I have the theory that Cosmos was not disguised, that that was his Cybertronian alternate mode and that the sights of UFO were actually Cosmos looking for the Autobots stranded on Earth.
Of the initial Dialcone robos, the Honda City Turbo is one the most common and unassuming cars, but poor Skids only made minor toy and cartoon appearances presumably in part because he wasn't as marketable as the Robots in Disguise-but-in-the-wrong-places.
Yeah his alt mode is pretty standard, and it wouldn’t be too odd or unassuming to see one like him parked on the side of the road, even if his mode was heavily decked out with custom mods, decals and what not
I always liked how Wheeljack's reasoning behind building the Dinobots was basically the logic a kid of that era would use: he learned about dinosaurs and said "Yo, these dinosaur things are awesome, but you know what would be even MORE awesome? ROBOT dinosaurs!"
Obligatory aviation nerd here: There were exactly 20 Concorde SSTs made and now 18 in museums. One was lost in a notorious crash in Paris, the other was cannibalized for parts. Also due to Sonic Booms, after the first couple years of operation, Concorde flew almost exclusively the London to New York route with a few other exclusively over ocean routes now and again All to say Silverbolt could've scanned one if he somehow visited JFK unnoticed, but TJ's point stands.
@@jetseekers Silverbolt was created in Cybertron from an old transport place, Optimus and the Autobots who went with him gave him his Concorde appearance, it is very likely that they took a pic from their memory banks unaware that Concordes were very rare, massive passenger ships, not regular jets.
@@jetseekers Thank you! Was about to comment this! The first season, I don't think anybody picked their alt modes. it was Teletraan's satellite scout that scanned them. That means either most of these rare vehicles were in the same exact area of the crash, or, that it literally scoured the planet for these vehicles!
Honestly an idea I came up with for why so many autobots are supercars and race cars and the like is cause teletraan 1 could have scanned a auto show or something, so a lot of them ended up with those for alt-modes
I think that's what happened in the G1 cartoon, wasn't it? When they woke up, the autobots had Teletraan 1 send out a probe to find and scan alt modes for them?
Remember the Transformers in the 1984 cartoon weren’t even trying to hide, all of them were basically public celebrities lol, to the point of becoming movie stars (Hoist Goes Hollywood), hunting game(Prime Target), deserving of memorials (Starscream’s Brigade), and the titular Megatron’s Master Plan had the cons turn the human public against the bots
Which makes it really odd that they invented the "Robots in disguise" tagline and _lyric in the show's theme song_ when they know they weren't doing that whatsoever.
it's not entirely fair to blame the g1 autobots for their vehicle modes. remember, they were unconscious and Teletran-1 used the Sky Spy to randomly pick vehicles from around the world to convert the autobots into. easily explained away. in cybertron, jetfire was the one who brought back the scan of the fire truck for optimus in the first place meaning the truck had the giant cannons from the outset.
and lets not forget that the forms likely have to be compatible to their current bodies which is why red alert, hot shot and scattershot picked those new alt modes because they were too big for their old forms
Was it around the world? It's been a while since I've watched season 1 but I was under the impression it scanned vehicles near or around the crash site.
Skylynx is also terrible choice for hiding because of the fact he adopted a space shuttle alt mode and also carries a massive box underneath him in flight, gotta wonder how he gets enough fuel to break into orbit while carrying that payload which also drags one down!! Anyway we need a sequel list for the Decepticons to find out who got the worst RID for them outside of the obvious like the city bots and Megaton!!
Sky Lynx actually makes total sense when you interpret the toy correctly. The Lynx portion is a ground-based unit meant to transport spacecraft from the assembly building to the launchpad. It's not supposed to fly around with the shuttle component, it's supposed to stay on the ground. The problem is that the cartoonists either didn't realize that, or just didn't care, and drew the whole thing flying around as a single unit.
Well at that point the series takes place in the fictional future of "2005" so, most alt modes that show up during or after "The Transformers The Movie" get a technical pass.
@@RetroRobotRadio Hatd to say as in anime, there is a series where trains are travelling between planets, so in the world of animation, anything is possible!!
For the tv show and in the comics. The tech-spec bios of the toys don't ever mention how they acquired their alt modes, but it could be assumed T-1 had something to do with it.
I was thinking the same thing Teletraan-1 scanned the first videos it could find that was compatible with their body, RID is so much worse, also when something is absurbed enough most people will double take.
Heck in the marvel comic it's made explicitly clear that the vehicles were scanned not to be vehicular disguises, but because the Ark's computer mistook the machines as the dominant lifeform on earth. Needless to say Aunty had no idea of what the nuisances of what vehicles would be appropriate as a disguise, since they weren't even viewed as vehicles by the computer in the first place.
I'm 99% convinced "Robots in Disguise" was just a marketing tagline that the writers ignored because it both didn't make sense for several toys but also the number of stories they'd be able to tell would've been very few.
In defense of Ratchet, many of their sibling vans, the Toyota Hi-Ace, and ESPECIALLY the Mitsubishi L300, and similarly sized vans, HAVE been used as common ambulances here in the Philippines. There are still the box pickup-truck-based ones here, but they're not AS common, and they van-types exists as first responder vehicles to the nearest clinic, if not hospital. Look up a picture of the Mitsubishi L300 that doesn't have its rear converted into a box cabin. It's a DEAD RINGER for the Vanette.
