Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2001) - Team Bullet Train/Rail Racer

On September 8th, the dub of the Japanese Car Robots cartoon, called Robots in Disguise here in the United States, will celebrate its 20th anniversary. It's become a pretty obscure corner of the Transformers franchise for several reasons. One is that another cartoon has since been identified with the "Robots in Disguise" name (to say nothing of the fact that those words have been part of the franchise as a whole since its very beginning). Another, far more awkward, reason is that the cartoon hasn't been seen in the US since its original airing, and has never been made available on domestic video release (although it can be purchased via releases intended for other countries, and even played on some domestic players... although region-coding means that this option isn't available everyone¹). Nonetheless, the 2001 Robots in Disguise line has its fans, in large part for its unique take on the Transformers saga, as well as for having significant historic value as the very first cartoon not to be set within the original (now called "Generation 1") continuity family, a situation that has now become much more the norm for new toylines and cartoons (recent versions on Netflix notwithstanding).²

Robots in Disguise , or more properly in this context, Car Robots, was not originally intended to be brought to the United States, and remains the only Japanese-originated cartoon (that is, not one specifically created with concurrent release in the US already in mind) to have been fully dubbed into English for American consumption.³ Sadly, this is another reason why there has never been a domestic release of the cartoon on home video, as the dub was produced by Saban Entertainment (most famously known for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers), and thus isn't owned by Hasbro, like other Transformers cartoons.⁴

But let's talk about some toys. The folks at Hasbro had originally intended to follow up the Beast Machines franchise with a line to be called "Transtech," but those plans were scrapped for reasons which remain unclear to this day. Hasbro thus needed a back-up plan, and they decided to bring the toys and cartoon associated with Car Robots here while they worked on the toys that ultimately became the "Unicron Trilogy." These toys included a group of three bullet trains, called "JRX" in Car Robots, that were referred to as "Team Bullet Train" in Robots in Disguise. From left to right, these are Railspike, Rapid Run, and Midnight Express.

The members of Team Bullet Train, despite all three having vehicle modes that are basically narrow cylinders, manage to transform into fairly distinctive robots. They are also early examples of the now-assumed design philosophy that all parts (including missiles!) should integrate in some way in every mode the toy can assume.⁵ The American releases of these toys differ from their Japanese counterparts, in that the Japanese versions were constructed using a significant amount of transparent plastic (necessary for the windows to be clear), which was then painted over to get the train deco. Hasbro instead used solid-colored plastic and painted the windows, which most fans assume makes for stronger toys, but I'm unaware of any Japanese versions that have proven susceptible to breakage, and Hasbro's method unfortunately has led to my own specimens becoming significantly yellowed over time. 

The three members of Team Bullet Train combine to form Rail Racer. Unlike most G1-era combiners (including all such combiners available in America during that time), Rail Racer does not require additional parts to form his hands and feet, but these parts are incorporated into Rail Racer's component robots. His projectile weapon is a combination of those of Railspike and Midnight Express, while the shield is simply that of Rapid Run. Again, every part has a place to be. Rail Racer also has far better articulation than combiners that came before him, thanks to the use of Midnight Express' legs and the arms formed from Railspike.

Team Bullet Train's toys are, IMHO, some of the better molds specific to the Car Robots/Robots in Disguise era. Sadly, these toys don't fit well into the size-classes that Hasbro generally uses for its releases (Japan doesn't have the same concern to group toys in this way), which is part of why these molds have not been reused in the years since. If you're able to find these molds intact, and for a decent price, they're very much worth looking into.

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¹The DVDs I own were produced for the Malaysian market, and are Region Free, but I found that my modern Blu-Ray player, which otherwise does play DVDs, couldn't handle it. I had to pull an old, cheap, DVD player out of storage to watch these discs. Your mileage may vary.

²Note that the Japanese version of this cartoon, called Car Robots, actually has been retroactively placed in Generation 1 continuity, but that introduces snarls and wrinkles I'm not going to deal with here.

³Other Japanese-originated Transformers cartoons have been dubbed into English, but not specifically for American audiences.

⁴This is where things get really complicated. Saban was purchased by Disney shortly after work on Robots in Disguise was completed. Several years later, Saban Brands (as it was now known) bought back many (but apparently not all) of their properties back from Disney. Then, a few years after that, Saban sold its properties to Hasbro. Thus, the very company most relevant to Transformers ended up with the rights to most Saban-created properties, but it is believed that Robots in Disguise fell through the cracks, and thus is still owned by Disney, although Disney is probably completely unaware of this fact, themselves. It seems that the Robots in Disguise cartoon exists in a kind of forgotten legal limbo, unlikely to be corrected anytime soon.

⁵In fact, I thought that I had lost Midnight Express's missile in the years since I had last pulled these toys out of storage before taking these photos, only to find it still in its train-mode storage space after I'd competed shooting photos for all three modes!