Mopboy guest hosts this September 30, 2001 Radio Free Cybertron with a review of Rescue Roy, from Hasbro’s new 1-2-3 Transformers preschool line. Anthony Anselmo explains the Robots in Disguise phenomenon, Hasbro’s dub of Japan’s Car Robots that reuses Generation 1 names. He finds the cartoon silly and poorly voiced, but praises the toys, especially X-Brawn. A Zapbots parody movie trailer rounds out the show.
Toy Review: 1-2-3 Transformers Rescue Roy
Mopboy reviews Rescue Roy, a Tonka-branded Hasbro toy for children three and up. He transforms from a red fire engine with two ladder water cannons into a robot, with the ladders becoming his arms. Mopboy calls him a very simplified cross between G1 Optimus Prime and Fire Convoy, but far better made than a McDonald’s Transformers toy. Both modes look good, posability is great, and three buttons trigger sirens, wings and phrases like “Let’s save the day in a big way!” Mopboy finds Roy so talkative that he is glad of the off switch.
Zapbots Movie Trailer
A parody trailer promotes The Zapbots Movie, a South Park-style Transformers spoof. It promises robots battling on the home world of Gerotron, the Zap City of Metroduplex, and characters like Boaty and Thing with Four Wheels.
Robots in Disguise Explained
Anthony Anselmo explains that Robots in Disguise is Hasbro’s English dub of Japan’s Car Robots, a parallel-universe series. Rumor has it Hasbro lacked the money for a new show, so it renamed the characters after Generation 1 to market the series as G1’s return. He recaps Beast Wars and Beast Machines as one five-season epic that ended with a half-organic Cybertron. He thinks Hasbro now sees grown G1 fans, the same fans who made the Transformers: The Movie DVD go gold, as a market.
Anselmo rates the animation between G1 and Beast Wars. Talking scenes are static, but the action is fluid. He says the plots range from extremely silly to halfway decent, and the shots almost never hit anyone. He enjoys a few gags, like X-Brawn ejecting a passenger with “Sorry, ma’am, you’re going to have to take a cab.” He wishes Hasbro had used new names instead of Optimus Prime and Megatron. His biggest complaint is the voice acting: Prime’s voice is decent, but Megatron isn’t scary at all.
The toys are another story. Anselmo owns X-Brawn, Ultra Magnus, Sky-Byte and the three Predacons. He calls the vehicles phenomenal, with detailed, complex transformations, rubber wheels and strong plastic. The smaller toys are basic by comparison. X-Brawn is his favorite and his top recommendation.
Radio Free Cybertron is the world's first and oldest toy and action figure podcast — broadcasting from the heart of the Transformers fan community since October 1999. What started as a scrappy fan show has grown into an institution, with nearly 1,000 episodes and over 25 years of coverage. Every week, host Brian Kilby and the RFC crew dig into the latest Transformers news, toy reveals, collecting, and everything hitting shelves from Hasbro, Takara, and beyond. No fluff, no hype — just informed, passionate collectors who have been doing this longer than anyone else on the planet. The original. The longest running. Till all are one.