I remember Arcee bringing up this exact point about Smokescreen in TFPrime, saying the doofus chose an alt-mode with 'screaming double 38s' and doubted he could be trusted with safeguarding their human friends. As for G1, Teletran 1 initially picked out alt-modes for the stranded Cybertronians, so it's not like they realized some of them had out-of-place alt-modes at first. And the usual forms for most Decepticons are even worse. No way Megatron blends in as a beefed-up M1 Abrams, Starscream's orange/white color scheme stands out among other jet-fighters (hence his more drab colors in the Bay films), and even Soundwave as an armored military-grade vehicle would surely turn heads.
You forgot to mention the part about Mirage where his vehicle had the drivers seat exposed and so literally everyone could see that there’s no one driving it
The Transformers could produce holograms of drivers but a Formula 1 car even with a hologram driver is still way out of place except a race tract. That particular F-1 car raced in the European circuit in 1975 so by 1984 it would be in a race museum or storage.
@@maxbrandt6 creating hologram drivers wasn't standard in g1. The only characters I recall being able to create holograms are Hound, & Mirage specifically in the Marvel comics. Though in Mirage case they are more like illusions than holograms. Outside of that, pretty much no one displayed any ability to project a fake driver.
2:38 - Fun fact, you can also legally own a tank in the UK, you just need to have the specific license for it just like you would a motorbike, HGV, black cab etc It's called the "heavy tracked vehicle" license, there's quite a few people in the UK that have them and other types of licenses and documentation that allows a member of the public to own things like tanks, troop carriers, military style jeeps etc which they then often take to shows or even rent out to things like studios for movie purposes etc.
This needs to be a series where you take on the worst alt-mode disguises from every generation (or continuity) per faction as long as it takes place on a relatively comparable modern day earth.
For the Decepticons; we have two giant guns (one of them being able to fly that mode), a self-aiming cannon, stunt cars, a deep purple space shuttle, infantry transport vehicle, purple tank with dual guns, black car with red windows, and a giant camera.
Some very hilarious observations here! It occurs to me that for better or worse, over the past 20 years, a lot of American police departments have procured decommissioned military equipment. Maybe Warpath should have gotten Prowl’s scheme! Also, I’m 99% sure Sunstreaker was based on an actual Countach concept car…but the point still stands. 😁
The G1 Sunstreaker toy is actually a wildly inaccurate representation of a Countach. Aside from the glasshouse, bonnet (hood), and wing, the whole vehicle is completely different. Not just the crazy rocket pods and huge intakes.
There must have been a car shoe somewhere near mount St. Hillary back in September of 1984 when the Ark was scanning for alternative modes for the autobots. Probably directly across the street from the military base the Depticon jets received their jet modes from.
My head canon is Sky Spy scanned a car show which had customs, concept cars, race cars, and other displays (the other Japanese vehicles)... blame Sky Spy. Cosmos to me kept his Cybertronian mode. Silverbolt though you can blame Optimus for building him that way... or repurposing him into that design
To be fair for smokescreen, they could have scanned some car buff's replica race car, but nobody who can afford to modify a porsche 935 into a race car replica is gonna make it go anywhere outside his personal hemetically sealed weather controlled collection garage building.
To be fair, in G1 pretty much everybody knows autobots and deceptions existed, like when have you seen a person screaming on their lungs because they saw a vehicle transforming inti robots in G1 ?
If you're worried an Autobot can't logically be somewhere because of their alt mode, just remember KnightBoat. There's always a canal. Or an inlet. Or a Fjord.
To be fair, the Transformers were Japanese toys before they came to Japan so it's not surprising to me that most of the Autobots were based off Japanese vehicles and apart from Mirage, a lot of people decorate street cars to look like race cars and as far as Prowl being a police car my 2 reasons for that is Teletraan scanned a police car that was probably a donated highway patrol car donated by a Nissan dealer to the police or it scanned a retired police car before all the decals and accessories were taken off. I have no explanation for Red Alert being a fire department Lamborghini but I've seen real life examples of street cars decorated as race cars many times as I've been an automotive technician for almost 30 years and have worked on many of them myself
To me the the insecticons had the best disguise as 40 foot robot insects were very common where I grew up. They weren’t much of a problem though as they could easily be taken out with ordinary bug spray.
In the comics the Insecticons changed to the size of regular insects so unless you looked at them closely you didn't realize that they were robots, it also made them superb infiltrators.
This is where my Power Rangers and Transformers crossover comes in, where Grimlock, Slug, and either scar, snarl, or swoop scan the Dinozords. And that’s basically my explanation for robots in disguise meet dinosaurs.
I remember a TH-cam channel where the guy adamantly hated transformers that turned into Animals, and his reason was they weren't disguised. People then told the guy 1 the Dinobots predacons and terrorcons don't use their alt modes to hide 😂 and 2 look at Jazz Mirage Prowl and Cosmos. The guy didn't take kindly to being called out 😂
He still only used G1 transformers. I want to see if there are any besides, the beast era, and the movies mostly because the movies were basically was basically Hasbro getting paid to promote cars so them being rare would be an understatement
@@henryheavy8044 that may be true for some but some of them are very expensive cars and the paint schemes are what are the odds for two people would have both the same model car and the same color scheme
Someone in my area actually has one of the Ironhide/Ratchet vans, in white. I see it occasionally near the local grocery store. I also sometimes see a gold Volkswagen Beetle.
