History WesternAnimation / ChallengeOfTheGoBots

Despite addressing some valid and interesting science fiction tropes (as listed below), the series's biggest handicap, apart from its obvious similarity to the {{Transformers}}, was probably its "toony" character design, as compared to the comic book-realism of the {{Transformers}} art. (This may account for the show's popularity in Europe, where toony character designs in [[SpartakusAndTheSunBeneathTheSea adventure shows]] and [[{{Tintin}} comics]] are more common.)

There are at least two other [[AlternateContinuity Alternate Continuities]] for the franchise, (apart from the modern Transformers version). A British [[NewspaperComics comic strip]] called ''Robo Machines'' appeared in the periodical ''Eagle'' from November of '84 to July of '85, featuring a radically different storyline ([[{{Wikipedia}} the other wiki]] has information [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robo_Machines_(comic) here.)]] And in France, where the American show had been quite popular, the Japanese ''MachineRobo'' series was used as a second season, despite the drastic ArtShift between the series.

* FullyAbsorbedFinale: Decades after the show's end, the actual [=GoBots=] from the show travelled to various ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' universe (mainly the ''TransformersClassics'' one, with a quick stop by the ''TransformersTransTech'' universe first).

* ColdWar / TheGreatPoliticsMessUp: Yes, the Cold War is still going on in this near future. Nobody in the '80s expected it to end as it did, so this is totally forgivable.

* DirtyCommunists: Averted. Dr. Turgonova is one of the good guys. Double points because this show was made in the early ''[[ColdWar Eighties.]]''

* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: The ''Gobots: Battle Of the Rock Lords'' movie was one for the Rock Lords. While the movie does a good job at keeping the plot focus on the Gobots, the opening credits list all of the actors for the Rock Lords prominently and even give them fancy little animation intros while the Gobots and humans get relegated to a single screen listing their actors. Hell the end credits dosen't feature the Gobots theme, it has the Rock Lords theme instead making them look like a total SpotlightStealingSquad.

Interestingly, it is now [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/GoBots_(franchise) actually considered part]] of the ''Transformers'' multiverse. Though it's emphasized that it's a ''distant'' part of said multiverse.

There are at least two other [[AlternateContinuity Alternate Continuities]] for the Gobots, (apart from the modern Transformers version). A British [[NewspaperComics comic strip]] called ''Robo Machines'' appeared in the periodical ''Eagle'' from November of '84 to July of '85, featuring a radically different storyline ([[{{Wikipedia}} the other wiki]] has information [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robo_Machines_(comic) here.)]] And in France, where the American show had been quite popular, the Japanese ''MachineRobo'' series was used as a second season, despite the drastic ArtShift between the series.

* {{Expy}}: Dr. Braxis is pretty clearly based on Dr. Smith from ''Series/LostInSpace''.

* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: The ''Gobots: Battle Of the Rock Lords'' movie was one for the Rock Lords. While the movie does a good job at keeping the plot focus on the Gobots, the opening credits list all of the actors for the Rock Lords prominently and even give them fancy little animation intros while the Gobots and humans get relegated to a single screen listing their actors. Hell the end credits dosen't feature the Gobots theme, it has the Rock Lords theme instead making them look like a total Spotlight-StealingSquad.

''Challenge of the [=GoBots=]'' dealt with two opposing forces of [[TransformingMecha transforming robots]] from the planet Gobotron: the heroic Guardians and the evil Renegades. The Guardians were led by Leader-1; others included Turbo and Scooter. The Renegades were led by Cy-Kill, with Crasher and Cop-Tur among their ranks.

The [=GoBots=]' origin as organic beings accounted for the presence of genders among the robots. Unlike ''{{Transformers}}'', '' Challenge of the [=GoBots=]'' had regular female characters (the Transformers eventually ''also'' added female castmembers, but it was never clear what gender could mean for an ''inorganic'' race). However, the females were built like the males. Only Crasher received any distinguishable feminine features.

!!This series contains examples of:

* AfterTheEnd (the planet Gobotron, whose biosphere was destroyed in a war)
* AncientAstronauts (the Evil One)
* AntiVillain (Fi-Tor at times, especially when he is captured)
* {{AlienNon-Interference Clause}} (subverted. The Guardians ''attempt'' to abide by this in the first few episodes (hence the Earth vehicle disguises), but once it becomes clear that the Renegades have completely blown their cover, the Guardians from then on share their technology with the humans and help to establish them in the interstellar community)
* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign (Done [[ForTheLulz for fun.]] Anya Turgonova once curses ''"Ish Kabibble!"'' Certainly none of the kids watching would have caught that Ish Kabibble was a famous Vaudeville comedian.)
* BarrierWarrior (Leader-1 could generate a protective force field. However, it took a lot of energy and was exhausting for him, so he could only maintain it for a couple of minutes at a time.)
* BigBrotherMentor (Matt to Nick and A.J.)
* BoisterousBruiser (Turbo)
* BrainInAJar (the [=GoBot=] race)
* TheBrigadier (General Newcastle)
* TheCape (Leader-1)

