These Autobots Are Terrible Robots In Disguise

[@Hektols]

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.

[@bumbleprime7713]

That would make a lot of sense ngl

[@ElVonpa]

You just gave me an idea

[@samurexatlas7373]

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.

[@shelbybayer200]

Yeah, Telaraan-1 did the Mode alignment

[@ryvyl]

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.

[@SuperGamefreak18]

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.

[@R0-83-RT]

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.

[@erniemanegal5702]

They did not!! That probe that was sent out by the Arc picked the modes

[@RetroRobotRadio]

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.

[@megagrey]

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.

[@mikeyfourbarrel8473]

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. 😁

[@drewlovelyhell4892]

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.

[@ajerjavec4723]

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]

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

[@ajerjavec4723]

@@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

[@mrheroprimes]

@@ajerjavec4723 Sideswipe was a concept car that never even got released.

[@tidepoolclipper8657]

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.

[@thegreattreon0177]

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

[@justsomerandomguy5346]

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 ?

[@lynngreen7978]

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

[@HouseholdWheel]

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"

[@scalyvaporeon2232]

The thing was, the G1 autobots and decepticons didn't. Get to choose their forms. The sky spy of telletran one did.

[@tonyjackson4078]

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.

[@matthewjoyner1595]

In their defense, the Autobots didn’t choose their alternate modes.

[@Skaarjy]

If I'm not mistaken the Datsun 240z was quite popular in America.

[@randymerrick3347]

Sunstreaker was based on a Lamborghini concept car. So sunstreaker's car does exist

[@WARPATH-sr5ci]

KABLAM! YAY, I'M LEGAL IN THE U.S.!

[@Jimboliah3985]

If we're sticking to G1 Transformers who are bad at disguising, about a Decepticon? Astrotrain springs to mind when it comes to his locomotive mode. It's fairly common knowledge he's a D51 steam locomotive, and nevermind the lack of a tender the fully enclosed cab with space shuttle thrusters on the back, his purple color scheme that Thew made a Purple Rain joke about or even that the D51s were built for JNR, the Japanese National Railways. The big kicker is that the D51s were built to the wrong track gauge, so he can't fit on American railroad tracks! America uses the standard track gauge of 4 feet 8.5 inches, because it's the most common track gauge in the world. *Japan mostly uses a narrower gauge of 3 feet 6 inches, only using standard gauge for the bullet trains which have their own separate rail system.*

[@budmaloney]

I’m going to be a stickler here, but I think for all season 1 and maybe 2, it is teletraan’s fault. It picked all those race cars . Maybe it did fly over Japan and on the way scanned a ufo too

[@alejbr4]

iron hide/ ratchet, i have seen multiple of these vehicles in chicago

[@bowserbreaker2515]

Ironhide was the Armada Optimus of the real world.

[@treebotreviews]

My favorite thing is people using the vehicle modes in the movies to shit on the movies. G1 HAD AN F1 CAR IN THE LINEUP!!!!!

[@egodeth]

If you’re being extra nit picky, any government entity vehicle that isn’t U.S. would be instantly suspicious and a very likely suspect for a department audit.

[@zaxitron2714]

Can’t forget about Primus

[@NovaSaber]

Formula 1 cars aren't just "not street legal"; they physically can't drive on most normal roads.

[@zoltanperei4789]

But they did not chose their alt modes, it was by Teletraan 1.

[@johnnymason2460]

Wouldn't the Powermaster Slapdash and the Stunticon Dragstrip have the same problem as Mirage? They are also based on F1 race cars.

[@OctaviousNight]

what do you mean bad disguises, you’re acting like you don’t see 45 Altalia branded Lancia Stratos rally cars on your commute to work every morning next to another 12 vintage bright yellow Voltswagen beetles

[@shelbybayer200]

To be fair, some Might just be Special Science fiction super cars As for Prowl, Telaraan-1 did the Assignment So, it probably got data on Japanese Cop Cars Yeah, a lot of the blame for G1 Alt modes is that Telaraan-1 scanned the Vehicle modes Telaraan-1 probably just found random Vehicles took the data and gave the Bots those forms For other Versions of Transformers Can be explained as Future World Future tech Future Forms

[@gimpsickle5806]

youre not entirely correct about the privately owned tank thing you need the cannon demilled but if you get rubber tracks on it you (DEPENDING ON THE STATE) you can drive it anywhere

[@kilroywashere513]

Well, yeah there kinda obvious, and it was a toy line aimed at kids so yeah💁🏻‍♂.

[@KRBrickBot]

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.

[@masterfarr8265]

agreed Skids seems very unsuspecting.

