Western Animation / Transformers: BotBots

(Here we go!) When energon struck a mall nearby
We became more than meets the eye
We’re everyday objects, motionless parts
We burst to life to let the party start!
(BotBots!) We could be anything!
(BotBots!) Like a hot dog or ice cream!
(BotBots!) Mischief without a care!
(BotBots!) Secret robots everywhere!

— The show's Expository Theme Tune

When a shopping mall is struck by lightning from an Energon cloud, the various ordinary objects within it are given life and become the race of tiny transforming robots known as BotBots. By day, they hide in plain sight, but by night, they emerge from hiding and get into all sorts of adventures. These tiny bots have organized themselves into squads based on their stores of origin, but some were left in the lost-and-found when the surge occurred and are considered myths by others.

When the leader of the Hunger Hubs, Burgertron, accidentally discovers the Lost Bots, they run afoul of the mall security guard, and in turn become pariahs for breaking the sacred rule of the mall. Now, the Lost Bots, with Burgertron now among them, must attempt to ingratiate to themselves into the other squads and hopefully find the place they belong. Meanwhile, the security guard is constantly trying to find proof that those little robots he thought he saw are real...

An Animated Adaptation of the Transformers toyline of the same name, it was released on March 25th, 2022 on Netflix.

It doesn't look like there will be a second season due to no renewal announcement and many of the creatives involved with this show having moved on to other projects.

