We didn’t get a release date for Optimus either, and here he sits on my shelf. What more proof do you need? Does it have to be a tangible object in front of your face to confirm existence?

 

People who argue the "it was a mistake! Sunbow made errors all the time!" explanation also neglect to remember that it wasn't a one off like say a scene with Skywarp being colored like Thundercracker. Rumble was a featured character who appeared throughout the series in possibly at least half of the episodes with (many many) speaking lines. At some point it really stopped being just an error and became the canon.

 

Since Hasbro has been in the G1 rerelease mode, why not release for the first time in English packaging Acidstorm, Sunstorm, and the rest of the other color seekers. Same goes for Raiden, and the Breastforce.

 

Would be nice, but Takara hasn't even reissued Raiden and the Breastforce guys yet, and Hasbro seems to be sticking to toys that were all previously reissued in Japan.

 

It's a question of demand too. A lot of those guys would sell to the hardcore fans like us, but would they necessarily sell to a public who thinks Raiden is that guy Christopher Lloyd played in the Mortal Kombat movie

 

I need that kitty

 

The demand would be the same as the current G1 rereleases as it's the adult collector buying this line, less the 1% will be bought by a current kid.

 

Or that they tend to break off.

 

That would be Lambert. Lloyd played doc in Back to the Future.

 

They did correct this error in the later Japanese release by dubbing over the original dialogue to call the blue robot Frenzy.

Your example of miscolored characters is a different type of mistake (in-house studio mistakes of overworked and underpaid animators not looking at the reference material closely and coloring the wrong robot) instead of a communication error between different companies.

This mistake was due to a miscommunication between Sunbow, Hasbro, and the overseas animation studios. There was a mix-up with the character models early on, and if anyone eventually noticed it, it was probably too late to do so and not worth the hassle and cost.

In the days before the Internet, it took a while for paper copies of the story bible and character reference sheets to be shipped. If this mistake was to be rectified, they would either had to get the actors back and redub the voices or get the animation studio to fix the coloring error. Either of these would have been costly (for a relatively small mistake) and had the possibility of delaying the cartoon's September 1984 window (giving Tonka more time to dominate market space). Also, the production staff was under a huge time crunch, and I don't think the writers took the task of writing a glorified toy commercial seriously. After all, who would care this much about the names of two cheap identical robot toys from Japan? Very few, if any, could have predicted how big and long-lasting Transformers will become.

Edit: If Hasbro knew in advanced on how successful the Transformers would end up being, to the point of becoming part of popular culture, they might have taken this error more seriously and rectified early on.

 

While created to be an advertisement for the toys, the cartoon sometimes did its own thing. Calling the blue cassette toy Rumble is an error. Calling the blue cassette cartoon character Frenzy is also an error.

Or would you also call cartoon Skyfire having a different name and appearance to toy Jetfire an error? How about all the different head designs the cartoon had that have no resemblance to their toy?

 

Damn, that Megatron is gonna be hard to pass up! I kinda want one without the damaged head, but all the paint apps looking amazing.

 

Wait, his name was Skyfire in the cartoon?

The whole Rumble thing will always be wierd, everyone (characters in the show) called him Rumble, he called himself Rumble, even had a little rhyme to go with his name, if ya never bought the toy brand new and looked at the packaging, you would never even know his name was wrong.

 

I LOVE THIS!!! It's great to see Hasbro pumping out the reissues like this! Bring it on!

 

My personal belief is that it was a (perhaps last-minute) decision rather than a mistake. Rumble was in the script and listed as "red robot" in early materials, probably chosen as his power set is more visually showy than Frenzy's. When animation production began, someone noticed all of Soundwave's tapes in the pilot were some variation of black and red, so the choice was made to use a color model closer to the Frenzy toy instead, and it was consistently kept that way, barring genuine animation errors. That's just my own hypothesis anyway.

After all the RIRFIBRIBFIRWTFBBQ recurring dumbscussions, my determination is saying "Rumble is Red" or "Rumble is Blue" is the same as "Ironhide has no head" or "Megatron has a black helmet" or "Superion has a faceplate" or "Bumblebee is a Camaro". ALL answers are correct, as long as there is a matching depiction, and anyone who claims one answer is more 'right' than another because it has more matches is just being a pedantic shit.

"I don't really care. You're welcome to believe whatever you want about Rumble, as long as you understand thAT I'M RIGHT!!"  

 

That is true if you "play" with them. But I would think for display purposes they should be just fine. What kid would want these ?

 

I'm looking forward to these. I wish they had rumble and Frenzy in the same packaging since I have the other two from other reissues. I'm sure that's how they were originally packaged though so not a huge deal.

 

The cartoon wasn’t allowed to use the Jetfire toy as a character due to legal issues so they made up another red and white jet called Skyfire.

 

Oh my Gosh, they are KILLING it with these reissues of late!!!!

 

oh