't be seen in a serious one.
- Donut Mess with a Cop: Sheriff Sugarfeet is a donut. Unfortunately, her stealth is ruined by the powdered sugar that she drops off of her.
- Dressed to Plunder: Sudsbeard is designed to look like a pirate, transforming into a pump bottle of soap. His pump turns into his hook, and he gains a peg leg, belt, eyepatch, and bicorne hat in robot mode. Captain Swoon and Luckaneer, recolors of Sudsbeard, also have these traits.
- Dumb and Drummer: Dumbeats, a member of the Music Mob who turns into a drum kit, is named and themed around this trope (with a touch of All Drummers Are Animals).
- Eating Machine: The Greaser Gang can often found guzzling soda straight from the machine or eating non-transformed food court food. It also turns out that the edible alt mod Transformers aren’t exempt from being eaten at themselves.
- The Fake Cutie: Mockolate the white chocolate bar. He knows deep down that no one really likes white chocolate, so he plays a cute and innocent facade, waiting for the chance to overthrow the rest of the Sugar Shocks and become the lead candy.
- Fembot: A fair amount of the BotBots are girls, but only a few of them are stereotypically feminine.
- Fire of Comfort: Everyone loves Yule B. Bored's Yule Log video. But his stories are terminally dull.
- Funny Robot: The BotBots themselves are goofy and get into tons of trouble and antics.
- Fun Size: The BotBots are tiny both in toy scale and in scale to other Transformers.
- Gasshole:
- Twerple Burple, being a living soda cup, spends her time trying to create the loudest and biggest burp.
- Fottle Barts, being a living ketchup bottle, is constantly releasing out squelchy gas, something he’s very self-conscious about.
- Must Turd, a redeco of Fottle Barts in tangy yellow, takes her name from the same idea (rude noises made by condiment bottles), but her profile doesn't mention it.
- Whoopsie Cushion, being a Whoopie Cushion, makes farting noises. However, she hides in the shadows and lets others take the blame.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Bonz-Eye has one over her right eye. The cartoon places it on her left, though it gets inconsistent at times and goes back to her right.
- Hipster:
- Totes Magotes is a hipster messenger bag that brags how he's made from organic and locally sourced materials.
- Hiptoast is a slice of avocado toast that is so hipster that she comes off as smug. She doesn't mind that the others don't like her, because it means that she's still "unique".
- Incredibly Lame Fun: Yule B. Bored enjoys uneventful, blasé activities that he recounts to others which puts them to sleep.
- Konami Code: Sweet Cheat's artwork on the Arcade Renegades' team picture has her sneakily showing off the code.
- Lighter and Softer: This line is a very drastic shift from the interplanetary war and fighting that other Transformers portray.
- Miles Gloriosus: The Plop Father brags that he’s a tough guy, but he scares easily, often dropping out cannoli filling when he runs off in fear.
- Mummy: King Toots is a living roll of toilet paper, with his robot design wrapping him up in toilet paper.
- Neat Freak:
- Most of the Toilet Troop are cleanliness obsessed, being items meant for cleaning in the bathroom. Frohawk is the exception, she’d rather mess things up than clean them up.
- Ms. Take is obsessed with everything being perfect and clean. Oddly enough, she actually likes it when others make messes, because it means she can clean them up.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Frostferatu is a reverse vampire. He’s a cupcake vampire, and his bites instead give energy, causing the victims to go into a sugar rush.
- Palette Swap: In classic Transformers fashion, BotBots introduced in later series are recolors of earlier season ones. However, some of these recolors entirely change their alt mode, such as PB Junior being a recolor of Angry Cheese, becoming a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead of a grilled cheese.
- Planimal: A fair number change from animalistic robots to plants; examples include Rootwing and Venus Frogtrap.
- Pull a Rabbit out of My Hat: In the case of The Great Mumbo Bumblo, she's both the rabbit and the hat!
- Pumpkin Person: Halloween Knight is a knight robot that transforms from a carved jack o' lantern. Part of her rind becomes a clawed shield for her.
- Punny Name: Nearly every BotBot has a name with a pun in it that relates to their alt mode.
- Pun With Pi: Has the character "Chief Cherry 3.14", a robot that transforms into a slice of cherry pie.
- Rabbit Magician: The Great Mumbo Bumblo is a rabbit magician that has a magic top hat as her alt mode.
- Red Boxing Gloves: Kidd Klobber transforms into one, and has a pair of his own in his robot mode. The one he transforms from is then placed on top of his head, like a training helmet.