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Transformers Botbots contains the following tropes:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The characters and any object they interact with are all drawn in 2D animation, but everything else, backgrounds and alt modes included, are 3D-built, be they done semi-realistically or done like a background painting. Of note is the episode "Dimlit in Love", where Jacqueline, for the majority of the episode, is a realistically modeled mannequin head, while her reveal makes the halves of the mannequin much less detailed.
• Abusive Parents: Dave's mother not respecting him is often the punchline of a joke, from her laughing at his misfortune, to her not keeping her son in her phone contacts.
• Acquired Situational Narcissism: Clogstopper gets a bad case of this when he becomes revered for being the only 'Bot ever to return from being "Scanned Out". (Which is also the name of the episode this happens in.)
• Adapted Out: Most of the characters in the toyline are absent here. In particular, only eight of the Lost Bots show up compared to the twenty-five of the toyline's counterpart. With Game Over being moved to the Gamer Geeks, Frostferatu over to the Sugar Shocks, and Ol' Tic Toc being independent of the tribes altogether.
• Adaptational Villainy: There's nothing in his toyline bio, or any of the other supplemental material, that indicated Spud Muffin was as selfish and manipulative as he is here.
• Adaptation Name Change:
  • The Greaser Gang is now known as the Hunger Hubs in the show.
  • The Toilet Troop is now known as the Custodial Crew in the show.
• Affectionate Parody: "The Lost Bots and the Claw Crusader" is a parody of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
• Always Second Best: At least part of Spud Muffin's resentment of Burgertron is how french fries are only seen as a side meal, never a main course like burgers.
• Ambiguous Robots: It's hard to tell where the robot part even begins for the BotBots made of food or plants. With Burgertron still spurting ketchup and mustard when smacking into a wall, Spud Muffin leaving behind fry grease, and Ulf and Lady Macaron still being semi-edible in alt mode. To say nothing about how Vomit Comet is a living pile of puke.
• Animal Sweet on Object: Subverted. One episode is about Dimlit falling in love with a mannequin from a clothes store, whom he affectionately calls "Jacqueline" and claims "she" doesn't talk out of shyness. Burgertron and Kikmee, rightfully creeped out, connive to "break them up" to try saving Dimlit's sanity, and end up shipping the mannequin away. When they see how broken up Dimlit is, they manage to get the head back. As it turns out, Jacqueline actually is a Transformer just like them (whose alt mode turns out to be just the mannequin's head) who really is in love with Dimlit, and never said anything when the others were around because she actually was too shy to speak.
• Arc Villain: Spud Muffin, for most of season one.
• Artifact of Attraction: The Lost Bots get into a fight over Dave's company phone. It then turns out the phone's also a BotBot who'd been trying to help them, and she's miffed they nearly threw her in the dumpster.
• Art Shift:
  • A regular feature of the show's style is depicting the BotBots in wide shots as little pegs color-coded to their intended character, known by the show's production staff as "Pill-Bots".
  • "Crime and Bun-ishment" has a bit using real-life food to represent Burgertron and Sprinkleberry in the supposed security footage the characters come across.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Bonz-Eye's attempts at singing in "I, Cheeseburger" are bad. She just recites the words, rather than singing.
• Better the Devil You Know: When Dave gets fired for blowing up the mall fountain with another of his dumb schemes, he gets replaced by teams of indestructible laser-shooting security robots. Since the show isn't about Transformers who can fight back, they quickly miss their old night watchman.
• Big "WHY?!": Burgertron and Dave both do this at the end of "Escape from Snackatraz".
• A Birthday, Not a Break: "Escape from Snackatraz" takes place on Dave's birthday, and he goes through even more humiliation and misery than usual.
• Bindle Stick: Spud Muffin is carrying one as he's headed to the dark side of the mall.
• Body Horror: In "Science Alliance", Sweet Cheat's face is shown to be visibly melting into a blob, including both of his eyes, after being pointed out by Face Ace. To which he both scoffs at and denies.
• Butt-Monkey: Dave, the security guard. His life absolutely sucks, to the point his own mother doesn't respect him. The only thing that makes him a threat to the Botbots is being a giant compared to them.
  "Another win for Dave!...Well, a win for Dave..."
• Canon Foreigner: Many of the characters, including Ulf the Orange (though she would later turn up in the toyline but with a wildly different appearance◊), Lady Macaron, most of the Custodial Crew and Jacqueline.
• Canon Immigrant: Sector Seven, making their first major appearance outside of the live action movies in the Season 1 finale.
• Captain Ersatz: The Halloween episode has a thinly-veiled pastiche of Spirit Halloween show up in the mall, including commenting on how the stores pop up in unoccupied retail space overnight in fall.
• Cassandra Truth: The Science Alliance were reluctant to tell the other BotBots their partying was damaging the mall's air conditioning because they figured no-one would listen. They're right. The others reject their scientific data out of contrary spite.
• Cast Herd: Different BotBots are sorted into different squads based on their store of origin, just like the toyline.
• Challenge Seeker: The fact an arcade claw machine is essentially rigged does not deter Kikmee. If anything, it motivates her even harder.
• Cliffhanger: Somebody actually did listen to that voicemail Dave left at a government agency, and she wants to ask him some questions about the story he told about seeing little robots running around...
• Cloudcuckoolander: Dimlit has traces of this, as his mind goes some odd places at times... but he's nothing compared to Clogstopper, who's more often completely out to lunch.
• Competition Freak: Kikmee. As Bonz-Eye says when venting her frustrations about the other Lostbots...
  KIKMEE HAS TO MAKE EVERYTHING A COMPETITION! SHE EVEN COMPETES TO SEE WHO'S MORE COMPETITIVE!
• Compressed Hair: Lady Macaron has a giant powdered wig that's more than twice her size. Exactly where it goes in her macaron form is unclear.
• Conjoined Eyes: Burgertron sports these, translating his visor from his original toy.