-->'''Leader-1''': (after seeing a meteor he's following crash into a building) THERE IT IS!
-->'''Turbo''': (gives him a weary look) Yeah I noticed.
* CerebusSyndrome (Though difficult to really notice, around the start of the Last Engineer/Master Renegade storyline the series gets a tad more serious and starts delving into the divine origins of the Gobots. This is best shown in that the storyline is kicked off after Turbo is horribly wounded by the Renegades and it is explicitly stated that if he is not healed soon he will '''DIE'''.)
* ColdWar[=/=]TheGreatPoliticsMessUp: Yes, the Cold War is still going on in this near future. Nobody in the '80s expected it to end as it did, so this is totally forgivable.
* CoDragons (Coptur and Crasher)
* CombiningMecha (The Puzzlers)
* CowardlySidekick (Scooter)
* CyberCyclops (Destroyer)
* DarkActionGirl (Crasher)
* DirtyCommunists (Averted. Dr. Turgonova is one of the good guys. Double points because this show was made in the early ''[[ColdWar Eighties.)]]''
* DumbMuscle (Coptur. It was his only personality trait)
* EnemyMine (In one two-part episode, the Guardians and Renegades are forced to work together to fight back an invasion of insect creatures from another dimension.)
* EvenEvilHasStandards (When it looks like the Guardians are going to get the information they need out of the captured Fi-Tor, Cy-Kill believes he has to kill him, but is ''deeply'' reluctant. Fi-Tor is a fellow defector from the Guardians, and arguably Cy-Kill's only real friend. As he's about to do it, he mutters, "Farewell, Fi-Tor..." and is then relieved when he realizes there's an alternative.)
* EvilFormerFriend (Cy-Kill to Leader-1)
* EvilGenius (Doctor Go)
* EvilLaugh (Crasher, maniacal and joyous. Ha ha ha HAAAAAAA ha hah hah!)
* {{Expy}} (Dr. Braxis is pretty clearly based on Dr. Smith from ''LostInSpace.'')
* FaceHeelTurn (Cy-Kill and Fi-Tor)
* FantasticNuke (Sorium)
* TheFederation (the Guardians are democratic, and they are the dominant government on Gobotron. The Renegades are a rebellion.)
* FemBot (Averted. Except for their faces, both sexes' prosthetic robot bodies appear genderless. Except Crasher, sort of.)

* FlowersForAlgernonSyndrome (Scooter tries replacing his hologram projector with a standard [[FrickinLaserBeams blaster.]] He discovers he isn't nearly as effective without his [[MasterOfIllusion illusion-casting powers,]] and quickly switches back.)
* FlyingBrick (All [=GoBots=] can fly, and are superhumanly strong giant robots.)
* FlyingSaucer (Pathfinder's alt mode)
* FollowTheLeader - To the Transformers cartoon, although GoBots merchandise is actually older.
* FullyAbsorbedFinale - Decades after the show's end, the actual GoBots from the show travelled to various {{Transformers}} universe (mainly the TransformersClassics one, with a quick stop by the TransformersTransTech universe first).
* FuumaShuriken (Cop-Tur's rotor blades, used as a weapon in robot mode)
* GalacticConqueror (Cy-Kill. Although he views Gobotron itself as his necessary first step.)
* GiantFootOfStomping (Crasher's main attack is to stomp the ground, sending a crackling streak of energy along the ground toward her target.)

