Ask the average person what they know about Transformers. Depending on their age, you’d probably hear all kinds of memories about lost toys, Optimus Prime dying in the movie, and Grimlock’s poor grammar. You my even get people that can remember the words to the theme song. But regardless of who you ask, they’ll probably all mention one thing; Transformers were robots that could transform into a variety of things. Heck, it was even in their name. So imagine the surprise of many people when the Action Masters were introduced. To put it bluntly, they were Transformers that didn’t transform. After all, nothing sells better than a product completely contradicting its own name.

I just don’t understand the thought process going on in the toy development department at Hasbro. All I can picture is this:

Leroy: Ok gentlemen, sure new episodes of Transformers haven’t been made in almost three years, our sales are down, and Playmates seem to have struck gold with those Ninja Turtles, but I have come up with a way to re-invent Transformers for the 90s.

Billy-Bawb: Yes, it is too bad that the 80s have come to an end.

Gladys: Yes Terrible indeed.

(The Board Room begins discussing how great the 80s were)

Leroy: Gentlemen, can we focus?

Cletus: Fine, what is your idea?

Leroy: I propose we make a new line of Transformers called Action Masters.

Billy-Bawb: And what’s the gimmick? Futuristic Vehicles? Real Working Lazers? Kung Fu Grip?

Leroy: Better. These will be Transformers that don’t transform!

Cletus: Wow, that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. What kind of moron would buy a Transformer that doesn’t transform? This is worse than the idea to kill off Optimus Prime. What do you think, Mr. President?

President Joey Jo-Jo Junior...Shabadoo: Cletus, you’re fired. Leroy, you’ve done it again! I love this idea. Its so revolutionary. These will sell better than the Jumpstarters line. Every kick in America will want a Transformer that doesn’t transform, and in some cases, two or three. Watch out G.I. Joe!

Billy-Bawb: Uh sir, we make G.I. Joes too.

President Joey Jo-Jo Junior...Shabadoo: You’re fired too.

And so, the Action Masters line was off and running. Basically in the ads for Action Masters, Optimus Prime rounded up volunteers to accept a potent kind of new energy called Nucleon. The energy would give them increased power, but there was one little catch. They would lose their ability to Transform. I’m actually a little surprised at the number of volunteers that Prime got. I would have told him to bite my shiny metal ass, transformed into a DeLorean , and drove away before he could make me give up my transforming ability. But those brave Autobots that did volunteer read like a who’s who in Transformers. Among them were Bumblebee, Wheeljack, Jazz, Grimlock, and Ironhide, just to name a few.

But naturally the Autobots could not keep their new found energy source a secret or out of the hands of their hated rivals, the despicable Decepticons. Megatron and his top cronies also took a shot of Nucleon and lost the ability to transform too. I just don’t understand why Megatron would do this, I mean power is power, but I think it would be easier to kill guys that can’t transform into cars and drive away if they get pounded on. I have also been told to mention how awesome the tank that Megatron came with was. So I suppose you could say that Megatron traded up when he gave up the ability to turn into a gun to be able to drive a bigass tank.

Overall the Action Masters line was a miserable failure, and signaled the end of the Transformers line until Generation 2 a few years later. Sadly, even those were inferior to the original G1s, especially with their new unfortunate paint schemes, as illustrated below.

Overall, I do find some good in the line. While the whole point of Transformers is to transform, they fact remains that not all Transformers were equal. Some looked great in both robot and vehicle mode, but many were only one or the other. Take the original Megatron for example. He looked great as a gun, but not so much as a robot. The same could be said for many Transformers, but to be fair, its a pretty daunting task to design a transforming robot that looks good in both forms, especially matching them to the designs in the TV show.

The Action Masters, on the other hand, were basically designed after the Transformers while in robot mode, so they were more like how they appeared in the cartoon than ever before. With details that could have been a little too difficult if they were expected to transform into a jet as well. So certainly for some purposes, dioramas perhaps, the Action Masters could be better suited than others.

Overall, the Action Masters became just a blip on the rich history of the Transformers. Soon, they would be back to transforming into various cars, planes, and even a warthog eventually in the original Beast Wars line. But we’ll still have the memories, right? How else would we ever get to see Darth Vader go eye to eye with Starscream? Or see Prowl ride a motorcycle? I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world. Well maybe one of the things on this list.

Bonus Feature: To view several of the Action Masters commercials, simply click here. The Action Masters are listed in the left column