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Title card via TFWiki, fan-archive fair use
A Decepticon device hidden in a dance club's music secretly brainwashes the human patrons.
Raoul and his friends Poplock and Rocksteady are trying to make some spare cash, breakdancing on the sidewalks of New York City. Unfortunately, the management of the Dancitron nightclub doesn't like competition, and sends a mob after them. The trio grab their tape deck and flee, riding a wheeled dumpster until it's brought to a sudden halt. They're soon surrounded by armed thugs, but luckily Tracks and Blaster are in the city, and come to the trio's aid. While fighting the thugs off, Tracks is surprised to notice one of them is a man in a business suit.
Raoul introduces the rest of the Bop Crew to the two Autobots, who say they're monitoring Decepticon activity, and now suspect there's something strange going on at the Dancitron. The pair enter the club and admire the immense sound system. Soon Blaster is dancing with an apparently blissed-out patron, while Tracks notes a number of oddly-dressed dancers—a garbage man, a middle-aged woman in a bathrobe and curlers, and a man dressed to the nines. In an upstairs booth, Starscream and Soundwave observe the two Autobots.
Meanwhile, the Bop Crew are taking an elevated subway train when it unexpectedly begins gathering speed. The driver, entering a hypnotised state, pulls the accelerator lever to full and smashes the control panel with an iron bar. Raoul pulls the emergency cord until it breaks, but the brakes are ineffective at stopping the train. Fortunately Tracks and Blaster happen to be walking nearby, and are able to halt the train. They find the sabotaged control panel, however the driver has already fled.
Tracks sends Blaster, Poplock and Rocksteady to check with Teletraan I while he and Raoul go to check out the Dancitron again. On the way, the pair spot an active building site—somewhat of an odd sight at 1am, and even odder when they notice the workers are more inappropriately-dressed people, including some of those previously seen at the Dancitron. They're quickly spotted by the workers, and Tracks drags the gate shut to prevent the humans from attacking them, though that doesn't stop a workman on the building itself from firing red-hot rivets at them.
Poplock and Rocksteady are offered free tickets into the Dancitron and eagerly accept, believing they'll be able to investigate on their own. The duo enter the club and are soon hypnotised by the music. Arriving at the club, Tracks leaves Raoul outside and encounters the boy's two friends inside. They lead him to two Decepticons, who use the club's hypnotized patrons to ensnare him and bind him to the club's sound system. Starscream reports to Megatron that the building construction is on schedule.
Having consulted Teletraan I, Blaster arrives at the Dancitron to find Raoul waiting outside. The pair enter to find Tracks, with Blaster tracking an ultrasound signal. Raoul encounters his two friends and, remembering Blaster's warning about the hypnotic sound, plugs his ears with a paper napkin. They chase him, and he soon finds Tracks, but is overwhelmed by the hypnotized dancers. As he soon discovers, the hypnosis can be broken by simply getting the victim wet, so he triggers the club's sprinkler systems, freeing the patrons from their trance. The Bop Crew swiftly frees Tracks and they pursue Starscream.
Blaster squares off with Soundwave at the club in a sonic "battle of the boom boxes"; the two are nearly evenly matched, until Blaster uses the club's sound system to amplify his abilities and drive Soundwave off. Tracks engineers a rain cloud which de-hypnotises the humans working at the building site. This also flushes out Starscream, who chases Tracks. The Autobot flies through the partially completed building, and the larger Decepticon damages his wing trying to follow, forcing him to retreat. Blaster arrives and uses the Dancitron speakers to bring down the building.
Tracks offers grateful thanks to Raoul and his buddies for saving his life, saying that if there's anything he can do for them... and it turns out there is. The trio lost their radio in all the chaos, and until they earn enough street cash to get a new one, poor Blaster will make an ideal replacement.
—Raoul shows his gratefulness to Blaster
—Tracks objects to an impostor's blatant bucking of Dancitron's dress code.
—Tracks makes a terrible pun after being shot at by a guy with a rivet gun, and Raoul calls him out on it.
—Blaster and Soundwave begin their sonic duel.
—Poplock and Tracks.
- When Tracks and Blaster enter Dancitron, the song playing is an instrumental version of the song performed by Cold Slither from the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero episode of the same name.
- This episode is also noteworthy for pitting the two tape decks, Soundwave and Blaster, against each other, in an intense sonic duel. It turns out that Soundwave is actually somewhat the more powerful of the two, and Blaster had to augment his output with some nearby additional speakers to best his opponent.
- A model sheet for an unnamed "Robot Cassette" was drawn up for this episode, although the character does not actually appear in the episode script. In the May 1985 draft script, at the start of Blaster and Soundwave's duel, Soundwave ejects Rumble, Ravage and Laserbeak. This prompts Blaster to remark "Two can play that jive game!" and he ejects a lion, tiger and scorpion, with writer David Wise stating "(Note: These characters, without names, are Transformers products)". The six cassettes begin fighting all over Dancitron, leaving the two tape decks to begin their battle.
- This was one of twelve episodes of the original cartoon released as audio adventures by the German company Karussell Musik und Video.
- According to David Wise, his inspiration for writing this episode was the Wonder Woman episode "Disco Devil". Evidently he liked the plot so much, he would copy it again for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode "Corporate Raiders from Dimension X".
- In addition to the stylish man, other human patrons of the Dancitron with their own model sheets include a "gorgeous woman" wearing a tight Chinese-style dress, a "slinky woman" wearing an evening gown (she's the one who asks Blaster to dance), a "housewife in curls", a "Madonna girl" with an extravagant outfit (she's the one who calls Tracks "shiny one"), a "frilly woman" with an enormously pompous outfit, a "woman in costume" who actually looks less extravagant than the "Madonna girl", a "neatly groomed man" wearing a suit, a "G.Q. man" wearing an even more pimped-out suit, and a "doorman with a stack of cards". Additionally, while most of the punks are simply labeled "gang #1", "gang #2" and "gang #3", there's also a punk with spiky hair who is only identified as "dag", while Furg is misspelled "Furge".





Screencaps via TFWiki (Teletraan I), used under fan-archive fair use.