Auto-Bop

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Go ahead and mock '80s clothing, but in thirty years, they'll be mocking what we wear.
"Auto-Bop"
Production code	700-51
Season	2
No. in season	36
Production company	Sunbow Productions
Airdate	November 13, 1985
Written by	David Wise
Animation studio	Toei
Continuity	Generation 1 cartoon continuity
Watch this episode on YouTube

Tracks and Blaster uncover a hypnosis plot. A funky hypnosis plot.

Synopsis

Just the usual Manhattan commuter crowd.

Raoul and his friends Poplock and Rocksteady are trying to make some spare cash, breakdancing on the sidewalks of New York City. Unfortunately, the management of the Dancitron nightclub doesn't like competition, and sends a mob after them. The trio grab their tape deck and flee, riding a wheeled dumpster until it's brought to a sudden halt. They're soon surrounded by armed thugs, but luckily Tracks and Blaster are in the city, and come to the trio's aid. While fighting the thugs off, Tracks is surprised to notice one of them is a man in a business suit.

Raoul introduces the rest of the Bop Crew to the two Autobots, who say they're monitoring Decepticon activity, and now suspect there's something strange going on at the Dancitron. The pair enter the club and admire the immense sound system. Soon Blaster is dancing with an apparently blissed-out patron, while Tracks notes a number of oddly-dressed dancers—a garbage man, a middle-aged woman in a bathrobe and curlers, and a man dressed to the nines. In an upstairs booth, Starscream and Soundwave observe the two Autobots.

Mind the paint job.

Meanwhile, the Bop Crew are taking an elevated subway train when it unexpectedly begins gathering speed. The driver, entering a hypnotised state, pulls the accelerator lever to full and smashes the control panel with an iron bar. Raoul pulls the emergency cord until it breaks, but the brakes are ineffective at stopping the train. Fortunately Tracks and Blaster happen to be walking nearby, and are able to halt the train. They find the sabotaged control panel, however the driver has already fled.

Tracks sends Blaster, Poplock and Rocksteady to check with Teletraan I while he and Raoul go to check out the Dancitron again. On the way, the pair spot an active building site—somewhat of an odd sight at 1am, and even odder when they notice the workers are more inappropriately-dressed people, including some of those previously seen at the Dancitron. They're quickly spotted by the workers, and Tracks drags the gate shut to prevent the humans from attacking them, though that doesn't stop a workman on the building itself from firing red-hot rivets at them.

Passion of the Chrysler.
Alternate joke: Radio killed the video star.

Poplock and Rocksteady are offered free tickets into the Dancitron and eagerly accept, believing they'll be able to investigate on their own. The duo enter the club and are soon hypnotised by the music. Arriving at the club, Tracks leaves Raoul outside and encounters the boy's two friends inside. They lead him to two Decepticons, who use the club's hypnotized patrons to ensnare him and bind him to the club's sound system. Starscream reports to Megatron that the building construction is on schedule.

Having consulted Teletraan I, Blaster arrives at the Dancitron to find Raoul waiting outside. The pair enter to find Tracks, with Blaster tracking an ultrasound signal. Raoul encounters his two friends and, remembering Blaster's warning about the hypnotic sound, plugs his ears with a paper napkin. They chase him, and he soon finds Tracks, but is overwhelmed by the hypnotized dancers. As he soon discovers, the hypnosis can be broken by simply getting the victim wet, so he triggers the club's sprinkler systems, freeing the patrons from their trance. The Bop Crew swiftly frees Tracks and they pursue Starscream.

Soundwave and Blaster in a two-bot reenactment of You Got Served.

Blaster squares off with Soundwave at the club in a sonic "battle of the boom boxes"; the two are nearly evenly matched, until Blaster uses the club's sound system to amplify his abilities and drive Soundwave off. Tracks engineers a rain cloud which de-hypnotises the humans working at the building site. This also flushes out Starscream, who chases Tracks. The Autobot flies through the partially completed building, and the larger Decepticon damages his wing trying to follow, forcing him to retreat. Blaster arrives and uses the Dancitron speakers to bring down the building.

