Voice Actor Drama

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And somewhere in the world, a Unicron exists.
"Voice Actor Drama"
Original presentation	July 31, 2004 (OTFCC 2004)
Written by	Simon Furman
Continuity	3H Beast Wars continuity

Rhinox built a machine to create a pile of new characters!

Synopsis

Rhinox has built a device to deflect Unicron's attempts to pull victims from other universes. The Autobots deflect two such attempts, but are only partially successful: instead of being transported to Unicron, the victims end up on a frozen planetoid.

A bickering Rattrap, Silverbolt, and Waspinator are sent to help the victims, but Unicron sends Reptilion, Sunstorm, Ruination, and Perceptor after them as well.

As a side effect of Rhinox's device, a vortex opens in space and sucks in Autobot stellar freighter OTFCC, piloted by Bumblebee, an endlessly moaning Tracks, and Cosmos, from the past. The OTFCC picks up the Maximals' distress signal in the nick of time: as Sunstorm attacks the Maximal ship, they're saved by being transported to the Autobot shuttle.

After shooting down Sunstorm, the Autobots and Maximals travel to the planetoid, where they both save the victims from the Decepticons and Bumblebee and Cosmos from Reptilion's explanation of the current Transformer canon. Two groups of Autobots have been stranded there, each from a different parallel universe: Landfill, Side Burn, and Prowl, from a Viron timeline; and Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, another Prowl, and Ironhide, hailing from a universe both unknown and undersized.

The various groups fight off the Decepticons, and the Autobot ship is sent back to its own time.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots/Maximals	Predacons/Decepticons	Mini-Cons
Tracks (1) Cosmos (2) Bumblebee (3) Rattrap (4) Silverbolt (5) Side Burn (10) Prowl (12) Optimus Prime (13) Prowl (14) Landfill (15) Ultra Magnus (16) Ironhide (17)	Waspinator (6) Sunstorm (7) Reptilion (8) Ruination (9)	Perceptor (11)

Quotes

"Anything could happen between here and Earth! [silence] Anything could happen between here and Earth! [music starts] Thank you Vince."

—Bumblebee

[actors do "shaken spaceship" motions]
"What's happeniiiiing?!"
"It's bad actiiiiing!"

—Tracks and Bumblebee

"Onboard, three intrepid Maximal warriors!"
"Ohhh, Waspinator wanna go home now."

—The narrator contradicted by Waspinator

"That's Sunstorm or at least a Sunstorm. Looks like Unicron's been recruiting again!"
"Eh, yeah, that or Walmart's released another bunch a' exclusives."

—Silverbolt and Rattrap

"Another character! Thank god!"

—Scott McNeil glad to see McConnohie has joined after five minutes of voicing the whole play himself

Reptilion:"I ask you, can it get any worse?"
Bumblebee:"Hey, you! Decepticon! Step away from that crevasse!"
Reptilion's actor: [looks down, confused, at stage]

"Why does he keep doing that, announcing his attacks?"

—Optimus Prime on RID Prowl

Bumblebee: "Budiansky would've never done this to us."

Notes

Production

• The cast:
  • Michelle Irby: Optimus Prime, Side Burn
  • Simon Furman: Narrator
  • Dan Gilvezan: Bumblebee
  • Michael McConnohie: Tracks, Cosmos
  • Scott McNeil: Rattrap, Silverbolt, Waspinator
  • Clive "Outtsyder" Ramroop: Prowl (Spychanger), Ruination
  • Daniel Ross: Reptilion, Prowl (non-Spychanger)

• Music and sound effects were done by Vince DiCola. Some tracks were from a new CD he'd produced, which could be bought at the convention.
• This live-action script reading took place Saturday night at OTFCC 2004.
• Characters mentioned but who do not appear include: Optimus Prime, Ratchet, Unicron, and Rhinox.
• Plans apparently existed for a Transformers: Universe #½ comic issue retelling the story of the script reading, with additional scenes at the beginning and end to make for a more complete narrative. An outline for the issue was written (and was included in some copies of the performance script), but 3H Productions lost the Transformers license before the comic was ever produced.

