 Meteorbs Dinosorb
Formerly a BanDai toy
Masters of the Universe Meteorbs
Item No.: 1411
Manufacturer: Mattel
Includes: n/a
Action Feature: Turns into an egg
Retail: Under $5
Availability: 1987
Other: Knocked-off to death, originally a BanDai Tamagoras toy
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While Mattel did lose their mojo in the boy's toy world as the 1980s went on, their Meteorbs Dinosorb proved they were, at least, paying attention. Hasbro made huge money by licensing Japanese transforming robot toys, so Mattel did the same by latching on to BanDai's Tamagoras, rebranding them as Masters of the Universe Meteorbs. A portmanteau of "meteor" and "orb," the toys all had effectively the same egg-shaped alt mode. Dinosorb's purple egg has some scaley cracks in it, and measures about 2-inches long.
There's not a lot to the alt mode-- if anything, it's pretty dull. It's a clever reuse of a single form factor, though, because those who like collecting this sort of thing may enjoy having a small army of hairy, scaley, or rocky eggs with monsters or robots inside them.
Transformation is pretty simple, in that you split the orb down the middle-- the seam is obvious-- and rotate out the head, tail, and legs. That's really all there is to it. Like most 1980s transforming toys, conversion should be achieved in seconds, not minutes, and a manual is rarely required. Unless you're stupid. Are you stupid?
If you like your toy dinosaurs fat, this is a chubby little guy. Essentially some variant on the Apatosaurus, the toy has a jointed neck and jointed knees in addition to movement at the hips, lower neck, and tail. It's not going to assume any crazy poses, but there are enough moving parts where it doesn't feel supremely cheap. It doesn't have anything in the way of gear, so on the whole what you see is what you get. Yours might be better though, this is the one I had as a kid and as you can see there is some paint wear in spots due to his time in my toy boxes from before I got to be careful about these things.
Notes and knock-offs: A number of companies have tried to knock-off the original toy, which was a BanDai product. I've seen numerous products molded in purple or other colors over the years which all seem like unlicensed remakes with more brittle plastic. It can be hard to identify the original, but the easiest thing to do is look for purple paint topping the purple molded toy. It also says Macau 1986 on the inside of the egg.
--Adam Pawlus
Additional Images
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