Tracks offers grateful thanks to Raoul and his buddies for saving his life, saying that if there's anything he can do for them... and it turns out there is. The trio lost their radio in all the chaos, and until they earn enough street cash to get a new one, poor Blaster will make an ideal replacement.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans
Tracks (5) Blaster (6) Teletraan I (10)	Starscream (8) Soundwave (9) Megatron (11)	Raoul (1) Poplock (2) Rocksteady (3) Furg (4) Stylish man (7)

Quotes

"I've got to french-fry your circuits."

—Raoul shows his gratefulness to Blaster

"And did you notice that there was a business man in that crew?"

—Tracks objects to an impostor's blatant bucking of Dancitron's dress code.

"That's what I call a riveting experience!"
"I don't know why I hang out with you, man."

—Tracks makes a terrible pun after being shot at by a guy with a rivet gun, and Raoul calls him out on it.

"Foo on this jive! My main machine's in trouble!"

—Raoul

"I've been waiting a long time for this, you poor excuse for a sound system."
"All talk...no shock."

—Blaster and Soundwave begin their sonic duel.

"Yo, the dude's gone crazy!"
"Yeah... like a fox!"

—Poplock and Tracks.

"I'd say your nightclub just went out of style."

—Blaster, having just annihilated Dancitron

Notes

Production information

• First draft script submitted: 31st May 1985

Continuity notes

• This episode is one of four pre-movie episodes to not feature Optimus Prime.
• Gadgets and Powers:
  • Blaster uses his electro-scrambler to disable the Dancitron thugs' guns.
  • Tracks has a grappling hook in his vehicle mode hood, and a laser which he uses to blast a hole in the wall of the Dancitron.
  • Tracks can place a passenger inside his chest in robot mode.
  • The back of Blaster's cassette cover functions as a monitor for his ultra-sound detector.
  • Tracks "seeds" clouds (using some kind of special smoke) to make it rain.
  • When leaving the building site to head to the Dancitron, Tracks inserts Raoul into his chest before transforming to vehicle mode. Weird.
• This episode features the second of only two instances in the series in which Soundwave laughs. The first was in "Quest for Survival". It is possibly the scariest thing ever.
• The location the Autobots are using as a base has "SPARKPLUGS" over the door, though it's different from Sparkplug's shop in "Make Tracks".

Real-world references

Hit me with those laser beams!

Punk is nothing but death... And crime... And the RAGE of a beast!

• The episode in general features then-relevant (or slightly past-relevant) cultural touchstones - breakdancing, mohawks, spiked clothing and other outlandish outfits, and the paranoia over subliminal messages hidden in popular music. There's even a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to the "RELAX" T-shirts common at the time, which were contemporary pieces of merchandise for British band Frankie Goes to Hollywood, based on their 1983 hit song "Relax". (The full text on the real-life shirts was actually "FRANKIE SAY RELAX DON'T DO IT".) As as matter of fact, David Wise's original script explicitly asked for a "white t-shirt with the word 'RELAX' in bold black letters", but then the animators went more creative and made the smiliarities to the genuine article less overt by changing the colors, dropping the bold text and adding a burst effect around the text.
• When confronted by the gang of thugs employed by Dancitron, Raoul suggests they "pull a Michael Jackson" and Beat It.
• While fleeing from the thugs, Raoul wishes their blaster (boom box) was "THE Blaster". Rocksteady retorts that Raoul "knows the Autobots like I know Prince".
• When first meeting Blaster and Tracks, Rocksteady responds to Blaster's implication of trouble-making with "Hey! We were just breakin' in front of the Dancitron (shifts from two open palms and a shrug to one thumb extended pointing behind him) and these Road Warrior rejects tried to bounce us out."
• Tracks references real-life fashion magazine GQ.
• The sound effect of the DJ booth door opening and closing is the door sound effect from Star Trek. This occurs in plenty of other episodes, along with other Star Trek sound effects (phasers, photon torpedoes...).
• Star Wars sound effects:
  • Millennium Falcon engine burst as Tracks pursues Starscream, followed by some TIE Fighter roar. Starscream gets the trench run targeting-sequence noise just before he crashes.

