   The true history of Toiletbot, written from a younger man's perspective (and years later, added to by an older, but not any wiser fellow. Well, at least I still have my dashing good looks...) I haven't taken the time to update this with better pics. The early years suffer when compared to modern imaging. Such is life. |
|
How do you explain the existence of something so strange? I've given up. I could never explain the thought-processes that lead to Toiletbot's birth. I was sorting thru some wrestling stuff, and noticed how close the color of the toilet matched Twintwist's color scheme. Half-jokingly digging thru the jumpstarter parts and, laying them next to the toilet to compare...well, the parts seemed to belong. They were properly-sized, and balanced asthetically. It was like he existed all along, and I was just bringing him into focus. I was actually working on a custom jetfire repaint at the time, called Bluefire. He was going to be my contest entry for Botcon 99 and as such, I spent a lot of man-hours on him. He was completely ignored. I spent all of 20 seconds on Toiletbot. He was an instant hit. I learned something very important that day. I hope I wrote it down somewhere... :-) Whilst working on Bluefire, Toiletbot was born. He was the first...and the best.
  This is an excellent shot of Toiletbot, courtesy of Toyfare magazine (issue 27). Wow! Toiletbot is famous! It never ceases to amaze me. Is there something under the lid? Yes! What, you may ask? Well...if it's a robotic toilet, wouldn't you expect to find a robotic turd floating in it?
 The next photo down was a nice shot, especially thru the glass case he was in. Unfortunately, when it ran in Lees AFN #83, they decided to skip crediting me with it (grumble). I know, I should be thrilled it made the mag, but hey, credit where credit is due! If the other mag can do it, why not Lee's?
 |
|
Take one Toiletbot 99, add a set of kick-ass guns, give him an army to command...and you have Toiletbot 2000. :-) For this one, I wrote up a background story, and gave him a legion to command. (Ahhh yes, how to explain the Legion? Back then, my attempt at wit was not as finely honed as it is now...my attempts to parody transfandom would be done with a more blunt instrument in those days. Taking a page straight out of the much-hated Beast Machines, I created an army to make fun of the one on tv, up to and including my own Jumpstarter Generals. It was fun...and led to another interesting problem in later years, namely, what do I do with all those Jumpstarters? Though in the end these parodies became just plain silly, I still keep a special place in my heart for the Legion HeavyArms. :-)
Below is a pic of just some of the army that Toiletbot commands. This photo appeared in Lees AFN #97. As usual, Lees decided to skip crediting the photos (grumble grumble). Ah, well. At least I got my stuff photographed for a second year in a row. Toiletbot is in the bottom center of the photo...can't miss him. :-)
 Here's a larger pic of Toiletbot 2000. Notice the 'ejection-seat' sticker on his bowl? :-)
 |
|
Boy, did I ever ask for it. :-) I asked Rob Jung if he would squeeze Toiletbot into the Trannies. Boy, did he ever. Here's the snippet, from the 'free for all' section: Feel free to give him any personality, and/or situation that you want. I'd like to see how you handle a character treatment on him. :-)
D. ANGEL: "Toiletbot"? "Handle"? [Lights rise slightly as the display screen pauses. From stage right, a rust-colored robot with a toilet-shaped torso clanks out on stage.] D. DRONE: Good evening, Toiletbot. [Toiletbot waves.] D. ANGEL: Are you enjoying the show so far? [Toiletbot jumps up and down excitedly, his lid banging loudly.]
SEAWAVE: I'll take that as a yes. [Toiletbot *harrumpths* gruffly, then reaches up and flushes himself. A trickle of water runs down his legs and quickly forms a puddle on the stage floor.] D. ANGEL: Ewwwwwwwwww. SEAWAVE: Hmmmm ... so, Toiletbot, what do you think of the Elian Gonzalez situation? [Toiletbot uses a series of brief but expressive hand gestures to indicate that, while he regrets the Justice Department's use of force, he wishes Elian's Miami relatives hadn't been so beligerent, and he fully supports the efforts of reuniting Elian with his father.]
