Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2001 cartoon)
| This article is about the 2001 cartoon. For the 2015 cartoon, see Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015 cartoon). For a list of other meanings, see Robots in Disguise (disambiguation). |
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Transformers: Robots in Disguise, known as Transformers: Car Robots (トランスフォーマー カーロボット) in Japan, is the first Japanese-original Transformers cartoon ever officially dubbed and broadcast for a US audience. Debuting about eighteen months after its Japanese incarnation, it aired—not without problems—from September 8, 2001 to March 30, 2002, in support of the toyline of the same name.
Story
When Earth is targeted by Megatron and his Predacons, Optimus Prime and his Autobots prepare for their coming by installing themselves in secret among human society, masquerading as everyday vehicles used by humankind with no knowledge of their true nature. When Megatron strikes and kidnaps famous scientist Dr. Kenneth Onishi, the Autobots ally with his son Koji to rescue him before Megatron can pry from his mind the truth about an ancient secret hidden somewhere on Earth.
After successfully re-energizing his ailing craft, the Megastar, Megatron rips the first clue from Doctor Onishi's mind, and tracks the location of an ancient Cybertronian O-Part, only to lose it to the Autobots. Incensed by failure, Megatron recovers six Autobot protoforms from a crashed spaceship and brainwashes them into the Decepticons, led by the dark clone of Optimus Prime, Scourge. These new warriors prove much tougher opponents for the Autobots, who then have to deal with attacks from their own side when Optimus Prime's embittered brother, Ultra Magnus, arrives on Earth to steal the Matrix from Prime. Realizing the Matrix can be shared between them, the brothers put aside their differences and gain the power to combine into Omega Prime, as well as using the Matrix's power to give the Autobot Brothers new super-charged bodies.
Fearful of losing his position to Scourge, the bumbling Sky-Byte accidentally frees Doctor Onishi when he attempts to use the scientist to locate all the remaining missing O-Parts. Onishi is then able to help the Autobots gather all the O-Parts, which together form a map that points the way to Fortress Maximus, an ancient Cybertronian battle station hidden on Earth for untold ages and controlled by the will of human children. The awakening of Maximus in turn awakens Scourge's ambition, and he leaves Megatron to perish in a collapsing temple so that he can take command for himself. Megatron, however, is transformed into the more-powerful Galvatron and puts down Scourge's rebellion before confronting Omega Prime in a final battle at the Earth's core, where he is defeated by the Matrix Blade created by a fusion of Maximus's energy with Magnus and Prime's Matrix.
Cast
| Autobots | Antagonists | Humans |
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Episodes
The three clip shows of Robots in Disguise differ between the English and Japanese versions. Both are listed at the appropriate numbers.
- Battle Protocol!
- An Explosive Situation
- Bullet Train to the Rescue
- Spychangers to the Rescue
- The Hunt for Black Pyramid
- The Secret of the Ruins
- Sideburn's Obsession
- Secret Weapon: D-5
- Mirage's Betrayal
- Skid Z's Choice
- Tow-Line Goes Haywire
- The Ultimate Robot Warrior
- Hope for the Future†
Gigatron's Ambitions Revealed!† - The Decepticons
- Commandos
- Volcano
- Attack from Outer Space
- The Test
- The Fish Test
- Wedge's Short Fuse
- Landfill
- Sky-Byte Saves the Day
- A Test of Metal
- Ultra Magnus
- Ultra Magnus: Forced Fusion!
- Lessons of the Past†
Assemble! New Troops† - The Two Faces of Ultra Magnus
- Power to Burn!
- Fortress Maximus
- Koji Gets His Wish
- A Friendly Contest
- Peril from the Past
- Maximus Emerges
- The Human Element
- Mystery of the Ultra Magnus†
Gelshark's Blues† - Mistaken Identity
- Surprise Attack!
