Bumper Battler Animated Bulkhead

I was in my local Op Shop when I spied this Bulkhead. Woo, lets have a look! Wow $2.99? Can't pass up that, especially since he still has some wires attached to the bottom. In good nick. SCORE!


Bumper battlers. 'What the hell are these things?!?!' was my first thought when seeing them. Then I decided I needed a talking Ratchet toy. Bumper Battler Ratchet is the closest I am ever going to get. So I got it, then Soundwave and Lockdown. Hmm Jazz was pretty cool, so Jazz as well. I wasn't going to get them all, just the cool voiced ones. Skipped Optimus, Bumblebee. No luck on Prowl though...

If it wasn't Animated, I wouldn't have bothered. Bumper Battlers are a Transformers anomaly in my mind. They transform, but its all automatic with the spring loaded thing. I know they started with the movie toys, to get babies and stuff hooked on Transformers. I easily passed on them, ugly toys to start with and no sounds

I would normally have passed on these too, if it wasn't for the sounds and quotes. Only one point of articulation, the roof that springs open revealing the robot mode. Do wheels count as articulation? Not today they don't. The idea is to bump the front of the toy into thing to make it transform and a sound happens. Nice and simple. The bumper of the car is the switch which opens the robot mode. The Insignia on the bonnet activates sounds if you don't want to bump him. You can get slightly different quotes happening as well I think, depending on the buttons.

Eerm, this issupposed to be an animated gif, but it doesn't work...

Bulkhead has some fairly standard quotes, not taken directly from the cartoon either, which is a nice touch. Some extra sound effects and that’s about it really.

The paint work is quite good in both modes, and he has some extra, like the large "bulkhead" written on the roof...Vehicle mode is a good cartoony representation of him. Not matte coloured plastic though.

Robot mode is ok for what it is. he has a talking looking face and his wrecking ball and claw hands are both represented nicely. The robot mode has the features of the vehicle mode painted on, so you can see where the grill, insignia and windscreen would be. On the inside is some nice simple moulding to add interest into what would otherwise be plain and boring flat plastic.

Four of his wheels spin, the middle two being just for show. he rolls well, as the middle two are lifted up a bit so as not to interfere.

Overall this is a god simple toy that represents Bullkhead quite well. Could I recommend it to everyone? No. I only really like these toys for the voices, and leader Bulkhead has that option anyway. It's simple, tough and therefore good for very young kids.