ransformers advert from 1982 promoting Ultra Magnus Galvatron.

The Transformers is a line of toys produced by the American toy company Hasbro. The Transformers toyline was created from toy molds mostly produced by Japanese company Takara (now known as Takara Tomy) in the toylines Diaclone and Microman. Other toy molds from other companies such as Bandai were used as well. In 1984, Hasbro bought the distribution rights to the molds and rebranded them as the Transformers for distribution in North America. Hasbro would go on to buy the entire toy line from Takara shortly after giving them sole ownership of the Transformers toy-line, branding rights, and copyrights, while in exchange, Takara was given the rights to produce the toys and the rights to distribute them in the Japanese market. The premise behind the Transformers toyline is that an individual toy’s parts can be shifted about to change it from a vehicle, a device, or an animal, to a robot action figure and back again.  The taglines “More Than Meets The Eye” and “Robots In Disguise” reflect this ability.

Info gleaned from Wikipedia