"Zoom Zoom!"
Mega Bloks provided Toyriffic with a set of their
SpongeBob Squarepants Invisible Boatmobile in exchange for a review, and if SpongeBob and Patrick cosplaying as Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy doesn't fit right in to our current Halloween countdown, I don't know what does!
Umm, whose idea was it to let Patrick drive?
Let's face it, the best part of most builds is the minifigures, so let's start with a look at those.
It can be tough posing and photographing at the same time...fortunately, my intern was on hand to help...
First up, the titular Mr. Squarepants himself.
SpongeBob is dressed as his favorite superhero, Mermaid Man. And as far as I know, this set is the only way to get a minifigure of SpongeBob in this disguise.
These minifigures are a bit more complex than your average building-block minifigure. His arms are ball jointed for a bit more articulation, and the figures are not based on one basic body-model, allowing them more cartoon accuracy. It's funny, I'm not a huge fan of the character of SpongeBob (or Patrick either), but I absolutely love everything about Mermaid Man (and Barnacle Boy).
So I love this little guy in spite of myself!
Next up in Patrick as Barnacle Boy. At first I thought that perhaps his hat had not been included in my set, but it is packed in a different bag and I didn't discover it until later on in the build. But as a bonus, his head-tip is included, so you can pose Patrick with or without his Barnacle Boy hat.
And again, I appreciate the fact that these guys aren't based on a standard body model, allowing us the benefit of a minfigure of Patrick with protruding belly!
Patrick looks pretty serious in his Barnacle Boy guise.
He also matches my intern's shirt.
Last, and least - in stature at least - is this great micro-minifigure version of Plankton.
Plankton is extra small (and extra cute) in keeping with his cartoon scale in comparison with his compatriots.
Now on to the build...
the first thing I noticed: the bags are not numbered.
Well, some are numbered, and some aren't. So basically you have to dump all the pieces together in order to put the set together, making for quite the pile. In addition, most of the pieces are 'clear', making for difficulty in distinction. I put them all in a black pan so they would stand out against the dark color and be more easy to identify. You could start by dividing the clear and colored pieces out at least, as they don't cross-pollinate.
At least the instructions are easy to follow.
The Invisible Boatmobile is a surprisingly complex build, but that's probably due to the fact that all the pieces look almost exactly the same. And it's mostly made up of flat pieces; one would have expected more 'bricks', but perhaps they didn't give the desired finished effect with the 'clear' plastic make-up of the vehicle.
There are a lot of surprising details considering it's an 'invisible' car, and as far as I am aware has never before been shown in any physical form. Since on the cartoon, well, it's invisible.
Jet turbine engines in the back...
And a sweet 50s style grille and dual headlights up front!
Even the wheels and tires are made of translucent plastic.
The Invisible Boatmobile really is a nice vehicle and totally worth the price of admission!
Patrick and SpongeBob fit nicely inside (and upon) the Boatmobile. I really hope this line is successful enough to spawn an actual Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy minifigure - they need their Boatmobile back!
The Boatmobile has a net to catch and rescue jellyfish that are being flung by Plankton's garbage truck. The netting and jellyfish are made of sticky soft rubber (remember those wall crawling octopi of our youth? Think those) and the jellyfish stick well in the net when flung into it.
The Boatmobile was the big sell for me, but I suppose we should look at Plankton's garbage truck too.
Plankton's truck is a bit easier to build than the Boatmobile, perhaps due to the multiple colors. It comes with a 'scoop' to fling jellyfish up into the air (for SpongeBob to rescue, natch!)
As a classically trained animator, appreciator of toys and lover of the absurd, the Invisible Boatmobile with SpongeBob as Mermaid Man and Patrick as Barnacle Boy are all the major selling points of this set for me. And I can say they really deliver. I'm going to be keeping them on display on my desk at work for the forseeable future (and hoping for a Mermaid Man/Barnacle Boy proper minifigure set in the future!)
But my intern...well she's just a kid. So she likes the sticky jellyfish and the garbage truck flinging/catching feature:
Yes, she's wearing a different shirt. It took me longer than I expected to build that silly Boatmobile, so I had to span the photoshoot over two days! I considered faking you out and having her wear the same shirt again, but if there's one thing you can count on from Toyriffic, it's honesty!
Oh yeah, the set also included a couple 'sea-flower' builds and a 'jellyfish fields' sign - all ripe for the flinging! Mwuahahahahaaaaa!
I tell ya' it's tough to photograph toys around here, with all those grabby hands wandering about!
GRAB!
"Time to take out the trash!"
Plankton's truck's fling-arm is a serious a hit.
"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that...
...FLING!"