Tow-Line Goes Haywire
From Transformers Wiki
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 Usually Side Burn has to pay for this sort of treatment | ||||||
| "Tow-Line Goes Haywire" "Parking Violation! Wrecker Hook" | ||||||
| Production company | TV Tokyo, NAS, Studio Gallop | |||||
| Airdate | June 14, 2000 (Japanese) September 20, 2001 (English) | |||||
| Written by | Yukiyoshi Ōhashi (Japanese) Matthew V. Lewis (English) | |||||
| Director | Akira Katō | |||||
| Animation studio | Studio Gallop | |||||
Tow-Line has one rule:
No Parking Means No Parking
Even for his friends.
Contents |
Synopsis
Side Burn, up to his usual antics, tries to seduce a red sports car, but his attempts to woo are arrested by Tow-Line, who punishes the Autobot for parking in a No Parking Zone. The tow truck drags Side Burn to Prowl, who introduces the truck as the newest Autobot soldier. Inside the Autobot base, Prowl inducts Tow-Line into the police's traffic patrol. (Illegal parking is apparently a high priority for the Autobots.)
Tow-Line starts working immediately and takes his job with extreme dedication. Eventually, Tow-Line's mania goes out of control, and he begins to impound misplaced tricycles and wedding vehicles. After Prowl explains the limits of Tow-Line's jurisdiction, Sky-Byte and Gas Skunk notice the new Autobot and begin a sinister plot.
The Predacon trio wait inside of a mis-parked truck, and when Tow Line inevitably comes to tow the truck away, the three Predacons ambush the rookie. They bring Tow-Line to Sky-Byte and begin the process of brainwashing the truck into a loyal Predacon. Slapper tries to hypnotize Tow-Line using a dangling pendant, but only succeeds in putting himself to sleep. Gas Skunk explains they should try using a metronome (again, failing). Eventually, Dark Scream loads a brainwashing program into the captive via disc drive. Tow-Line, unbalanced, is released to enforce his own rules on the Autobots.
A misguided Tow-Line first steals a bewildered X-Brawn away from an indignant Kelly. On the road, X-Brawn uses his own grappling apparatus to try to stop Tow-Line's deluded quest, but merely harms Tow-Line's memory banks. Even more confused than before, Tow-Line brings X-Brawn to a power plant and deposits the Autobot into a holding box.
Tow-Line's next victim is Side Burn, who is deposited into the same box. Next, Tow-Line captures Rapid Run and carries the large train through the city to the deposit box. Prowl and Koji see the capture and give chase, but lose their target in rush hour traffic. But at least now the other Autobots know that something is afoot.
Once they meet up, Prowl and Prime confront Tow-Line in part of a staged intervention to help him deal with his towing addiction. Tow-Line makes it clear that he's gone a bit wonko when he accuses Prime of being the Autobots' "evil mastermind." Sky-Byte and the Predacons arrive to help their "friend", but Prime quickly blasts away the goons. Taking Tow-Line home for diagnostics, Prime notices the disc placed inside of Tow-Line by Dark Scream. With his mind restored, Tow-Line brings the two Autobots to rescue the others he stored at the power plant.
The Autobots find their allies, and Tow-Line apologizes for the kidnapping. Megatron and all the Predacons show up again, but are defeated almost as quickly as they were earlier. Tow-Line goes back to apologize, and Optimus explains that compassion and understanding are important values to uphold (even if it means arresting Prowl during the epilogue).
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Predacons | Humans |
|---|---|---|
|
|
Quotes
"No parking means no parking!"
- —Tow-Line, all the time
"There's nothing I can do. You knew the law, you broke the law, and now the law is towing you away."
- —Tow-Line to his first
victimoffender
"Okay, so I'm not allowed to tow away bicycles, wedding cars, ambulances, broken-down buses, funeral escorts, parade floats, campaigning senators, or mailmen named Moe. Is that all?"
"Uh, no mailmen, period. (muttered) Oh, boy."
- —Tow-Line gets very detailed instructions from a long-suffering Prowl.
"First he towed away a couple of kids' bikes, then he completely messed up a honeymoon. It's almost as if he's already working for us."
- —Gas Skunk doesn't have very high standards for the Predacons.
"Can I have the harbor? I love those little boats."
- —Gas Skunk doesn't have very high standards for real estate either.
Sky-Byte: If all goes as planned, that fool Tow-Line will bring the Autobots to us. And when he delivers them, they'll be totally helpless.
Slapper: Hey, this is even better than having a pizza delivered!
Gas Skunk: I wonder if we get the guarantee. I want 'em all here in thirty minutes or less.
- — Evidently, robotic toads and smelly skunks like pizza. Oooookay...
Notes
Differences with Car Robots
- In Car Robots, Side Burn spends the whole opening scene talking to the red sports car on display; Robots in Disguise has him rattle off its specs to no-one in particular, only attempting to communicate with it towards the end of the scene. His attempt at singing a song is a fun dub addition.
- In Car Robots, the parking code is practically a religion for Tow-Line—he's not just a stickler for the rules like in Robots in Disguise, but also gives florid speeches about how God will never forgive someone who parks improperly!
- Car Robots explains that the "no parking" sticker-thing that Tow-Line clamps on Side Burn prevents him from transforming. Robots in Disguise doesn't explain what it's for.
- Rather than ask if Tow-Line has been briefed on Battle Protocol as she does in Robots in Disguise, Car Robots has T-AI simply ask if he knows the other Autobots.
