TRANSFORMERS: THE BASICS on RUBSIGNS 

This would've been a neat gimmick for and IDW Megatron toy. "Aww, how cute, a rub sign! Gee, I wonder what emblem is hidd- WHAT? AUTOBOT?"

**Activates rubsigns on optimus toy** "Wow he's an autobot!"

The Basics: "Originally released in the Japanese toyline..." Me: "Diaclone!" The Basics: "...Mecha Warriors." Me: Whaaa?!

They should bring these back for double-agent characters because of the sneaky nature of the thermochromic stickers. You can't tell which faction the double-agent was on until you rub on dem stickers.

"" Only we have the right to be called Transformers!" Prime getting the rub on sticker: *" GAH! IVE BEEN BRANDED!"*

They should redo the Minispies, I like the idea of not knowing whether you got an Autobot or Decepticon until you find out for yourself by revealing the allegiance. It would work especially well given that there are 12 different types and colour combinations, so 24 figures all up with Autobot and Decepticon versions of each one and since blindbag sets tend to come in groups of 24, all they'd have to do is have a window on the bag so you could pick the mold and colour you wanted and they'd be set.

" and only we have the right to be called the transformers " Damn

*"Still going strong after nearly 40 years, with immitators, copycats and hangers on long-ago left far behind, the Transformers have the right to be called by the name."* ♫♪♬♩ Theeeeey've got the power to survive. ♫♪♬♩

Hopefully we get a basics on the insignias themselves.

Bonus fact that most intelligent people would assume already: rubsigns don't last forever. Smash cut to me last month trying desperately to activate my G1 Tailgate's sticker like a doctor losing a patient.

Another appearance in the IDW comics is in the first issue of More Than Meets the Eye: Brainstorm is exempt from any baggage checks and shows Red Alert a rub sign as some form of document or proof

I feel like this is the episode with the most new information for me as someone who's been a fan for over 10 years

I'm going to be honest, I had no idea how you would be able to make a whole episode off of the rub signs. Boy was I pleasantly surprised

I would love to see a basic’s episode on Sunstorm one day. Or heck maybe even the Dreamwave comics. Either way I’m always excited whenever there’s a new basics episode.

I wonder if there were any mistakes during assembly of the older toys that had robots with the wrong rub signs. Like maybe a Decepticon Bumblebee or an Autobot Thundercracker. Would've probably made a lot of cool "what-if" scenarios in my opinion

Memories: I had a few Transformers with Rubsigns. And I remember the Beast Wars toys having Energon chips. And I remember the Spark Crystals. But my fondest memories of Rubsigns come from the hours I spent playing with Battle Beasts! I love those toys!

I actually didn't know about the authenticity thing. Granted I wasn't born until Beast Wars started, but still. You'd think that tidbit would've shown up somewhere in the nearly 30 years since.

I think this is one of the the most unexpected yet one of the most interesting episodes of the basics. Brilliant! Looking forward to more!

I miss those Rubsigns on Transformers they were such a good idea, they just don't feel like real Transformers without them now, I hope they bring them back fully

Only thing I cared for as a kid was 'did they show up in the show?'. So of course the only ones I got were of seasons that did not air here and comics I had no access to.

Hasbro in the 80s: *It's important that the consumers can tell our products apart from knockoffs and competitors* Hasbro today: *Does absolutely nothing against the hundreds of third-party companies casually infringing on their IP*

It's a shame we will never have the Space Ball Maid Transformers.

I had that toy of Mecha Senshi FX-1. It brings back old times when I was kid.

As you mentioned, Chris, I mostly remember the rub signs on my G1 toys being a cool 'certificate of authenticity' but didn't actually reveal much. I already knew most bots allegiances from the cartoon and comics at the time. But I do remember trading toys with some friends - strange new Transformers I never saw before - and I couldn't wait to find out the answer. The biggest downside I remember from the 80's rub signs was that the stickers sometimes came off or slid around from over-rubbing. So we almost always just breathed on them to reveal the symbol :)

I have some G1 figures with rubsigns like Skywarp and Astrotrain. But also those Reveal The Shield Figures like Lugnut and Trailcutter (His original name Traibreaker had to be changed into Trailcutter because of trademark issues). But isn't the idea of the 'Reveal the Shield' toy line a bit based on the mini-spies? What do you think? And the idea of giving the Autobots and Decepticons clones their own rubsign in addition to the 'original' rubsign to tell them apart is also well thought out. Because in fact the Autobots and Decepticons are clones identical twins. And you often have the same situation with identical twins in real life.