- Robot Hair: More than a few BotBots have either hair or hair-like substances on their heads.
- Bunches' grapes at the top of his head resembles that of a Funny Afro. Chic Cheeks also has a very prominent afro like style due to being a makeup brush.
- Doctor Flicker, Dr. Flaskenstein and Dr. Fraud all have Einstein Hair to hit with their Mad Scientist stylings.
- Rock Swagger, naturally, has a pompadour just like Elvis Presley's to fit with his Elvis-inspired appearance.
- Bonz-Eye's leaves in robot mode end up looking like an 1980s anime floof. This carries over to Silent Shade, but it isn't as noticeable by comparison.
- Grampiano's music book turns into a classically styled white parting in robot mode.
- Shout-Out:
- Unilla Icequeencone has a long list of royal titles in her description, invoking Daenerys Targaryen.
- The Plop Father is designed in reference to The Godfather, specifically the “Leave the gun, take the cannoli” scene.
- Frostferatu is named for Nosferatu.
- Sprinkleberry D’uhnut’s name invokes Homer Simpson’s catchphrase, while also being the same color as the donuts commonly featured on that show. His Lost Bots counterpart, Sprinkleberry Duh'Ball follows suit.
- Papa Click's colored stripes are based on Polaroid's distinctive design, though simplified due to its small size and probably legal reasons.
- Eye-Goon's bio points out how his name is "pronounced Eye-Goon, not Ee-Goon".
-
Spiritual Successor: To TakaraTomy's Micro Change, one of the progenitor's of the entire Transformers franchise. This line treated the robots as smaller items for transforming, rather than the vehicles commonplace today. - Stock Food Depictions:
- Bunches transforms into a bunch of purple grapes, while Aday transforms into a red apple and Peels transforms into a long yellow banana.
- Crumbly Yumbly transforms into a chocolate chip cookie.
- Tangry Tart, Lolly Licks, Cypops and Lolly Mints transform into lollipops, and all of them are flat and circular with bright swirl designs.
- Subverted with Mocklate and Remorsel, who transform into a white chocolate bar and a dark chocolate bar, respectively.
- Hawt Diggity transforms into a hot dog with mustard, while Spud Muffin and Brotato transform into French fry cartons complete with typical yellow rectangular fries.
- Duderoni transforms into a pepperoni pizza. Subverted with Brock Head, who transforms into a broccoli pizza.
- Super-Deformed: The aesthetic of the toyline is a much shorter and squatter feel than other Transformers lines.
- Surfer Dude: Shredder Jack is a gnarly robot who transforms into a carton of nachos. In robot mode, he looks like he has frosted tips for a haircut, and is always trying to catch a wave of cheese.
- Toilet Humor: Not above it at all. First off there's the Toilet Troop whose faction color is brown, a BotBot named The Plop Father who plops goop out his backside in fear, and two condiment containers whose names come from fart noises that nearly-empty bottles make.
- Try to Fit That on a Business Card: Unilla Icequeencone’s titles are “Unilla Icequeencone, Ruler of Frozen Foods, Queen of the Icebox, Protector of the Freezer, Caretaker of the Cold, Lady of the Sprinkle Sparkles, Breaker of Ice Cubes and Mother of Frostbite”.
- TV Head Robot:
- Goob Tube, thanks to his alt mode being a rabbit ears TV set. His visor still retains a four-colored test screen pattern.
- TV Cop is a closed circuit TV, which turns his head into a TV with a warning signal on it.
- Yule B. Bored, who has a video tape of a burning log playing on his face. Other BotBots fall asleep listening to his straightlaced and dull recollections, but actually enjoy watching and listening the recorded fire.
- Whoopee Cushion: Whoopsie Cushion turns into one. She's able to create flatulent noises and then disappear quickly, leaving others to blame each other over the offending sounds.
- Winged Unicorn: Unilla Icequeencone, King Candyhooves, and Sugar Saddle are ones; they turn into an ice cream sundae in a carton. The carton becomes their wings, while the ice cream cone on them becomes their horn.
- With Catlike Tread: Major Lee Screwge, being a living drill, is impossible to stay quiet, which means his “sneak attacks” can be heard from miles away.
- Wrench Wench: Drillit Yaself and Grrr'illa Grimes are both girls from the Shed Heads that love to construct.
- Xtremely Kool Letterz: Kidd Klobber, Clixx, Radhaxx, and Hashtagz all fall into this.