- The truck driver who is Tow-Line's first victim gets some extra off-screen dialogue in Robots in Disguise setting up his situation before he pokes his head out the window.
- Robots in Disguise has Prowl lay some specific ground rules for Tow-Line in between scenes, which the tow-truck repeats as he hauls the next perpetrator off. In Car Robots, that didn't happen, and Tow-Line makes the tow in silence; Prowl doesn't seem to be too bothered by his over-enthusiastic methods in the Japanese version!
- Gas Skunk deems Tow-Line "heroic" in Car Robots, while Robots in Disguise has him crack that the trouble he's caused makes the new Autobot already seem to be working for the Predacons.
- CGI POV targeting overlays are added to Robots in Disguise as the Predacon trio take Tow-Line down.
- As the Predacons watch Tow-Line drive off, Car Robots has them gloat over their plan and the fact they can take it easy while the Autobot does all the work. In Robots in Disguise, they talk about dividing up the conquered city between them.
- In Robots in Disguise, Tow-Line accuses the Autobots he captures of various generic energy thefts, but in Car Robots, on the other hand, he's been specifically programmed to believe past Predacon plots were the work of the Autobots. As such, he believes X-Brawn was behind the trouble with the Linear RFG back in "Bullet Train to the Rescue", and Side Burn was responsible for the attack on the truck carrying the Plutonium Energy Generator in "Spychangers to the Rescue".
- His memory scrambled, Car Robots has Tow-Line try to remember whether he had to take X-Brawn to either a bakery or a police station. To explain why he decides to trap him where he does, Robots in Disguise changes this to him choosing between the docks and a power plant, opting for the latter.
- In Car Robots, Side Burn briefly believes that rather than capture him, Tow-Line has brought him to meet with X-Brawn at his elder brother's request.
- When listing off Rapid Run's crimes, Car Robots has Tow-Line add the damage caused to the building by their sharp cornering, over Rapid Run's spluttering protestations that it was Tow-Line's own fault.
- After being hauled out of their prison pit, the Autobots are quite understanding in Robots in Disguise, having been informed by Optimus of what happened. In Car Robots, they haven't been clued in, and turn on Tow-Line until he offers up the explanation.
- Another CGI overlay is added when Optimus blasts Sky-Byte with his Strafe Attack.
- Robots in Disguise tacks a bit of a strained moral about bending the rules to do the right thing onto the end of the episode; in Car Robots, the scene just consists of Tow-Line continuing to say sorry, and Rapid Run accepting his apology.
- Scenes briefly extended for Robots in Disguise by looping and repeating footage include:
- Most of the first scene in the impound lot, including Prowl greeting Tow-Line, Side Burn offering up his apologies, Prowl admonishing him, and Prowl congratulating Tow-Line
- Tow-Line preparing to round up three violators at once
- Sky-Byte welcoming the captured Tow-Line
- Tow-Line rounding up Side Burn a second time
- Koji alerting Prowl to Tow-Line's actions
- X-Brawn discussing their situation with Rapid Run
- Optimus giving orders to T-AI
- Darkscream informing Sky-Byte he has found Tow-Line
- Tow-Line preparing to arrest Prowl
- Prowl and Optimus facing down Tow-Line
- Prowl encouraging Optimus to take care of the Predacons
- Prowl being dragged off by Tow-Line, complete with a long rant that fades out as the episode ends
Animation and technical errors
- As Rapid Run, X-Brawn, and Side Burn stand on each other's shoulders in the power plant, Rapid Run's torso is colored entirely gray in one shot.
- When Tow-Line prepares to tow away Prowl near the episode's end, the underside of Prowl's raised vehicle mode rear end is colored entirely green like Tow-Line at one point.
Continuity errors
- X-Brawn uses his grappling hook to break Tow-Line's right-hand window and strike his dash, but the glass is fixed in the next shot where it appears and remains so for the rest of the episode.
- After throwing X-Brawn into the pit, Tow-Line says he has 13 Autobots to go. Apparently, no one told him about the Build Team.
Real-world references
- When T-AI locates Tow-Line, she says that he's headed westbound on "Interstate 275". In reality, there are four different interstate highways with this number: One in Florida, one in Tennessee, one in Michigan, and one that loops through Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky.
Trivia
- Although the Predacon plots that Tow-Line accuses the Autobots of doing are typical of the plots the Predacons usually go through, they don't specifically match foiled schemes that have happened in the series thus far. This implies that the Predacons have been in several off screen adventures that never made it into the episodes. The most shocking thing about these tidbits is that it implies the Predacons have been successful at stealing energy on multiple occasions. That's pretty embarrassing.
- For no apparent reason (other than "to sell toys"), Optimus is seen parading around the Autobot base in his Battle Mode (for the second time; the first being in "Mirage's Betrayal"), but when he actually goes into battle later, he chooses to fight it in his standard robot mode.
Foreign localization
Italian
- Title: "Tow-Line impazzisce" ("Tow-Line goes crazy")
- When Side Burn asks the yellow car if it knew the red car (which is a weird sentence to write), instead of saying that they "met the other day" he says that they "first met the day before yesterday".
Portuguese
- Title: "Tow-Line em Apuros" ("Tow-Line in Trouble")
Home video releases
- DVD
2000 — Transformers: Car Robots — Vol. 3 (Pony Canyon) — Japanese audio only.
2004 — Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Three-Disc Box Set: Part 1 of 2 (Maximum Entertainment)
2007 — Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Season One (Maximum Entertainment)
2007 — Transformers: Robots in Disguise — Ultimate Collection (Maximum Entertainment)