D. ANGEL: Wow. I never thought a finger could be used to express THAT. [Toiletbot waves, then clanks offstage. The lights dim again as the display screen continues:]
If I do say so myself, he did an admirable job :-) Plus, he wrote it in such a way as to still leave open what Toiletbot's personality would be like. :-) hehe. |
|
(At the time of the BC-2001 Art Contest, this fellow had no name or purpose. He was simply the next in-line of my Toiletbots.) This fellow has a Vehicon symbol. The chest cannon popped off to become a handgun. What's very nice about this one is that he has a third mode. Yep, a fully-transformable triple-changer. He has robot-mode, rolling-toilet mode (I suppose you could call it a porta-potty) and a toilet-tank mode (no pun intended). Yes, he really transforms into a tank. This has to be the cheesiest thing I've ever built. And I am very proud of it (actually, they get worse as the years go by, but I didn't know that at the time.) Since the Con, he's become Evil Toiletbot, created by Megatron to stop the Legion. There's some serious bot-kickin' going on. I'll be expanding the idea with a fanfic, and connecting it to the next two year's worth of Toiletbots (which actually happened, though not at all in the way I intended. It's here that you really start seeing another little project of mine take off...a little thing called the Dairycon.)
Evil Toiletbot can't stop Toiletbot alone. Toiletbot has Legion...so Evil TB needs an Evil Legion! These are little mini-toiletbots. Remind you of anything? You'll have to read the fanfic to get the full gist of it!
 (God, these were just awful. I think I actually destroyed these in shame. Too-bad I didn't destroy the pictures, too. I think I was going to create a little army of evil toiletbot insecticon drones, somehow meshing Beastmachines, Toiletbot, and the G1 Insecticons into one unhappy mess. After all, when you don't have a filter, the bad ideas get expanded right along with the good ones.)
Thank Primus that 2001 was over. |
 He's big, he's bad, and he's reformatted...Toiletbot has advanced to the Supreme Level! Check out the story and tech of Supreme Toiletbot as he vanquishes his foes for the last time. Speaking of last times, this may be the last time I construct a Toiletbot. The toiletbowl is dry, idea-wise :-) (Yea, I wish. The Toiletbot well never dries up; I was hooked. If I recall, to make fun of a Supreme-class waste such as Cheetor, I made a supreme-class waste of a Toiletbot.
In my defense, the pictures do NOT do it justice. This thing is huge, and cool. He's motion-activated, so he talks and moves when the mood strikes him. Of all the Toiletbots, this one still has a place of honor on the bottom shelf in a dark corner of the basement. I may yet take a better picture and upload it to the site.) |
  Aw, who are we kidding? There's always going to be another Toiletbot! :-) Several, in the case of 2003. The first one comes with his 'Plunger' battle vehicle. Picture a euro-actionmaster exo-suit, and you're on the right track. The second one is a duplicate of the original one from '99, with a 'campaign car' twist :-)
(Great. Just great. Now I'm poking fun of actionmasters. Rumbler doesn't transform, and comes with a vehicle... so this Toiletbot doesn't transform, and comes with a vehicle. Why I felt the need to parody crap with even crappier crap is beyond me, but I enjoyed it tremendously. People just keep egging me on. Apparently, they have great taste...just like me. At least the shiny one is kind of cool. You'll note that Dairycon went thru a shiny phase at this point, too. The ideas stemming from the Toiletbot saga were definately influencing the fine folks helping out with Dairycon, just as Toiletbot was influenced by some sort of shining gundam show. Hmmm...)
These two Toiletbots represented the 5th annviversary of the Toiletbot Saga, and as such, I (finally) decided to give it a bit of a rest. |
|
Yes, we have no banannas today. Most of our creative juices were focused on a completely different Universe. |
 And thus, we come full-circle. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Toiletbot, he was finally, officially, accepted into the Dairycon Universe that he helped spawn. As a convention exclusive, this Toiletbot featured the best of all possible worlds, including articulation, transformation, clever paint and sticker details, as well as scads of accessories, all housed within an attractive Dairycon Exclusive package. There's nothing like bringing your baby home to rest, in style.
Some might realise the ultimate inside joke, that we're poking a bit of fun at Aaron Archer and his universe remold of Hotshot... though I believe our homage character is way better. :-) hehe. |
|
And so, finally, we come to the end of Toiletbot, for myself as well as well as the rest of the Universe. I think he went out with quite a bang. Maybe, just maybe, we'll do a 25th anniversary edition of him. Stay tuned...
 |