Animation and technical errors

Well, he did say he wanted to pull a Michael Jackson.

• In the title card, the "O" in "Auto" appears noticably thinner than the one written in "Bop", suggesting the number "0" was actually used instead.
• In this episode, Raoul's skin color is colored lighter than for his last appearance in "Make Tracks". In fact, even though his character model is consistent with his last appearance, down to the clothes, nearly all his colours are off (black instead of brown jacket etc.).
• Despite Rocksteady breakdancing and being thrown around quite a lot, his hat always remains firmly on his head.
• Throughout the episode, when people run, it sounds like they're wearing tapdancing shoes (over-exaggerated sound effect).
• "Let's beat it!" - Raoul is supposed to be saying it, but Rocksteady mouths the words.
• Before the Bop Crew jump onto the dumpster, it's standing against a wall, but shifts out into the middle of the sidewalk as they jump onto it.
• Coloring errors:
  • As the thugs first start firing at Blaster, the edges of his helmet are white instead of red.
  • As Tracks says "Mellow kind of place", the edges of Blaster's helmet are white again.
  • After that one fellow leaves the bar to ask Tracks a question, his colors completely change between shots. (See above, to the right.) Not only that, his voice changes as well!
  • Shortly after Tracks notices the out-of-place people, there's a shot of Blaster and Tracks walking — Tracks's Autobot insignia is outlined in white instead of black, and Blaster's insignia blinks out of existence every few frames.
  • In the first shot of Soundwave, his faceplate is dark grey, and his eject button is blue. Then it pans over to Starscream, who has a dark grey face.
  • As Blaster says he didn't spy anything unusual at the club, his forehead is red instead of white, and Tracks's wings are missing. The same two errors occur in the next shot but one.
  • When Tracks looks up at the subway train, his hood is gray instead of blue.
  • When the two Autobots open the door of the train to see the Bop Crew, Tracks's helmet is mostly blue instead of white.
  • When Raoul enters Tracks after the train incident, Tracks' interior is glowing the same yellow as his windows (and the seat gets cut off in a yellow stripe as Raoul sits).
  • Tracks's wings are blue when he flips them out to take off after he and Raoul leave the building site.
  • When Starscream contacts Megatron, Megatron's insignia is red instead of purple.
  • Tracks has grey wings, both when the door to the DJ booth opens and as Starscream gloats he'll never get out of the club alive.
  • Soundwave's faceplate is oddly shaped, his eyeband is colored white, and his eject button is blue as he announces he's ready for the ultra-sound transmission.
  • Directly after Soundwave jumps through the DJ booth window, the right-hand edge of Blaster's helmet is white, and his forehead is red.
  • A moment later, the sides of Soundwave's head are blue instead of white, as he reels from Blaster's first attack.
  • The sides of Soundwave's head are blue again when he's sent flying from Blaster's attack with the sound system speakers, and his eject button is blue again a moment later, when he stands up in the rubble.
  • During a shot of Tracks flying through a building, his wings are blue. This shot is followed by one of Starscream colored as Ramjet.

This scene was actually filmed while Blaster was pregnant with Eject and Rewind. That's his baby bump!

• When the first thug shoots at Blaster, a layering problem causes the blasts to pass by in front of the thug in the foreground, making him appear huge.
• As Blaster aims his electro-scrambler, he looks a little... fat.
• As the gangsters retreat, both Blaster and Tracks are shown firing the electro-scrambler wave effect.
• Raoul is missing a row of studs on the left-hand side of his jacket when he claims he had things under control.
• When Raoul introduces Poplock and Rocksteady, they're both suddenly at least a head shorter than him.
• Every shot of the train interior shows it devoid of passengers other than the Bop Crew, but a repeated exterior shot shows panicked people climbing out the windows. The shot is edited in a bit early the first time it's used, before it's clear that the whole train is panicking.
• Blaster walks along Tracks's grappling line a couple of steps too far, and appears to be walking on the side of the train.
• The location names on the side of the train change configuration between shots.
• As Tracks stands up after they halt the train, a cel ordering error results in the windows on the rear of the train appearing on top of him.

