Animated Wreck-Gar

Series: Animated
Allegiance: Autobot
Categories: Voyager
Year: 2009

Anything I can do to help?
Wreck-Gar means well. All he really wants to do is help folks in need. Unfortunately, he's a terrible judge of character, and happily helps anyone who asks without thinking about what he's doing. He has accidentally robbed a few banks and blasted an Autobot here and there. His Spark is in the right place anyway. Now that he's clear on the difference between the Autobots and the Decepticons, misunderstandings like this should happen less often.

Robot Mode: Wreck-Gar looks fabulous in robot mode. Probably the most cartoony-looking 'bot in the Animated series yet, but it suits him. The resemblance to G1 Wreck-Gar isn't great, but it's there. Actually Animated Wreck-Gar resembles the G1 cartoon character Wreck-Gar a lot more than he does the G1 toy, but that's to be expected.

I especially like Wreck-Gar's head. It's a work of cartoony art. The mustache, the easy smile, and the fact that the head is actually a TV set, complete with the dials beside his face, everything just comes together nicely. The rest of the figure looks good, too, even though I could have done with a tad more detailing. Not a big thing, though. Speaking of big things, Wreck-Gar carries a huge rucksack. It's actually his vehicle mode, truth be told, seeing as Wreck-Gar doesn't so much transform as curl up inside the big vehicle shell on his back. If you unfold it, it looks as if he's got a garbage truck stuck to his butt (see this picture here). It doesn't bother me, but I know some people don't particularly like shell-formers, so I mentioned it. The big rucksack does make Wreck-Gar a bit prone to toppling over backwards, but he's posable enough to compensate and if all else fails you can use the two fork lifts on the back as additional stabilizers.

The only thing that does bother me a little bit is that Wreck-Gar doesn't have any accessories. In the cartoon he pulled all sorts of stuff out of his rucksack. They could at least have given him a vacuum cleaner or something. I took pity on Wreck-Gar and got him the rake you can see in the pictures (as well as some other accessories by now) as a welcoming present. What he does have are two blade weapons he can put on his forearms, either separately or combined into a bigger blade. The blades look cool and can be stored in the big rucksack, but I still would have preferred a vacuum cleaner.

All in all Wreck-Gar makes for a very dashing and funny-looking robot that you simply can't help but fall in love with. Some tiny things could have been done better, yes, but the bottom line is: I love Wreck-Gar.

Alternate Mode: I usually hate garbage trucks. Not because of the garbage, but because they are inevitably in front of my car during rush hour traffic, driving at a snail's pace and stopping every twenty meters to pick up trash that, apparently, couldn't wait to be picked up until after rush hour is over. It's how it goes.

Wreck-Gar transforms into - or rather, curls up inside - a garbage truck. It's the kind of garbage truck I've only ever seen in American movies, with the big fork lifts that pick up the big trash containers. I don't think we have this kind of garbage truck here in Germany, but whatever. The truck could have done with a bit more detailing, as it does look pretty plain, but apart from that there isn't a whole lot to complain about here. The truck looks wholesome, there is no trace of the robot mode to be seen, and the fork lift works just fine.

Not a whole lot more I can write here, I'm afraid. A solid, no-nonsense vehicle mode that could have done with a bit more details.

Remarks: Wreck-Gar has but a single appearance in Animated to his credit, but it was one of the funniest Transformers episodes of all time in my opinion. Brought to life by a shard of the AllSpark, Wreck-Gar was a newborn Transformer looking for an identity and leaving chaos in his wake. He helped the Angry Archer rob a bank, then tried to apprehend him, tried to save Decepticon Lugnut by unscrewing his tail section and got in an argument with Ratchet where the grumpy old Autobot actually ended up apologizing. Wreck-Gar finally found his identity as a hero and saved Detroit from a mutated batch of nanobots, but ended up at the bottom of the river for his troubles. Wreck-Gar was voiced by none other than Weird Al Yankovic, who performed the song "Dare to be Stupid" for the 1986 Transformers Movie, which played during the original Wreck-Gar's first appearance.

The Wreck-Gar toy is a must-have in my opinion. That's all there is to it. Okay, the vehicle mode is a bit boring, but the robot mode looks just fabulous and I simply love Wreck-Gar. He dares to be stupid. He's only good for one thing: GARBAGE! And he makes a great odd couple together with Pixar's Wall-E. So really, go and buy him! Now. Get to it! Go!

Rating: A-