- Galvatron's Revenge
- The Final Battle
Japanese release
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Running from April 5 to December 17, 2000 immediately following the conclusion of Beast Wars Metals, Transformers: Car Robots inherited the by-then-traditional Transformers slot at TV Tokyo from Japan's Beast Wars franchise, airing at 6:30 PM on Wednesdays. Car Robots utilized the same traditional cell-based 2D animation as prior Japanese-only productions Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo, and featured a healthy contingent of returning cast and crew. In a major change from prior productions, principal animation duties were handled by Studio Gallop and Dong Woo Animation rather than long-time Transformers veterans Ashi Productions. The cartoon was produced by We've, Nihon Ad Systems, and (unsurprisingly) TV Tokyo, all also returning from the Japanese Beast Wars seasons and all of whom would return for the Armada cartoon in 2002.
Still set on Earth at the turn of the century, the story of original Car Robots cartoon features a subtly distinct framing from Robots in Disguise as it follows a "Dimensional Patrol" led by "Fire Convoy" protecting the planet and its long-lost Cybertronian artifacts from the ambitions of the evil "Gigatron" and his new "Destronger" faction.
What exactly that *means* was the subject of no small amount of confusion, but to skip to the end, Car Robots is the final Japan-exclusive season of the behemoth Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity, with a cast composed of all new characters, having time-traveled from the distant future some time after the events of Neo.
Car Robots' opening song is "Honō no Overdrive ~Car Robot Cybertron~" and its ending theme is "Marionette".
Production
When Hasbro scrapped their plans for the Transtech series that was initially intended to follow Beast Machines, material was suddenly needed to fill the void until a new series could be developed. At the eleventh hour, the Japanese series Car Robots, which had screened in Japan the previous year, was selected for this task, and in the process, it became the first Transformers anime to make the leap across the Pacific in an official capacity. Although "only" filler, the series marked a partial return to the roots of Transformers fiction, reintroducing the Autobot and Decepticon factions and insignias and realistic modern Earth vehicles to the brand, after the Beast Era's five years of Maximals, Predacons and alternate modes based on animals or abstract/futuristic vehicles.
Given Takara's method of operation at the time, Car Robots was aimed at a younger audience than that targeted by Hasbro, meaning that it featured a more light-hearted, comedic tone overall, with storylines that were typically light or goofy and sometimes relied on bad jokes, absurd imagery and slapstick. This approach divided fans, but regardless, comic foil Sky-Byte became the real breakout character of the series and a fan-favourite whose enduring popularity saw him break into the top five nominations for the 2012 Transformers Hall of Fame's fan vote.
The animation of the series, meanwhile, was cel-based, a significant change from the CGI that had been a hallmark of Transformers television series in the US since 1996. In-keeping with the show's general tone, the cartoon features many standard anime light-comedy stylings, and is replete with overdone facial expressions, comic effects like sweat drops surrounding a character's head to signify confusion or consternation, and the traditional streaked background behind the character for high-action shots or stock footage transformation/attack sequences.
The Robots in Disguise English dub was produced by Saban Entertainment, who were riding high at the time with the early 21st Century anime boom in full force, and broadcast on the Fox Kids programming block, which was at the peak of its popularity. The series was subject to some notable editing and re-writing in the traditional Saban style (see below). As a dubbed product, most of the voice actors involved in the series, though veterans of other Saban properties, had never worked on a Transformers series before, save for actor/director Michael McConnohie.
Perhaps the best-remembered element of Robots in Disguise's legacy, however, was the fate that befell it following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which occurred after only two episodes of the series had been broadcast. A scramble resulted to re-edit multiple episodes of the series before they reached air to remove scenes that were considered distasteful after these events, but as the first two-thirds of the series was airing six days a week, this quickly left the series airing in a disjointed, out-of-order fashion, with sheer misfortune causing the majority of episodes effected to be ones that dealt with the show's sporadically-referenced ongoing O-Parts plot. The first victim was "The Secret of the Ruins", production on which had already been finished, and had to be pulled from broadcast to be re-written. A trio of episodes—"Attack from Outer Space", "Landfill" and "Sky-Byte Saves the Day"—could not be salvaged and were simply not aired in the US at all; it seems possible that at least two of the three clip shows (see "Prominent adaptational changes", below) were specifically re-created to patch over the holes in the plot that resulted from the removal of these episodes, though the episodes did later air in the United Kingdom and Canada with their questionable plot elements intact.