• Cool Car: Three of them, all built by different squads.
  • Burgertron managed to turn a slice of pizza into the Racer-Roni, which somehow has a working engine and a condiment cannon.
  • The Gamer Geeks built a hovercar called the Outta Controller.
  • The Sugar Shocks have the Sugar Sonic Speedster.
• Creepy Doll: Bonz-Eye encounters these in an abandoned toy store in "Lone Wolf and Carb", then uses these as a distraction to try and rescue Lady Macaron from being eaten by Dave.
  Bonz-Eye: (after hearing one of these dolls speak hauntingly) Why would anyone make this?!
• Cute Little Fangs: All the BotBots have this in the cartoon, due to how their teeth are set up. Frostferatu is the most notable example, being designed like Dracula in the series.
• Darkhorse Victory: The Hunger Hubs "win" the Ruckus Rally despite not even being involved, since Burgertron never altered his car's registration.
• A Day in the Limelight: Bonz-Eye gets one in the episode "Lone Wolf and Carb".
• Drunk on the Dark Side: Poor Snorg experiences this as Bonz-Eye's rageful lyrics send him to a berserk-like rage.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Lady Macaron first appeared in the BotBots Mad Libs books.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Done at the end of "(Never) Be Yourself" when the lostbots burst into laughter after Burgertron slips in some oil and makes a hashtag Cute Kittens joke.
• Epic Fail: Pretty much any task the Lost Bots set their mind to seems to end in misery.
• Expy: Both Burgertron and Spudmuffin's relationship is reminiscent of Optimus and Sentinel Prime of Transformers: Animated.
• Eyepatch of Power: The version of Burgertron who calls him from a Bad Future is sporting one. When he calls back later, things have gotten so bad he has two.
• Failure Is the Only Option: No matter what the Lost Bots try to do to gain everyone else's respect, it always backfires in some way, until the last episode.
• Faint in Shock: Frostferatu has the tendency to faint during dramatic moments.
• Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: Spud Muffin despises the Lost Bots so much that the idea of them actually being happy and having fun together despite their situation makes him even more determined to antagonize them.
• The Friend No One Likes: Pretty much everyone in the mall hates the Lost Bots for their repeated attempts to gain everyone's favor inevitably causing disaster. And the Lost Bots come to feel this way about Clogstopper, though they regret it when it looks like he's left forever.
• Funny Foreigner:
  • Frostferatu has a stereotypical Eastern European 'vampire' accent.
  • Lady Macaron has a French accent, fitting with her alt-mode being a French pastry.
• Gender Flip: Zigzagged. A number of BotBots had their gender changed, with some male characters becoming female and some female characters becoming male. Kikmee is the most notable example, being in the main cast.
• The Ghost: Dave's mother is never seen, with the only hint of her characterization being Dave's reaction to her messages on the other side of the phone. His boss is treated much the same.
• Hate Sink: Spud Muffin is more unpleasant to the Lost Bots, and just generally a jerk to his supposed best friend Burgertron. The episodes before the finale shows how underhanded he is, and the last episode revealed he is the one who sends Burgertron to the lost and found in the first place.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Burgertron refuses to believe Spud Muffin could be plotting against him, even after it's shown he's obviously a tremendous jerk. He even goes as far as to accuse Dimlit of lying out of jealousy, even as Dimlit notes he's incapable of lying.
• Hypnotic Eyes: Frostferatu (supposedly) has the ability to hypnotize other BotBots via looking into his eyes. These attempts never work.
• Inevitably Broken Rule: The major rule of the BotBots is to never be seen by humans. The Lost Bots breaking this rule is what kicks off their plot for acceptance. Spudmuffin ends up breaking it in the final episode of the first season, the fallout resulting in his comeuppance for sabotaging Burgertron's multiple attempts to redeem himself.
• In with the In Crowd: Clogstopper in "Scanned Out", after he becomes the only 'Bot to ever return from the titular fate. It lasts until he forces everyone to watch his puppet show.
• It's the Journey That Counts: While it's predictable, it's still touching that by the time the Lost Bots win the other squads' approval to join like they've been trying to do all season, they instead decide to stay with the people they've bonded with through all their wacky adventures, and officially form their own squad.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Burgertron is monumentally self-focused and self-absorbed, and, as the Transformers Wiki puts it, "he probably won't do the right thing, and he definitely won't do the smart thing." But he does care for his friends, he's very loyal and even helpful, generally trying to look out for the others when he can.
  • Lady Macaron, while she is a somewhat of jerkish aristocrat type, she is also one of few bots that would interact with the Lost Bots and gave genuine good advice to Bonz-Eye when she was feeling down about not having a squad.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: After spending an entire season getting away with his crimes, Spud Muffin is exiled to the dark part of the mall in "The Goldrush Games - Part the Second" after admitting to all of his actions.
• Kill It with Fire: The Lost Bots decide the best way to solve the issue of Dave's phone is to throw it in the fiery dumpster. It turns out to be another BotBot, who is understandably furious at them.
• Last of His Kind: Bonz-Eye discovers this in "Lone Bot and Carb", when her journey to the other end of the mall ends up All for Nothing. Discovering that she is the only real remnant of her original tribe. A departure from the toyline, which aligns her with the Shed Heads much like Dimlit.
• Lighter and Softer: Almost every other Transformers cartoon is about the intergalactic war between two opposing factions of robots. This one? The nightly lives of pint-sized robots causing shenanigans in a shopping mall.
• Load-Bearing Boss: Kikmee thinks this is how to get rid of the Spirit Halloween store Expy in one episode, based on video games she's played. If they go inside and defeat the boss, that will make the whole place go away.
• Logo Joke: The Netflix logo for the show is formed by multiple BotBots quickly transforming into the letters after seeing the viewer, with Cuddletooth panicking and forming a t-shape instead of actually transforming.
