'Robot Space Shuttle Carry Case'
The Andro Base is one of those iconic off brand toys that so many people had, very few remembering exactly what it was or what line it came from.
For most this large, colourful stickered play set was also their only exposure to the Androform toy line.
Oddly, in this instance the box photos hold more mysteries than the toy!
Prototype The box images show both the production toy and what's presumably a prototype; see final images. The prototype boasts red missiles (unsure if they fired), red platforms, foil stickers, red clear windows, a sculpted face and silver painted hands. It also included what appears to be sliding catches at the front to hold the clamshell sections closed; most visible in the front on, side of box photo. While the missiles may have been removed to address safety concerns, it's likely the modification and in some instance removed of these features were to reduce production costs. For all re-releases with updated boxes the same prototype photos were used meaning the actual toy was never properly displayed.
Stickers There are at least two sticker variations. The most common shows the robot face with box shaped eyes as seen on the example below. The far less common has the face sticker, exactly the same as the other bar the eyes are missing or possibly not added and more in keeping with the image on the front of the box.
Box Versions There are three main box version and two variants. Each box is the same front and back and the box images below are all of different version boxes in order of release. The first box was released with white text and then re-issued with orange text and an orange border around the insert image. The second box makes use of an impressive, airbrushed 80s computer graphic style grid and the final has a heavy SEGA Mega Drive box feel; that may hint at the year that box was released. This final box was released in both an English version and an variant with a mishmash of French and English; not the usual Canadian bi-language layout.
Repainted and Redrawn Photos I highly suspect the photographer had as much trouble capturing the Andro Base without sections of it blowing out white obliterating the detail while still keeping it overall light. Without the advantage the digital trickery I used, they seem to have resorted to repainting parts of the photos by hand. This is most noticeable on the handle seen in the first prototype image below. The ribbing down the side is also painted as is the jet and closest wing giving some areas a silvery look. There's black speckles added to the jet and unclear whether these were actually on the model or added later by an over enthusiastic touchup artist. The artist has also added some white edging highlights to most of the example robot toys to help the black
areas stand out from the background.
The most successful edit (that gives the biggest, 'ooooh yeeaaah) is that the arms have been completely
painted from scratch in the main, front of box image. Again, probably because the white blew out in the photo and they struggled to keep them in focus with the head and so just removed them entirely and painted them in.
Reuse In 1997 Blue-Box reworked the Andro Base by adding a significant amount of detail, colouring it gunmetal, adding a turret weapon and removing the robot arms and face. The inside overhaul saw a rotor disc launcher and a small plastic space craft launcher added. It was released for their Hidden Adventure line as, 'Star Cruiser'. Battery powered light and sound features were also included and interestingly, the orange windows seen in the original prototype reappeared.
1998 saw the Star Cruiser fly again and this time in the hands of Takara. It became the Cybertron Mobile Base (AKA Maximal Mobile Base) from the Japanese Beast Wars II: Super Life-Form Transformers series. Does this make the Andro Base Transformers canon?
See Androform main index for more general details.
Region Codes Used: US United States / CA Canada / UK United Kingdom / AU Australia / EU Europe
NOTE: Location codes only shown where items were known to be released. This list is accurate yet likely to be incomplete.
Androform US/CA/UK/AU/EU Blue-Box Toys 1985 (first release)
Toys on the Box What's that blue Cy-Kill and that other car robot? The white and blue car is a small version of the Machine Dolphin from the Machine Man (singular*) TV Series. The blue motorcycle is called, 'Gattai Henshin Robo Auto' by Hayakawa Toys and was clearly inspired by Cy-Kill (Gobots) / Bike Robo (Machine Robo Series). The orange and black figure was released by Mark in Japan and this version saw distribution in the West as Bronco for Village Toys' Convert-a-Bots.
* Machine Men / Machine Man? - Machine Men is the Bandai released toys line that largely parallels their distribution of the same figures via Tonka as Gobots. Machine Man is a completely different thing and an abbreviation of 'Nebula Mask Machine Man', a Japanese TV series by Toei Company. This is where it gets vague. The Andro Base was released in Australia where Machine Men were sold instead of Gobots. The first Andro Base box says it's for use with Machine Man (singular). There's a Machine Man figure on the box along with Gobots / Machine Men. Transformers is also shown as Transformer (singular) so there's no way to know whether the marketing people were trying to say Machine Men to an Australian audience that hadn't heard of Gobots
or if they wrote Machine Man because it was the one figure from the TV series in the photo. If the latter is true, the singular word is even more amusingly fitting as that's the only Machine Man Machine Dolphin toy of that scale and they were unlikely to know that. All that said, don't let it keep you up at night.
Trivia The Andro Base's registration number stickers on the wings are printed with, 'AF-6443'. AF for Androform and 6443 is the original product number and it can be seen below printed on the side of the first version box. While this product number was changed for subsequent releases, the sticker remained the same.
Cybertron Mobile Base
Beast Wars II - Takara