The Walt Disney Company acquired ownership of Robots in Disguise when it purchased Saban's assets in late 2001. Disney's ownership and apparent lack of desire to do anything with the show has resulted in it being the only American-broadcast Transformers cartoon to not be even partially released on DVD in the United States (though the complete series was released in the UK). Although Saban did reacquire several of their programmes in 2010, there is presently no evidence that Robots in Disguise was among them. Due to these factors, as of this writing, it remains the sole cartoon released in English-language markets that Hasbro does not retain full ownership of.
Prominent adaptational changes
As tended to be the wont of Saban productions, Robots in Disguise was altered from the original Japanese Car Robots in multiple ways—some subtle, others less so. Dialogue would, for the most part, stick to the intent of the original, but at times certain conversations could be about entirely different things in English versus Japanese; as a lighthearted show, Car Robots is particularly fond of Japanese cultural humor and wordplay, and Robots in Disguise often had to work around such exchanges, replacing them with English-language jokes that could either be comparable or entirely different. Several characters' personalities were entirely reworked for the English dub; Darkscream, for instance, lost the samurai overtones of his Japanese counterpart, Megatron became incredibly theatrical and prone to explosive tantrums, Rapid Run went from being a gruff, older warrior into a young, cool dude, and Midnight Express was changed from the timid, junior member of Team Bullet Train into a British fusspot, to name a few. Curiously, the three clip shows that were part of Car Robots were cut entirely, and replaced with brand new clip shows, created whole cloth from reused footage by the American production team.
The visuals of the show were also edited, with new CGI scene transitions based on the classic original The Transformers cartoon transitions inserted into the proceedings, sometimes in place of the simple wipes used in Car Robots. In the early portion of the series, CGI "POV" overlays were occasionally added as characters targeted their opponents for attack, though this particular practise was not employed much as the series went on. The entire soundtrack of the show was changed for Robots in Disguise, with new tunes being provided by Saban mainstays Shuki Levy and Paul Gordon as well as Glenn Scott Lacey.
Perhaps one of the most notable traits of the Robots in Disguise dub was the insertion of numerous references to other Transformers series, typically added to scripts by Hasbro employee Andrew Frankel after they were submitted for approval—though this did create some debate in the fandom (see below).
Outside of these major overarching examples, there are sometimes other changes both major and minor made to the content of individual episodes for numerous reasons. TFWiki.net notes such changes on the individual episode articles.
Credits
- For further information, see: Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2001 cartoon)/credits
Continuity confusion
Car Robots
When the first television promo for Car Robots aired immediately after the final episode of Beast Wars Metals, said promo featured Fire Convoy thanking the Maximal Beast Warriors for preserving Earth's history and promising to keep the modern day safe from the Destrongers.[note 1] Preliminary information found on TVTokyo's website described Car Robots as "The next great entry in the Super Lifeform Transformers: Beast Wars series" and even mentioned by name the Great War of old. Said site and the first toy catalog also claimed the Destrongers had come to the 21st century through a dimensional rift, with Fire Convoy's team being a "Dimensional Patrol" sent to oppose them; the catalog even described the series premise as "Car Robots versus Beast Wars".
Coupled with the first episode featuring a celebration for the new millennium, setting it in the year 2000, all this led to initial speculation that the series would be set in the existing Japanese Transformers continuity, during the at-the-time unexplored gap between the second season of the Generation 1 cartoon and its movie, with the Car Robots cast having time-traveled from the future à la Beast Wars. Plus, while not known to the fandom at the time, early concept art for Fire Convoy (released publicly in 2015) even depicts him with a Maximal symbol instead of an Autobot one.[1]
As the series continued, however, it began to feel more like a fresh start, presenting itself as a self-contained story isolated from everything that had come before it.[note 2] There were no obvious ties or references to the Generation 1 cartoon that it apparently was set within contemporaneously,[note 3] no guest appearances from any Generation 1 characters (who, logically, ought to have noticed the globally Earth-based conflict of Fire Convoy and Gigatron's forces),[note 4] and Fire Convoy's team took a more covert role in their relationship with humanity, using their vehicle modes to hide themselves when not in battle, unlike the Generation 1 Autobots who regularly interacted with humans in their robot modes. In fact, none of the early information about the characters being time travelers was ever brought up in the show, with almost no indication of the cast being anything but native to the year 2000 (save for one extremely brief moment in episode 12 where Fire Convoy vaguely hints at having originally come from another time).
