Keith’s Fantasy Club (KFC) Toys
One of my favorite transformers when I got back into collecting were the cassettes Beastbox and Squawkbox. The colours were vibrant and the animal forms were well designed for its time. Who doesn’t like robot monkeys?
Third party KFC seems to be intent on cornering the market for the ‘other’ cassettes. Takara and Hasbro’s cassettes are so far only limited to the traditional five – Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, Ravage, Rumble and Frenzy. I think this is a smart move by KFC to try and get a piece of the pie by making these figures.
CST-03 B-Box
Colour – pink/purple with grey limbs.
Accessories – Pair silver/grey guns, purple cassette box
I have seen two different coloured versions of the G1 BeastBox – there was a dark purple and the pinky purple, which KFC has adopted to use. The cassette is nothing special – it’s a tape. It does what it is supposed to do – sit there. Transformation is extremely easy – and the gorilla form – because of the ball joints, has more play and poses better. Detail isn’t much for B-Box. He’s got a 4-pack and not much else.
Bonus points are definitely given for the B.Box figure – the gorilla’s face is painted, the eyes are painted green and some black for the nostrils.
The little card that comes with the figure is the same as the box art. Its nice –but the card would have stood out if it were made out of plastic. The work is printed on a sturdy card stock but lacks design. The bio on the back of the card could have been justified rather than just left justified. The KFC logo is too large and overbearing for the overall layout.
CST-04 Birdbomber
Colour – Light teal, light grey and dark green torso.
Accessories - Pair silver/grey guns
Birdbomber much like B-Box has an extremely simple transformation. The bird transformation is exactly like the original G1. It’s a little too exact. I would have liked to see some improvement on the bird – perhaps a longer neck and maybe a joint in the head to make it look up and down separate from the neck. I’ve also been unable to put in Birdbombers guns into the pegs in bird mode. The little pegs seem to be a bit off – might mean I just have to take a small knife to open things up.
Combined mode : Boxbomber
The two tapes combine to form ‘Boxbomber’. Unlike the original G1 figure, Boxbomber doesn’t look like a pancake. The round arms and legs really give the figure a more full look. The face, while not having loads of detail – has sunken eyes giving the illusion of depth making the head much more pronounced. A negative of this figure are the fists –the B-Box figure’s fists cannot hold the pegs of the gun, but there are holes in the hands. Why give them holes then?
Boxbomber because of the ball joints has a decent amount of pose ability with his arms and legs. The lacking joints in the torso prevents the figure from obtaining any dynamic postures. Could they have given BirdBomber a swiveling body to make hips? Probably but the figure would not have looked proper –and there would have been a visible disconnect from the torso and the hip.
So I didn’t want to but this had to be mentioned. Boxbomber has obvious genitalia. Perhaps I’m reading too much into this – it’s a bird, and the bird’s head forms his ‘cock’. Bird – cock, cock – bird. Anyway, I’m not too sure why they kept this feature, but it really can make this figure an object of ridicule when you have friends over and they stumble upon this figure standing proudly erect. I know it, you know it –everyone knows it, if you get this figure, then at one point in time he’s going to be displayed in all his glory.
Overall, I think the figure satisfies a few things that I was looking for. G1 Nostalgia is definitively fulfilled. It maintains all the G1-esque style of the figure while giving it a modern twist with the ball joints. The plastic, although not the same tensile strength as some of the Hasbro/Takara toys, is durable enough and yet pliable enough that there is little fear of snapping it. Finally, price you’re looking at about 40-50$ for the pair with shipping included. This is not bad considering that they fit in with the Masterpiece figures line, and are cheaper than the Takara cassettes by about $15. They're a good fit and I can hope that KFC continues to improve on their figures.