Ah crap, he deflated.

• The bouncer appears to halve in body weight when Tracks picks him up.
• After Tracks climbs up onto a catwalk, the shots of hypnotized club patrons approaching him from either side are the same shot, just mirrored.
• There's not a soul outside the club when Blaster arrives, not even the doorman.
• When Blaster enters the club, in a couple of frames the chest portion of a female dancer's costume flashes flesh-colored.
• When Raoul attempts to free Tracks, the club patrons go into their zombie hypnotized state again. This is the same shot repeated from when the same thing happened earlier, only mirrored.
• Starscream's gunfire doesn't get the standard Decepticon laser sound.
• Starscream's mouth is missing as he indignantly shouts "What?!"
• Right before Starscream jumps through the window, an exterior shot of the Dancitron (with motionless identically-dressed couples leading in a line out of it) can be seen through it, before panning swiftly to the right. As this is supposed to be an exterior window of the Dancitron itself... this shot doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
• After Tracks blasts a hole in the wall, the cels aren't properly aligned, so he appears to drive through a point in the wall slightly to the side of the hole.
• After Tracks causes rain to wake up a variety of distinctively dressed hypnotized humans at the building site, there's a shot of dozens of men fleeing it, all clad in identical construction worker outfits.
• Tracks' bumper gun sounds like Optimus' rifle.
• As Soundwave laughs, the walking animation makes him appear to be moonwalking forwards.
• After Soundwave knocks Blaster into the Dancitron sound system, Blaster sits up, and the piece of debris behind him winks out of existence.
• When Tracks shoots the half-constructed building, the flames wash across the ground about a foot too high.
• The pattern of creases in the Bop Crew's dance mat varies depending on the angle.
• The crowd gathered to watch Poplock and Rocksteady breakdance are completely motionless, despite some of them being in running poses (and check out the oddly "Old West" dressed people by the coffee shop!)

Rhino DVD release

The Kid Rhino release of this episode, which uses the original pre-broadcast film print, features a small series of potentially seizure-inducing flashes as Blaster scans for the ultrasound signal in the Dancitron nightclub. These flashes were removed for the original broadcast version of the episode. This short sequence was not replaced with the as-broadcast footage for the Shout! Factory DVD release.

Continuity errors

• Rocksteady takes off his jacket in order to breakdance, but somehow is suddenly wearing it again when Raoul announces they should beat it.

• Tracks and Blaster actually open fire on humans! Isn't that supposed to be a don't-do-that kind of thing for the Autobots?