Thus, fans began to reconsider the series' original continuity placement and wondered if it might instead be an alternate universe—a sort of continuity reboot—dismissing the early time-traveling info as mere rumors or dropped concepts (or simply never knowing about it in the first place). But, as this thinking persisted, Car Robots moved into its second half and finally began to do some actual world-building, introducing concepts and lore originally from Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo, two Japanese series that the greater Western fandom had only sparse knowledge about at the time. Those who did catch these new references (and hadn't fully dismissed the original continuity speculation) theorized if maybe the cast of Car Robots had come from a future set after Beast Wars Neo. But, the more vocal fandom belief of Beast Wars II and Neo taking place chronologically before Beast Machines challenged this theory and attempted to silence it.
Robots in Disguise
The Robots in Disguise cartoon, on the other hand, was unambigously the first total reboot of Transformers fiction. As the first official material not set in any Generation 1 universe it established the first alternate continuity family in the line's history. However, as this was such a new idea, it took a while for fans to accept the "reboot" idea, and many would try to figure out how to fit the series into existing Generation 1 cartoon continuity. Aiding them in this endeavor were the numerous "easter egg" references added to the Robots in Disguise dub that mentioned characters and events from earlier Transformers series . This mindset died off with time, especially after subsequent series would create more and more reboots, eliminating the uniqueness of Robots in Disguise.
Legacy
In 2006–2007, Takara surprised the Western fandom by directly clarifying Car Robots's place in continuity. The Kiss Players series featured a time-jumping story in which the series' protagonists traveled through time aboard Brave Maximus, the very same one from Car Robots. One of their jumps even took them to the first episode of Car Robots without any dimension-hopping, only time-hopping. The series ended with Brave Maximus crash-landing on Planet Master at a point set before the planet's refugee inhabitants had developed the Headmaster technology, with Brave Maximus's wreckage even providing the catalyst for not just the technology but also the construction of the physically-identical Fortress Maximus. Other print media even produced a long, highly detailed timeline that mapped out just how the hell this all worked.
Essentially, Takara had stuck to the original claims of the series' preliminary info by officially declaring Car Robots to have been part of the massive, sprawling Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity all along, hand-waving the cartoon's lack of previous-series Transformers appearing on Earth by utilizing the abrupt ending of a short-lived, rather obscure Generation 1-based manga first published in 2003. Said manga took place in the latter 1990s and ended, very conveniently, with virtually the entire Generation 1 cast getting swept away from Earth after a cataclysmic battle in space.
With much of the fandom having already grown used to the idea of Car Robots being as much of a reboot as Robots in Disguise, this revelation was initially met with quite the startled reaction; many even wrote it off as a nonsensical retcon. Regardless, subsequent Japanese media would adhere to this decision, leaning into the once-quelled idea of the Car Robots cast originally hailing from a future time set at some point near or after Beast Wars Neo. The aforementioned Robotmasters Wrecker Hook and Binaltech Asterisk Junko would even be confirmed to be the same characters as their Car Robots counterparts, in 2013's "Metrowars" and 2016's Unite Warriors Offshot, respectively.
Hasbro, on the other side of the pond, had NO such plans to align the English version with any of this. To this day, the Robots in Disguise cartoon remains its own little separate, distinctly non-Generation 1 thing, and Hasbro has shown little inclination to revive its characters or concepts; most of the callbacks have come from licensees Fun Publications and IDW Publishing, but a few characters and ideas have persisted in toy form from Hasbro proper. Thus, Car Robots/Robots in Disguise is in the unique position of being simultaneously part of Generation 1 and completely separate from Generation 1... depending on which side of the globe you're looking at.
