I like toys of human characters! Especially important ones. When a show is about Transformers and humans, I want the whole cast, dangit. People are people, too!

So I was excited that Hasbro was making little dudes of all of the Rescue Bots human partners. Well, they tell us they're gonna make Dani Burns later (we'd better), but we're for sure getting the dudes! And they all come with a robot in a two-pack. Unlike the toys which predated the television show, these nontransformable robot figures are based on the cartoon designs which were reworked from the toys. So if you looked at Normal Transformable Chase and thought, man, he looks way too happy to be Chase, well, here's your guy. Your... much smaller guy. (He's a few inches tall instead of several.) ((I don't own a ruler.))

The robot guys have way more articulation than I was expecting.  Their heads rotate, which I did expect, but they also have universal-joint shoulders and a rotating wrist and arm weapon.  They also have "sitting" articulation at the waist, but both legs move at the same time.  They're the same piece, just run through the pelvis.

The humans don't have any articulation at all.  Bummer.

They're also all the same size and shape, so they're not totally on-model.  It's kind of like Andrew Wildman drew them.

I've had this guy for a while, but I figger that now he's shown  up in the comic, maybe I should get around to talking about him.

There've been toddler-targeted Transformers lines before, but Rescue Bots is the one that's out now.  Next year it's apparently getting a cartoon!  (On The Hub, so you have to have Good Cable.)  I like trying out samples of Transformers toylines I don't plan on collecting (if it's inexpensive), so I tried this version of Optimus Prime.  Well, technically, it's two toys.  There's Optimus Prime and his human partner Charlie Burns, who are sold separately.  They interact, so that's why I got both of them.

Optimus Prime transforms very easily.  When he's in cab mode, just push down/straighten his legs and the rest of him springs into place for robot mode, sans the feet.  You gotta manually transform those.  To put him back,  you just push everything back into place until things snap together.  He has zero articulation, unless you want to count his manually-transformable heels, which you really shouldn't.  But this is good and appropriate, because this is a friggin' toy for toddlers.  Toddlers don't obsessively count points of articulation.  (Toddlers are, in this way, perhaps our betters.)

Charlie Burns comes with a convertible vehicle.  It goes from stand-rideable tanked claw thing to extended tanked claw thing that Optimus Prime can hold.  All you do is straighten the thing out.  There's some yellow buttons on the sides of the tanked claw thing that scissor the claws.  I was way more excited about the interaction until I realized that Optimus Prime's toy isn't exactly weighted so that he can hold the tanked claw thing weapon without falling over forwards.  If you're very lucky, or find some uneven shelving, it's possible.  Just don't sneeze.  But again, toy for toddlers.  Toddlers don't put toys up on shelves and leave them.  Toddlers play with things and then throw them against the wall.  They are, again, perhaps our betters.

But I am not one, so I don't find these toys terribly engaging.  If I had a kid that was 3 years old, I'd own every single damn one, but I don't.  Gotta start the tykes early,  y'know.