* HollywoodCyborg (The [=GoBots=] in general; but also the Last Engineer, who still looks human but with bionic bits.)
* HotScientist (Anya Turgonova)
* HumanAliens (the original form of the inhabitants of Gobotron. The only two surviving humanoids are the Last Engineer and the Master Renegade, who spent the intervening ages in SuspendedAnimation)
* HumongousMecha (Zod)
* InvisibilityCloak (the Stealth Device, described as a hologram that works across the entire electromagnetic spectrum)
* IronCurtain (The writers could never seem to decide whether Anya Turgonova was from China or the U.S.S.R., alternately mentioning "Siberia" and "The People's Republic." Since it was the [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture Twenty Minutes Into the]] [[TheGreatPoliticsMessup Cold War future,]] perhaps they'd merged. Despite the Russian-sounding name and accent, she certainly ''looks'' Asian.)
** Given that most of Russia is in Asia, an Asian-looking Russian is not unrealistic.
* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: Can never, ever be re-released or re-aired, due to the massive amount of legal tape due to copyright issues. Warner Brothers owns the cartoon but the character trademarks are owned by Hasbro (who acquired the property in the early 1990s when they bought Tonka, and also own the Transformers franchise) and character designs are owned by Bandai. Hasbro has recognized the popularity of the line however; they reused the Leader-One name for a character in Transformers Armada, created a homage to Crasher in the form of "Fracture" for the movie toyline, outright reintroduced Bugbyte as the big bad for a series of convention comics, and greenlighted Takara producing a box set of Gen1 mini-bots redecoed in the color of various Go-Bots characters. The characters and mythology of the original [=GoBots=] have been incorporated into Fun Publications' ''Franchise/TransformersTimelines'' as the Transformer-equivalents in their part of the Transformers {{multiverse}}.
** The Renegade character Stretch also appears in ''TransformersAnimated'' as Porter C. Powell's limousine, brought to life by an Allspark shard (in the comics and ''Allspark Almanac II''; the normal non-living limo that became Stretch was shown in the cartoon several times).
** Apparently a deal of some sort has been hammered out with the various copyright holders. A remastered DVD release of the original five episode pilot mini-series is scheduled to be released under the Warner Archive program.
*** It has been said that Warner did their research and discovered that they had all the rights to the cartoon, and that they did not need to get consent from anyone. While others have said that Hasbro is just as certain they have all the rights to the cartoon, Warner has released the opening mini-series, and reportedly has plans to release the rest of the series in two sets, possibly later this year. No word on the movie, though.
* KibblesAndBits (The [=GoBots=] seemed generally more willing to make use of their kibble than Transformers were. A Guardian with a cockpit in his chest might allow a human to ride around in it; or a Renegade might forcibly shove a human into his cockpit to hold him prisoner. And they would frequently pop their heads up out of their vehicle modes to emphasize a point when speaking, particularly Cy-Kill. Scooter pretty much always left his face visible when transformed. Cop-Tur's favored attack was to use his spinning helicopter blades as a ''[[FuumaShuriken hand weapon.]]'')
* LiteraryAllusionTitle - [[Theatre/JuliusCaesar "Et Tu, Cy-Kill?"]]
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters (With most being little more then background characters; often the same character would be seen as both good guy and bad guy - even in the same episode)
* MasterOfIllusion (Scooter's hologram projector)
* MechanicalMonster (Zod, Scales)
* MerchandiseDriven (well, duh.)
* MindControl (Used by the Renegades in the FiveEpisodePilot)
* MonochromeCasting (Averted. AJ and General Newcastle are both black, and Anya is Russo-Chinese.)
* TheMothership ''(Roguestar,'' the Renegades' [[InvisibilityCloak cloaked]] base ship.)
* TheMovie (''Battle of the Rock Lords'')
* NoTranshumanismAllowed (completely averted. Most characters are cyborgs.)
* PlanetOfHats (averted. The Guardians are the planet's dominant society, and they have noncombatant civilians. Zeemon is a politician. Scooter laments that he'd rather be working as a ''librarian.'')
* PoorlyDisguisedPilot (The ''Gobots: Battle Of the Rock Lords'' movie was one for the Rock Lords. While the movie does a good job at keeping the plot focus on the Gobots, the opening credits list all of the actors for the Rock Lords prominently and even give them fancy little animation intros while the Gobots and humans get relegated to a single screen listing their actors. Hell the end credits dosen't feature the Gobots theme, it has the Rock Lords theme instead making them look like a total Spotlight-StealingSquad.
* PornStache (Matt Hunter)
* PowerArmor (the Power Suits)
* TheQuisling (Dr. Braxis. Braxis eventually becomes such a pitiful [[IneffectualSympatheticVillain loser shmoe]] because of his repeated failed misdeeds that it finally drives him crazy, turning him into a certified MadScientist.)
* TheRival (Zero was the Renegades' leader before Cy-Kill defected and stole the job from him. Zero has never stopped resenting him for it.)
* RivalTurnedEvil (Cy-Kill was once Leader-1's friend, but he betrayed him out of envy over his successes)
* RobotGirl (as [[BrainInAJar cyborgs,]] the [=GoBots=] have gender, at least on a neurological level)
* SiliconBasedLife: (The Rock Lords)
* SingleBiomePlanet (justified. The war left Gobotron a biologically dead world long ago. Its current status as a city planet is an attempt to make the world comfortable again for its cyborg inhabitants)
* TheSmurfettePrinciple (Averted. The show had quite a few female characters, Small Foot and Pathfinder being the two most prominent female Guardians, and Crasher being one of the lead villains. The humans had AJ and Anya (although Anya didn't show up very often after the FiveEpisodePilot).)
* StrangeBedfellows (the Guardians and Renegades joining forces against insectoid creatures in the two-part "Invasion from the 21st Level" episode)
* SurroundedByIdiots (And poor Cy-Kill knows it. No wonder he values Fi-Tor so highly, since Fi-Tor is loyal, intelligent, ''and'' competent, when hardly anyone else in the Renegade army is all three. In fairness, Cy-Kill ''didn't'' hire these shnooks; the Renegades were a pre-existing army, and he seized command of them when he left the Guardians, booting Zero out of the boss position.)
* TeleportersAndTransporters (the Astrobeam)
* {{Terraforming}} (The humans are preparing a massive terraforming project for a planet they want to colonize, near the end of the series.)

