CHUG

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"A bogstandard retail toyline targeted towards adult collectors? How silly! Like that's ever going to sell..."

CHUG is a common fan acronym derived from the Classics, Henkei, Universe, and Generations toylines, although it also designates later series following the same aesthetic and design philosophy. It is sometimes referred to as Uniclasserations

These lines are all unified by being modern re-imaginations of classic Transformers characters, most often from Generation 1 but also occasionally including later eras like Generation 2, Beast Wars, Beast Machines, Robots in Disguise, and Armada. Sculpts and engineering are also shared between these lines, with groups like the Seekers and the Insecticons having their individual characters being sequentially released across the span of different CHUG series. Prior to the launch of what is now known as the Prime Wars Trilogy, these lines didn't really have any line-wide gimmicks, unlike most mainline Transformers series.

If seen as a single unified toyline, CHUG can be considered the longest running series in the Transformers franchise, having been in production since 2006.

Toylines generally accepted as CHUG

Initially conceived as a brief filler line between Cybertron and the first live action film, Classics was Hasbro's first attempt at producing a series consisting primarily of modernized Generation 1 characters in Deluxe and Voyager sizes, all of them being new original molds. Some Cybertron figures redecoed into G1 characters were also included in the Legends price point, and Energon Constructicon Maximus was redecoed into Constructicon Devastator. As an homage to the original toys, most figures featured the interesting inclusion of rubsigns. Despite its short run, the series proved to be successful enough to lay the foundations for the later Universe and Generations toylines.
Directly following up on the success of Classics, Universe was a substantially bigger and more intricate toyline, heavily expanding on the original concept of modernized G1 characters with various new molds and also expanding its scope in its second year--the 25th anniversary of the brand--with the introduction of some figures based around Armada and the Beast Era. These figures were generally more complex than those introduced in Classics, a design choice which is commonly attributed to the concurrent live-action movie toylines. This line was also supplemented by redecoes of various molds from older lines, particularly Cybertron. Every figure was labelled to indicate which 'sub-series' it was a part of - for instance, Dropshot was labelled 'Classics Series' while Overload was labelled 'Cybertron Series' - despite both being redecoes of the same mold!
Concurrently available with Hasbro's Universe line, Henkei! Henkei! was TakaraTomy's Japanese equivalent for both Classics and Universe, featuring more cartoon-accurate paintjobs and pack-in mangas. These figures all had various areas cast in vacuum-metalized plastic, whether it made much sense or not. Some exclusive Takara releases would be sold under the name Gentei! Gentei! instead, a small subline that is generally considered to be part of the Henkei range.
File:TR Trypticon Robot.jpg
"... Well, damn."
From 2010 on, Generations became Hasbro's umbrella term to designate all upcoming releases based on the same concept. Initally limited to the Deluxe price point, it was later expanded to include figures in other sizes as well. As the years have gone by, the Generations toyline has been given different subline names (see Prime Wars Trilogy, War for Cybertron Trilogy, and Studio Series) but all have remained conceptually based on updating older characters with more modern engineering.
Concurrently available with the original run of Generations, Reveal the Shield was a confusing subline imprint by Hasbro that incorporated both figures originally intended for the Generations line (with some sculpts shared between both lines) and Movie-verse characters under the same label. Most notably, these all featured rubsigns, hence the title of the toyline.
In the style of Henkei, United would be Takara's primary equivalent for Japaneses releases of Generations figures for a while. Much like Henkei, these would also go on to feature more show-accurate paintjobs.
From 2014 on, Legends became Takara's own umbrella term to designate its Generations-based releases, also following in the same show-accurate tradition of Henkei and United.
Takara's equivalent for the Deluxe and Voyager combiner teams of Combiner Wars, strangely enough being released as their own individual line. The non-combiner Leader molds were simply sold as regular Legends figures.

Toylines loosely considered as CHUG

CHUG or Bayverse? Guess it's up to you to decide!
Although debuting a good three years before Classics, the 2003 Universe toyline could be seen as a very early version of what would become CHUG, featuring a handful of attempts at replicating characters from previous eras in a regular retail line like Red Alert, Skywarp, and Devastator - these were, however, limited to redecos instead of actual original sculpts and were often interspersed with more generic repaints, hence why the line is often disregarded as not necessarily being a part of the abbreviation. Still, considering how some of the released toys do match the aesthetics of early Classics and 2008 Universe figures, it sounds fair to say they aren't completely negligible either.
Being the umbrella name for BotCon and Fun Publications exclusives, Timelines does encompass some sets and figures that fit in with the regular CHUG toylines (particularly as most of the molds used to come from those toylines). However, it also often goes for direct tie-ins with other continuities, such as Beast Wars, Shattered Glass and Animated.
The Power Core Combiners hold a strange place in terms of continuity, with Hasbro themselves admitting they aren't particularly tied to any specific series. On one hand, the line follows the CHUG premise of reinventing classic characters (mostly combiners) with modern designs and packaging sporting the same graphical patterns of the concurrently released Generations figures. On the other hand, most of the characters were exclusively featured in Movie tie-in media, like Smolder in Transformers: Cyber Missions and Bombshock in Transformers Classified. Complicating matters further, they were released as United figures in Japan, under the United EX label, making them very explicit CHUG derivatives in that region but maybe not in the rest of the world. Even the character designs themselves look like a middle ground that could go in either direction, with most figures being relatively chonky and colorful like those of Generations and yet also occasionally featuring the more alien-esque head sculpts and wedgy limb greebling that you would generally expect from Movie characters.
Much like PCC, Cloud is a somewhat confusing toyline to pin down. It was released as a separate series from Legends with its own story and continuity, but it also tries to reinvent the classic G1 characters... By mostly reusing the Generations sculpts of other previously reinvented classic characters, like by turning Doubledealer into Starscream and Springer into Hot Rodimus. Still, its aesthetic is certainly compatible with most of CHUG.
This small line, with the generic title Transformers (though it was named "Classic" and "Generation One" on Hasbro's website), included redecos from some of the "CHUG" toylines listed above, most of them being released alongside the Age of Extinction figures. It also included some redecos of Movieverse and Prime toys. However, it had no new molds and an odd release cycle, which made it unknown to many fans.
Following in the footsteps of the above toyline, Hasbro created a dedicated "evergreen" design series for merchandise and budget markets, also based around the most popular characters that can be easily marketed without the necessity of any attached tie-in media. The series also had a couple of unique molds released under the Authentics subline, all of which are even simpler and more rudimentary than those of Cyber Series - though they still fit into the niche of customizers and collectors of smaller Cyberverse-scaled CHUG figures. The Power of the Primes version of Starscream is also directly based on his evergreen design.
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