[@fanboyofabandonedthings481]

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

[@KumoriBlackPhoenix]

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.

[@SuperGamefreak18]

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

[@d34th5back]

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.

[@KRBrickBot]

"Robots in Disguise" became an artifact title trope pretty quick and became more of "robots that turn into real cool cars and stuff".

[@drewlovelyhell4892]

"Robots In Disguise" doesn't necessarily imply that they are hiding, just that they visually appear as something other than a robot.

[@adamshafeeq8685]

Good thing it became more that "oh look, this robot turns into a car"

[@IronMysterian]

It was over once the robotic dinosaur Dinobots were introduced.

[@tracytron7162]

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

[@NerdyTransformed]

Either that or an eccentric billionaire car collector lived nearby

[@tracytron7162]

@@NerdyTransformed I feel like an auto show is more likely tbh

[@theringleader5596]

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?

[@toddfraser3353]

I thought Teletran 1 sent a Satellite. So it basically found the best alt modes for their robot bodies.

[@tracytron7162]

@@toddfraser3353 Eh, teletraan 1, sky spy, same difference

[@jetseekers]

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.

[@ShadowWingTronix]

G1 didn't even scan their own vehicles. Teletraan-1's Sky Spy found all the alt modes. So blame it.

[@jetseekers]

@@ShadowWingTronix that's fair. Tho that begs the question: just how far did that sky spy go?

[@Hektols]

@@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.

[@d34th5back]

​@@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!

[@JDRider02]

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

[@TristenSarelvun]

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.

[@franzise3605]

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!"

[@superomegaprimemk2]

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!!

[@OptimusPhillip]

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.

[@R0-83-RT]

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]

Is Sky Lynx had chosen bus would he look less conspicuous as he was flying through space?

[@superomegaprimemk2]

@@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!!

[@reyonXIII]

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.

[@jessmarz649]

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.

[@TheMushroomMeister]

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

[@maxbrandt6]

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.

[@R0-83-RT]

​@@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.

[@Hektols]

@@R0-83-RT I think that Mirage's ability was to become invisible.

[@R0-83-RT]

@@Hektols I said specifically in the marvel comics

[@sky-byte6272]

In defense of the season 1 Autobots: they themselves weren’t the ones who chose their alt modes it was Teletran 1.

[@SuperEmin]

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.

[@DCMarvelMultiverse]

Black and White are common police colors. But I have never seen a Datsun as a police car in the US.

[@autophreaktrishield]

California highway partol did have fox body mustangs though

[@DCMarvelMultiverse]

@@autophreaktrishield But not Datsuns. Close though.

[@xcar0982]

But depending the chronology you want to follow, most of the G1 autobots didn't choose their form.

[@joshuachristian5443]

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.

[@IronMysterian]

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.

[@Cadeho3]

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

[@KingUSVI]

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.

[@Hektols]

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.

[@BlockBlazer]

You ever wonder if Teletran just happened to stumble into a race where all of these race cars were racing at?

[@wsc0tt]

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.

[@tidepoolclipper8657]

Grimlock: "We Dinobots don't care to hide! The humans can tremble for all I care! We're here to smash up Decepticons!"

[@williamrogers4917]

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.

[@RetroRobotRadio]

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.

[@RetroRobotRadio]

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.

[@camhedmr_5593]

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.

[@26th_Primarch]

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.

[@haydenreviewscustomcombos]

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.

[@zphyr6780]

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.

[@RodimusMinor1987]

I remember a KZbin 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 😂

[@AS42100]

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?

[@rainydayman2k]

"They don't make custom Lamborghini monkey" (Cue images of Optimus Primal with Lambo parts strapped to his beast mode)

[@RKStrikerJK5]

3:55 Honestly, with the Dinobots, I just want Grimlock to say, "Me Grimlock not care about disguise!"

[@medafan53]

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.

[@leftygurl]

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.

[@cliffyk3380]

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

[@R0-83-RT]

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.

[@cliffyk3380]

@@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

[@BainesMkII]

The lowest hanging fruit is that both the Autobots and the Decepticons prominently displayed their faction symbols in their "disguised" mode.

[@JosephSmith-lm4ri]

"You can't do that with a privately owned tank" You should be able to.

[@Ehrin_E]

Cosmos Alt-mode "fictional," We may find out soon enough.

[@SamanthaS92]

Now I want a custom Lamborghini Monkey… 😅

[@night_raven77]

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.

[@masterfarr8265]

Anyone from G2 is a terrible robot in disguise XD

[@Ghostfjr2021]

agreed

[@The10centsguy]

Ye, but from all, the combaticons team is one of the worst from all

[@EternityKingdomsHeadHoncho]

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.

