The 1987 Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers Shuffler toy
One thing I enjoyed immensely, but has basically vanished from modern Transformers, is the idea of a pocket money toy. Maybe its inflation, maybe its the focus on collectors, maybe its Hasbro treating everything outside of Generations to be shovelware, maybe it's all three. But we don't really get fun for a fiver any more, the closest thing lately being those targetmasters Rise of the Beasts had. The best example of the concept was, perhaps paradoxically, in Generations, as part of of Titans Return, with what are known as the "solo Titanmasters". These started out life as a concession to reality. Titans Return was a modernised spin on the Headmaster concept, where little dudes became the heads of bigger dudes and drove their altmodes. This tends to offer much play value, but you have problems if you loose the head, hence the solo releases. Spare heads on a blister card, basically. The designers however things pushed further by adding an accessory vehicle in the pack, allowing the little guy to be more than just a head, and providing another weapon for larger figures. This was, almost without exception, a joy. Its also the main difference between Hasbro and TakaraTomy on the toyline. TT just didn't sell Titanmasters by themselves, instead splitting up those components for use in other price points. They were trying make the toys better fit their market and their version of Headmasters fiction. Umm, OK, sure, if that's what you have to do. But you did the solo release thing in the 80’s, so why not? The TT versions are undeniably nice. But it gets weird when Hasbro does a Japanese tribute toy and TT doesn't release it. Shuffler is one such example, and honestly the lack of a Japanese release for him seems contrarian. Guys seriously, all you had to change was nuffin.
So who, or possibly whom, is Shuffler anyway? Its not an unreasonable question to ask, and answering it helps with the word count with respects to a rather simple toy. He has almost no fictional presence, but he and his kin are noted for being the black-market-human-organs sort of expensive to obtain, as a Japanese G1 exclusive. Part of the Autobot Master Warriors, Shuffler is the elephant one, and presumably his titanmaster power is that he never forgets. As a titanmaster, Shuffler now operates a touch differently from the original toy, with the elephantine bits refocused onto the accessory vehicle.
The actual robot/head bit is typical of its kind. Shuffler’s robot mode features a balljointed neck that becomes the neck joint of his head mode, balljointed shoulders, and conjoined legs that move at the hip and knee. This is upgraded articulation versus the original headmasters, and in a smaller size. Its not spectacular posability, but it is pragmatic possibility; Shuffler is at that sorta size where designers have to think seriously about choking hazards and breakages. Shuffler features two pegholes on the underside of his feet, plus an angled tab/heel-spur, allowing for a rock solid connection onto other toys, so he's disinclined fall off base modes and such. The robot mode has a unique headsculpt, not a given with these, but it and the robot mode in general lacks paint. This is an area where TakaraTomy consistently is better than Hasbro, and the most obvious sign that this is a budget release. Granted, the head is a point of friction, so you don’t want that much paint on it, but something for the eyes or chest would have been nice.
The head mode is, once again, typical of the Titanmaster. You ball up the robot mode and the head holds together via friction. This scheme is common to all titanmasters, the main variation being the faceplate that personifies the head, which can have a rather different design aesthetic from the rest of the sculpt. As these plates were only screwed in, there was/is a cottage industry in 3rd party faces, which is outside of my remit today, but I just wanted to mention it. Shuffler's head form is proportioned to fit deluxe bodies, and features three different colours of paint app. Its a good noggin.
If we bring the accessory vehicle into things we get three more modes, although in two of them Shuffler is an optional extra as he just stows unobtrusively in head mode rather than doing anything structural. The elephant mode, aka the main event, is a simple affair with little useful articulation, but has a neck and trunk joint thanks to the transformation. Its simply but nicely presented too, with paint around the shoulders and painted eyes. Shuffler just kinda goes in the belly, and remains there for the weapon mode. While not so much an elephant gun as a handheld missile pod, its quite convincing and top three for the price point. I just which there was paint picking out those missiles. The tank mode meanwhile ends up with a rotating turret, with Shuffler plugging into the back tracks, so he's slightly more involved there, if still somewhat optional. You have to grade for the price, but there's no bad mode here.
Shuffler is both an excellent case study of the solo titanmaster play pattern, and a great toy on his own terms. However, as a late wave release he's hard to obtain, and TakaraTomy just had to be weird about it. All they had to release it as is, maybe with a few more paint apps, and they would have had a winner. But no, they had to break the whole play pattern, an unforced error. Shuffler is not just something that exists, he's a rare, and totally unambiguous, example of Hasbro beating TakaraTomy at their own game.
And Alchemist Prime isn't bad either.
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