Maybe I should just call this Transformers Thursday? Make it official?
The 1985 Transformers Beachcomber Toy
Introduced in 1985 as part of the latter bunch of minibots released, Beachcomber is very much one of those crowd filler Autobots, whose fictional appearances are actually quite minimal. He's memorable, don't get me wrong, but he's memorable for but one episode, "Golden Lagoon". Therein, he finds a very nice glen, full of untouched nature, but also untouched reserves of the super metal Electrum. This leads to the area being utterly ruined. As it would. It's almost an ecological parable, but the execution ain't great. Said glen is also where the "Paradise Parakeet" name-dropped on the box comes from, but I'll come back to that. Beachcomber has not done very much else, although you see the name and colours a lot on toys with similar altmodes. There's simply a lot of Autobot cars, so he was predisposed to get lost in the shuffle, but I'd like to suggest another explanation. You've got an 80's toy advert, and this guy whose whole deal is that he's a geologist by trade and pacifist by a nature. It's not the personality profile you necessarily want in an action-oriented series, because he refutes the good versus evil conceit, doesn't want to do action scenes, and some underpaid/jobbing writer probably wouldn't want that headache. Maybe that’s why Derrick Wyatt wanted to kill him off. A fun way to treat Beachcomber, one seemingly a favoured by the fandom, is to depict him like a pot smoking hippy, but you can't really do that in kids media. Beachcomber is basically admirable, but possibly belongs in a more nuanced franchise.
The 2018 Transformers: Power of the Primes Beachcomber Toy
So if Beachcomber is inoffensive but under-utilised as a character, and a memetic stoner, what's he like as a toy? Well, this is a chap whom invites discussion as to toy budgets and build quality. We've been getting minibots as short/small deluxes for a while now, so it's no shock to see Beachcomber in the deluxe pricepoint, and he's doing better than most when it comes to partsforming and such. The toy does not rely on a big chunk of the vehicle mode coming off as alleged shield, and does not have exposed hands issue Huffer had. Beachcomber is however not notably complex as say Cliffjumper was, with the transformation not being substantially different from his last toy, a small legends class in the ill-famed Power of the Primes line. This is probably the result of screen accuracy rather than (just) cost-cutting, but there's a few things about the build quality that raises questions about the budget. The toy features rubbery tires with pinned wheels as opposed to the mushroom peg style, which is something of "it's been so long, I can't remember when they stopped doing that" situation. It's chest also features a slider arrangement, a dramatic head reveal by way of that, and somewhat less of the carved out hollowness common to modern toys. Three possibilities present themselves: 1) there's been some creative accounting, so part of Beachcomber's budget ended up elsewhere, 2) fancy touches like good wheels are actually somewhat expensive, and 3) Hasbro is just padding their margin somewhat, see also Wizards of the Coast. Could be one of those things, or some combination there of, I don't know. The net result is that the toy feels nicer in hand than his stock images suggest, but not so nice as to dismiss my concerns about its value proposition. I got this for 19 quid on discount, rather than 25, and I think that was reasonable, but I wouldn't have felt great if I'd got it full price.
Let's move away from the more contextual, big picture stuff, to focus more about the merits of this toy. Beachcomber's altmode is a dune buggy, specifically a 1982 M1040 Chenowth "Hellfire" Fast Attack Vehicle, which, yes, is military use. I will admit to not knowing that before looking it up, but it makes sense given Warpath & Powerglide exist. To muse for a moment, this obviously more right wing that you'd expect given his hippy persona, but I feel you could easily do a Vietnam-vet-turned-war-protester, or retired badass thing with Beachcomber. As these vehicles go, it looks good from most angles, and rolls like a dream, but there definitely angles which you don't want to look at. The head retracts into the body, but there's no panel to properly conceal it, with the torso doing little. The vehicle also has a certain gappiness around the seat area, although in all fairness dune buggies often resemble overgrown BMX bikes or industrial scaffolding, so perhaps no harm done? I do like the presence of diamond plate and how 5mm ports are worked into the sculpt around there. Play value is pretty good too, rolling better than any Transformer I've handled since Botshots, and then there is the "Evo Fusion" thing. Beachcomber features a bumper/gun accessory, a grey piece painted black, which has more going on that it looks. You can peg it on the rollbar as a weapon, something that does no harm to the look of the vehicle, but if you leave it on the front, there's additional tabs to keep straight. It's very much an optional piece too, so unlike most modern minibots, you can stick it in a draw somewhere if its not your thing.
The generally positive vibes continue into robot mode, doing the whole Sunbow G1 look, but not in a way that's limiting or daft. Beachcomber is on the shorter side for a deluxe, but he's not Cliffjumper short, and tends towards the stocky/blocky. I'm honestly having a hard time thinking of how you could meaningfully improve the robot form without moving to a different price bracket. Its likeness is on point, there's concealing panels to fill out the calves, 5mm ports are tactfully worked in, and Legacy standard articulation is present, with wrist swivels. The only weakness of note is how the seats and rollbar become the heels, which is acceptable, but not ideal or especially functional. Yes, a paint application is a little scuffed, and there’s some cut marks, but that's just something that happens. It's a very solid robot form on multiple levels.The gun? Well, if it bothers you, it can peg into the back. Oh, and he has a bird, yes. Paradise Parakeet. This rubbery little chap is based off the blast effect system from Siege, and so can perch on Beachcomber in various places, just like in the cartoon. But, it also means, that you can have a gun that fires birds. And on that note, this article comes to a natural conclusion.
As the flow and warming tone of this article might indicate, Beachcomber kinda won me over. There's certainly complaints to be made, and an open question over the value proposition, so its not flawless. But this toy gets a lot right as well. What will probably decide it for you is availability; I’m told this is hard to find in the USA for example, so if you overpay for this, you’d better really fricking love Beachcomber. Because while he is something that exists, he’s not existing quite enough for a deluxe. Assuming that the price is moot for you though? I doubt you’d be disappointed.
Electrum rave party!
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