Thing is though, if I saw a very specific design of racecar or whatever, I'd probably think "oh cool, it's like a replica or something" I wouldn't think "oh my god, it's an alien robot"
But who the people the Autobots disguising themselves from? Not humans as much as the Decepticons! When the Decepticons see a race car he doesn't know that it's out of place. He just see another Earth machine.
How about those Decepticon Custom Jets, or the Combat Jungle Camo Space Shuttle? A follow up video could easily get plenty of material. Including low hanging fruit like the Insecticons and Predacons
Counter argument, replicas of famous race cars are a thing, some of them are even street legal. But yes, nothing says look at me more than a flashy racecar covered in sponsors.
There was probably a game among the Autobots where they dared each other to take a certain alt-mode. Optimus may question it, but they convince him that an F1 race car & scrunched-up (whater Cliffjumper is) wouldn't look inconspicuous next to each other. Then Prime commissions the Dinobots
Even in the movies, the decepticons were always better at disguises. Even though their leader often sticks with his Cybertronian alt mode, most decepticons would have vehicles for their job, barricade was a police car for tracking and interogation, soundwave was a satellite for communications and then disguised himself as carly's bmw for spying, they've fooled the millitary on multiple occasions by disguising as millitary vehicles. Meanwhile the Autobots ride around with flashy flames and concept cars
Inferno still has the excuse of if people are driving by a fire truck parked somewhere, they're more than likely going to be looking for some kind of fire or other emergency situation and not what the specific model of fire truck is servicing the place.
In high school (not long after Prowl, Bluestreak, and Smokescreen) I knew other students with Datsun 280zx's. One even was a look alike for Bluestreak.
Here in Italy we had a Police Lamborghini (I think it got totaled some years ago). It was used for emergency organ transportation and other similar occasions. Surely not to chase after criminals on the highways.
I feel that the Bayverse autobots get a pass considering how the early 2000s and ongoing have shown how popular car shows are along with customizing them.
There’s actually only 2 Stratos Turbos. The turbo is a Group 5 version of the normal stratos, with flared out bodywork and a turbocharger that the normal cars, even the rally versions, didn’t have. One of the cars burned to the ground in the 70’s so wheeljack copied the only one left
One of the best "Robots in Disguise" has to be Sideways... Not only he got a Motorcycle Form, but Crosswise/Rook/Mirror forming a driver makes it hard to tell between a transformer and real vehicle!
What you are not taking into account here is the fact that they didn’t scan these alt mode forms themselves, teletran scanned the vehicles for them and repaired them to get them all online
Love to see you explain some of the Decepticons so called robots in disguise modes like ravage or laser beak or trypticon or the predacons or terrorcons to name a few
As far as tanks, seeing one going down a road would be odd, but your first thought wouldn't be amazement and calling the police....unless it started shooting.
Well Cosmos either has the worst alt-mode or the best. He's either going to stand out like a sore thumb or no one is going to want to admit that they saw him.
This got me thinking. If you were to do G1 over again, what vehicles would you use for these characters? Whether it be using unused Diaclone/Microman/Microchange/etc toys, or just whatever vehicles you'd deem most appropriate. Up to you.
im G1 so i saw the original pilot episode in 1984 and back than i dont recall them doing the robots in disguise gimmick back then they crashed on earth and all Autobots where cars and trucks until a few episodes later they did dinobots and jets than season 2 they where starting to do alt modes like the decepticons as i remember.
The worst offenders are the stunticons specifically drag strip not only did he turn into a formula 1 car but a f1 that I believe only 2 exist of and was stolen from a race which I presume was on live television also the insecticons giant bugs for no reason and Thrust dirge and ramjet who were all disguised as potential enemy aircraft in the US at least
I mean the Cone Head's alt modes are based on F-15s an American Jet. "Granted they are highly modified F-15s" but are still fairly recognizable as being based off of it.
@@R0-83-RT true but I am pretty sure a vtol air craft would attract a lot of attention off the Air Force plus silhouette wise these would look like very different air craft but like with prowl inferno red alert ratchet etc they don’t really break your Emerson because we know what they are suppose to be even the stunticons they didn’t give a crap if people knew they were decepticons any, the Dinobots were built to be dinosaurs to protect the arch so they are also kind of excused because they didn’t choose their forms, constructicons also the wrong Color for an american construction vehicle but again don’t break emerson. Though after thinking about it the biggest fail as a robots in disguise is Perceptor a giant microscope that is even to big for a normal transformer to use lol
The RiD15 approach to Robots in Disguise with Grimlock, was actually pretty funny, clever, and made it into a realistic point. RiD15 never gets the credit it deserves. 😅
To be fair to the racing old modes, there are a lot of fans who dress their cars up in race colors. Ironically, in a real life version of life imitates art, I'm sure we've all seen many Chevy Camaros dressed up to look like bumblebee, complete with Autobot badges and custom license plates that are like 'bmblbee' although there's basically no way for ordinary motorists to hand wave away, all the ones that are clearly impersonating an officer, that's how the autobots get some red and blue lights flashing in their rear view mirrors
Your video would make sense if the only purpose of an alternate mode disguise... but it can also be functional, for combat or transportation, are we even because that's what the robot was made out of. Not everyone is only looking to blend in as their only priority.