Continuity notes

• The OTFCC crew come from "the Generation 1 era" but which one isn't said. Though, the rift they travel through is said by Tracks to be a "temporal" rift, implying time travel rather than multiversal travel, which could peg this "Generation 1 era" as the one native to the Beast Wars/Beast Machines cartoon universe's timeline.
  • The "Transformers: Universe #½" outline found in certain copies of the script confirms that the OTFCC crew did time-travel from the Beast Era cartoons' past.
• Tracks is complaining that if you're not a -master or Pretender, you're like a "second class citizen". Bumblebee also jokes about the possibility of Transformers that don't even transform!" This suggests that they hail from a late-G1 era but before Action Masters come about.
• Silverbolt has met Sunstorms before but doesn't recognise this one immediately. Which makes sense as there's a at least one other Sunstorm involved in the Universe War!
• This is Reptilion's first mission in charge.
• Tracks refers to Unicron as "a Dark God we shouldn't even know about yet." Previous 3H-published stories (many written by Simon Furman, even) placed Unicron's arrival to Cybertron in 2005, a la The Transformers: The Movie. This would suggest that Tracks, Cosmos and Bumblebee hail from a point set before 2005, but also with most of the various "-master" and Pretender technologies already existing (as they did in the Marvel Generation 1 comics in which those technologies were created in the late-1980s, rather than how the "The Rebirth" saw Headmasters and Targetmasters first created in the mid-2000s).
• Despite its tongue-in-cheek nature, the story is still part of the Universe storyline; in fact, chronologically, for years it was the last finished portion of the story, as 3H lost the Transformers license before the last issues of the Universe comic could be completed. The end of the Universe conflict would later be seen in the pages of "Revelations Part 2", a Cybertron-themed comic in the Collectors' Club Magazine.

Transformers references

• As usual with such convention performances, the characters frequently break the fourth wall. For example, Reptilion plugs The Ultimate Guide in dialogue, while Rattrap promises Transformers: Universe #½ is "coming soon".
• Bumblebee jokes that some day, there'll be "Transformers who don't even transform!"
• In a sneaky nod to the convention's split from 3H Productions, Tracks announces he's from ship 3H and then immediately corrects it to OTFCC.
• Reptilion mocks the Generation 1 Autobots with how the current Transformers continuity is too complicated for them to understand now. "And don't get me started on the Japanese variations!"
• Rattrap makes a crack about Walmart exclusives, and indeed, most of the cast of this story are toys released that way during 2003 and 2004:
  • Side Burn and Prowl have their 2003 Universe toy colors.
  • Prime, Magnus, the other Prowl, and Ironhide are all based on their 2003 Universe Basic Class toys.
    • While the packaging for Prowl and Ironhide's Universe toys labeled both as Spychangers, neither Optimus nor Magnus's Basic Class toy molds were ever labeled as such in either Robots in Disguise or Universe, and none of these four are referred to as Spychangers in this script reading, either. However, certain copies of this story's script included an outline for the unreleased "Transformers: Universe #½" issue; in said outline, Optimus is referred to as a Spychanger for the first time ever.
  • Landfill is based on the yellow redeco released under Robots in Disguise for Black Friday 2003.
  • Sunstorm and Perceptor were bundled together in a 2004 Universe multi-pack.
  • Ruination is the "desert camo" version of the combiner, released as a 2004 Universe giftset.
• Robots in Disguise Prowl refers to Carolus's Prime as "he". Ask Vector Prime would later retcon that this Prime is definitely female.
• Sunstorm and Perceptor are referred to by other characters, but have no dialogue. Ironhide, Landfill, and Ultra Magnus appear only in the art for the story, and are not specifically mentioned anywhere in the script.
• Waspinator likes "Buster Witwicky and the Car Wash of Doom", the 31st issue of the Marvel The Transformers comic. (So the others shot him)

Real-world references

• Tracks is a source of pop-culture references here. He quotes lyrics from David Bowie's "Space Oddity", HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and James Bond.
• When missiles hit the ship, Dan and Michael shake around like the actors would in early episodes of Star Trek.

Errors

• The story is grossly inconsistent about whether the OTFCC crew are on a voyage from Cybertron to Earth or from Earth to Cybertron.

External links

• Voice Actor Drama on YouTube
• Script for Voice Actor Drama