Yesterday was my wife's birthday, so I took the day off work. We started out the day running over to an estate sale that we had both been interesting in. The owners of the house had clearly raised children in the 80's as there were quite a few old toys around. Managed to find these:
That's a G1 Grotesque (missing his wings, but with a spark-shooter that still kind of works!), a Tomy Rascal Robot, and the full line of LH Toys World Invading Insects (best source of info on these guys is on
Robo-Synergy)
These were released either singly or in 4-packs. The packs divided the figures into two groups, the Winged Insects and the Fighting Insects. This post will cover the Winged Insects.
First up, it's
Moth. There doesn't seem to be any robot-ish names for any of these, just a description of the type of bug that they turn into.
Very sturdy in both modes. Robot articulation is just shoulders and knees, not unusual for the time. Robot mode is clearly female, which is a bit more rare for the time period, so that's nice. Overall very nice looking toy in both modes.
Mosquito
This one seems to be an original (based on the intact LH Toys brand molded in), but all of these bugs were KO'd a lot throughout the years. Big Lots carried them for a while back 15-20 years ago. Back then, I bought one of the mosquitos (wish I had bought more of those KO's back in the day, but I was fairly recently back into collecting and was being a bit of G1 snob) and painted it up in G1 Insecticon colors. Gave her a new head (stolen from a Big Lots KO Lasercycle) and made up the name Siphon for her.
On thing that I always like about this mold was the way that she was armed to the teeth. One set of bug legs I would use as robot arms, with the other two folding around as a set of over-the-shoulder missile launchers and back mounted laser cannons. Robot mode arms are a bit awkward, but otherwise a fun mold, beautiful in insect mode.
Again, original Mosquito and Siphon comparison.
Fly
Insect mode has great leg articulation. Robot mode is a bit lacking. His arms are short, but have nice jointing at the shoulders and elbows, unfortunately, the wings and the arms both need to be in the same space at the same time, which limits what you can actually DO with the arms.
Hornet. Doesn't look like any kind of hornet I've ever seen. Clearly more of a beetle, but I didn't name them.
(EDIT: I googled "beetle with fuzzy antenna" to try to find out what kind of bug this was
actually supposed to be, and there WAS a type of bug that looks a lot like this. Their called "cockchafers." I see why they went with "Hornet.")
Great looking robot mode. Shoulders are locked in position, but the elbows function.
Overall, a great looking set of bug-o-bots.
Part II, the Fighting Insects, coming soon to a forum near you!
