Yeah. I thought I knew a lot about Transformers Lore (turns out I mostly just know the original US TV show that ended in '87 and the animated movie, only read two or three of the comics in the late 80's/early 90's), but the "twins" were actual characters from G1. But I don't think they were envisioned as retarded "ghetto/hillbilly kids."

I was talking to a good friend of mine the other day and for him (to my surprise) the only good thing about TF2 was the Twins. He was one of those folks who didn't really like TF the first time (and was a fan of the original cartoon), but let it grow on him with subsequent viewings. Go figure...

But yeah, it wasn't until my third viewing that I finally understood what was supposed to be going on there. I guess the producers refer to Arcee as the three robots (I thought maybe they were supposed to combine into one larger robot, but they don't), but "canonically" each of the motorcycles is a totally separate robot and Arcee is just one of them (the red/purple one?).