Discontinued? What do you mean I'm being discontinued?

The Transformers: The Movie 35th Anniversary Stop Motions »
"Discontinued? What do you mean I'm being discontinued?"
Airdate	September 26, 2021
Writers	Flint Dille Joe Troutman
Animation studio	Counter656
Watch this episode on YouTube

Jazz attempts to bargain his way out of being killed off in The Transformers: The Movie.

Synopsis

As Blurr runs about adjusting the lighting and sound equipment, Jazz sits on a green screen stage in vehicle mode, singing softly to a strumming guitar. Off screen, the director asks if Jazz is OK. Sighing, Jazz transforms back to robot mode, still looking morose. When the audio tech expresses issues getting an audio level from Jazz due to his mood, the director pointedly replies "He read the script". An upset Jazz then asks why he's being killed off, but the director replies he's being discontinued, admitting the same is happening to the likes of Optimus and Starscream as well. An enthusiastic Blurr agrees, pointing out how important new releases are. Dejected, Jazz asks if they can't kill off the annoying characters like Prowl instead, or let him survive after being eaten like Bumblebee and Spike, to no avail. Finally Jazz offers to do a song, pulling out a chair and guitar, and starts playing "The Touch". The director loves it and says he'll talk to the producers.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Others
Jazz (1) Blurr (2) Wheelie (5) Optimus Prime (6) Prowl (8)	Starscream (7)	Director (3) Audio tech (4)

Quotes

"Ah, you've...been discontinued Jazz. Oh it's happening a lot in Transformers the Movie".

—The director gives a childhood-scarring understatement.

"That's right, that's right, you got that right, we got to get everything old out, oh everything new has got to be in, we've got new seasons, new toys, new everything, everyone's going to keep buying new stuff, if you don't have new stuff nobody is going to be buying anything and then we're really going to be screwed."

—Blurr is all for out with the old and in with the new.

Notes

• This short played in theaters before the 35th anniversary screenings of The Transformers: The Movie on September 26 and September 28, 2021. It was later uploaded to the Hasbro Pulse YouTube channel on November 9 of the same year.
• The quiet singing at the beginning of the short was performed by writer Flint Dille.
• Both the director and Blurr have the "to sell toys" approach Hasbro took with the movie, wanting to push out older discontinued characters for newer toys.
• A full acoustic version of "The Touch" is included in the 35th anniversary DVD release of The Transformers: The Movie. This seems to be a different version of the one performed in the short.
• Stan Bush, who provided the voice for Jazz in the short, was the original songwriter and performer of "The Touch" for the 1986 movie.
• Jazz did indeed survive the events of The Transformers: The Movie... but went on to make only limited appearances in the third season of the cartoon. His lack of appearances is generally—and incorrectly—attributed to the death of his voice actor, Scatman Crothers. (Incidentally, Crothers was also known to play guitar to entertain his fellow voice performers in the long waiting times between recording sessions.)

Transformers references

• Jazz also names Bluestreak and Gears as other possible annoying characters to kill off instead.
• While Jazz didn't actually die in The Transformers: The Movie, Prowl did. Apparently, "The Touch" was so powerful it both saved Jazz and got Prowl killed instead.

Continuity errors

• Yes, yes, it's a tongue-in-cheek stop motion short making light of which characters were written out by the movie... but it should be noted that Starscream's toy was not discontinued at this time, necessitating further advertisement spotlight appearances in the post-movie episodes "Starscream's Ghost" and "Ghost in the Machine".