You know I had always been curious on the reason as to to the badges. The only reason I knew about them was I got a single G1 Blaster figure from my uncle Bens comic shop. At the time I knew nothing about Blaster as I hadn't made it but like 10 episodes into the original show. Being born in 1990 and only finding various VHS tapes at the local rental place. I never even knew there was a movie of the original series until 2008, nor did I get to see any of the other episodes till then. I had grown up with beast wars after that and all the series in between. Imagine my surprise when I saw my uncles collection of every transformers toy that had been made and learning there was so much more than what my eyes had met. Sadly his life went south and he passed due to some rather unfortunate choices. Never did get to tell him that introduced me to all the Transformers world I had never known and continue to learn from these vids put out on this channel.

As someone who jumped on during the Beast era, I always thought it was a neat gimmick, even though I really liked the crystals from the later toys too. I never realized it went so deep though.

I remember having the classics bumblebee, it was given to me. I never had the box. I had always thought they just never gave me his autobot sign. And then while playing with it, my hands got sweaty and I was in the middle of transforming when I thought I saw the symbol. But then it disappeared. I thought I was insane, and then I rubbed it and it showed up again. That was how I learned.

My favorite part of The Basics is learning stuff I’ve never known about the Transformers, and usually there are only sections in a particular video that are new to me, but this was a whole episode about something I didn’t know about, very cool!

Man Chris I can’t explain just how amazing it is to have your fountain of knowledge over all this Transformers lore and information, and your voice carries this unabashed passion for the subject your covering, please keep up the great work m8 know that you’re always appreciated 🙏😎

Great Stuff! I understand the necessity of rub signs. At the time though, I just felt like I missed out on first editions. It was sad not to see the big brightly color sticker indicating allegiance, anymore. Some of those original stickers were quite large.

Deep cut ! In a good way ! I loved the rubsigns! It would be cool if they were brought back now 😎 with the current toys .

I love the variety of topics you cover in these videos.

I'm kinda lowkey missed those on modern Transformers toys!

Rubsigns will never completely be rubbed out of the Transformers franchise, and will always stick around to help define who are the Autobot and Decepticon members of the Transformers.

The G2 toyline had Autobot or Decepticon printed somewhere on the figure.

Despite their simple design, I think those mini spies look pretty cool and I wish they would get modern figures some day.

Dang dude. Making a whole video out of a gimmick on a sticker and still making it interesting. That's some amazing work. I would love too see a Basics video on the Decoys from G1.

I just want to say thank you for that spaceballs reference. I've been waiting for somebody to use it

One of my favorite call back jokes from IDW's More Than Meets the Eye is Brainstorm trying to get Red Alert to let him aboard the Lost Light in issue 1 without searching his briefcase... "I'm EXEMPT from all security checks, see? Special dispensation from Rodimus himself. It's AUTHENTIC, check out the RUBSIGN."

you NEED to make a Basics on CLIFFJUMPER plsss

They really need to bring back the Mini-Spies

Those things seemed like magic as a kid

Great rundown on an iconic part of Transformers lore 😊

You made a ten minute video on rub signs and made it entertaining this man is far beyond the limits of humanity

I remember the rubstamps. The only ones I had was the cassette cons and a couple of autobots. I wish the cassettes had an episode of its own, but it must be too close to mini-cons to have that spotlight.

See I had known about those rubup insignias by the mini spy commercial (Diamondbolt anyone?) but I genuinely did not know that they were used to prove the authencity of the toys back in the day. Pretty cool not gonna lie.

Never in a million years did I think that there would be a Basics on the Rub Symbol. Good show, McFeely!

Reveal the Shield was such a memory

I would be interested in learning more about to knock-offs. Though I’m a 2000’s kid, I’ve had a soft spot for the Go-Bots ever since I discovered them

I got the comic recolor of Kingdom Galvatron and was surprised to find a hidden Rub Sign in his cannon mode. It was so cool that I knew exactly what it was thanks to this video.

I love them. I cant believe they are so difficult to find replacement rub signs on Ebay tho. Or if you do they are quite costly

The Spaceballs reference was something I didn't know I needed in this video

That is one of my favorite scenes in the Star Wars knock off/spoof movie.

Because I didn't get my first Transformer until 1985, I always thought that the rub-signs had been part of the line from the beginning. It was actually one of the many gimmicks that made the toys so appealing, along with the "Tech Specs" with their decoder strip, and "Robot Points" you could clip and use for mail-away promotions.

I remember I had a Hot Rod and Cyclonus that were Rub Signs, they weren't the G1 toys, I don't remember exactly what toyline (reveal the shield) they were from, but boy do I miss them, I lost Hot Rod long ago but I still have parts of Cyclonus

from a time i mostly knew the movies and cybertron games over anything else I found a RTS Wreck-Gar in box. Bought it and was sure it was a decepticon due to his red ayes and "bad guy" vibe, then I rubbed the symbol and was stunned to discover an autobot insignia!

