Instruction booklet

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All but the smallest Transformers toys come with an instruction booklet telling the consumer exactly how to convert their newly purchased plastic robot from one form to the other. The instructions also list all the toy's accessories and (usually) demonstrate its action features.

Though they are commonly referred to as "booklets" in the fandom, almost without exception they are printed on a folding single sheet of paper.

Generation 1

This is what you wanted. It's definitely not what you got.

The 1984 instruction booklets featured photographs of the actual toy in various stages of transformation. After that, they were replaced by three-tone line art for the duration of the line. The Mini-Vehicles and other similarly small toys had their instructions printed on the back of their packaging card; boxed toys came with booklets.

Generation 1 instruction booklets featured art of the character on their outermost fold. The nature of this art varied widely: sometimes it was a line reproduction of the package art painting, and other times it was a straightforward line drawing of the toy. Sometimes, however, it was a unique composition, showing an articulated interpretation of the toy, or occasionally a different design altogether. These variations appeared with little regard to toy assortment or subline. For example, Snapdragon's instructions feature line art of his toy, while his case-mate, fellow Horrorcon Apeface, has a line version of his box art.

Combiners in Generation 1 had their own separate instruction sheets, printed on a small, heavily-folded sheet of paper. These instructions came with each carded member of the team, and showed how to convert all of them into their combined mode. Boxed team members simply had the same line art printed on the back of their instruction sheet.

Beast era

Beast Wars continued to use line drawings of the toys. The line art is often simplistic and somewhat crude, however, making it hard to follow at times—particularly as the toys became more and more intricate.

Carded toys (Basic and Deluxe) had their instructions printed on the cardback, similar to the smaller toys of Generation 1; boxed toys (Mega and larger) came with a booklet.

Early Beast Machines toys also used toy line art, at about the same level of quality and detail as Beast Wars. Later in the franchise's run, however, the line art was replaced by photographic images of the toys themselves, rendered in white and gray.

Unicron Trilogy

Armada, Energon and Cybertron continued the use of line art, but with much a much greater level of accuracy and detail (ironically, just as the toys became much simpler to transform.) With the corresponding proliferation of electronics during the Armada franchise, much of the instruction sheet was taken up by warnings and legal declarations regarding the batteries.

Pressed for space by the requisite trilingual packaging, even smaller toys like the Mini-Cons and Scout class toys began to get their own instruction sheets.

Cybertron saw a switch from two-sided sheets, to one-sided. The same pattern -- line art, single-sided, booklet for all sizes -- was used for Classics.

Movie

The Movie franchise toys continued to use one-sided sheets with detailed line art, but added photographs of the toy in both modes at the top, superimposed over an image of Earth.

External links

Botch the Crab's Generation 1 instructions archive

FortMax's Instructions Archive