Posted in: Movies | Tagged: Challenge Of The Gobots, entertainment, film, Gobots, hasbro, Tonka, transformers, Warner Archives, wondercon

Warner Archives Gobot Panel From Wondercon 2014

Do you remember the Gobots? I had a few when I was a kid, even before I got my first Transformer. Some folks believe they were ripoffs of the Hasbro toyline, but in fact, the Gobot line from Tonka was released first.

Both started in the same place, as toys from Japan. Hasbro and Tonka decided to import them at the same time, to produce a narrative and cartoon series and both companies choose to make them sentient robots rather than human-driven robos as they were in Japan.

The Gobots were produced by Popy at first and then Bandai in 1983 under the name Machine Robo. Tonka produced toys from the line also from 1983 until 1987. In 1991 when Hasbro bought out Tonka, the Gobot's cartoons Challenge Of The Gobots and Gobots: Battle Of The Rock Lords got folded into the Transformers world as an alternate universe. Hasbro just got the narrative in the deal, they did not get the rights to the actual toys.

Warner Archive is now bringing the full Challenge Of The Gobots out on DVD and hosted a panel at this years Wondercon called: Gobots: Warner Archive Collection And Beyond. The panel included: Associate story editor Kelly Ward, who was also the voice of Fitor; Lou Richards, voice of Leader-1; and story editor/writer Alan Burnett along with WAC podcast hosts: Matthew Patterson and D.W. Ferranti.

Here is that panel in it's entirety:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/BsS0Y9RL6Jo[/youtube]

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