Most Transformers honestly suck at picking disguises; even the ones that aren't specific identifiable vehicles, most alt modes are high end cars that are going to draw the eye even if they could plausibly be where they are, a few, of them are more discreeet, modern depictions of G1 Bumblebee tend to go for hatchbacks that are dime a dozen on the roads and would roll under the radar, but that's about it.
If there’s any positives from RID 2015 other than 87% of the Decepticon designs, Strongarm, or the concept of the Decepticons controlling post-war Cybertron and turning the general public against the Autobots that deserved to be in a better-written show, I really liked how the writers actually took time to consider how bad Grimlock’s alt-mode is for the whole robots in disguise thing and had him come up with his own faux alternate mode that made him look like a construction vehicle. It was a decent character arc (a rarity for the Aligned-verse outside of Rescue Bots) and somewhat clever. Wouldn’t mind seeing a Leader Class RID 2015 Grimlock figure that’s just a Voyager with extra parts meant to help accomplish his “crane” mode.
@@matthewelliott7294 I think if Teletraan 1 gave him that as his alt-mode he'd storm to elmo's mansion or penthouse or wherever the hell he is and squish him personally lol
Bumblebee is just a regular VW in the cartoon, which is an example of the toys not always being true representations of the character. I also consider this to be true of Micromasters. Despite them being canonically tiny in robot and vehicle mode, this doesn't make much sense as a form of disguise. A halfsized sportscar isn't particularly inconspicuous, and would be too small for adult passenegers. It makes more sense to consider the Micromaster range as a different scale, similar to Micromachines which still represent regular sized cars. So in my view, the Micromasters arent known as such in universe, that's just the term describing the smaller scale toys. In the cartoon they should be the same size as any other character. And the same should be true if they eventually are made as third party collectibles.
Maybe Teletran 1 just used data on earth automobiles and scanned whatever it deemed fit for the Autobots since they were going to be cars, trucks, vans, etc
"Robots in Disguise" became an artifact title trope pretty quick and became more of "robots that turn into real cool cars and stuff".
"Robots In Disguise" doesn't necessarily imply that they are hiding, just that they visually appear as something other than a robot.
It was over once the robotic dinosaur Dinobots were introduced.
I have the theory that Cosmos was not disguised, that that was his Cybertronian alternate mode and that the sights of UFO were actually Cosmos looking for the Autobots stranded on Earth.
That would make a lot of sense ngl
You just gave me an idea
Of the initial Dialcone robos, the Honda City Turbo is one the most common and unassuming cars, but poor Skids only made minor toy and cartoon appearances presumably in part because he wasn't as marketable as the Robots in Disguise-but-in-the-wrong-places.
agreed Skids seems very unsuspecting.
Yeah his alt mode is pretty standard, and it wouldn’t be too odd or unassuming to see one like him parked on the side of the road, even if his mode was heavily decked out with custom mods, decals and what not
I always liked how Wheeljack's reasoning behind building the Dinobots was basically the logic a kid of that era would use: he learned about dinosaurs and said "Yo, these dinosaur things are awesome, but you know what would be even MORE awesome? ROBOT dinosaurs!"
Obligatory aviation nerd here: There were exactly 20 Concorde SSTs made and now 18 in museums. One was lost in a notorious crash in Paris, the other was cannibalized for parts.
Also due to Sonic Booms, after the first couple years of operation, Concorde flew almost exclusively the London to New York route with a few other exclusively over ocean routes now and again
All to say Silverbolt could've scanned one if he somehow visited JFK unnoticed, but TJ's point stands.
G1 didn't even scan their own vehicles. Teletraan-1's Sky Spy found all the alt modes. So blame it.
@@ShadowWingTronix that's fair. Tho that begs the question: just how far did that sky spy go?
@@jetseekers Silverbolt was created in Cybertron from an old transport place, Optimus and the Autobots who went with him gave him his Concorde appearance, it is very likely that they took a pic from their memory banks unaware that Concordes were very rare, massive passenger ships, not regular jets.
@@jetseekers Thank you! Was about to comment this! The first season, I don't think anybody picked their alt modes. it was Teletraan's satellite scout that scanned them. That means either most of these rare vehicles were in the same exact area of the crash, or, that it literally scoured the planet for these vehicles!
Honestly an idea I came up with for why so many autobots are supercars and race cars and the like is cause teletraan 1 could have scanned a auto show or something, so a lot of them ended up with those for alt-modes
Either that or an eccentric billionaire car collector lived nearby
@@NerdyTransformed I feel like an auto show is more likely tbh
I think that's what happened in the G1 cartoon, wasn't it? When they woke up, the autobots had Teletraan 1 send out a probe to find and scan alt modes for them?
I thought Teletran 1 sent a Satellite. So it basically found the best alt modes for their robot bodies.