[@Keithchan2024]

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.

[@Ranma_Leopard]

Very enjoyable video

[@blucanyon]

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

[@Majinhero]

to defend cosmos: he looks perfectly fine as a doorbel.

[@michaelmann7816]

Was going to say...

[@moltenamber85]

Cosmos stopped by a movie set, or Area 51

[@ronleonard7015]

Maybe the fire chiefs spouse is loaded

[@drewlovelyhell4892]

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.

[@marcch72]

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

[@melvin3r512]

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.

[@AJUniverse]

So what you're saying is that a good modern form for Ironhide would be a Tesla?

[@tracytron7162]

🤣

[@matthewelliott7294]

I think that would be the last disguise that Ironhide would use.

[@tracytron7162]

@@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

[@saberwing7930]

I think, now that I've typed out this big long rant, that we've been way overthinking this. Humans have amazingly weird quirks of perception, such that tropes like Weirdness Censor and Unusually Uninteresting Sight have an annoying amount of basis in reality. I have read about stories of a person in a Cyberman costume walking about London drawing no attention. Or actors in Starfleet uniforms or Vulcan makeup being unnoticed in San Francisco. People will often ignore odd behavior or events out of a desire to not start drama or not be involved. Or, they operate under the assumption it's Someone Else's Problem™. I have also heard stories of various Superman actors like Christopher Reeves and Henry Cavill going out as Clark Kent and not being recognized. In Cavill's case, he was standing under a poster of himself as Superman in Times Square. Humans can be amazingly non perceptive. Plus, while many Autobot vehicle modes might be unusual, it would only be to the point of it being thought of as slightly odd. Even an F1 car like Mirage would only be a bit unusual. It certainly wouldn't cause people to think something is amiss, or that the car is actually an alien robot. From that standpoint, the disguise works fine. Because humans naturally rationalize away weird things. Hilariously, Red Alert's alt mode isn't that bad. After all, Ironhide finds a Lamborghini that looks exactly him. Make of that what you will. I kind of wonder if the disguises were not meant to hide the Autobots from the humans, but the Decepticons. That would make a degree of sense, the Decepticons would not be able to tell the difference until it was too late. This is further supported by the fact that the Autobots frequently interact with humans, and seemingly make no real attempt at hiding themselves from humanity at large. This was a piece of the G1 cartoon that was honestly kind of weird to me. Like, the humans just kind of accept the giant alien robots, without much question. I'm not expecting a realistic first contact scenario from a kid's show, but I'm honestly surprised that there was nothing really about it. Like, you'd expect at least a little bit of explaination or diplomacy, but there isn't really anything. Although I've only seen a few scattered episodes of the G1 cartoon, so maybe there is some stuff related to first contact and I just am unaware of it. Equally weird is the fact that there isn't much culture exchange either. Like, I'd expect things like Jazz asking why so many humans stop to look at his car mode. But there doesn't seem to be any of that either. I think your explaination of Teletraan 1 not understanding human culture and then picking unusual vehicles is a pretty good one. From an in show perspective, this is a good explaination. But, I'd argue with you about many of these alt modes being bad disguises. I don't think most of them actually stand out that much. For alt modes like Inferno, Ironhide, and Ratchet, most laypeople would not know or care the difference, and even most car people would not see it as unusual unless they already knew that it was a model of vehicle not sold in the US. Even then, you'd have to do research to find that out, and I don't think most car buffs would care about a van. Also, while Ironhide and Ratchet may have their toys based on a specific vehicle, the cartoon seems to show them as being a much bigger van than the kei van their toys are based on. A similar thing happens with Bumblebee and Cliffjumper, while their toys are super deformed, they are NOT depicted this way in the cartoon. Bumblebee is always shown as being a mostly standard Beetle. Cliffjumper, on the other hand, has normal proportions, but seems to be a lot smaller than he should be. TFwiki states that at least Bumblebee in the cartoon kept his super deformed toy look, but looked more like a normal Beetle in the comics. I don't recall this being true, though. I think it could be argued that Bumblebee and Cliffjumper are meant to be standard cars, and not super deformed. This is how the Masterpiece figures work. Now on to Smokescreen and Jazz. Smokescreen is a lot easier, as the Datsun 240Z he turns into is relatively common, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine him being a standard 240Z painted to look like one of the race ones. And that's what I think most people would assume if they saw him on the street. Jazz, on the other hand, is a bit more of a stretch. There would be a lot more work to turn a standard 911 into a 935, but it could be done. It would still be an extremely unusual vehicle, but still not implausible, as Porshe 911s are reasonably common sports cars. Then there is Red Alert. I don't think he would be a custom car owned by a fire chief. I think it would be far more likely to have a decked out car like that as part of a public awareness or publicity campaign, which is what a lot of police supercars are used for as well. But, there are some that I absolutely agree with you on. Wheeljack? Absolutely not a good disguise. Stratos is a rare car, and most people would find it notable. But even in this case, would most people think that the car is actually a giant alien robot? I'm not buying it. They'd probably find it odd, but not enough to be suspicious. Same maybe can't be said for Mirage. Lancia Stratos at least looks close enough to a street legal car that it would only be odd. Open wheel F1 car? Not so much. That would definitely raise some questions. Silverbolt on the other hand would really stand out. Not only is he a Concorde, an already distinctive jet, but he also has a very unusual color scheme, and a bunch of robot junk hanging from his underside. To be fair, his cartoon alt mode looks a lot more like an actual Concorde, being mostly white, and having only the engine nacelles the Concorde normally has. But, again, would this be enough to make someone suspect he is a giant robot from space?