** VehicularThemeNaming (Go ahead, just ''guess'' what kind of vehicles Cy-Kill, Scooter, Cop-Tor, Dumper, Super Couper, Throttle, Tail-Pipe, Zero, Buggy Man, and Loco turn into...)
* TooDumbToLive (Nick and AJ are only still alive because this is a kids' show)
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture (even at the series's outset, it is clear that human technology is advanced a bit beyond the present day. With the [=GoBots'=] assistance, it quickly advances far beyond that, allowing humanity to start colonizing other planets.)
* UnresolvedSexualTension (Matt Hunter and Anya Turgonova)

* WrongSideOfTheTracks (Whatever parts of Old Gobotron are still habitable have become a terrible slum, inhabited mostly by off-worlders)
* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters (Fi-Tor is captured, and tries to destroy the ship carrying him to interrogation. The Guardians call him a maniac. He retorts, "You mean patriot!")

Their race became cyborgs in order to survive after their long-standing civil war had decimated their planet's biosphere beyond repair. The Guardians then began converting the otherwise-dead world into a completely metal-sheathed [[SingleBiomePlanet city planet,]] breaking up entire uninhabited worldlets for the necessary materials. At the time of the series, this massive construction effort is still ongoing, accounting for the metal world's peculiar "apple-core" shape.

* HeyItsThatVoice: [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Odo]] provided the voice of the mad scientist.

%%Image replaced per Image Pickin' thread: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1298691272088660100
%%Please do not change or remove without starting a new thread.

!!''Challenge of the [=GoBots=]'' contains examples of:

''ChallengeOfTheGoBots'' dealt with two opposing forces of [[TransformingMecha transforming robots]] from the planet Gobotron: the heroic Guardians and the evil Renegades. The Guardians were led by Leader-1; others included Turbo and Scooter. The Renegades were led by Cy-Kill, with Crasher and Cop-Tur among their ranks.

The [=GoBots=]' origin as organic beings accounted for the presence of genders among the robots. Unlike ''{{Transformers}}'', ''ChallengeOfTheGoBots'' had regular female characters (the Transformers eventually ''also'' added female castmembers, but it was never clear what gender could mean for an ''inorganic'' race). However, the females were built like the males. Only Crasher received any distinguishable feminine features.

* CerebusSyndrome (Though diffucult to really notice, around the start of the Last Engineer/Master Renegade storyline the series gets a tad more serious and starts delving into the divine origins of the Gobots. This is best shown in that the storyline is kicked off after Turbo is horribly wounded by the Renegades and it is explicitly stated that if he is not healed soon he will '''DIE'''.

* LiteraryAllusionTitle - [[JuliusCaesar "Et Tu, Cy-Kill?"]]

----

* HeyItsThatVoice: [[StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Odo]] provided the voice of the mad scientist.

* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: Can never, ever be re-released or re-aired, due to the massive amount of legal tape due to copyright issues. Warner Brothers owns the cartoon but the character trademarks are owned by Hasbro (who acquired the property in the early 1990s when they bought Tonka, and also own the Transformers franchise) and character designs are owned by Bandai. Hasbro has recognized the popularity of the line however; they reused the Leader-One name for a character in Transformers Armada, created a homage to Crasher in the form of "Fracture" for the movie toyline, outright reintroduced Bugbyte as the big bad for a series of convention comics, and greenlighted Takara producing a box set of Gen1 mini-bots redecoed in the color of various Go-Bots characters. The characters and mythology of the original [=GoBots=] have been incorporated into Fun Publications' ''TransformersTimelines'' as the Transformer-equivalents in their part of the Transformers {{multiverse}}.

* ColdWar [[TheGreatPoliticsMessUp (Yes, the Cold War is still going on in this near future.]] Nobody in the '80s expected it to end as it did, so this is totally forgivable.