@@toddfraser3353 Eh, teletraan 1, sky spy, same difference
Remember the Transformers in the 1984 cartoon weren’t even trying to hide, all of them were basically public celebrities lol, to the point of becoming movie stars (Hoist Goes Hollywood), hunting game(Prime Target), deserving of memorials (Starscream’s Brigade), and the titular Megatron’s Master Plan had the cons turn the human public against the bots
Which makes it really odd that they invented the "Robots in disguise" tagline and _lyric in the show's theme song_ when they know they weren't doing that whatsoever.
it's not entirely fair to blame the g1 autobots for their vehicle modes. remember, they were unconscious and Teletran-1 used the Sky Spy to randomly pick vehicles from around the world to convert the autobots into. easily explained away. in cybertron, jetfire was the one who brought back the scan of the fire truck for optimus in the first place meaning the truck had the giant cannons from the outset.
and lets not forget that the forms likely have to be compatible to their current bodies which is why red alert, hot shot and scattershot picked those new alt modes because they were too big for their old forms
Was it around the world? It's been a while since I've watched season 1 but I was under the impression it scanned vehicles near or around the crash site.
Skylynx is also terrible choice for hiding because of the fact he adopted a space shuttle alt mode and also carries a massive box underneath him in flight, gotta wonder how he gets enough fuel to break into orbit while carrying that payload which also drags one down!!
Anyway we need a sequel list for the Decepticons to find out who got the worst RID for them outside of the obvious like the city bots and Megaton!!
Sky Lynx actually makes total sense when you interpret the toy correctly. The Lynx portion is a ground-based unit meant to transport spacecraft from the assembly building to the launchpad. It's not supposed to fly around with the shuttle component, it's supposed to stay on the ground. The problem is that the cartoonists either didn't realize that, or just didn't care, and drew the whole thing flying around as a single unit.
Well at that point the series takes place in the fictional future of "2005" so, most alt modes that show up during or after "The Transformers The Movie" get a technical pass.
Is Sky Lynx had chosen bus would he look less conspicuous as he was flying through space?
@@RetroRobotRadio Hatd to say as in anime, there is a series where trains are travelling between planets, so in the world of animation, anything is possible!!
If we're going by G1, I'm pretty sure that the Autobots DIDN'T pick their modes, but Teletraan-1. At least, to my knowledge.
Yeah, Telaraan-1 did the Mode alignment
For the tv show and in the comics.
The tech-spec bios of the toys don't ever mention how they acquired their alt modes, but it could be assumed T-1 had something to do with it.
I was thinking the same thing Teletraan-1 scanned the first videos it could find that was compatible with their body, RID is so much worse, also when something is absurbed enough most people will double take.
Heck in the marvel comic it's made explicitly clear that the vehicles were scanned not to be vehicular disguises, but because the Ark's computer mistook the machines as the dominant lifeform on earth. Needless to say Aunty had no idea of what the nuisances of what vehicles would be appropriate as a disguise, since they weren't even viewed as vehicles by the computer in the first place.
They did not!! That probe that was sent out by the Arc picked the modes
I'm 99% convinced "Robots in Disguise" was just a marketing tagline that the writers ignored because it both didn't make sense for several toys but also the number of stories they'd be able to tell would've been very few.
In defense of Ratchet, many of their sibling vans, the Toyota Hi-Ace, and ESPECIALLY the Mitsubishi L300, and similarly sized vans, HAVE been used as common ambulances here in the Philippines. There are still the box pickup-truck-based ones here, but they're not AS common, and they van-types exists as first responder vehicles to the nearest clinic, if not hospital.
Look up a picture of the Mitsubishi L300 that doesn't have its rear converted into a box cabin. It's a DEAD RINGER for the Vanette.
Rock Lords turn into boulders and people make fun of them... but at least they blend with the landscape better than a formula 1 racer.
To defend the G1, Teletran 1 selected optimal cars for each Autobot. The race cars were very optimal vehicles for their body frame and capabilities.
I remember Arcee bringing up this exact point about Smokescreen in TFPrime, saying the doofus chose an alt-mode with 'screaming double 38s' and doubted he could be trusted with safeguarding their human friends. As for G1, Teletran 1 initially picked out alt-modes for the stranded Cybertronians, so it's not like they realized some of them had out-of-place alt-modes at first.
And the usual forms for most Decepticons are even worse. No way Megatron blends in as a beefed-up M1 Abrams, Starscream's orange/white color scheme stands out among other jet-fighters (hence his more drab colors in the Bay films), and even Soundwave as an armored military-grade vehicle would surely turn heads.
You forgot to mention the part about Mirage where his vehicle had the drivers seat exposed and so literally everyone could see that there’s no one driving it
The Transformers could produce holograms of drivers but a Formula 1 car even with a hologram driver is still way out of place except a race tract. That particular F-1 car raced in the European circuit in 1975 so by 1984 it would be in a race museum or storage.
@@maxbrandt6 creating hologram drivers wasn't standard in g1. The only characters I recall being able to create holograms are Hound, & Mirage specifically in the Marvel comics. Though in Mirage case they are more like illusions than holograms.
Outside of that, pretty much no one displayed any ability to project a fake driver.
@@R0-83-RT I think that Mirage's ability was to become invisible.
