Playback (G1)

This article is about the heroic Autobot. For his evil mirror-universe counterpart, see Playback (SG).

Playback is an Autobot from the Generation 1 continuity family.

"I, for one, welcome our new Decepticon masters."

Playback is a communications specialist. He's not really one for fighting, so when Decepticons show up he tends to roll over. Or get killed.

Fiction

The Transformers cartoon

Voice actor: Laurie Faso (English), ??? (Japanese)

A communicator was in charge of the Paradron communications tower when Cyclonus and Scourge came to use the facility to contact Galvatron. Though he protested that the pair weren't allowed to be there, Scourge kicked him across the room, embedding him helplessly in a monitor.

After the Decepticons took control of the planet, the communicator was given the job of guarding his imprisoned fellows. Autobot reinforcements from off-planet attacked the prison, blowing up the guard tower he was in. The explosion expelled him and he fell to the ground below. Fight or Flee

Marvel The Transformers comics

I LIVE! I HUNGER!

Playback appeared exclusively in the UK portion of the Marvel Comics continuity.

Playback was an Autobot prisoner of war on Cybertron. He was released, along with Hosehead and Horsepower, to be hunted by Thunderwing as part of a Decepticon High Council test to see if the hunter was fit to become leader of the Decepticons. Playback was the first of the three Autobots to die, left to rust on a beach, which attracted the attention of the Autobot detective Nightbeat. While his noisy partner Siren chased after Hosehead and Horsepower, Nightbeat investigated Playback's body, determining that the dead Autobot was a Decepticon prisoner of war and that he'd been killed with a cyclone cannon.

Further investigation was interrupted when Siren and Hosehead returned with Thunderwing in tow. Nightbeat's Headmaster unit Muzzle linked up with Playback's corpse, frightening the Decepticon enough for the Autobots to destroy Playback's fuel tanks, sending a burning Thunderwing into the sea. The Big Shutdown!

Ask Vector Prime

Vector Prime noted that in Primax 207.0 Epsilon, Playback was a Recordabot, although he wasn't sure if that term was used in that reality. Ask Vector Prime, 12 August 2015

TransTech

During the conflict between the Screaming Eagles and S.K.A.R. in Primax 806.30 Gamma, both sides found themselves binary-bonded to Cybertronian partners. Playback teamed up with Head Banger using reverse-engineered Cybertronian technology. The Screaming Eagles emerged victorious after a series of destructive clashes, ushering in a new Golden Age for Earth. Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News, 1 May 2016

2005 IDW continuity

Evil-doing terrortistical insurgents have torched our pride with the flames of shame!

Playback was a NAIL who ran an underground broadcast criticizing Starscream's government and its Autobot sympathies. During Baron Ironblood's attack on Cybertron, he criticized Starscream for deliberately inviting representatives of a dangerous race into Iacon. Primeless, Part 1

2019 IDW continuity

Playback worked with Blaster and Wavelength at the primary Titan Net hub in Iacon. They detected a data-bomb introduced to the net that took out all the orbital Titans and left them inert save Vigilem, who plotted an aggressive course towards the Winged Moon. They alerted Lightbright and Lodestar, the Titan/Speaker pair who had recently returned from the colonies and were outside the Titan Net's influence. The Change In Your Nature Part Five

After Vigilem severed the Tether that connected the Winged Moon to Cybertron, Playback and the other technicians in Iacon's primary hub attempted to re-establish a link with the Titans; despite receiving assistance from Glyph, Tap-Out, and Steeljaw, Tremors they weren't able to repair the Titan Net before Megatron staged a coup and overthrew the Senate. As the new ruler of Iacon installed Decepticon loyalists in key positions of power, Playback and the others were ousted from their position by Mindwipe, Bitstream, and Sparkstalker. Hunt

Notes

• Playback as a name for the 1986 cartoon character came decades later in the voluminous Facebook posts of Ask Vector Prime, retroactively declaring him one and the same as the 1989 comic character slain by Thunderwing.
• The "Fight or Flee" episode script denotes this character as "COMMUNICATION AUTOBOT (PRIMATIVE [sic] BLASTER)", although his lines are only attributed to "ROBOT". As you can see, he didn't end up resembling Blaster very much.
  • The script also does not specifically call the communication Autobot out as later standing guard over his fellow Paradronians; that scene was only scripted as featuring "generic Decepticon guards, which are much more R2-D2 than Transformer". That tidbit explains the strange little robot who stands next to the communication Autobot in the tower, although not why the Autobot was animated as being there in the first place...
• When pressed for information on the comics version, Dreadwind said Playback was "a Cybertronian Autobot, another of the cassette ones, I think. It's academic now, innit?"
• As the title of the story in which Playback appears is an obvious homage to the classic detective novel The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, writer Simon Furman most likely took Playback's name from the title of a different Chandler novel, Playback.