G1 Autobot Jazz aka Meister is among the few transformers that appeared in the 1984 Transformers animated series that appeared to us in his original Cybertronian mode. He was pretty much the "African American" among the other Autobots based on his accent, voiced by the voice actor "Scatman Crothers" who was decease in 1986. Jazz is one of the very few season 1 and 2 Autobots who survived the ridiculous onslaught of the D-Cons who basically killed of many season 1 and 2 A-Bots with but a single shot!!! He still makes occasional appearances in season 3 but he no longer plays any important role throughout the third season.
CGI Jazz by Iaconcity
Autobot Jazz's toy mold is also taken from Takara's "Diaclone" and "Microman" line> Jazz is also one of the few who does not come with a variant repaint version of him from the respective pre-Transformers line. Aside from it's original first release back in 1984, jazz was reissued In Europe in 1990 and 1991 in the Transformers Classics line. It was later retooled for the G2 line with a ridiculously huge rocket launcher. Takara took the same mold and retooled it as a new Targetmaster figure "Stepper" in 1987, partnering him with "Nightstick" who was originally Cyclonus's Targetmaster partner. I will talk more about Stepper when i do a review about him in my upcoming posts. Jazz was later reissued in 2002 under the book cover reissues by Takara.
Toywise, Jazz is a super cool figure that transforms into a Porsche 935. I too remember owning him when i was a kid, and if u've read my earlier entries..i gave away all of my TF's back in the early 90's. Anyhow.. my first reunion with a Jazz figure was when i was in college back in 1999. While visiting my college mate's boyfriend's house, I noticed that he's got a pretty good condition Jazz displayed on top of his T.V. set. I literally begged him to sell it to me, and after some price haggling.. i manage to get it for RM100. it was complete with rocket launcher and gun but the figure was slightly discolored due to the fact that it's a white colored toy and was subjected to direct florecent light and the previous owner is a smoker!!!
Anyhow, the chance to own a brand new Jazz figure finally came when Takara released the book cover series back in 2002. But what's odd about this particular mold was that it suffered from a severe case of "Loose Joint Syndrome". I was wondering what caused it to be so, until i finally got the E-Hobby gold exclusive figure of Jazz. It was clear that both figure shared the same mold but the mold had to be catered for the gold E-Hobby Jazz as it was fully covered in gold paint. The paint obviously is thicker in texture compared to normal paint hence the normal issued Jazz is uber loose. Come 2008, Jazz is once again reissued under the Encore line but this time around..it's head mold is supposedly taken from a variant Jazz head mold. Not quite sure which one as i remember reading it somewhere before the release of the Encore Jazz reissue which was released in March 2008.
Jazz have made multiple reincarnations throughout the years, it's most recent reincarnation was in the 2007 Transformers live action movie and now in the new Transformers animation aptly entitled "Transformers Animated". This time around Jazz is an Autobot elite guard who is also a very cool cyber ninja. He shares the same mannerism and love for earth's culture like G1 Jazz and so is his voice actor whose voice is reminiscence of Scatman Crothers. His facial feature this time around better reflects his African American accent. But ironically, although he looks African American... he is still majority white in color.. go figure LOL
Cheers!!!
N_M
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