• Loved by All: Sprinkleberry is loved by every Botbot in the mall, so when it appears the Lost Bots had something to do with his sudden disappearance, everyone turns against them.
• The Mall: Happens entirely inside one, with the Transformers being little ones disguised as mundane items from the different stores. The show does somewhat acknowledge the overall decline of malls, having an episode that takes place mostly in an entire wing full of creepy, out-of-business stores. Which is where Spud Muffin's banished when his evil's exposed in the finale.
• Masquerade: Due to BotBots being smaller than humans, many of them take this seriously to the point that it's literally their one rule. Anyone who breaks said rule is treated like a pariah.
• Motive Rant: Burgertron eventually manages to trick Spud Muffin into one. He's so busy ranting he doesn't notice Dave approaching.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The first episode opens with a shot of a Cybertron-like planet... before panning back and revealing it to be part of a billboard that appears to advertising a wi-fi router.
  • Burgertron says the most iconic line of "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings". Then the others get distracted trying to figure out what he means by sentient.
  • The motto of the Goldrush Games is "'Til all is fun", a play on the franchise's traditional line of "'Til all are one".
• Nightmare Fetishist: Only Frostferatu enjoyed the "Specter Halloween" store.
• Odd Friendship: Bonz-Eye and Lady Macaron form one by the end of "Lone Wolf and Carb".
• One-Word Vocabulary: Sprinkleberry Donut can only say "botbots". Until a moving aversion in the season finale.
• Read the Freaking Manual: When Dave gets fired and replaced by a group of soulless evil robots who attack the Botbots, they try a series of wacky traps to try to fight back. Nothing works, and the Lost Bots ultimately save the day by reading the robots' instructions and finding out about a security code that can turn them off, then coming up with a plan to get Dave to come back and input the code for them.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Burgertron gives this to Spud Muffin after he shoved Dimlit in "The Goldrush Games".
• I Reject Your Reality: Frosteratu is convinced he has multiple vampire-like abilities (such as hypnotism), not matter how many times his attempts to use them fail.
• Repression Never Ends Well: One episode's about Bonz-Eye being convinced to sing about her frustrations into a karaoke machine-bot. Because she's just to just containing her feelings, when she lets it out she lets everything out, unleashing so much negativity the karaoke bot turns evil and starts repeating everything she said at top volume.
• The Resenter: Spud Muffin turns out to be one for Burgertron; he always hated playing second fiddle to Burgertron, and arranged for him to end up in the lost and found so he could take over the Hunger Hubs.
• Rōnin: Bonz-Eye's plot has parallels to her being one, as the group she's meant to be in is entirely gone, leaving her alone.
• Scary Shadow Fakeout: Not quite "scary", but the opening treats us to a tall, imposing shadow... before revealing the shadow is cast by Sprinkleberry Donut.
• Secret-Keeper: In the season finale, Dave finally gets to meet one of the BotBots in his mechanoid mode and assures the entire group who are Hidden in Plain Sight nearby that he will keep their secret from the world. Until the season ends on a government agent showing up in his office in response to a call he made telling about the Transformers.
• Stealth Pun: Playgor Cardquest's troubadour lute is made out of a small free sample spoon. Thus, literally making him a "spoony bard".
• Stylistic Suck: Clogstopper's six-hour one-'Bot magnum opus To Unclog One's Heart. Also, The Real 'I, Cheeseburger'
• Take That!: The episode "Science Alliance" centers around mocking climate change denial.
• Toilet Humor: The Custodial Crew, carrying over from the toyline. Additionally, two of their members in the show are an unnamed poop bot and Vomit Comet, a living puddle of puke.
• Too Dumb to Live: Pretty much all the squads in "Science Alliance". Even when the Science Squad provides mathematical proof that all their partying is damaging the air conditioning, steadily raising the heat to lethal levels, no one listens, and insist on partying even more just to spite them.
• Training Montage: Burgertron's attempt to find a gunner for the Ruckus Rally, it doesn't start off on the best note.
  • First off is Dimlit with Clogstopper driving, they don't get far when Clogstopper drives backward into a wall, not even caring about what just happened.
  • With the roles reversed, Clogstopper fires the olive cannon aimlessly while Dimlit crawls forward at an exceptionally slow pace.
  • The girls prove to be far more effective at both shooting and driving than their teammates. Kikmee's awesome driving makes Burgertron more adamant that he drives, and only realizes his mistake when he's dead last in the race and decides to swap out during the middle.
• Two Girls to a Team: Kikmee and Bonz-eye in the main group of five.
• Ventriloquism: Clogstopper is a practitioner with his sock puppet.
• Villainous Breakdown: When it's revealed that the Goldrush Games are a sham created by Spudmuffin to banish the Lost Bots, he snaps, ranting about how he was the mastermind behind Burgertron getting stuck in the 'lost and found' in the first place, and missing his chances at redemption.
• Wacky Racing: The Ruckus Rally, the focus of its titular episode, is a mall-wide race where the competitors use Weaponized Cars to race each other.
• Women Are Wiser: Kikmee and Bonz-Eye are, by are large, more sensible that the guys. Usually.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: The Bot Prom. It looks like the Lost Bots have finally gotten the recognition they crave, when Dave manages to escape the ball pit, ruining the Bot Prom, and everyone hates the Lost Bots even more... because someone (Spud Muffin) sabotaged their efforts.
• You Don't Look Like You: A majority of the BotBots were given redesigns that make them less clunky, which also gave the chance of them not looking like their toys for a majority of them. Frostferatu possibly has the most drastic change, looking more vampiric than his toy design.
  • Bonz-Eye and Clogstopper also get extensive redesigns compared to their toys. With the former looking more boyish, while the latter inverts the plunger head so that it's pointing upwards instead.
  • In the Toyline Snorg turns into a Tape player but in the show, he turns into a Karaoke machine.

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