However, Shout Factory, the license holders for the DVD and Blu-ray releases of this movie in for all of the 2000's, was allowed to hire a post-production studio named 'FotoKem' to alter the color timing so that Hot Rod would be the bright pink color of the prototype toy throughout the entire movie. It was only after the film had released that the final toy design would be colored red, while the continuing television show would portray him as being burgundy. But the fact that he was to become the new Autobot leader and how it was meant to be kept under wraps until the movie premiered played a part in the color confusion. Sometimes Hot Rod would be seen as purple in one scene, and then sometimes he would be burgundy in another.Īs to which department started working on Hot Rod's design first is still unknown. While even still, the animation department was bouncing back and forth between magenta and burgundy at different times throughout the movie as they could never settle on one color for the character all throughout the run time of the film. At the same time, the advertising department were coloring him a bright red color for their promotional drawings and posters, showing that the familiar color of the leader of the Autobots was going to be kept red.
But they incorrectly colored the plastic parts of the first prototype figure as a bright pink while his metal parts and flame stickers were colored the correct shade of purple. Originally, the toy department was going to color him magenta. Because of the toy department, the advertising department, and the animation department all working independently of each other, the Hot Rod character switched between three different colors before his traditional red/burgundy color scheme was finalized for the franchise.