Amazing video! Very informative; and yes, as a genuine Transformers fan, the rub signs were important to me.

"Fire burns wood!" "Water puts out fire!" "Wood uh... wood!"

Man, this was iconic! Nice addition of Battle Beasts, remember those.

Learn something new every day 👍🏻

I remember the Rub Off Symbol gimmick like it was yesterday.

I remember when these came out. Ingot a yellow Decepticon Jeep with one of my bots. Also has several Battle Beasts that I totally forgot about. Loved those things.

Another classic video done well!! My week-ends are not special until I watch one of your videos!! Real talk !!

According to my dad, he wanted a decepticon mini spy, growing up with extremely cheap parents, he only got one, it was an autobot, so he just… put a decepticon rubsign on his minispy. I mean it worked.

Ha these were so cool! So 80s. Anyone remember the holograms on Visionaries too?

Imagine you're just trying to get through your 9-5 at a cheap toy company and suddenly it's getting wrecked by two colossal robot icons shouting *"-AND ONLY WE HAVE THE RIGHTS TO BE CALLED THE TRANSFORMERS!"*

Ah, Battle Beasts. Would love to see an attempt to reboot them someday. Fun Fact: Battle Beasts are actually cannon to the Japanese Transformers continuity, as they showed up in an early episode of The Headmasters.

I didnt know this much lore was behind the stickers, love the show

I love The Rubsigns, they were my favorite 💛💙💙💜💚🤎💞💘💘🧡🧡❤️💖

That's a creative way of doing it by making it interactive and fun for the kids 👍

The best part about this video is that it dropped on my highschool graduation day

I dont remember them on transformers, but I definitely remember them on battle beast. Thanks for the video, you're my Saturday morning cup of coffee. Keep up the great work.

i had a lot of beast wars toys growing up & i loved the rudsigns! it usually wasn't hard to tell who was a maximal & who was a predacon, but just the fact that they had rubsigns was super fun!

I haven't watched anything related to transformers in years, yet here I am happily listening to a niche topic as Hasbro's authentication stickers. Funny that.

As I suspected...another informative video that I NEVER even thought of, and when first hearing of the episode I asked my "how we getting 10 minutes on this?" Awesome job sir!

I have never clicked a video faster!!!

Cool stuff as always Chris enjoyed it very much.

Animated Lockdown's rubsign is probably the best use of it in fiction, at least, in my opinion.

This was pretty filling basics about gimmick that's pretty awesome.

I have the Autobot clones (though I always thought they were twins) and I didn't even notice they had different rub signs until this video. I even dug them out to check.

I had a Bumble Bee that had the original sticker under the rubbing symbol (that’s what we called them - rubbing symbols).

Brings back memories! Thank you for making this video! 👍

I like how for battle beasts is like “haha water puts out fire! Fire burns wood! .......... wood ‘beats’ water.....!”

When I began collecting G1, when they were delivered the rub sign was already revealed, if it were hot outside or take awhile to work if the package was sitting out in the cold.

That was way more info than I expected! Great episode!

Honestly, I found the commercial with Optimus Prime and Megatron stating how only they have rubsigns was hilarious! They’re just straight up saying “Listen, parents! These are Transformers! If you see anything that looks like them but doesn’t have this sticker, don’t buy it! We and your kids will get pissed!”

Reveal The Shield was the best!!

I didn’t know almost everything in this one. Glad to learn something new

I never expected a video like this

This takes me back.

I haven't watched the whole video so idk if it's mention but lockdown in transformers animated had a blank rub sign on his emblem to show his lack of Allegiance, however the toy had a decepticons logo

This "Megatron" character who turns into a gun is ... rub rub rub ... an Decepticon! 😲 Did not expect this topic. Love it! As a kid the blatantly real purpose of protecting their brand sailed over my naive little head.

35 mins probably the earliest I've been

Many transformers personal spaces were violated those days… I once made a joke about the commercial for the minibots that went like this- (commercial version-You can’t tell if there autobot or decipticon until you rub up there symbol. My version- You can’t tell if there autobot or decipticon until you violate there personal space.)

And let's not forget some modern toy madness: Power of the Primes Hun-grr has both a tampographed Decepticon symbol as well as a tampographed thingy that looks A LOT like a rubsign!!

I still remember the first rubsign TF I encountered, when I was in elementary school and someone let me play with his Trailbreaker toy. I kept trying to rub different stickers on the bot, trying to figure out just what a rubsign was and which sticker it was that changed color XD

Thank u Simon for such a fascinating look at something so completely random

I was introduced to the Transformers Rib signs from Reveal The Shield toy line.

Speaking of stickers is anyone remember power of the primes and how it handles their stickers? How they were mismatched and crinkled? And the G1 reissues had the same problem?