@@Hektols I said specifically in the marvel comics
2:38 - Fun fact, you can also legally own a tank in the UK, you just need to have the specific license for it just like you would a motorbike, HGV, black cab etc
It's called the "heavy tracked vehicle" license, there's quite a few people in the UK that have them and other types of licenses and documentation that allows a member of the public to own things like tanks, troop carriers, military style jeeps etc which they then often take to shows or even rent out to things like studios for movie purposes etc.
Grimlock: "We Dinobots don't care to hide! The humans can tremble for all I care! We're here to smash up Decepticons!"
In defense of the season 1 Autobots: they themselves weren’t the ones who chose their alt modes it was Teletran 1.
The lowest hanging fruit is that both the Autobots and the Decepticons prominently displayed their faction symbols in their "disguised" mode.
This needs to be a series where you take on the worst alt-mode disguises from every generation (or continuity) per faction as long as it takes place on a relatively comparable modern day earth.
For the Decepticons; we have two giant guns (one of them being able to fly that mode), a self-aiming cannon, stunt cars, a deep purple space shuttle, infantry transport vehicle, purple tank with dual guns, black car with red windows, and a giant camera.
You ever wonder if Teletran just happened to stumble into a race where all of these race cars were racing at?
"You can't do that with a privately owned tank"
You should be able to.
Some very hilarious observations here! It occurs to me that for better or worse, over the past 20 years, a lot of American police departments have procured decommissioned military equipment. Maybe Warpath should have gotten Prowl’s scheme! Also, I’m 99% sure Sunstreaker was based on an actual Countach concept car…but the point still stands. 😁
The G1 Sunstreaker toy is actually a wildly inaccurate representation of a Countach. Aside from the glasshouse, bonnet (hood), and wing, the whole vehicle is completely different. Not just the crazy rocket pods and huge intakes.
There must have been a car shoe somewhere near mount St. Hillary back in September of 1984 when the Ark was scanning for alternative modes for the autobots. Probably directly across the street from the military base the Depticon jets received their jet modes from.
"They don't make custom Lamborghini monkey"
(Cue images of Optimus Primal with Lambo parts strapped to his beast mode)
My head canon is Sky Spy scanned a car show which had customs, concept cars, race cars, and other displays (the other Japanese vehicles)... blame Sky Spy. Cosmos to me kept his Cybertronian mode. Silverbolt though you can blame Optimus for building him that way... or repurposing him into that design
G1 season 1 stated the Dinobots were built for their power to fight the Decpeticons and in season 1, they stayed offline at the base till needed.
To be fair for smokescreen, they could have scanned some car buff's replica race car, but nobody who can afford to modify a porsche 935 into a race car replica is gonna make it go anywhere outside his personal hemetically sealed weather controlled collection garage building.
Black and White are common police colors. But I have never seen a Datsun as a police car in the US.
California highway partol did have fox body mustangs though
@@autophreaktrishield But not Datsuns. Close though.
To be fair, in G1 pretty much everybody knows autobots and deceptions existed, like when have you seen a person screaming on their lungs because they saw a vehicle transforming inti robots in G1 ?
to defend cosmos: he looks perfectly fine as a doorbel.
Was going to say...
Cosmos stopped by a movie set, or Area 51
If you're worried an Autobot can't logically be somewhere because of their alt mode, just remember KnightBoat. There's always a canal. Or an inlet. Or a Fjord.
To be fair, the Transformers were Japanese toys before they came to Japan so it's not surprising to me that most of the Autobots were based off Japanese vehicles and apart from Mirage, a lot of people decorate street cars to look like race cars and as far as Prowl being a police car my 2 reasons for that is Teletraan scanned a police car that was probably a donated highway patrol car donated by a Nissan dealer to the police or it scanned a retired police car before all the decals and accessories were taken off. I have no explanation for Red Alert being a fire department Lamborghini but I've seen real life examples of street cars decorated as race cars many times as I've been an automotive technician for almost 30 years and have worked on many of them myself
To me the the insecticons had the best disguise as 40 foot robot insects were very common where I grew up. They weren’t much of a problem though as they could easily be taken out with ordinary bug spray.
In the comics the Insecticons changed to the size of regular insects so unless you looked at them closely you didn't realize that they were robots, it also made them superb infiltrators.
This is where my Power Rangers and Transformers crossover comes in, where Grimlock, Slug, and either scar, snarl, or swoop scan the Dinozords. And that’s basically my explanation for robots in disguise meet dinosaurs.
Honestly, Prowl being a police car is enough for people to not trying to investigate the car in fear of potentially being arrested.
My grandfather once test flew a concord. I have also toured the one in Seattle. Beautiful plane.
3:55 Honestly, with the Dinobots, I just want Grimlock to say, "Me Grimlock not care about disguise!"
I remember a TH-cam channel where the guy adamantly hated transformers that turned into Animals, and his reason was they weren't disguised. People then told the guy 1 the Dinobots predacons and terrorcons don't use their alt modes to hide 😂 and 2 look at Jazz Mirage Prowl and Cosmos. The guy didn't take kindly to being called out 😂
He still only used G1 transformers. I want to see if there are any besides, the beast era, and the movies mostly because the movies were basically was basically Hasbro getting paid to promote cars so them being rare would be an understatement
Pretty sure movie vehicles are mostly civilian looking enough that it won’t draw that much attention and also they’re dime and dozen by this point
@@henryheavy8044 that may be true for some but some of them are very expensive cars and the paint schemes are what are the odds for two people would have both the same model car and the same color scheme
@@ajerjavec4723 Sideswipe was a concept car that never even got released.
