Name: Tantrum
Series: Generation 1
Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Fueller
Alternate Mode: Bull
BULL MODE
Height: 11cm Length: 13cm Width: 9cm
An orange bull with red legs, Tantrum has a red head with giant black horns made of soft plastic and he has grey shoulder and hip pads. Before I go any further I feel it's worth mentioning that bulls are _not_ predatory animals, they're aggressive, territorial herbivores. This particular bull has yellow eyes and a fair bit of silver by virtue of stickers on the main body and neck, but has no tail. Overall, this is a pretty dull colour scheme. It's not really bad, but it's very uninspiring. It fits in with Predaking's colours, so I'm happy.
It's a reasonable bull mode, in terms of shape. The legs are completely vertical underneath his body, in a similar fashion to Predaking's other leg, Headstrong, and while the legs on Headstrong don't quite work right, they suit a bull perfectly. The body itself is a little too blocky, with a bad rump, there are gaps where the robot feet fold in, and the tail is conspicuous by it's absence, as mentioned previously.
There is next to no poseability here - the head can rotate around, and fold to look down, although that causes it to detach, which looks pretty weird. You can attach the Predaking footpad on top of this bull, giving him an attack mode. The rubsign is in the middle of his back, on a red panel, and in front of this panel is a silver sticker that features a Decepticon logo.
The shape is okay, the colours dull and there's no real play value - it's not a bad mode, but Tantrum's bull mode just isn't exciting. It is the better of his two modes, though.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Extend the rear to form the robot legs, swing the rear bull legs inside the robot legs. By the way, getting these out can be a pain, since the tags on the hooves are really small and they're obstructed. Fold the front legs up, stand up the robot, rotate the head. The red panel on his waist (the one with the rubsign) flips up to become his chest. Lastly, the grey shoulderpads to become the robot arms.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 18cm Width: 9cm
Again largely orange and red, Tantrum's robot mode has more black than the bull mode, thanks to the now extended robot mode legs, which are entirely black. The chestplate and feet are red, as is the head, which has a yellow face. The upper arms are black, the forearms and ankles are grey. This is a somewhat ugly robot colour scheme - the four colours almost work, but the big grey forearms are too incongruous for me.
He has a Decepticon logo on his chestplate - if it stays up. The hinge is on the bottom, and if it's at all loose it flops down to sort of hang there. While this looks bad, the waist itself looks weird anyway so it's almost a moot point.
The face is sort of buried inside a hood formed from the beast's head, which is fine except for there being a block between the chin and shoulders - this is a shame since the facial sculpt is actually fairly good.
Tantrum's arms are the worst feature of this robot mode, which you've probably noticed is not one I'm that fond of. They attach below the level of his shoulderblades, and the forearms are way too bulky for the upper arms, being the bull's shoulderpads. Thanks to his wide hips, he can't actually rest these arms at his sides, so they hang out and down by his sides, meaning his hands are highlighted - and this is not a good thing.
The poseability is probably the best feature of this robot mode. His head turns (right around), the shoulders rotate right around and have ratcheting hinges that allow him to lift his arms up to the sides. His elbow have similar hinges, so he can put his hands on his hips if you want.
This is a bad robot mode. The big gap between his chin and shoulders, the badly formed arms, the chestplate that falls down, the off-kilter colour scheme all contribute a bad robot mode. The poseability is okay, but it's nowhere near enough to save Tantrum's robot mode.
VARIATIONS
There's a plastic chest version and a rarer metal chest version. Tantrum's shoulders and groin are die cast on the metal version.
OVERALL
The worst of the Predacons, Tantrum has an okay bull mode (even if they are herbivorous animals), but the robot mode is a bit of a disaster, frankly. I really wouldn't recommend him on his own, but you need him for Predaking - and the fact that he teams up to form Predaking is really the best thing this disappointing toy has in his favour - 5/10
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