Home video releases
Car Robots
The Car Robots version of Robots in Disguise was released on VHS and DVD by Pony Canyon in Japan while the series was still on air.
- Transformers: Car Robots — Vol. 1 (2000)
- Transformers: Car Robots — Vol. 2 (2000)
- Transformers: Car Robots — Vol. 3 (2000)
- Transformers: Car Robots — Vol. 4 (2000)
- Transformers: Car Robots — Vol. 5 (2000)
- Transformers: Car Robots — Vol. 6 (2001)
- Transformers: Car Robots — Vol. 7 (2001)
- Transformers: Car Robots — Vol. 8 (2001)
- Transformers: Car Robots — Vol. 9 (2001)
- Transformers: Car Robots — Vol. 10 (2001)
2001 Robots in Disguise cartoon
Maximum Entertainment, in association with Jetix, released the entire RiD series in the UK... several times.
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Volume One (2004)
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Three-Disc Box Set: Part 1 of 2 (2004)
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Three-Disc Box Set: Part 2 of 2 (April 15 2005)
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Battle Protocol (2007)
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Evil Intent (2007)
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Battling the Predacons (2007)
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise — 3 DVD Mega Pack (2007)
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise / RoboCop: The Animated Series / M.A.S.K. (2007)
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise / Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation / Action Man (2007)
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Special Edition 2-Disc Set (2007)
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Season One (2007)
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Season Two (2007)
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Ultimate Collection (2008)
Italy
Stormovie released RiD in Italy, but... not entirely. At first the first 16 episodes were released in 4 DVDs, then the series was interrupted and later they released two "movies" made of various episodes. While the first one is just five episodes back to back, the second one is slightly messier, being made of five episodes back to back with two 1-minute clips from other episodes to stitch them (the scene in "Koji Gets His Wish" where Scourge lets Sky-Byte go to search for Cerebros and the part of "Maximus Emerges" when the Autobots find Cerebros), but still kinda confusing since the beginning part of "Surprise Attack!" has the characters talking about things that were left out from the "movie".
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise Volume 1 (2005)
- Contains episodes 1-4.
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise Volume 2 (2005)
- Contains episodes 5-8.
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise Volume 3 (2005)
- Contains episodes 9-12.
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise Volume 4 (2005)
- Contains episodes 13-16.
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise Il Film (2007)
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise Il Film: Battaglia Finale (2007)
Notes
- Robots in Disguise is the lone Transformers show that aired between 1996 and 2006 that does not feature a Canadian voice cast for its English language release, being recorded in Los Angeles, California; all others, including its Beast Era predecessors and its Unicron Trilogy successors, were recorded in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Foreign names
- Japanese: Transformers: Car Robots (トランスフォーマー カーロボット Toransufōmā Kā Robotto)
- Korean: Jeonguiui Yongsa: Car Bot (정의의 용사 카봇, "Brave Heroes of Justice: Car-Bots")
- Portuguese: Transformers: A Nova Geração (Brazil, "Transformers: The New Generation")
- Spanish: Transformers: Nueva Generación (Latin America, "Transformers: New Generation")
References
- ↑ Walruslaw on Twitter reveals Fire Convoy concept art from Transformers Generations 2015.
Footnotes
- ↑ This information was largely lost on larger English-speaking world due to a lack of widespread knowledge that this obscure promo had even existed, let alone what was said in its Japanese dialogue.
- ↑ The Beast Wars II cartoon was similarly isolated and self-contained, but the appearance of Optimus Primal in both its first toy catalog and its movie made it easier for fans to accept it as part of the existing timeline.
- ↑ The Autobots' base and underground transit system were strikingly similar to ones first introduced in Issue #4 of the Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers manga; a series that not many Westerners were familiar with at the time.
- ↑ Even the similarly self-contained Super-God Masterforce cartoon had a brief guest cameo appearance from Chromedome in its third episode.