Someone in my area actually has one of the Ironhide/Ratchet vans, in white. I see it occasionally near the local grocery store. I also sometimes see a gold Volkswagen Beetle.
7:40
Actually, in Auto Berserk, there was a fire chief Lamborghini that was mistaken for Red Alert, so maybe in-universe they make a lot more money?
When you talked about Inferno, you forgot Grapple, who uses the same vehicle
Thing is though, if I saw a very specific design of racecar or whatever, I'd probably think "oh cool, it's like a replica or something" I wouldn't think "oh my god, it's an alien robot"
But depending the chronology you want to follow, most of the G1 autobots didn't choose their form.
But who the people the Autobots disguising themselves from? Not humans as much as the Decepticons! When the Decepticons see a race car he doesn't know that it's out of place. He just see another Earth machine.
Yeah, we're definitely going to need a part 2.
How about those Decepticon Custom Jets, or the Combat Jungle Camo Space Shuttle? A follow up video could easily get plenty of material. Including low hanging fruit like the Insecticons and Predacons
Can you imagine a toy collection of transforming robots who all turn into brown hatch backs?
Imagine if you were the guy who owned one of those one of a kind super cars and one day you just see it driving down the street.
Counter argument, replicas of famous race cars are a thing, some of them are even street legal.
But yes, nothing says look at me more than a flashy racecar covered in sponsors.
This video reminds me of that one Transformers episodes where Spike spots "military planes" at a commercial airport.
There was probably a game among the Autobots where they dared each other to take a certain alt-mode. Optimus may question it, but they convince him that an F1 race car & scrunched-up (whater Cliffjumper is) wouldn't look inconspicuous next to each other. Then Prime commissions the Dinobots
There is a special license you can get to have a working tank. It's just very expensive.
Even in the movies, the decepticons were always better at disguises. Even though their leader often sticks with his Cybertronian alt mode, most decepticons would have vehicles for their job, barricade was a police car for tracking and interogation, soundwave was a satellite for communications and then disguised himself as carly's bmw for spying, they've fooled the millitary on multiple occasions by disguising as millitary vehicles. Meanwhile the Autobots ride around with flashy flames and concept cars
Inferno still has the excuse of if people are driving by a fire truck parked somewhere, they're more than likely going to be looking for some kind of fire or other emergency situation and not what the specific model of fire truck is servicing the place.
In their defense, the Autobots didn’t choose their alternate modes.
Granted, I dont think many people would see a car regardless of what it looks like and say “hmm thats a robot”
In high school (not long after Prowl, Bluestreak, and Smokescreen) I knew other students with Datsun 280zx's. One even was a look alike for Bluestreak.
Here in Italy we had a Police Lamborghini (I think it got totaled some years ago). It was used for emergency organ transportation and other similar occasions. Surely not to chase after criminals on the highways.
I feel that the Bayverse autobots get a pass considering how the early 2000s and ongoing have shown how popular car shows are along with customizing them.
Cosmos Alt-mode "fictional," We may find out soon enough.
There’s actually only 2 Stratos Turbos. The turbo is a Group 5 version of the normal stratos, with flared out bodywork and a turbocharger that the normal cars, even the rally versions, didn’t have. One of the cars burned to the ground in the 70’s so wheeljack copied the only one left
One of the best "Robots in Disguise" has to be Sideways... Not only he got a Motorcycle Form, but Crosswise/Rook/Mirror forming a driver makes it hard to tell between a transformer and real vehicle!
What you are not taking into account here is the fact that they didn’t scan these alt mode forms themselves, teletran scanned the vehicles for them and repaired them to get them all online
You also could have mentioned Skids, since the Honda City Turbo was only available overseas.
Love to see you explain some of the Decepticons so called robots in disguise modes like ravage or laser beak or trypticon or the predacons or terrorcons to name a few
Laser Beak & Ravage turn into cassette tapes, which I would argue is actually a pretty good and unassuming disguise, especially during the 80s.
Now I want a custom Lamborghini Monkey… 😅
As far as tanks, seeing one going down a road would be odd, but your first thought wouldn't be amazement and calling the police....unless it started shooting.
Well Cosmos either has the worst alt-mode or the best. He's either going to stand out like a sore thumb or no one is going to want to admit that they saw him.
This got me thinking. If you were to do G1 over again, what vehicles would you use for these characters? Whether it be using unused Diaclone/Microman/Microchange/etc toys, or just whatever vehicles you'd deem most appropriate. Up to you.
im G1 so i saw the original pilot episode in 1984 and back than i dont recall them doing the robots in disguise gimmick back then they crashed on earth and all Autobots where cars and trucks until a few episodes later they did dinobots and jets than season 2 they where starting to do alt modes like the decepticons as i remember.
Teletraan sent the sky spy to scan alt modes. Mt. St. Hilary is on the west coast. The sky spy just went west to scan japanese vehicles.
The worst offenders are the stunticons specifically drag strip not only did he turn into a formula 1 car but a f1 that I believe only 2 exist of and was stolen from a race which I presume was on live television also the insecticons giant bugs for no reason and Thrust dirge and ramjet who were all disguised as potential enemy aircraft in the US at least
I mean the Cone Head's alt modes are based on F-15s an American Jet. "Granted they are highly modified F-15s" but are still fairly recognizable as being based off of it.
