Microcassette Tapes

A microcassette is a sealed shell about 50 by 33 millimetres containing two hubs and a length of tape. There is nothing to it. That is what makes the design achievement remarkable: Takara engineered five-limbed animals and humanoid robots that fold flat enough to slot into a chest cavity, using ball joints and layered panels in a way that would not become common in the wider toy industry for another decade.

The fiction follows the format. Cassettes are Soundwave's subordinates, ejected on command, and the cartoon's most quoted line in the entire series is Megatron ordering Soundwave to eject Ravage or Laserbeak. Ravage is a black jaguar used for infiltration, Laserbeak and Buzzsaw are condors for surveillance and strafing, and Rumble and Frenzy are humanoids with retractable piledriver arms who cause earthquakes. Blaster later got an Autobot equivalent set: Steeljaw, Eject, Rewind and Ramhorn.

The toys are small, all-plastic and surprisingly durable. The animals use a wing or leg layer that swings out from beneath the shell, and the humanoids split down the middle. Their scale is the same joke as Megatron's: in the cartoon Ravage is dog-sized when he leaves Soundwave and truck-sized when the plot needs it. The notorious Rumble and Frenzy colour problem, where the toy packaging and the cartoon disagree about which one is blue and which is red, has never been resolved.

Not Diaclone. The cassette characters come from Takara Microman 'Microchange' Cassette Robo releases, 1983, sold in two-packs and singly. Rumble's forerunner shipped inside the MC-10 Cassette Man box that became Soundwave.

Fan lore about these vehicles is unusually unreliable. Where a popular claim does not survive checking, it is recorded here rather than repeated.

• Rumble and Frenzy's correct colours. Packaging, tech specs and animation disagree; treat both positions as legitimate.