• Apparently there are still people who don't know about the Autobots, as that one fellow in the club appears to think that Tracks and Blaster are ordinary (gigantic!) humans wearing elaborate costumes.
• Blaster stops the subway train by disabling "the engine", but... subways don't have engines, neither in the "motor" or "locomotive" sense of the word.
• Presumably the train which the Bop Crew were riding on was heading away from the Dancitron, and at high speed. Yet Tracks and Blaster just happen to be walking in exactly the right place to see it speeding along when they were in the club the last time we saw them.
• How did Poplock and Rocksteady get to the Dancitron ahead of Raoul and Tracks, who were driving? The scuffle at the building site didn't hold Tracks up that long.
• At one point, the show does a flashback to a warning that Blaster gave Raoul less than a minute earlier. Just to make sure nobody forgot.
• Superhuman Spikehumans:
  • Superconductor: the subway train driver pulls a grab bar right off the wall of the train's cab!
  • The hypnotized humans are somehow able to throw Tracks off the catwalk.
• Blaster reacts with surprise to Soundwave's revelation that his 'accomplice' is right behind him, but the animation makes it rather unclear that Starscream is supposed to be hiding from him as he walks in.
• One major plot point is that Tracks realises that there's something wrong when he notices middle-aged housewives and fancy-dressed people at the club, but as the Decepticons are hypnotising people with the music at the club, how did those people get there in the first place in order to be hypnotised?
• It is never established within the episode itself just what the Decepticons are trying to accomplish with their hypnotize-people-to-construct-a-building plot. However, according to the official Sunbow synopsis included in Metrodome's DVD release: "... the boys and the Autobots pursue Starscream to the skyscraper—a new Decepticon headquarters being constructed by the hypnotized patrons from Dancitron." Oh. Well then.
• It's also never explained what Starscream's objection to the Bop Crew was in the first place that warranted the attention-attracting bouncer-thugs. He even remarks that he has "those kids to deal with first," even after they'd already left, somehow necessitating attempting to kill them on the subway.
• Based on Starscream's conversation with Furg - and the fact Starscream tried to kill them on the subway - it sure seems like Poplock and Rocksteady's return to the club was unanticipated. All the more remarkable a coincidence then that the "free passes" guy just happened upon them.
• Why do Tracks and Blaster destroy what looks to be a perfectly good building? Why not keep it?
• At the end of the episode, Tracks expresses his gratitude for the humans saving his life, leading to Blaster acting as their stereo in return. However, Tracks and Blaster saved Raoul and his friends several times: the original incursion with the thugs on the street, the train incident, and the rivet gun at the construction site. If we're actually keeping score here, the Bop Crew still owe the Autobots two.

Trivia

"I play this song, Jazz plays this song, Cold Slither plays this song... does anybody not play this song?"

• When Tracks and Blaster enter Dancitron, the song playing is an instrumental version of the song performed by Cold Slither from the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero episode of the same name.
• This episode is also noteworthy for pitting the two tape decks, Soundwave and Blaster, against each other, in an intense sonic duel. It turns out that Soundwave is actually somewhat the more powerful of the two, and Blaster had to augment his output with some nearby additional speakers to best his opponent.
• A model sheet for an unnamed "Robot Cassette" was drawn up for this episode, although the character does not actually appear in the episode script. In the May 1985 draft script, at the start of Blaster and Soundwave's duel, Soundwave ejects Rumble, Ravage and Laserbeak. This prompts Blaster to remark "Two can play that jive game!" and he ejects a lion, tiger and scorpion, with writer David Wise stating "(Note: These characters, without names, are Transformers products)". The six cassettes begin fighting all over Dancitron, leaving the two tape decks to begin their battle.
• This was one of twelve episodes of the original cartoon released as audio adventures by the German company Karussell Musik und Video.
• According to David Wise, his inspiration for writing this episode was the Wonder Woman episode "Disco Devil". Evidently he liked the plot so much, he would copy it again for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode "Corporate Raiders from Dimension X".
• In addition to the stylish man, other human patrons of the Dancitron with their own model sheets include a "gorgeous woman" wearing a tight Chinese-style dress, a "slinky woman" wearing an evening gown (she's the one who asks Blaster to dance), a "housewife in curls", a "Madonna girl" with an extravagant outfit (she's the one who calls Tracks "shiny one"), a "frilly woman" with an enormously pompous outfit, a "woman in costume" who actually looks less extravagant than the "Madonna girl", a "neatly groomed man" wearing a suit, a "G.Q. man" wearing an even more pimped-out suit, and a "doorman with a stack of cards". Additionally, while most of the punks are simply labeled "gang #1", "gang #2" and "gang #3", there's also a punk with spiky hair who is only identified as "dag", while Furg is misspelled "Furge".

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "Club de danse" ("Dance Club")
• Original airdate: ?

