Feral Scream Part 1

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Obsession? What obsession?
"Feral Scream Part 1"
Production company	Mainframe Entertainment
Airdate	January 31, 1999
Written by	Greg Johnson
Directed by	John Pozer
Animation studio	Mainframe Entertainment
Continuity	Beast Wars continuity

Megatron uses alien technology to create a new Transmetal 2 version of Dinobot, and Cheetor is caught in the blast as the device malfunctions.

French-Canadian title: Hurlement 1 ("Scream 1")

Japanese title: ふっかつダー (Fukkatsu Dā, "I Am Resurrected!")

Latin-American title: El Llamado de la Naturaleza Primera Parte

Italian title: Mille emozioni - Parte 1 ("Many emotions - Part One")

Synopsis

It is a dark and stormy night as Optimus Primal and Cheetor battle Megatron and Waspinator for a stasis pod. Cheetor pulls out a massive rifle, but instead of hitting Waspinator, his shot explodes closer to Optimus, collapsing the ledge he's standing on and burying him in an avalanche. The two Predacons retreat with their prized pod, and Cheetor is left to see to the fallen Maximal leader. Depth Charge arrives and helps uncover Optimus by blasting some rubble away with a "power pizza". After it's clear Primal is still alive, Depth Charge flies off to hunt Rampage. Damaged, Primal drives back to the base, while Cheetor in instructed to wait for back up, and assist Depth Charge.

"Waspinator, would you mind telling me whose spark I did put in?"
"Abby... someone"

In a dramatic ceremony, Megatron loads the stasis pod into a machine. With cells from Dinobot for an identity, half the spark of Rampage for life force, a blank protoform for a body, and the Transmetal driver to tie it all together, Dinobot II is born. Depth Charge crashes the birthday party, but the new Dinobot displays an intense ferocity against the manta. Cheetor arrives and "spices things up" by shooting stuff.

Goldurnit Ma you opened your mouth again and I done shot my hand off.

Dinobot II transforms and inspects his new body, accidentally blowing off his own finger in the process. Cheetor grabs a Predacon hover-thing and uses it to snatch the Transmetal driver from Megatron's apparatus. Cheetor tosses the driver to Depth Charge. Megatron blasts Cheetor into the machine's electrical current, frying the cat bot. Cheetor spends a minute being tortured by the machine, and the assembled Transformers cover themselves as a large flash of white light explodes across the mountainside. Apparently, Cheetor is dead.

Back in the Maximals' base, Primal is repairing himself. Depth Charge arrives and reports Cheetor's death. Depth Charge heads into a cave to scan the driver, and finds that it's a device of alien nature that has been altered by Megatron. He decides to destroy the device by tossing it into some lava, but once Depth Charge's back is turned, Blackarachnia catches the device before it is immolated.

Depth Charge came pretty close to keeping Blackarachnia from completing her Madballs collection.

Outside, Primal blames himself for Cheetor's death—but as it turns out, Cheetor is still alive, though in bad shape.

In the Predacon base, Rampage expresses displeasure over having his spark's core given to the Dinobot clone. The king crab tries to reclaim the fragment of himself, but Dinobot has inherited Megatron's ability to crush the fragment of Rampage's spark, causing Rampage great pain. Dinobot is sent to recover the Transmetal driver. Rubber Ducky watches contently from the tub.

Depth Charge emerges from a CR Chamber, and sets out to Subgrid Zarak to hunt Rampage. When there, he's ambushed and captured by Dinobot. Dinobot and the Predacons interrogate Depth Charge, but a feral monster jumps out of the darkness and strikes down Megatron. Quickstrike follows the blur of a beast behind a rock, but is quickly dismembered. When the strange feline monster jumps out again, Rampage and his "brother" try to shoot it, but only end up blasting each other away.

Ugh, time for a breath mint.

Megatron is left on his own, and overprotective of himself, he blasts away the wandering Waspinator. The beast hits Megatron in the back, and Megatron stumbles and plants his own tail-claw-weapon thing into the ground, causing himself to spin out of control and over a cliff. Depth Charge is left alone to wonder who or what saved him, but his mysterious hero sneaks away when Primal returns.

Back at the Maximal base, Cheetor stumbles onto the scene and passes out. Primal and Rhinox rush to help him.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Maximals	Predacons
Cheetor (3) Optimus Primal (4) Depth Charge (5) Rhinox (7)	Waspinator (1) Megatron (2) Dinobot II (6) Blackarachnia (8) Rampage (9) Quickstrike (10)

Quotes

"From the tempest's fury, the spark ignites…to sire new life! Transmetal 2 life! Ahaha-haha!"

—Megatron channels his inner mad scientist

"Waspinator not like new lizard bot!"
"I agree with the bug. But then, I'm not crazy about any of you."

—Waspinator and Depth Charge

"Communications are still shot, and your systems aren't much better. You're in no condition to pick a fight."
"Fight's been picked."

—Rhinox and Optimus Primal

"Where's Cheetor?"
[tosses him a piece of Cheetor's chestplate] "Cat was tough. He went out fighting."

—Optimus Primal and Depth Charge

"Cheetor. This is my fault, Rhinox. I was rough on him, so he… so he tried to prove something."

—Optimus Primal mourns Cheetor's supposed death

"You gave this the core of my spark? I shall rip it from his chest and restore it within me!"

—Rampage is not impressed with Megatron's latest experiment.

"The other equipment has been salvaged, but you took the alien Transmetal unit. Where is it?"
"Gone. Ain't that a kick in the lugnuts?" [chuckles]

—Megatron and a defiant Depth Charge

"No! He's mine! I shall feast upon his still pulsating spark!"

—Rampage, still creepy.

"What is that thing?"
"Dunno, boss, some kind of ghost, maybe. Or it will be when I'm done with it! Hahahaha! Yeeha! Here comes poison!"

—Megatron and Quickstrike, the latter proving once again he's not the brightest spark in the Predacon forces.

Other notes

Animation and/or technical glitches

• During the top shot of the Predacon base, the ship is clearly mirrored. The (looking from top) left wing is whole and right wing is broken, when in reality the wings are reversed. It is shown correctly in part 2, however.

Transformers references

• There is a subgrid near the Maximal base called Zarak.

Real-world references

• Megatron's creation of the Dinobot clone is clearly based on the creation of the monster from Frankenstein, complete with Waspinator as Igor.

• After grabbing the Transmetal driver, Cheetor yells for Depth Charge to "Go deep", a reference to American football.

• Megatron spins around and over a cliff in a manner similar to the Tasmanian Devil "Taz" and Wile E. Coyote cartoon characters, respectively.

• As Megatron orders a retreat after falling off the cliff, Taps can be heard.

Miscellaneous trivia

• This episode has one of the precious few scenes with Primal in his Optimal body's beast mode.

• Where the hell did Cheetor pull that gun from? It's almost as big as he is! (It actually looks like Optimal Optimus's otherwise unused rifle, but colored black)

• Even levers do not like Waspinator.

• This is the second and last episode of the series to feature Optimal Optimus's armored transport mode. (It is seen briefly, as Cheetor is left alone and says to himself that he doesn't need any back-up.)