[@mistyknightsbionicarm]

Preceptor 25ft micro scope who you fooling

[@Isolder74]

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.

[@ShadowWingTronix]

Until the holograms came around motorcycles were a bad idea because they wouldn't have drivers. "But the Marvel comics had the facsimile manquin things." You ever see Groove use his? Everybody stopped using them at some point.

[@lynngreen7978]

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.

[@DragoonMS]

You would've been right if you were gonna say "someone had to show off how big their POCKETBOOK was". Funnier about Sunstreaker: the rights holders to Lamborghini (isn't that Volkswagen??) pretty much demanded that if Takara wanted to do a Masterpiece Sunstreaker, they HAD TO have the proper Lambo design in some way. And who said the fire chiefs themselves had to pay for a customized Fire Department Lambo? Maybe the higher ups saw to that instead. Smokescreen, Jazz, Wheeljack, Mirage...and more would follow. Autobot racers...go fig. I'm amazed that you omitted Hoist in all his modified Trailbreaker self...a work truck is one thing, but I have never seen one with that specific loadout.

[@SamanthaS92]

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. 😅

[@SuperGamefreak18]

oh right they made him a display piece usually

[@Hurricanelive]

Some people do some pretty terrible blasphemous things to very expensive vehicles. Teletraan don't know nothing about anything, these days it would scan... a IT/Segway, a unicycle bike, a jumbo trike, Elons hyperloop, a tesla truck, there are a ton of really weird things Teletraan would be scanning today. Teletraan seems to have good taste, very expensive good taste. Because 90% of all the transformations are very very expensive vehicles, expensive one-off rare vehicles. Following the racing circuits and televised news a tad too much. I can imagine Teletraan having quite the hot wheels collection. Saying.. mmmm... I'm going to turn you into... Bugatti De La! Muahahah! And you get to be a baby blue Audi Sport Quatro! HAHAHA! With green stripes! I think it might just be for spite, it doesn't know. It doesn't know. But I like to think it knows and that's the joke.

[@radolfkalis4041]

All honesty, Sunstreaker and Mirage are pretty arrogant about their looks, nothing common for them! Lambo for a fire chief's vehicle, smh Red Alert! I would not call a Datsun 280z a supercar. Any race car is eye candy, but valid for Smokescreen. Jazz the Porsche, very much him, but again, race car decals. Wheeljack, he is just odd, first thing that caught his eye.

[@Katarn84]

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.

[@Silver_Chivalry]

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.

[@hairball178]

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

[@greyygoblinn5639]

Technically in America you CAN own an ARMED and active tank but it’s a BOATLOAD of paperwork and it has to be kept and fired a certain distance from civilization. Ik two companies that you can pay and “fire a tank” with a rip cord into old RVs and stuff.

[@mattr75]

Megatron's disguise isn't exactly smart either. Apart from Starscream or other Decepticons who hold him, who's going to be fooled by a prop from the Man from U.N.C.L.E.?

[@duskbringer4583]

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!

[@quakywacky8048]

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

[@krisg4085]

You can own a demilitarised tank in the uk too I belive… they aren’t allowed on the motorway though… think it is due to damage they may cause…. Also…I know this isn’t the case for cluffjumper or bumper…. But didn’t bumblebee look like a normal vw beetle in the cartoon?

[@NerdRahtio]

Sure … cosmos is a flying saucer, but he is an alien! We know other aliens exist in the lore, so, how do we know that isn’t a good disguise? At least to hide he is cybertronion as opposed to some other alien.