Western Animation / Transformers: Rescue Bots Academy

"Earth needed help and they answered the call
No rescue too big, no hero too small
Recruits come to learn from the best of the best
They'll be Rescue Bots too, if they pass the test!
Rescue Bots Academy
Roll to the rescue! (roll to the rescue!)
Save the day, you and me
Roll to the rescue!
Hot Shot, Whirl, Hoist, Medix and Wedge
Their teamwork togheter will give them the edge!
Rescue Bots Academy
Roll to the rescue
Roll, roll, roll, roll out!"

—Expository Theme Tune

Transformers: Rescue Bots Academy is a Transformers cartoon. Developed by Boulder Media as a Sequel Series to Transformers: Rescue Bots, it began airing in 2019 on Discovery Family, after a preview of the two-part premiere on December 8, 2018.

The series follows the first class of the new Rescue Bot Training Academy, learning from the more experienced Rescue Bots how to respond to emergency situations and become heroes.

The original voice cast of Transformers: Rescue Bots did not reprise their roles, and here they were replaced by the same New York cast of Transformers: Cyberverse.

It was renewed for a second season that premiered in 2020. It was later announced that same year that the second season was the show's last.

After the remaining 26 episodes of season two were burned off in the UK in 2020, those episodes would finally reach American airwaves in the following year, with the final two episodes airing on June 5, 2021, marking the end of the Transformers Aligned continuity.

---

Transformers: Rescue Bots Academy provides examples of:

