What began as a series of different Japanese toys that only had mild success, the Transformers toys have become one of the most iconic toy brands in the world. From Optimus Prime’s iconic red and blue trunk to Megatron’s gun form, the series has no shortage of memorable toys. The popular toys quickly gained an animated TV show aimed at children, called The Transformers. The show was a massive hit, leading into a theatrical movie and sequels. The toys became even more popular after the show began airing, and the brand continues to this day.
However, that almost wasn’t the case. There was a time that brand almost petered out, and it is mostly due to some really poor design chooses. Around the time of the late 80s, after the original Transformers TV show was canceled, there were more experimental toys being released. There was the Pretender toy line, and later the Generations 2 brand. While they weren’t all super failures, interest in the Transformers brand was clearly waning by the time the early 90s hit. It wouldn’t be until Beast Wars hit the airwaves that the franchise was able to bounce back. Beast Wars would lead into the Unicron Trilogy shows, the live action movies, the Transformers Prime series, and now Cyberverse.
Most of these shows and movies that followed Beast Wars have become financial hits. Despite the series’ endurance, it still doesn’t stop toy designers from creating truly awful toys. Beast Wars particularly still had some pretty terrible robot designs, though to be fair there are many bad Transformers toys in all the brands. That is why I’ll be going over 25 Transformers Toys That Should Never Have Been Made.
25 McDonald’s Happy Meal Toys
There is already an ethics issue with McDonald’s Happy Meal Toys, and a series of awful Transformers toys certainly don’t help. Giving a kid a toy as “reward” for eating unhealthy food is a bad thing to teach children. These Transformers toys have the infamous robots turn into fast foods like burgers and fries. It’s not the worst idea for a toy, though what kind of kid would want their meal turning into small robots? They are not the worst Happy Meal toys based on Transformers brands, as Beast Machines had particularly bad ones too.
24 Generation 1 Pretender Cloudburst
Towards the end of the classic brand of Generation 1 Transformers toys, the toy manufacturers started experimenting with new, out-there ideas. The Pretenders were probably the worst idea they could have thought up. Pretenders were Transformers who disguise themselves as normal humans. The toy versions of these Pretenders were really lame looking. They just look like humans with stupid looking armor. Inside the toys was a little robot, and the robots look really cheap. Cloudburst was one of the first Pretenders released, and he exemplifies why they’re bad. He just looks like an out-of-shape guy in armor.
23 Nike Shoe Optimus Prime
22 Nike Shoe Megatron
Optimus Prime wasn’t alone when he turned into a Nike shoe. His sworn enemy, Megatron, also has a Nike toy version of himself. It’s not any better than the Optimus Prime toy, honestly, even though the black coloring on the Nike shoe is pretty cool looking. In fact, Nike Megatron would have worked better just as a normal Nike shoe. Nike has done normal shoes with matching colors of other Transformers characters, and shoe version of Megatron would have worked better simply as a normal shoe.
21 Beast Wars Injector
The Beast Wars TV show had a relatively small cast, with a simple handful of Predacons and Maximals on both sides. The series never matched the number of characters in the original Transformers TV show. Because of the relatively small cast of the show, I was honestly surprised to realize there were a lot more toys that were never adapted into the show. Injector was one of those toys; he was a Fuzor, meaning he was a Transformer who can turn into a creature that was a fusion of two animals. In his case, a lionfish and a hornet.
20 Generation 1 Pretender Stranglehold
Who put He-Man in my Transformers toy? Another disgusting Pretender toy, Stranglehold looks like a rejected barbarian that you’re more likely to see in He-Man or Conan the Barbarian. His robot form, weirdly enough, transforms into an animal. Some of the Pretenders were able to turn into animals; however, most of the animal forms of these Pretenders were too simple. His robot and animal form really lack details. They also lack creativity, and it doesn’t help that Stranglehold looks more likely to wrestle a rhino rather than turn into one. At least Stranglehold has a stellar mustache.
19 Beast Wars Air Hammer
Good thing Air Hammer wasn’t named Land Screwdriver, or else his beast form wouldn’t have been as convenient. Air Hammer is another Fuzor robot from the Beast Wars line, meaning his beast form is the fusion of two different animals. Air Hammer, as his name coincidently implies, can turn into a hawk with a hammerhead shark’s head. Yup, that was a real thing, and it looks as stupid as it sounds. In case you haven’t seen the Beast Wars show yet, don’t worry. Air Hammer fortunately does not make an appearance.
18 Generation 1 Pretender Monsters
The Pretender Monsters are a little bit more complicated than normal Pretender toys. The Pretender Monster were disguised as, well, monsters. The monster forms of these Pretenders are appropriately gross, which I guess is meant to be the point. Their robot forms are pretty lame though, lacking detail. The robot forms were also tiny. The Pretender Monsters’ robot forms can combine together to become one giant robot called Monstructor, who is perhaps one of the lamest combiners ever in the franchise. These toys are not complete failures; however, they lack the charm that the very early Generation 1 toys had.
17 Generation 1 Wheelie
If this was a list of the worst Transformer characters, Wheelie would be somewhere at the top of that list. A small Transformer that was first introduced in The Transformers: The Movie, Wheelie had this annoying habit of talking in rhyme. It was pretty grating to listen to. His toy is possibly worst, especially since his toy hardly looks like the character in the movie.
Side note, Wheelie’s entire page in the Transformers fan wiki is in rhyme. It is pretty glorious, as even the toy descriptions and wiki notes are in dumb rhymes.