@@R0-83-RT true but I am pretty sure a vtol air craft would attract a lot of attention off the Air Force plus silhouette wise these would look like very different air craft but like with prowl inferno red alert ratchet etc they don’t really break your Emerson because we know what they are suppose to be even the stunticons they didn’t give a crap if people knew they were decepticons any, the Dinobots were built to be dinosaurs to protect the arch so they are also kind of excused because they didn’t choose their forms, constructicons also the wrong Color for an american construction vehicle but again don’t break emerson. Though after thinking about it the biggest fail as a robots in disguise is Perceptor a giant microscope that is even to big for a normal transformer to use lol
The RiD15 approach to Robots in Disguise with Grimlock, was actually pretty funny, clever, and made it into a realistic point. RiD15 never gets the credit it deserves. 😅
oh right they made him a display piece usually
KABLAM! YAY, I'M LEGAL IN THE U.S.!
To be fair to the racing old modes, there are a lot of fans who dress their cars up in race colors. Ironically, in a real life version of life imitates art, I'm sure we've all seen many Chevy Camaros dressed up to look like bumblebee, complete with Autobot badges and custom license plates that are like 'bmblbee' although there's basically no way for ordinary motorists to hand wave away, all the ones that are clearly impersonating an officer, that's how the autobots get some red and blue lights flashing in their rear view mirrors
Even as a 7yr old, I always thought the Dinobots were the most stupid concept.
The thing was, the G1 autobots and decepticons didn't. Get to choose their forms. The sky spy of telletran one did.
Cosmos .. never reformated so he doesn't count . That's his Cybertron mode
i think the ol’ sky spy may have a poor grasp on what a disguise is, a few million years under a volcano’ll do that to ya.
Your video would make sense if the only purpose of an alternate mode disguise... but it can also be functional, for combat or transportation, are we even because that's what the robot was made out of. Not everyone is only looking to blend in as their only priority.
Some fire chiefs do have spots cars, so they can get to fires quickly and the cars have the gear they need like in the trunk
If I'm not mistaken the Datsun 240z was quite popular in America.
Most Transformers honestly suck at picking disguises; even the ones that aren't specific identifiable vehicles, most alt modes are high end cars that are going to draw the eye even if they could plausibly be where they are, a few, of them are more discreeet, modern depictions of G1 Bumblebee tend to go for hatchbacks that are dime a dozen on the roads and would roll under the radar, but that's about it.
Another fun oopsie with the F1 racer is it is straight up impossible to hide the fact there is no driver thanks to the wide open cockpit.
Maybe Hasbro or anyone can give the Autobots modern, and more street-legal alt-modes
While the Wreckes could be military vehicles
If there’s any positives from RID 2015 other than 87% of the Decepticon designs, Strongarm, or the concept of the Decepticons controlling post-war Cybertron and turning the general public against the Autobots that deserved to be in a better-written show, I really liked how the writers actually took time to consider how bad Grimlock’s alt-mode is for the whole robots in disguise thing and had him come up with his own faux alternate mode that made him look like a construction vehicle. It was a decent character arc (a rarity for the Aligned-verse outside of Rescue Bots) and somewhat clever. Wouldn’t mind seeing a Leader Class RID 2015 Grimlock figure that’s just a Voyager with extra parts meant to help accomplish his “crane” mode.
So what you're saying is that a good modern form for Ironhide would be a Tesla?
🤣
I think that would be the last disguise that Ironhide would use.
@@matthewelliott7294 I think if Teletraan 1 gave him that as his alt-mode he'd storm to elmo's mansion or penthouse or wherever the hell he is and squish him personally lol
Sunstreaker was based on a Lamborghini concept car. So sunstreaker's car does exist
People who build custom cars often have rallies and if one was going on when Sky-spy sent out that would explain everything.
Wouldn't the Powermaster Slapdash and the Stunticon Dragstrip have the same problem as Mirage? They are also based on F1 race cars.
Decepticons Who Are Terrible Robots In Disguise plz.
iron hide/ ratchet, i have seen multiple of these vehicles in chicago
ironhide and ratchet are hard to find in us today except in hawaii.
Ironhide was the Armada Optimus of the real world.
Bumblebee is just a regular VW in the cartoon, which is an example of the toys not always being true representations of the character. I also consider this to be true of Micromasters. Despite them being canonically tiny in robot and vehicle mode, this doesn't make much sense as a form of disguise. A halfsized sportscar isn't particularly inconspicuous, and would be too small for adult passenegers.
It makes more sense to consider the Micromaster range as a different scale, similar to Micromachines which still represent regular sized cars. So in my view, the Micromasters arent known as such in universe, that's just the term describing the smaller scale toys. In the cartoon they should be the same size as any other character. And the same should be true if they eventually are made as third party collectibles.
What if their vehicle modes are normal human vehicle scale but shrink down when transforming into a human sized robot? Mass shifting did happen G1
Maybe Teletran 1 just used data on earth automobiles and scanned whatever it deemed fit for the Autobots since they were going to be cars, trucks, vans, etc