The Fish Test
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<tr style="font-size:14px;"> <td class="tti_buttonlink">« </td><td>Transformers: Robots in Disguise ep <strong class="selflink">19 </strong>
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<td colspan="2" style="font-size: 12px; background-color:#ffffff;" align="center"> <img alt="" src="/w2/images2/thumb/b/be/The_Fish_Test_Title_Card.jpg/300px-The_Fish_Test_Title_Card.jpg" width="300" height="228" border="0" /><br />Next episode: The Blue Fish Test
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<td colspan="2" style="font-size: 14px; background-color:#e7d492; color:black;font-weight:bold;" align="center"> "The Fish Test" <div style="font-size:x-small;font-weight:normal;">秘密作戦! ゲルシャーク <br />(Himitsu Sakusen! Gelshark) <br />"Secret Strategy! Gelshark"</div>
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<td> Airdate
</td><td> 9 August 2000 (Japanese)<br />September 27, 2001 (English)
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<td> Written by
</td><td> Yukiyoshi Ōhashi (Japanese)<br />Marc Handler (English)
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</table> Sky-Byte is jealous!<br /> Will he prove himself a shark<br /> Or a jellyfish?
Synopsis
Deep within the Predacon base, a preoccupied Sky-Byte is busying himself on the computer. When quizzed by Slapper, he explains that he's taking an online "fish personality test" to help him "identify his inner fish"; he is less than exhilarated, therefore, when the quiz identifies him as a jellyfish. Sky-Byte's voyage of self-discovery is soon interrupted by a summons from Megatron. The Predacon shark is initially enthusiastic at the prospect of a chance to prove his worth, but is soon deflated when he realises that his brief is merely to lend "assistance" to Scourge on his latest plan by simply remaining at the base and out of the way. Furious, Sky-Byte has Dark Scream find out the details of Scourge's scheme to siphon energy from Earth's power plants, and begins to devise a way for his Predacons to sabotage it.
Scourge and the Decepticons, therefore, are met at the central power base by a full-scale ambush by the "Autobots"—in fact, just Sky-Byte and the Predacon trio disguised rather unconvincingly as Rail Racer and the Autobot Brothers. The Decepticons takes the bait, however, and engage the "Autobots" at full strength.
Back at the base of the real Autobots, Side Burn is using the main computer to take the fish test, much to T-AI's chagrin. He's interrupted, however, by the alert triggered by the skirmish on the power plant. In response, Optimus Prime dispatches Side Burn, Prowl and X-Brawn to intervene. This pleases Sky-Byte, whose plan was for the Autobots to arrive and foil the power plant attack, thus discrediting and possibly destroying Scourge and the Decepticons; things go awry, however, when he and the Predacons are caught in the crossfire, making it blatantly obvious that it was his intervention that scuppered Scourge's plan. Oops.
Back at Predacon base, Sky-Byte is unable to talk his way out of responsibility for botching the operation, and is royally chewed out by Megatron for his interference and whining. However, a fresh chance to humiliate Scourge soon presents itself when Dark Scream reports the Decepticon's latest planned offensive, this time against the Bayshore power plant. Opting for a sneakier approach this time, Sky-Byte decides to personally warn the Autobots of Scourge's ploy.
Of course, this proves harder than Sky-Byte had thought; attempts to confer with a red-sportscar-chasing Side Burn are met by deaf ears and violent physical retribution, so he and the Predacons instead track down and accost X-Brawn, much to his driver Kelly's displeasure. X-Brawn is supremely sceptical of Sky-Byte's intentions, as are Side Burn and Prowl when they arrive on the scene, but having persuaded the desperate shark to perform humiliating tricks and dances to prove his good faith, they grudgingly agree to check out his tip.
At the Bayshore power plant, the Autobot brothers rendezvous with Koji and relax in preparation for an attack they don't believe is really coming. Sky-Byte, too, is smugly basking in his own sense of self-satisfaction until he gets a message from Dark Scream that the Decepticons have arrived at the power plant...the Crestline power plant, rather than the one he sent the Autobots to. The Autobots soon get wind of this, and assume that Sky-Byte has double-crossed them. Fortunately, Team Bullet Train are able to intervene at Crestline, using their combined Rail Racer form to see off the Decepticon attack and leaving Sky-Byte's betrayal the only point of business yet to be dealt with.
Sky-Byte, meanwhile, is perched on a cliffside, understandably feeling pretty bad about himself and the way things have panned out. Unbowed, he and his Predacons decide to try and redeem themselves by attacking the Rocky Point power plant, in one more attempt to outdo Scourge. Sky-Byte's typical luck holds firm, however, when he realises that Megatron and the Decepticons are already there on a covert mission, which his arrival has just ruined...again. As Megatron subjects Sky-Byte to yet another belittling tirade, the Autobot Brothers arrive on the scene to heap even more retribution on the wretched shark. Megatron and the Decepticons engage the enemy, but are quickly forced into retreat by the arrival of Optimus, leaving only Sky-Byte behind for one more round of ritual humiliation at the hands of the Autobots before he is finally forced to call it quits and run for it.