• Tracks' line "Blaster, take em!" is replaced by "Go, go, it's your time!".
• Poplock tells the Autobots that they were dancing the smurf.
• The Mad Max reference is not kept. It could have been a nice detail since Henry Djanik, who dubs Furg, also dubbed Lord Humungus in The Road Warrior.
• When Tracks and Raoul arrive in front of the Dancitron, something strange happens. The line "and you wait here" is skipped, then Henry Djanik says "No way! I'm coming with you" in his Tracks voice and continues with Tracks response just after, which makes the dialogue nonsense.
• Starscream's line "he will soon be no more!" is missing, resulting in a silent shot of Megatron smiling on the screen.
• Instead of saying "my accomplice is behind you" like in original, Soundwave mistakenly says "my accomplices are behind you".
• The dialogues between Raoul and Tracks during the flying scenes and the duel against Starscream are missing.

German

• Title: "Gefährliche Hypnosekraft" ("Dangerous Hypnosis Power")
• Original airdate: June 16, 1989

Italian

• Title (dub 1): "Autoradio"
• Original airdate: ?
• Title (dub 2): "Auto-rock"
• Original airdate: ?

• The Mad Max reference is replaced by a Street Fighter one.

Japanese

• Title: "Broadcast VS Soundwave" (ブロードキャストVSサウンドウェーブ)
• Original airdate: July 11, 1986

Mandarin

• Title: "Qìchērén zài Yèzǒnghuì " (汽车人在夜总会,"Autobots in Nightclub")
• Original airdate: ?

Brazilian Portuguese

• Title: "Uma Nova Filosofia" ("A New Philosophy")
• Original airdate: ?

Russian

• Title: "Tantzetron" (Танцетрон,"Dancitron")
• Original airdate: ?

• Soundwave's "All talk. No shock" line is replaced by "Much ado about nothing".

Toys inspired by this episode

• Masterpiece MP-25B Loudpedal (TakaraTomy, 2016)

A redeco and retool of Masterpiece Tracks in a deco based on the black Diaclone Corvette Stingray variant that was originally available exclusively in Finland in 1984 (which is unrelated to this episode) that includes a redeco of the Raoul minifigure originally available with Tracks, with his clothes specifically in the color scheme seen in "Auto-Bop" (although the figure technically represents "C Shadow", the human musician alter-ego of Loudpedal's holomatter avatar).

• Studio Series Steeljaw (Hasbro/TakaraTomy, 2024)

Though Steeljaw himself did not appear in this episode, he comes with a gold speaker accessory modeled after the ones used by Blaster in this episode, designed to be held by the contemporary Blaster toy in its various releases (though unfortunately Steeljaw only comes with one speaker).

Home video releases

All releases listed are in English audio unless otherwise noted.

LaserDisc

1995 — Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers — Megatron Set (Takara) — Japanese audio only.
1999 — The Transformers — Decepticon Edition (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.

DVD

2001 — The Transformers — DVD Box 2 (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2003 — The Original Transformers — Season 2 Part 2 (Rhino Entertainment)
2003 — The Original Transformers — Season 2 Part 2: Vol. 6 (Rhino Entertainment)
2004 — Transformers — Season 2 Part 2 (Metrodome)
2004 — Transformers — Collection 3: Series 2.2 (Madman Entertainment)
2006 — Transformers — The Complete Generation One Collection (Metrodome)
2007 — The Transformers — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2007 — Transformers — Box-Set (3DVDs) (Flex Media) — German audio only.
2007 — Transformers — Le Journal des Quintessons (UFG Junior) — European French audio only.
2009 — Transformers — Volume 05: Stagione Due Parte Terza (Medianetwork Communication) — English and Italian audio.
2009 — Transformers — Season Two: Part Two (Metrodome)
2009 — The Transformers — Complete Collection: Decepticon Edition (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers — The Complete Series: 25th Anniversary "Matrix of Leadership" Collection (Shout! Factory)
2009 — The Transformers — Season Two, Volume Two: 25th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
2011 — The Transformers — The Complete Original Series (Shout! Factory)
2014 — The Transformers — Season Two, Volume Two: 30th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
2014 — Transformers — The Classic Animated Series (Metrodome)

External links

• Full episode script
• Episode dialogue script
• Episode model sheets