Phil's Spychanger Sideburn & Jazz Review


G2 Gobot "Sideburn"

Sideburn is one of the four unreleased G2 Gobot molds that were resurrected for Robots In Disguise. There are two other unreleased molds, pictures of which are on my Spychangers page. These six new Spychangers have one significant advance over their predecessors: Their guns can be stowed away in vehicle mode. This sets a precedent that would last through till Transformers Animated broke ranks in 2008.

G2 "Sideburn" was photographed at a Japanese toy show in 2006 on a Gobot Highbeam card. The car has is purple with black windows - no photos exist of the robot mode molded in the colours.


Sideburn

In 2001 I wrote: "Sidebrun is shaped (in car mode at least) like the blue delux RID toy of the same name. Daytonus looks like Backstreet. Seen one spychanger you seen the lot as far as the TF and Robots go :-( "

Sideburn is important in that he represent a continuation of Hasbro's policy introduced in Beast Machines to do toys of characters in different sizes. Since BM they appear to have realised larger versions are a mistake and now concentrate on smaller ones. This policy will eventually lead to the Legends line.

Here they picked an unused Spychanger mold close to Sideburn's larger form (I wonder if they considered what would eventually become Sideswipe on the grounds of the engine mounted through the bonnet and then dismissed it due to the goggles on the face ?) Sideburn inherits his larger version's blue paint and blue fire detailing. Turning it over we find the front (front of robot legs) & the back of the underside are white while the middle (robot body & head) is orange (like Daytonus).

TF: Most of the Gobots/Spychangers - all the ones originally designed for G2 - have the G1 Sideswipe Transformation. Pull the back of the car back, fold down the bonnet under the front of the car. Pull the arms out to the sides. Detach the gun from between the legs and place in his hand.

Here the Sideburn similarities fall down with the orange face. Decent try, but given you know what the larger robot looks like an effort should be made to get the smaller robot at least coloured the same.

Sideburn is packaged with Daytonus


Jazz

All white repaint with Jazz decals. Again the vehicle form works then the robot mode breaks down due to the lack of black and the odd shaped head.

Jazz is a KB exclusive in 20042


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