Don't eat the ones that turn into food, or you'll get botbotulism!
Transformers: BotBots is a toyline released in late 2018, involving small, cartoony, super deformed robot characters who transform into mundane items. These 1-inch tall soft-plastic bots are marketed in the same style as the insanely popular Shopkins toys and other collectible mini-toys.
In the universe of the BotBots, a mysterious cloud of energon gas drifted through a shopping mall, bringing tools, electronics, and even food to life as tiny transforming robots. By day they hide, and by night, mischief aplenty.
One stormy night at a mall nearby, energon power fell from the sky. It hit the mall with it's powerful might, and gave everyday objects robot life!official synoposis
Each BotBot is a tiny, roughly-1-inch tall PVC-plastic toy that converts from a robot into... something else... in a few short, simple steps. Each character belongs to a themed team depending on the "store" their alternate mode is found in, though the individual members of the team are spread out among a lot of packages:
5-Packs with two Bots from the pack's theme team, two Bots from two other teams, and an additional blind-packed (but not random) "Lost Bot"
8-Packs with two Bots from the pack's theme team, five Bots from five other teams, and an additional blind-packed (but not random) "Lost Bot"
Naturally, there is a ton of overlap, with many figures available in multiple different packs. These redundant Bots are meant to encourage trading among the kids.
The blind-packed portions are opened by pulling up a tearable flap on the back of the card, revealing a perforated paper layer. The instructions say to then push the red bubble with both thumbs to pop the Bot out through the paper, but you can just tear the paper and pull it out too.
The singles do have individual ID codes that allow you to tell what toy is inside, lightly embossed on the back of the card on the bottom-right, near the pull-up flap. Strangely, the code numbers have a hand-etched appearance rather than looking as thought they have been machine-applied. There are, however, more clearly stamped-on ID codes located under the pull-up flap, though doing so will probably get you in trouble if done in-store.
Toys
As each individual toy can appear in multiple multi-packs, this section is... a little more complicated than most. For each Series, we'll first list a complete roster of characters, broken down by their "tribes", then a listing of the individual packages and their contents.
Single-pack bots are listed with their ID numbers. Bots in italics are found only in that pack/assortment. Entries highlighted in green are "recommended" buys, minimizing the number of sets to buy to complete a Series.
Blind Bag Mystery Figures
Batsby (#23)
Cocoa Crazy (#4)
Cranks (#22)
Dimlit (#18)
Fomo (#8)
Frostferatu (#17)
Fun Gus (#15)
Kidd Klobber (#24)
Nobeeoh (#3)
Professor Wellread (#19)
Remorsel (#6)
Rootwing (#13)
S'up Dawg (#10)
S.A. Cheez (#9)
Sergeant Scrubadub (#2)
Sippy Slurps (#5)
Skillz Punk (#7)
Slobber Rock (#16)
Snippy Snappy (#20)
Spud Muffin (#12)
Stinkosaurus Rex (#1)
Totes Magotes (#21)
Twerple Burple (#11)
Venus Frogtrap (#14)
Series 1 Blind Bag Mystery FigureSeries 1 5-pack samplesSeries 1 8-pack samples
Batsby, Fit Ness Monster, Hawt Diggity, King Toots, Major Lee Screwge, Slappyhappy, Sprinkleberry D'uhnut, Game Over (Lost Bot)
Jock Squad (8-pack #4)
Fit Ness Monster, Fottle Barts, Goob Toob, Grit Sandwood, Laceface, Nrjeez, Point Dexter, Clogstopper (Lost Bot)
You only need to buy one of the Jock Squad packs with Grit Sandwood in them. Everyone else in either pack is a duplicate found in other "recommended" packs, so pick the set whose extras make you happier.
Series "1.5"
This series features special "color change" BotBots with heat-sensitive paint, revealing splotches when warmed up. It appears to be an "add-on" to Series 1, and includes a modified Series 1 checklist.
Single-pack bots are listed with their ID numbers. Bots in italics are found only in that pack/assortment. Entries highlighted in green are "recommended" buys, minimizing the number of sets to buy to complete a Series.
Blind Bag Mystery Figures
Atomic Freeze (#14)
Captain Swoon (#2)
The Detangler (#3)
Dumbeats (#15)
Frizzle Fry (#18)
Glitchface (#7)
Grumpy Clumpy (#13)
Hamurai (#22)
Ice Sight (#6)
The In-Sole (#24)
Javasaurus Rex (#21)
King Candyhooves (#4)
Must Turd (#9)
Ollie Bite (#17)
Over Pack (#23)
PB Junior (#8)
Pink Key Pop (#16)
Sandy Man (#10)
Sippyberry (#1)
Sir Botcha (#19)
Songwave (#12)
Technotic Sonic (#20)
Tropic Guzzlerush (#11)
TV Cop (#5)
Multipacks
Backpack Bunch (5-pack #1)
Bogus Pocus, Hashtagz, Nope Soap, Short Edge, Love Struck (Lost Bot)
Backpack Bunch (5-pack #2)
Bottocorrect, Clixx, Pink Key Pop, Steve From Accounting, Sprinkleberry Duh'Ball (Lost Bot)
The instruction leaflets (as well as the official BotBots website) provide all of the individual BotBot characters with a "Level" of between one and three stars. This corresponds to the illustrated checklist (included in every BotBots package), depicting the BotBots within a shopping mall. To make each BotBot easier to find on the checklist, the one-starred BotBots are on the ground floor, the two-starred BotBots are on the second tier, and the three-starred BotBots are on the top floor. The star rating appears to have no other purpose, and is not an indicator of rarity.
Promotional material for Series 1 shows two Bots who are not actually in Series 1, a baseball and a soccer ball.[2] Both were moved to later Series.
All of the characters introduced thus far are entirely new, separate from any traditional "Generation 1" characters: a rarity in today's Transformers toy market.
On that note, many characters have Autobot symbols on them, plus one Decepticon symbol. However, it does not appear that this is meant to indicate factional allegiance... but in-universe marketing. Absolutely no mention of the Autobots, Decepticons, Cybertron, or the like is made in the promotional materials, only "energon". Skillz Punk has both faction symbols on him, in the context of being a cartridge for an "Autobots vs Decepticons" video game. It looks like in this universe, "Autobots" and "Decepticons" are... well, intellectual property used to advertise products. Meta!