16 Beast Wars Terragator
The concept of Fuzors is actually a pretty neat idea. Having a Transformer turning into an unholy creature made up of two existing animals can lead to very unique and cool ideas. The few Fuzors that the Beast Wars TV show had were pretty cool. With that said, there are many dumb ideas as well. Air Hammer and Injector were simply some of the many idiotic ideas for Fuzors. Terragator is another ridiculous idea for a toy. Again, as his name coincidently implies, he can transform into an alligator with a snapping turtle shell on his back. His robot form also looks stupid.
15 Generation 1 Pretender Doubleheader
The whole point of the Pretenders was that the Transformers wanted to use human disguises in order to fit in with the human society more. Vehicles and other machines are decent disguises as is, but the Pretenders actually wanted to be part of the actual human population. That is why Doubleheader’s decision to be a two-headed human makes no sense. Not only does it look very stupid, his normal robot form doesn’t even have two heads. He literally simply chose to be a two-headed human because it makes sense with his name.
14 Beast Machines Cheetor
A follow-up to the highly successful Beast Wars series, Beast Machines was a darker take on the surviving characters from the previous series. The show of Beast Machines wasn’t popular among fans, and toys weren’t well received either. The Cheetor toy is the main example of Beast Machines’ gross character designs. Cheetor looks too skinny and tall and has random green spots all over his body. The entire Beast Machines line of toys are pretty unappealing, and Cheetor is simply one of the worst from a toy line that is known for being mediocre.
13 Generation 1 Pretender Bugly
Bugs are pretty disgusting, yet the Transformers have been able to create pretty great toys based on insects. The Insecticons from Generation 1 and Waspinator from Beast Wars were pretty solid looking toys. Then there’s Bugly, who reminds fans why bugs are disgusting in the first place. His bug form looks unappealing. He’s just a giant fly, and that’s gross. Weirdly, his robot form actually looks cooler than his bug form. In his robot form, he can turn into a futuristic helicopter. Of all the disguises he could have taken, why did Bugly decide to be a fly?
12 Beast Wars Scourge
A lot of the worst Beast Wars toys I honestly find very spooky. Oftentimes these bad Beast Wars toys would overcomplicate the designs of some the characters, adding in unnecessary details that make them a little bit more chilling. Scourge is a Predacon that was never adapted into the TV show, and that may be due to the fact that he is absolutely spooky. He transforms into a giant locus, and there are a lot of details on his wings. The added details on his body overcomplicate his design, and he is more creepy than cool.
11 Beast Machines Hammerstrike
For robots from a different planet, Transformers names use a lot of Earth-based phrases. Anyways, Hammerstrike is a toy-only character, meaning he never showed up in the Beast Machines show. The coloring for the toy is pretty nice, yet his robot form is hard to make out what it is. His face doesn’t even look like a face; it looks more like a trigger for a plastic gun. His beast mode is way overdesigned, with a lot of weird colors plastered across it. Overall, it’s a toy that really suffers from being too unnecessarily complicated.
10 Transformer Prime Airachnid
Airachnid is actually an interesting character in the Transformers: Prime cartoon show. For one, she is a female Decepticon, a rarity among the franchise. She is known to be cruel and pure villainous, a trait you don’t often see in the female characters in the franchise. Unfortunately, she suffers from a very mediocre toy. A lot of the Prime toys are too simplistic, and Airachnid’s toy is just one of the many basic Prime toys. Her robot form also has very limited movement, meaning her limbs can’t move much.
9 Generation 1 Pretender Beasts
The difference between Pretender Beasts and normal Pretenders is that Pretender Beasts are disguised as animals. Essentially, the toys were plastic animals with tiny robots inside that you can get out. These tiny toys would then be able to transform into the same animal it was inside. For example, Catilla’s outer shell is a pretty cool looking saber-toothed tiger. His robot form, which is inside his tiger skin, can then transform into a saber-toothed tiger. Not only is it redundant for a Transformer to have two of the same disguises, but some of these toys also kind resemble He-Man’s Battle Cat, especially Catilla.
8 Transformers Go Swordbot Shinobi Team
Robots and ninjas are cool. That’s two of the primary rules of the universe. When you combine them together, they should automatically be awesome, right? Well, GoGekisou breaks this rule of nature, proving robots and ninjas are not always cool. First introduced in Japanese-exclusive animation, GoGekisou is a robot that is made up of three different transformers. These three transformers make up the Swordbot Shinobi Team, and one them can turn into shark, which is actually kind of neat. GoGekisou just looks like a mess, looking more like an over-designed Gundam Wing toy than anything Transformers related.
7 Generation 1 Kup
Kup is an old Autobot, who often shares his past stories to his younger comrades. He was first introduced in The Transformers: The Movie, released in 1986. The movie took place in the then far-off future of 2005. Apparently, the Transformers version of 2005 had all these futuristic looking cars and airships. Kup is meant to be a pick-up truck, even though he doesn’t have a cargo bed or a tailgate, meaning he can’t really pick up anything. Kup’s toy looks really bland, with really awful coloring. He also looks really cheap, appearing more plastic-y than some other Generation 1 toys.
6 Generation 1 Topspin
Robots are cool as is; however, what makes Transformers special is being able to turn robots into cars or planes or other kinds of devices. When you get rid of the fun of actually transforming a toy by yourself, then you’re left with nothing. Topspin’s toy from Generation 1 is guilty of not allowing toy owners to actually transform the toy themselves. Topspin’s main gimmick is that he can automatically flip forward in his vehicle form with a spring in his legs. Once he flips forward he is in his robot form. An interesting gimmick, but takes away the fun of transforming.