• Absurd Phobia: Whirl mentions being afraid of spaghetti in "Tyrannosaurus Wrecked".
• Animation Bump: Not that its predecessor looked bad, but the animation is great here.
• Art-Shifted Sequel: Because this show is co-produced by Boulder Media rather than DHX Media, it uses the Toon Boom software, similar to its predecessor's first season.
• Ascended Meme: Hot Shot's love of JaAm (jAm, JAm, or however you wanna butcher the spelling) comes from a fan-edited Transformers: Armada comic. In this series, Hot Shot at one point falls into a vat of blue gunk and pops out yelling "Jaaaaaaam!"
• Backing Away Slowly: Heatwave slowly backs away while confused in "Bot Blog" after seeing the Rescue Bots recruits act like chickens.
• Born After the End: According to writer Chris Wyatt, all the rescue bots were born after the war (which left Cybertron a lifeless wasteland for eons before its revival).
• Broad Strokes:
  • Hot Shot's appearance here is much different than in Transformers: Prime. Prime!Hot Shot was an amalgamation of every prior incarnation, while RBA!Hot Shot is near-exclusively influenced from Armada!Hot Shot.
  • The show itself features Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Grimlock in their Transformers: Cyberverse designs and introduces some concepts from the same show, like the Cybertronian sport Cube. Bear in mind that its predecessor was shown to be in the neighborhood of Transformers: Prime and its sequel, and we already know Cyberverse is in a different continuity family.
  • RID Grimlock seems to how been turned into a Composite Character with FOC Grimlock.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Cody Burns said that he and his family worked with the Rescue Bots for years.
  • The Mul-T-Cog is discovered from a seceret compartiment accesed via a statue of Charlie Burns's bust.
  • Medix eventually revealed that Transformers: Prime Ratchet is his uncle.
• Continuity Snarl: Sludge and Snarl from Transformers: Fall of Cybertron show as old acquaintances of RID Grimlock who was apparently leader of the Dinobots, despite being a separate character from the the FOC Grimlock who was also leader of the Dinobots. Confused? Good.
• Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: The original Rescue Bot team were adults (by Cybertronians standards) and had completed their training. The new Rescue Bots are much younger and still students.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • The only member of the Burns family aside from Cody to return in this series is the patriarch Chief Charlie Burns, who only appears in a single episode without dialogue.
  • Doc Greene and Frankie were secondary characters in the original series, but the former only shows up in two episodes and the latter only appears in one.
• Donut Mess with a Cop: The episode "Museum Mystery" has Whirl make the offer to bring the donuts when Chase invites her to a police ride-along. Humorously, neither of them seem to know what donuts are, given that they are robots who get their sustenance from Energon rather than food.
• Edutainment Show: An unexpected use of this in the Transformers universe, especially with its predecessor's toys released under the Playskool brand.
• Extremely Short Intro Sequence: Downplayed. The intro for Transformers: Rescue Bots clocked at 43 seconds. For Transformers: Rescue Bots Academy, the intro is 30 seconds. The difference between them is 13 seconds.
• Fictional Sport: Cube is a sport played on Cybertron.
• Four-Fingered Hands: Carries over from its predecessor.
• Gender Flip: This is the first time Whirl is portrayed as a female Transformer.
• Genki Girl: Whirl. She's the most enthusiastic character on the show.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: "Crash of the Titan" has Whirl and Hot Shot recruit Laserbeak, Slash, Sludge, Snarl and Brushfire to aid in their efforts to prevent Citadel Secundus from crashing into the Earth.
• Grand Finale: The series wraps up with the two-parter "Space Party"/"Crash of the Titan", which has the Rescue Bot Recruits having to prevent Secundus from crashing into Earth and ends with them graduating their second year. Being a spin-off of Rescue Bots, this two-parter also marks the end of the Aligned continuity in general.
• Halloween Episode: Hot Shot, Whirl, Hoist, Medix and Wedge learn about Halloween in the episode "Trick or Treat".
• Heel–Face Return:
  • Evan and Myles, who were recurring villains in the original Rescue Bots, make a comeback in the episode "Museum Mystery" where it is established that they reformed off-screen.
  • Laserbeak makes a major appearance in the episode "More Than Meets The Eye". While he is the antagonist for the episode, it's mainly because he's panicked and injured, and the recruits themselves show a fair bit of hostility towards him. According to Perceptor, he 'currently' has no criminal record, suggesting he is the original Laserbeak after having served his sentence or been pardoned/granted amnesty. By the end of the series, Laserbeak even allows Optimus Prime to reformat him as an Autobot.
• Here We Go Again!: "Monster Savings" is about Medix jeopardizing the secrecy of the Rescue Bots' existence to the inhabitants of Milford because he saw a commercial for Moe's Sporting Goods that involved the proprietor being attacked by an inflatable tube monster and thought that Moe was in real danger, having been informed that Optimus Prime would accept cover being blown in the event of a life-threatening emergency. After Medix and Grimlock pretend to be television animatronics to make witnesses move on and forget what they saw, the episode ends with Medix freaking out again after seeing a commercial with an actor pretending to be an alien.
• Hermit Guru: In episode 46, Blades pretended to be the Wise One (a rescue bot guru) to encourage Whirl to complete a stunt. He even stationed himself on Persistance Peak, which turns out to be a remote mountain.
• He's All Grown Up: Cody has grown into his late teens.
• Humble Hero: Heatwave has matured into this. At the beginning of the original show one of his complaints about maintaining cover was that he and his team didn't get credit for their efforts. Now he sees a monument to the team as a waste as their accomplishments speak for them.
• Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!: Subverted in "Bot Blog", where Whirl posts an embarrassing video of Hot Shot falling over onto Bot Blog and dreads how Hot Shot would react with the knowledge. When Hot Shot finds out, he's actually thrilled with the idea of becoming a viral video sensation and doesn't care that the video involves him tripping and falling over. Ratchet also reveals that only Transformers who were at the Academy saw the video and that he programmed fake hits in order to teach Whirl a lesson.
• Internal Homage / Mythology Gag: As usual for a Transformers series:
  • Hot Shot in this show is based on his Transformers: Armada counterpart, but to differentiate him from Bumblebee, he is distinctly colored.
  • Wedge is heavily based on his counterpart from Transformers: Robots in Disguise.
  • Optimus Prime says to Hot Shot that he might find Earth being "more than meets the eye".
  • Two in the episode "Five Into Four":
    • Iacon City's Cube team seen in Cyberverse is named here the Iacon Wreckers.
    • Heatwave says that Hot Shot is jumpier than an Insecticon with Scraplets.
  • In "Rescue Promo", Hot Shot falls into a jam vat, saying "Jaaam", referencing his Armada self.
  • A drawing of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron Whirl looking like his The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye counterpart with the RBA!Whirl is seen in "About a Rock". Also possibly a Fandom Nod to the Fanon that RBA!Whirl is the daughter of FOC!Whirl. Whirl being female could also be a nod to her MTMTE counterpart's holomatter avatar.
  • A few classic characters are referenced and appear as trading cards in "Battle of the Bots."
• Iron Butt Monkey: Tough Luck Chuck due to his status as a training dummy. Lampshaded by Heatwave when introducing him. He experiences a lot of abuse in this role.
• It's All About Me: Hot Shot.
• I've Heard of That — What Is It?: In "More Than Meets the Eye", Whirl claims to know what Decepticons are, then asks what they are exactly.
• Legendary in the Sequel: The original Rescue Bots team are now seen as the best in their profession and amazingly skilled for having saved countless lives.
• Lighter and Softer: Even more oriented to a pre-school audience than its predecessor.
• The Medic: Medix, if you couldn't guess from his name. Blades as well.
• Mentor Archetype: The original Rescue Bots are now this, and they must now teach the trainees how to become Rescue Bots just like them.
• Merchandise-Driven: Duh.
• Mode Lock: Hot Shot's Mul-T-Cog runs on a variant of this. He gains access to three different vehicle modes, but can only utilize one per day.
• Nice Girl: Out of all the recruits, Whirl is the nicest one.
• No Antagonist: Just like its predecessor, Decepticons are absent from the setting (save for Laserbeak, who has reformed prior to the events of the series and is reformatted into an Autobot by Optimus Prime at the end of the series, and Wedge, who reveals in Laserbeak's debut that he started out as a Decepticon before Optimus Prime inspired him to turn his life around) and, aside from the thief in "Fright at the Museum", no human villains appear. Conflicts are driven by the recruits' own inexperience and happenstance.
• Opening Shout-Out: The episode "Rescue Teens" features a montage of the titular human lookalikes of the Rescue Bots recruits that is lifted directly from the show's title sequence.
• Out of Focus:
  • Cody Burns is the only member of the Burns family to return in this series as a major character, with the only other member of the family seen being Chief Charlie Burns, who only appears in one episode without dialogue. Justified since at the end of Transformers: Rescue Bots, Optimus dispatches the Burns family across the world to expand the Rescue Bots' operations.
  • Downplayed for the original Rescue Bots. They may not appear in every episode, but they do appear frequently. However, Blades gets hit the worst with this, since he doesn't appear until "Go Team, Go!", the nineteenth episode of the series.
• Quarter Hour Short: Like Transformers: Cyberverse, and unlike Rescue Bots, this show is 11 minutes long.
• Scooby-Dooby Doors: One scene of the episode "Tough Luck Chuck" has Hot Shot and Whirl trying to find the titular training dummy by searching every room in this manner.
• Sequel Series: Following on from Transformers: Rescue Bots.
• Shaking the Rump: In "Metal Munchers", Boulder gets the scraplets' attention by shaking his rear at them.
• The Smurfette Principle: Whirl is the only female among the Rescue Bots Recruits, with the only other female Transformers included in the series being Glow, Brushfire and Dinobot Slash.
• Stock Scream: The Wilhelm Scream is used in the episode "Robo-Cody".
• Technician vs. Performer: Hoist and Medix fill this role as the team's two engineers. Medix is very technical and by the book, while Hoist tends to favor improvisation and invention.
  • Hot Shot and Wedge form this dynamic when it comes to rescue work. This is most clearly seen in "Battle of the Bots" which pits Hot Shot's freewheeling style against Wedge's strict specialization. Whirl herself tends to fall right in the middle of the two extremes.
• Theme Tune Roll Call: "Hot Shot, Whirl, Hoist, Medix and Wedge, their teamwork together will give them the edge!"
• Time Skip: The series takes place a few years after its predecessor.
• Title Drop: "More Than Meets the Eye" has the title mentioned within the episode by Wedge and Shot Hot.
• Token Human: Due to the absence of the Burns family and other supporting human characters, Cody has become this as the only human on the teaching staff.
• Wham Line: From "More Than Meets the Eye". Especially surprising considering both the show's general atmosphere and the character saying it.
  Hot Shot: Why would you of all bots help a dirty Decepticon?
  Wedge: Because I am a Decepticon! (...) Or, at least, I was created as one. I was a Decepticon. But Optimus Prime found me and he believed in me. He showed me there was a better way. His kindness inspired me to be a better bot.

---