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Greetings All,

It is hard to believe, it has been 20 years! On this date (Saturday) 9/8/01 that Robots in Disguise (the first animated series to have the subtitle, not to be confused with the 2015 follow up to TF : Prime) aired on Fox Kids. I remember recording it, and being fairly satisfied with how it was translated, and the characters personalities. However the history of the series goes back 18 months prior to that day, as the original Japanese version first aired on 4/5/2000.



I really enjoyed this series. Well...to be honest, I really enjoyed more so the original Car Robots version. By summer 2000, I had just finished obtaining BWII and Neo on VHS and was excited for Car Robots. I attended Botcon 2000 July 28-30 of that year. I had already obtained Fire Convoy and Gigatron from eBay, and was looking for newer characters. At the convention, I straight up traded my BC exclusives Shockaract and Apelinq for JRX and Baldigus, a decision I would still make all over again. I was also able to get the first 8 episodes of the series on VHS, raw (not subbed), and loved it.

2000 was still relatively early for internet videos. a few really bad copies of BM season 2 could be obtained early since YTV in Canada had aired them before Fox Kids in the U.S., but that show was just more of a chore to complete the BW saga. Car Robots got me excited about TF\'s again. Getting later episodes of the series on the internet was hit-and-miss, so you can imagine my excitement when Fox announced they wre dubbing the series.

20 years later, i appreciate the dub for what it is. However...Fox\'s handling of the show was criminal. Although it aired initially 6 days a week, the airtimes got very random especially on Saturdays. then 9/11 happened and that messed up everything. Some episodes were aired out of order. 3 were banned altogether (at least in the U.S.), leading some to wonder if they had even been dubbed at all. I mean this would nto be the first time that happened *cough* Ultraman Tiga *cough*

Anyway...The whole series (both high quality fan subs of Car Robots, and the RiD dub) are now on YouTube. I do have a Malaysian DVD set which was a nice cost effective alternative to trying to obtain long oop UK R2 DVD\'s. Unfortunately, since this series was produced by Saban Ent, and subsequently purchased by Disney, it was not part of the deal when Saban purchased *most* of their IP back, which ironically now rests with Hasbro. Disney I\'m pretty sure doesn't even know they have it, and Hasbro doesn't seem to be making any great efforts to get it back, which is a shame. I\'d defintely support a legit media release of this series.

In hindsight, I know it was just supposed to be "filler" until the first U.S./Japan co-produced series came out (Armada), but I\'ll be completely honest when I say I prefer Car Robots to any of the Unicron Trilogy. CR got me excited about Transformers again, and that true excitement wouldn't\'t come yet again until almost a decade later with Prime. Now since Prime ended in 2013, there have been some amazing toys in the Generations line, but I\'m still waiting for an animated series that looks great and gets me excited for the brand.

First, let me say that I'm 100% with you on Robots in Disguise being better than the entire Unicron Trilogy. I like the Armada and Energon comics, but the series was passable at best. Subsequently I saw subbed versions of Micron Legends, Super Link and Galaxy Force, all 3 of which I have on DVD, and even though they're better than the US versions, I still prefer Car Robots over them. The toys are another story, but that belongs in another forum.

Robots in Disguise holds a special place in my heart as a fan because it's the series that reignited my love for Transformers. I loved (and still love) Beast Wars, but I never cared for the toys, that series was all about the story for me. But it was different. It wasn't an old-fashioned cartoon. Then I remember seeing the first toys from RiD at Target one night and my interest was piqued to the max. I saw Ultra Magnus and Scourge, and I was hooked again, after not having Transformers for about 5 years. I was 19, and I got away from TFs when I was about 13, as I became a teenager and got interested in girls, sports and real cars.

Growing up I never had many TFs as we didn't have much money, and whatever I got was on special occasions like Christmas or birthdays. But now I was a grown person with a full time job so I had disposable income. The RiD toys were vibrant abd colorful, and caught my eye immediately. I think I got all the larger ones, but I passed on Ruination and the Predacons. I still remember getting Sky-byte and thinking what a pain in the ass he was to transform from robot to shark. I was (and still am) probably in the small minority who think Omega Prime is an ugly and dumbass combination, and I would always display my Optimus and Magnus separately.

My favorite however was (and still is) Scourge. I love the truck mode (always been a big fan of tankers for some reason) and throughout the years my collection went through numerous changes and styles of display, but Scourge was ALWAYS on the shelf. And just recently I acquired the Unite Warriors Baldigus set, and now I have a proper scaled Ruination. I'm mentioning the toys because I saw them before I ever started watching the series, I was impressed, and they made me excited about the show.

But, this isn't the toys forum, so onto the series. I just loved the fact that it was an old-fashioned drawn cartoon as opposed to the style of the Beast series. And I was excited for another simple good guy Autobots against bad guy Decepticons series after the rollercoaster that was Beast Wars and Beast Machines. And in that it delivered. I didn't even care that Megatron was a purple dragon. It was just fun to watch in its silliness. And it brought back Fortress Maximus! Sort of.

My favorite concept was probably the new take on the space bridge, and I remember thinking how awesome it would be if I could use a ground bridge in real life. The series had a lot of fun parts and I can't think of any negatives other than some of the voice acting, but back then I didn't pay that much attention to it. Overall, Robots in Disguise was a very positive part of my fandom and I think of it fondly to this day. I do have Car Robots subbed on DVD and it's also a pretty good series, but as usual the tone is different. I haven't seen it in years, so it might be time to go back and watch both versions. Also, I would have been a big fan of an ongoing comic series about this continuity, but as far as I know neither Dreamwave or IDW touched it. A shame, the series had some great characters that could have flourished under the direction of a talented writer.