Back at Predacon HQ, Megatron chastises Sky-Byte, not unreasonably, for "bringing dishonour" upon all Predacons, and sentences him to energon smelter cleanup duty. Taking one more look at his fish test, he decides to belatedly consult his daily "action advice" chart, and discovers that his horoscope had specifically warned against attempted betrayal, and could have saved him from his day's pain and humiliation. In frustration, he attacks the computer console with his claw...which causes him to be electrocuted.
Being Sky-Byte absolutely sucks.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
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<th style="background:#FFEEEE"> Autobots</th><th style="background:#EEEEFE"> Predacons</th><th style="background:antiquewhite"> Humans
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- Side Burn (10)
- T-AI (11)
- Optimus Prime (12)
- Prowl (13)
- X-Brawn (14)
- Midnight Express (17)
- Railspike (18)
- Rapid Run (19)
- Rail Racer (20)
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- Sky-Byte (1)
- Slapper (2)
- Gas Skunk (3)
- Scourge (4)
- Megatron (5)
- Dark Scream (6)
- Mega-Octane (7)
- Armorhide (8)
- Rollbar (9)
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- Kelly (15)
- Koji Onishi (16)
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Quotes
Slapper: [disguised as Side Burn] Take that, you evil Decepticons! We're the good guys!<br /> Gas Skunk: [disguised as Prowl] Yeah. I'm a police Autobot. You're under arrest for bad behavior.<br /> Dark Scream: [disguised as X-Brawn] Yeah, we're gonna put you cowpokes in the corral, or some other junk.<br /> Gas Skunk: Hey, where's Sky-Byte? He's supposed to be in on this.<br /> [Sky-Byte emerges, disguised very poorly as Rail Racer]<br /> Sky-Byte: Heeere I aaam! Rail Racer, fighter for justice!<br /> Slapper: Hellooo? Rail Racer isn't quite that flamboyant, you know! You're never gonna make it as an actor!<br /> Gas Skunk: Well, he could always work in cartoons.<br />
- —The Predacons ride roughshod over plausibility, the fourth wall, and the entire "robots in disguise" concept in one fell swoop.
"Rail Racer isn't that flammable, either."
- —Slapper watches Sky-Byte's costume burn.
"It's not fair! Me, a whiner! Why, I never whine!"<br />
- —Sky-Byte, whining.
"Okay, I'm closing my eyes and thinking there's something out there other than big ugly animal monsters. There, that's better. When I open my eyes, I'll be back to normal reality."<br />
- —Kelly reacquaints herself with her good friend, denial.
"Has everyone but me gone totally mental?"<br />
- —Side Burn has a moment of clarity.
Slapper: Even if we lose, it was worth it to let Sky-Byte bark like a seal.<br />
Gas Skunk: You need a life.<br />
- —Gas Skunk also has a moment of clarity...
"Alas, so the predictions have proven true. I have always thought of myself as one who strikes fear into the hearts of many, a shark with an iron will, but it turns out that I'm a jellyfish. The online personality test was right. I don't deserve to have fins."<br />
- —...as does Sky-Byte.
Side Burn: Jellyfish!<br />
Sky-Byte: I wish everyone would stop calling me that! I'm not an invertebrate--I have cartilage!
- —See, parents, it's educational too!
"Today's action advice: Don't betray anyone and don't get tricky. You will never pull it off, jellyfish are too icky. If you try it, you'll end up barking like a seal and groveling at people's feet."<br />
- —In Transformerland, even horoscopes are scarily advanced, as Sky-Byte fails to realise to his great, great cost.
Other notes
Animation errors
- When T-AI sends out the call for X-Brawn and Prowl to investigate the first power plant attack, there is an inexplicable stray two-second shot of Sky-Byte talking to Gas Skunk and Dark Scream just before the logo transition.
- When Sky-Byte is confronted - and insulted - by Megatron at the end of the episode, he somehow manages to summon an extra hand in order to give a 'peace' gesture with both of them. That's impressive.
Transformers references
- Slapper persuades Sky-Byte to perform the "universal greeting dance" to prove his good intentions.
Real-world references
- Side Burn shrugs off the threat of Scourge and the Commandos as being an "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_II:_Attack_of_the_Clones" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Star_Wars_Episode_II:_Attack_of_the_Clones">attack of the clowns</a>", before stating that he'd "seen it already"—despite this episode having aired nearly a year before the alluded Star Wars film was released. Those crazy Autobots and their futuristic ways!
Miscellaneous trivia
- Ro-Tor and Movor are curiously missing from the Decepticon ranks in this episode, and their absence is never referenced by their erstwhile colleagues. Although given what happened the last time Movor was relied upon to do something, that's probably understandable.
- This episode marks the second time that Sky-Byte and the Predacons have attempted to disguise themselves as Autobots in order to sabotage their own ostensible team-mates. The overall effect is still far from convincing, but to their credit, they at least manage to disguise themselves as different Autobots this time, which represents an improvement on their previous attempt.
- This episode contains a rare mention of the fact that Koji actually attends school: when the Autobot brothers reach the power plant Sky-Byte sent them to, Koji is there on a class field trip.